Jackson Co. judge sets 2022 trial for couple accused of killing woman found on property

During a hearing on Monday, Jackson County Judge Joel P. Fahnestock set the criminal trial for a suburban Kansas City couple accused of killing a woman they lured to the man’s eastern Jackson County home, for next summer.

Michael John Hendricks, 40, and Maggie Ybarra, 30, each face first-degree murder in additional to nine other crimes in the killing of Kensie Renee Aubry, whom they allegedly choked to death, cut into pieces, and then buried in the backyard.

Authorities said Aubry went missing in October. Then on July 14, police and federal authorities unearthed remains while executing a search warrant at the property located in the 4000 block of South Buckner Tarsney Road, near Grain Valley. A teenage girl told police that the homeowner, Hendricks, admitted killing a woman and hiding her body on the property, according to court records.

Hendricks and Ybarra, who are both being held in the Jackson County Detention Center, appeared jointly through a video conference. The judge set the trial for July 25, 2022.

Also on Monday, an attorney for Hendricks said the criminal case has received extensive local and even national media coverage and a change of venue is necessary to secure an impartial jury.

“And so we would ask the court to recognize or at least address the very real possibility that we would be in a position where we are trying to ferret out individuals on a panel that would not have any type of bias or have prejudged the case in any way, shape or form,” said defense attorney Greg Watt.

Watt said Hendricks maintains his innocence and denied the criminal allegations.

“It makes the hill much more steep in jury selection to find fair and impartial individuals,” he said.

Danielle Sediqzad, an assistant Jackson County prosecutor, said defense attorneys have not presented any facts that a change of venue is needed. Sediqzad said the initial publicity happened when the remains were found on Hendricks’s property in July and later when a grand jury indicted the couple.

Fahnestock said she would take the request under advisement and would issue an order at a later date.

Couple suspected in multiple crimes

Hendricks and Ybarra also are charged with first-degree harassment and first-degree sexual misconduct.

The couple face additional charges of child enticement and third-degree child molestation. Ybarra faces child enticement, first-degree sexual misconduct, tampering with evidence and three counts of tampering with a victim.

Local and federal authorities were led to Aubry’s body in mid-July. Prosecutors allege that two witnesses — including a then-13-year-old girl the couple were accused of having sexually abused — helped discover the body. They described to investigators that Hendricks and Ybarra casually talked about killing Aubry and showed them pictures of her dismembered body, according to prosecutors.

Investigators obtained search warrants for Hendricks’s property based on information the witnesses provided. After digging under the yard near a recently installed septic tank on July 14, they found Aurby’s body divided into white garbage bags.

Investigators discovered zip ties and duct tape among the remains. DNA likely belonging to Aubry was also found on a saw in a tool cabinet during an earlier search.

According to prosecutors, the couple met through a website that advertised sex workers sometime last year. Hendricks had once expressed a desire to “kill someone while having sex,” prosecutors allege.

Witnesses offering details

Hendricks and Ybarra became subjects of a criminal investigation in April after the teenage girl living in foster care told her case worker the couple sexually abused her and showed her pictures of a dead woman. The case worker contacted Grandview police, where the alleged sexual abuse occurred, and detectives began investigating.

The girl told a Grandview detective she began visiting Ybarra months prior and was eventually introduced to Hendricks, describing him as Ybarra’s boyfriend.

Prosecutors allege Hendricks and Ybarra tried to coerce the girl into having sex with them. Hendricks allegedly assaulted her while he was having sex with Ybarra at the time.

The girl told the detective Hendricks confessed to choking a woman and putting her body into a freezer. She was shown pictures on a black-and-red digital camera of a naked woman bound and gagged. There were photos of body parts, the girls told police.

In early July, police obtained yet another search warrant for Hendricks’s property near Grain Valley after speaking with another witness who alleged Hendricks and Ybarra had admitted to killing Aubry. That witness said the pair described using a chainsaw to cut up the body and placed the body parts in a box.

Hendricks allegedly told the witness they tried to dispose of the body by dropping the box from a helicopter, and when that didn’t work Hendricks allegedly dug a hole near or under a septic tank at his residence and buried the remains there, according to the search warrant.

Star reporter Bill Lukitsch contributed to this report.