Two found dead in KC apartment during welfare check; police open homicide investigation
Update: Police on Wednesday identified the victims as Chantell Gibson, 35, and Austin Scott, 26.
Two people were found dead Monday afternoon inside an apartment in south Kansas City after police officers were called there for a welfare check.
Kansas City police officers were dispatched around 1 p.m. to an apartment in the 8700 block of Chestnut Circle in the Santa Fe Hills neighborhood seeking to make contact with a person whose family was concerned for their well-being, Officer Donna Drake, a department spokeswoman, said near the scene.
Police entered the apartment to find two people suffering from apparent trauma inside. Both were declared dead there by emergency medical personnel.
The two dead were identified by police only as a man and a woman, and police were investigating both deaths as homicides. It was not immediately clear what led to their injuries; Drake said police were not releasing that information as of Monday afternoon.
The timeline for when the deaths occurred was not immediately clear. Drake said detectives were working Monday afternoon to determine the last points of contact for the two dead.
As homicide detectives continued to investigate two more killings in Kansas City, Drake on Monday pleaded for those in the community to help solve the case.
“If this was someone in your family, or someone that you cared about, you would want somebody to pick up the phone and do the same thing,” Drake said.
The killings marked the 135th and 136th homicides reported so far in Kansas City in 2022, according to data maintained by The Star. Last year, the city recorded a total of 157 homicides, representing the second-deadliest on record in Kansas City.
Police were asking anyone with information that might help the case to call homicide detectives at 816-234-5043 or to make an anonymous report through the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS.
This story was originally published October 17, 2022 at 5:24 PM.
