Two people charged in connection with the disappearance, death of KC woman Abbi Schaeffer
Two people have been charged in connection with the disappearance and death of a Kansas City woman who went missing in 2022 and was found dead nearly a year later in 2023, according to the Jackson County Prosecutor.
Jacob Block and Eunice Carlo-Martinez each face one count of accessory abandonment of a corpse and one count of accessory tampering with physical evidence, all related to the death of Abbi Schaeffer, said Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson in a news release Thursday. Both are felony charges.
Schaeffer, 22, was seen leaving her home on May 23, 2022, with her black-and-white cat, Izzy, and getting into a dark gray BMW that had been parked across the street for six hours, according to security video. It was the last time her parents knew she was alive.
A week later, when she still hadn’t returned home, her mother Belinda Schaeffer told police her daughter had recently said that she had information on a fentanyl trafficking operation and that she was supposed to talk to the FBI.
Schaeffer’s remains were found near hiking trails in south Kansas City on April 1, 2023.
For nearly a year before her body was found, Abbi Schaeffer’s parents held out hope that she might come home alive. For months, Belinda and Jason Schaeffer fielded tips from social media — some even claimed to have found her.
“It was like the up and down and the roller coaster that was the worst part. The hope, and then the hope’s quashed,” her mother previously told The Star.
According to recent court documents, detectives said Block and Carlo-Martinez’s Facebook accounts showed messages indicating they gave Schaeffer fentanyl, and that she suffered an overdose. Due to the level of decomposition, Schaeffer’s cause of death could not be determined, but according to Thursday’s news release, her brain tissue did contain fentanyl metabolites.
What investigators saw on video footage
Two weeks after Abbi Schaeffer left her Northland home, detectives obtained a new series of warrants — including one that provided the authority to search the residence on Bridge Manor Drive where her phone last pinged.
They were relying on new information that came from a June 7 review of video footage that was handed over to them.
On it, they previously said in court documents, they saw footage of the woman they’d been looking for. The cameras were pointed toward the front entrance and walkway, and the rear entrance and patio. Based on timestamps the detectives recorded, Abbi Schaeffer was seen getting out of a gray BMW around 11 p.m. on May 23.
She and Block were seen going inside together, investigators determined.
On May 25, around 11 p.m., Block’s girlfriend was seen in the video moving mops and buckets away from the sliding glass door at the rear entrance. Then a cord was pulled and one camera went dark for an estimated 45 minutes.
On the morning of May 26, a U-Haul truck pulled into the parking lot and backed into a space, as seen on video. Within five minutes, Block was seen pushing an orange dolly with a “large black box-like object” with the assistance of his girlfriend.
The video then showed them getting in the truck and driving away, before returning three hours later.
Detectives noted they never saw a recording that showed Abbi Schaeffer leaving the residence.
The information gathered was compelling enough for the detectives to secure a series of search warrants through Jackson and Clay counties. The other warrants were served on the BMW that Block was alleged to have driven and the U-Haul truck that was seen on cameras that day.
Detectives also sought evidence from cellphones recovered during the searches, and from the personal accounts for Abbi Schaeffer. In identifying their probable cause for searches, detectives said they feared Abbi Schaeffer may have been the victim of foul play or a violent crime.
Photographs, swabs and an assortment of items — including two buckets and a mop — were collected as evidence. Other swabs and photographs were taken of the U-Haul, and another vehicle associated with Block’s girlfriend was searched.
Drones were put up in an effort to locate her. Among the clues observed by police were tire tracks apparently made by a large vehicle on a private property nearby that was also searched.
But Abbi Schaeffer would not be found for nine more months, roughly two miles to the north near the Blue River Parkway Trails.
Block and his girlfriend allegedly left the state after Schaeffer’s disappearance. Then, in August 2022, Block was arrested and brought before a judge in southern Florida to face one count of participating in a conspiracy to distribute fentanyl. He was charged alongside seven others in a superseding indictment returned by a Kansas City grand jury.
Abbi’s disappearance
Two months before Abbi Schaeffer went missing, Joseph Burgess, a former boyfriend, was one of four men arrested in an alleged drug trafficking conspiracy that the federal government says began in September 2019.
After his arrest, Abbi Schaeffer remained in contact with Burgess, whom she had known since high school. An FBI agent assisting Kansas City missing persons detectives found a recorded jail call between them that occurred on May 23, roughly five hours after she left her Northland home. The agent reported hearing Block’s voice in the call, another target of the federal investigation.
On June 1, 2022, one day after Kansas City police opened their missing person investigation, police officers went out to check a home in the 3300 block of Bridge Manor Drive, a location Abbi Schaeffer’s family provided to investigators.
The officers weren’t able to contact a resident. But they spotted a black-and-white cat on the porch.
They also spoke to a neighbor, who said she knew a bit about the people who lived there. One was a young man who typically drove a gray BMW. Another was an older woman.
A stop order was out for the BMW. On June 2, it was spotted near 59th Street and Troost Avenue and pulled over.
Officers asked the occupants, identified as Block and his girlfriend, who was driving, whether they knew Abbi Schaeffer. Block allegedly admitted he knew someone by the same first name, and said he went to “check on her” recently at her ex-boyfriend’s request. But he left after that, he said, and she did not come with him.
On June 6, a tip from another resident on Bridge Manor Drive had seen a picture of a cat that resembled a stray she’d recently seen wandering the complex. Detectives brought animal control officers to examine the cat. A microchip confirmed it was Abbi Schaeffer’s Izzy.
Once Izzy was home, the pet Abbi Schaeffer was inseparable from was acting odd.
“I knew that Abbi was not OK at that point,” Belinda Schaeffer said. “Because she wouldn’t have just left that cat in that neighborhood.”
Belinda Schaeffer recalled Abbi as someone with a tough exterior who sometimes struggled to find her path, but who was a wonderful person inside who would always help out a friend or family member in need.
Previous reporting by Bill Lukitsch was used in this story.
This story was originally published January 9, 2025 at 3:58 PM.
