Kansas City man is accused of setting a corpse on fire

Jackson County authorities have accused a 24-year-old man of dragging a suicide victim’s corpse into a portable restroom near Longview Lake and dousing it with gasoline before setting it on fire.

Prosecutors charged Sean A. Lloyd of Kansas City on Monday with two counts: abandonment of a corpse and knowingly burning.

A Jackson County park ranger found the body of 30-year-old Jackson Guzman of Shawnee on Nov. 20 in the parking lot of the Frank White Jr. Softball Complex in the 3900 block of Southwest Longview Road. The remains were heavily charred.

According to court records, Lloyd contacted investigators on Nov. 26. He said he and Guzman had been drinking at Lloyd’s home in south Kansas City when they left to buy a gun.

The next morning, Lloyd said, Guzman was drinking tequila when he began waving the gun around and talking about robbing someone. Then he pointed the gun at his head and shot himself.

Lloyd said he panicked, thinking that if he called police he would be in trouble for having a gun while being on probation.

He said he removed Guzman’s clothes and put his body and clothes inside a large blue tote. He dragged the tote to a back room, where he placed a dog kennel and weights on top to keep anyone from looking inside.

After hiding the body, Lloyd searched on his iPad for ways to dispose of a body and decided to burn it.

Lloyd loaded the body into his car and drove to Longview Lake, where he looked for a trash bin. Instead, he found a portable restroom, placed the body and other items inside and used gasoline to set it on fire.

Afterward, Lloyd drove home, where he cried, cleaned up and watched the Kansas City Chiefs play the Oakland Raiders.

Investigators later recovered the handgun from a storm sewer near 56th Street and Agnes Avenue.

This story was originally published December 10, 2014 at 8:10 AM with the headline "Kansas City man is accused of setting a corpse on fire."