Cara Elise kopetsky was born on February 17 1990 in Frankfurt Germany she was the only child born to Michael and Rhonda kopetsky Carr was described as having a contagious smile in a Carefree attitude that attracted people to her she loved music shopping and animals and had a fierce loyalty for her family and friends the kapatsky’s moved to Belton Missouri just a 25-minute drive south of Kansas City now Michael and Rhonda would later divorce but eventually the mother met Jim Beckford while working for ups and remarried when Cara was nine years
old the couple soon welcomed a son named Thomas into their new family now Flash Forward to 2006 Cara is a 17 year old girl attending Belton High School she was your typical teenager of the mid-auts she Smoked Cigarettes cut class and wore her hair and makeup in the style that the era was known for after school she worked a part-time fast food job at Popeyes she loved to shop listen to music and talk and text on her cell phone those of you who were old enough back then will remember when your cell phone bill actually printed out a list of your
activity in one month cars was 40 pages long the same year Cara met and began dating Kyler used who was two years for senior born on September 14 1988 Kyler had its turbulent relationship with his parents and was raised by his grandparents Tyler was covered in tattoos and piercings and was something of a bad boy except not the acceptable kind that’s maybe fun to date when you’re a teenager Kyler was jealous and controlling and liked to put his hands on Cara the 17 year old was often covered in bruises and her friends encouraged her to break
it off in April of 2007 she finally did she was free and clear of their nine-month nightmare of a relationship or so she thought on April 28th Kyler showed up while Cara was working her shift at Popeyes and forced her into his car where he began to berate her for not wanting to hang out with him eventually he let her out of the car in Grandview about six miles north of Belton on April 30th Ronda and Cara filed a protection order against Kyler with the Cass County Court the order cited that Kyler caused physical injury stalked Cara and
inflicted emotional abuse by the following acts quote Saturday April 28th kidnapped and restrained one month ago choked me December 2006 had knife in hand and said I’m going to Slit your throat March 2007 wouldn’t let me out of my home end quote it goes on to note that an immediate and present danger exists because Cara was unsure of what Kyler would do next because of how he was getting worse over time Kyler was served this order on May 1st 2007.
finally Cara thought that she was under the thumb of her jealous ex-boyfriend sadly she was mistaken the last time Cara was seen alive was on May 4th 2007 at 9 18 a.m she was briefly captured on a security camera at Belton High School and then disappeared from the frame she never showed up for her schedule shift at Popeyes that evening and never made it home worried about her daughter’s well-being due to the nature of what was going on with Kyler Rhonda reported her daughter missing to the Belton Police Department due to Cara being 17 years old the
police did not take her disappearance seriously even though the legal age of majority in Missouri is 18. when Cara did not come home the following day the police finally began to listen and after a cursory search of a room they became concerned all of Carr’s belongings were as she had left them the brand new iPod that she had gotten for Christmas had been left behind all of her clothes were still put away in drawers and she hadn’t taken her makeup or her flat iron in 2006 you did not leave without your flat
iron as we mentioned earlier Cara was a smoker in her room was a nearly full carton of Marb lights with only one pack missing now as an ex-pack A Day smoker let me tell you something if you’re going to run off and you smoke you’re absolutely going to taking the rest of that carton with you even more concerning was the fact that her debit card had been left in her locker and her bank account showed no activity whatsoever Cara who once racked up that 40 page cell phone bill had not placed any calls nor made any texts since the day prior
what was puzzling is that there wasn’t any reason for her to just up and take off she had things to do she had a job interview at a convenience store on the fifth and had made plans to hang out with friends for the next two weeks Kyler was questioned about Cara’s whereabouts on May 6 but denied having anything to do with her disappearance despite what occasion the protection order the cops have said you’ve been very cooperative I have been because I don’t have anything I don’t know anything about where she is or about what happened
I wish I did did you threaten to Slither through him no didn’t what happened that didn’t happen that night that was before with no leads and no evidence to charge him the police had to move on however not even a month later the body of another teenage girl would further complicate Kara’s case and create a media frenzy on June 2nd 18 year old Kelsey Smith disappeared from Overland Park a city just across the border in Kansas now due to their ages similar appearances and the fact that they both seem to have vanished Into Thin Air the
media quickly stirred up rumors that there was a serial killer on the loose in the greater Kansas City metro area preying upon young girls this sparked Nationwide coverage which led to Jim and Ronda giving interviews to Geraldo Rivera Nancy Grace and Greta Van Susteren Kelsey who had just graduated from high school and was preparing for college made a run to her local Target for supplies she wanted to make her boyfriend John a scrapbook to mark their six-month anniversary but Kelsey never returned home and she stopped answering
her phone John as well as Kelsey’s sister Lindsay went to the mall to search for her her father Greg Smith a veteran cop called police departments to find out if car accidents had been reported John and Lindsay found Kelsey’s car in the mall across the street from Target and left it untouched until the police arrived Kelsey was not in her car nor were her phone and her keys present the car was towed to the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office crime lab where it was processed for fingerprints and DNA Kelsey’s family members and boyfriend
were interviewed and after their Alibis were checked out they were clear to Suspects surveillance video showed Kelsey entering the store walking through aisles checking out and exiting into the parking lot according to now retired Overland Park PD detective Candace Bridges quote the outside video shows Kelsey walk into her car putting her items in the passenger side door and then getting in the driver’s side door that’s when she drives away end quote while the search for Kelsey continued detectives reviewed video footage
showing Kelsey’s car being parked in the mall across the street from Target it showed an unidentifiable male figure getting out of the vehicle and walking away authorities scrutinized this footage of Kelsey in the Target parking lot in search of any sign of the male figure seen driving her car what they found next shocked them according to detective Bridges quote as Kelsey is opening her driver’s side door you see a flash of a figure wearing a white shirt and dark colored pants come up from behind her we believe the blurry
figure was forcing Kelsey into her car end quote investigators went back to the video of Kelsey inside Target police discovered that Kelsey was being trailed by a white male wearing a white top and black shorts according to now retired detective Sergeant Bob Miller quote you’ve seen the National Geographic shows where the Predator is circling that’s what you see end quote when the image of the suspect who appeared to be in his 20s and had a goatee was released to the media and the public police were flooded with tips many weren’t valid but
some stood out multiple calls came in claiming that the man in the video was a local called Edwin Hall who also went by the name Jack investigators confirmed through a driver’s license photo that Edwin was the match for the man in the video when police arrived at Edwin’s address he confirmed that he went by the name Jack and agreed to be interviewed at the station detective Sergeant Miller showed him a picture of Kelsey in order to gauge his reaction but he denied ever seeing her when investigators showed him
security footage from Target he admitted being in the store but said he never saw Kelsey but later remarked that she had great legs he even freely offered up his DNA and fingerprints investigators caught a break when a local waitress reached out saying that Edwin Hall was the same individual who harassed her and skipped out without paying his bill he was subsequently booked for theft now around the same time Kelsey’s phone records became available with the final ping pointing to a wooded area known as Longview Lake there the nude body of a
woman later identified as Kelsey was found under a pile of branches a nylon belt was found around her neck and there was an indication that she had been essayed and sized shortly after Kelsey’s body was discovered the crime lab matched Edwin’s thumbprint to one found on the back of the driver’s side belt buckle in her car on June 6 he was arrested and charged with kidnapping homicide and Essay among others to avoid the death penalty Edwin Hall pled guilty to all charges he’s currently serving life without the
possibility of parole sadly Edwin Hall’s arrest in subsequent conviction did not lead to any clues as to what happened to Cara meanwhile three years had passed and Cara’s case began to go cold although it really shouldn’t have as Kyler now in his mid-20s began to get loose lips on April 26 of 2010 one of his friends went to the police and claimed that Kyler while drunk confessed to killing Cara but this wasn’t the only confession in fact Kyler bragged about the killing to his high school girlfriend Caitlin Farris who in
turn agreed to wear a wire for the FBI upon meeting up with Kyler Caitlyn asked him why he was in a bad mood and he told her it was because she had moved away and was dating someone new then he went into this rant where he said quote I’m nothing to you I’m going to be alone for the rest of my life you’re never going to hold me you’re never going to hold my hand you’re never going to brush my hair behind my ears I will never be loved every time I meet someone I’m not good enough for them end quote but later at a restaurant Kyler could be
heard saying and I quote I strangled the out of her end quote in addition Kyler and Caitlyn went into the woods with a makeshift Ouija board and tried to summon the ghost of Cara I’ll just play some of this for you right now oh my God just like built her hand on my shoulder and I hurt like I shouldn’t say anything it was just like her voice I promise I will come back later that you had another creepy discussion that was recorded this really turns you on that I killed a girl just because you’re trying to get me to
confess yeah no you’d think that the police would have enough receipts at this point to arrest Tyler but for whatever reason they didn’t pull the triggered alone a year later Kyler still can’t manage to keep his hands off of his girlfriends on August 17th of 2011 Kyler tried to kill another woman one who was carrying his baby according to Candace Saint Claire in the early morning hours of July 23rd Kyler came home drunk and the two began to argue Candace threatened to leave him but Kyler was not about to allow that
instead he grabbed her dragged her and pinned her to the ground where he began to strangle her every time Candace would lose Consciousness he would punch her legs to wake her back up and then he would begin to strangle her again he said to her quote my family has a ranch with pigs that will eat anything including bones if you scream again I am going to kill you faster than you can let another scream out of your throat end quote eventually Candace did black out the next morning she woke up to Kyler spooning her Whispering I love you
into her ear according to Candace Kyler threatened to kill her her family and her little sister if she went to the police he told her quote I have killed people before even ex-girlfriends out of sheer jealousy I will kill you end quote but Candace did go to the police and reported all of this she even showed them texts from Kyler that she had saved on her phone where he threatened to take his own life if she left him additionally she told them something even more disturbing a month and a half earlier Candace had come home from work
and observed Kyler beating one of their kittens on the bathroom floor which killed it prior to that he had taken two of their kittens tied them up in a sack and threw them into a creek behind their apartment complex Kyler was arrested and charged with assaults but was released on supervised probation he was to have no contact with Candace due to a restraining order which cited the following complaints quote most recently harassed on August 15th by text message around the second week of July he choked me and slapped and punched me he pinned
and Drew a pentagram on my forehead and started to say gibberish he threatens a kill me and my family and my baby end quote it went on to note that quote he has made threats on my life and abused me in the past end quote a few days later Kyler was in court for animal cruelty and was released on a thousand dollar bond in Missouri animal cruelty is a class A misdemeanor unless torture is involved which bumps it up to a class E felony but this wasn’t the end of Kyler and Candace a few months later Kyler was pulled over for speeding guess
who was in the passenger seat Candace despite this restraining order being in place apparently Kyler couldn’t be arrested for the violation because the officer couldn’t find documentation that he was properly served it’s interesting that the cop thought this to be possible as all of this went down while Kyler was in police custody after all of these slaps on the wrist Kyler finally got himself into enough trouble where he was actually going to find himself locked up in 2012 he was arrested after he received drugs in the mail as well as
stealing while employed as an apprentice at a tattoo parlor he was found guilty of felony drug trafficking and was sentenced to three years and nine months in federal prison after which he had to serve three years of probation in September of 2015 a detective with the Belton Police Department traveled to the federal prison in Oklahoma where Kyler was being held in hopes of interviewing him about Cara except Kyler would not speak to them but six months later his cellmate came forward with some information apparently the detective’s presence
worried Kyler and he asked his cellmate to help him with an alibi eventually he totally spilled everything to him admitting that he had strangled Cara and dumped her body in the woods now keep in mind between 2010 and 2016 seven Witnesses had come forward with reports of confessions from Kyler and all of their accounts matched all seven you would think at this point that with enough witness statements the information from the cellmate was the statement that was the final straw to charge Kyler with Cara’s death but sadly
you would be wrong Kyler would soon be released from prison an even more tragic Cara would not be the last of his victims 21 year old Jessica runyons was born on July 10 1995 to parents John and Jamie she had two younger sisters and resided in the Kansas City area Jessica worked as a pastry chef and had recently been promoted to a management position her family described her as a generous loyal young woman who loved music dancing and baking most of all she loved her family especially her little sisters According
to some sources Jessica’s boyfriend was childhood friends with Kyler used some Publications have alleged that there might have been an affair going on between Jessica and Kyler but there simply isn’t any legitimate evidence to support that claim out there on September 2nd 2016 Kyler was released from federal prison and attended a party in Grandview just four days later this was no doubt something that probably violated his probation terms Witnesses at the party claimed to have seen him arguing with Jessica and that
he had been drinking heavily and acting possessive of her the pair left at around 11 that evening this was the last time that anyone saw Jessica alive when she didn’t meet her mother Jamie at a doctor’s appointment on September 9th her family became concerned and reported her missing in the early morning hours of September 10th the Kansas City Fire Department responded to a call concerning a car that was engulfed in flames a 2012 black Chevy Equinox was located at Blue River Road and East 95th Street under an
overpass in a heavily wooded area it was Jessica’s soon after Kyler’s half-brother Jessup Carter contacted the Belton Police Department to tell them that Kyler had confessed a strangling Jessica that he hid her body in a wooded area he claimed that Kyler had asked him to help get rid of Jessica’s car in the process during this time Kyler sustained Burns to his hands and his face the following day Kyler was arrested at jessup’s mobile home on Pecan Drive his face was covered in Burns and scratch marks he was charged with arson in relation to
the burning of Jessica’s car but the police couldn’t charge him with her death because there simply wasn’t enough information out there to prove that Jessica wasn’t still alive Kyla where’s Jessica I have no idea sir what happened to your face did you get burned what happened to your face did you kill Jessica did you no answer once in custody Kyler made a call to his mother and the two began to argue according to him the reason that he had killed the girl was due to his issues with his mother now eventually she had
enough and hung up on him but finally realizing that the call had more than likely been recorded he called his mother back and tried to play it off as if he was lying hello you have a call at no offense to you from Tyler this call to be recorded and subject to monitoring at any time used in his mother’s conversation quickly escalates into an argument use tells his mother she was a bad mother who abandoned him with a dangerous man his mother said why don’t you tell me where Jeff does that so that her family can have her use then
began accusing his mother for being partly responsible for his actions fault so that’s why you go on shower girl wow I’m gonna talk to a lawyer today after used called her an expletive she said you know what bye then jurors heard a second call from jail from use to his mother apologizing saying he said what he said out of spite and anger at the same time that Kyler was arrested Jessup Chu was picked up for an unrelated arson charge it seems that he’s something of a fire bug
unfortunately he took his own life in his jail cell in 2018. please keep this information in mind as it will become important later on in our story meanwhile Cara and Jessica’s families banded together for a common goal to bring their girls home however their search efforts Unearthed even more tragedy on January 21st 2017 John runyons discovered human remains in a creek bed near Wildcat Hollow Drive and 67th Street in Kansas City which is directly next to the Kansas City Zoo they were later identified as belonging
to 21 year old Brandon Herring who had gone missing on November 22nd of 2016. stay with us because these people deserve to have their stories told as well we will tie this all back to Cara and Jessica in just a moment Brandon was described as a loving teddy bear in fact he went by the nickname Mack bear according to his mother Rhonda Herring quote I called my son I said how are you doing he said I’m all right Mom I said it doesn’t sound like it what’s going on a mother knows her children her heart lets her know what’s going on her
stomach I told him that I loved him and he said I love you too Mama that was it I called back 15 minutes later to ask him a question I forgot to ask him and his phone was just off end quote this was the last conversation Rhonda Herring had with her son she went on to State quote the police told me right after he hung up his phone they feel that’s when they had shot him in his head end quote when Brandon failed to return home in Miss Thanksgiving his loved ones grew very concerned Brandon also had a girlfriend
who was pregnant with his child so his disappearance was extra suspicious family members canvassed the area’s Brandon frequented passing out flyers and talking to anyone they could find it was through this canvassing that they got a tip that led them to the Park Meadows apartment complex where a woman claimed that she had seen Brandon sitting on the steps several of Brandon’s loved ones immediately headed to the apartments there they said they discovered several shell casings and he knewed it with a window that appeared to have been shot
out Kansas City Police responded and collected evidence outside but did not locate anyone inside of the apartment but Brandon’s death wasn’t the only one that was uncovered due to the efforts of Cara and Jessica’s families on January 29th the body of Dante Jamal Jefferson was discovered he had gone missing on December 5th of 2016 and was last seen getting into a gray Chrysler sedan time of his disappearance he was staying with his mother after Christmas came and went and there was no sign of Dante his family filed a
missing person’s report both Brandon and Dante’s deaths have been ruled as homicides and as of the date of this recording are still currently unsolved if you have any information regarding either of their cases please reach out to the Kansas City Missouri tips line at 816-474-8477 we’ll also have this listed in our show notes on April 3rd 2017 and I’m origin for mushrooms in a heavily wooded area of Peculiar Missouri came across a set of human remains police were immediately dispatched to the area and after a thorough search a second set
of remains were also located these remains appear to be much older than the first sets on April 5th the first set was identified as belonging to Jessica runions the second set was sent away for analysis at the FBI crime lab in Quantico Virginia on August 16th of the same year they were identified as belonging to Cara kopetsky finally Kyler used was held accountable for the deaths of both Jessica and Cara on October 5th he was charged with homicide which he promptly pled not guilty to in fact Kyler’s defense team did everything
possible to delay his day in court they argued he was not competent to stand trial which a psychavow quickly disagreed they claimed they wanted further DNA testing done they alleged that there was evidence of a recording out there of someone else taking responsibility for Jessica’s death they claim that the pandemic was slowing things down they alleged that an investigator was having a lurid affair with a witness they claimed phone calls between Kyler and his legal team had been recorded without their knowledge
and finally they claimed that Jessup Carter who mind you is dead killed both Cara and Jessica and was a serial killer luckily no one bought any of this nonsense and in April of 2021 Tyler was found guilty of second-degree homicide and voluntary manslaughter the jury recommended that he received the maximum sentence for each counts I guess running your mouth to almost a dozen people about your crimes really isn’t the best idea on Monday June 7 2021 a Cass County Judge sentenced Kyler used to life in prison plus 15 years for the killings of
Cara kopetsky and Jessica runyons judge William Collins decided to adopt the jurors recommendation that Kyler received the maximum sentences for both convictions that means life in prison for second-degree homicide in 15 years for voluntary manslaughter now in Missouri because life sentences are capped at 30 years the sentences will run consecutively for a total of 45 years in prison you’ve heard that correctly he will be out in 45 years Cara’s funeral was held on Saturday September 17 2017 at the IBEW Local Union 124 Meeting Hall in Kansas City
Missouri she was finally laid to rest in a proper grave in the mount Moira Cemetery also in Kansas City her Granite gravestone Bears a photograph of her smiling happily the inscription reads forever in our hearts loved by all Jessica’s celebration of life was also held at the same union meeting Hall was open to the public her 14 year old sister Megan organized and led the ceremony which featured pictures and videos of Jessica throughout her life a private funeral was held at a later date family friend Cheryl Finch organized a
memorial fund to help Jessica’s sisters the money raised would go towards counseling and education for the two girls she said quote we sat around thinking how can we honor Jessica what would she want taking care of her sisters was the first thing that came to mind for many of us for what they’ve been through the last seven months they’re doing amazingly well we want to make sure that that continues end quote unfortunately Jessica’s sister Megan dropped out of school due to being bullied by her classmates for being as
they called her the dead girl sister as we’ve mentioned in previous episodes if you or someone you know is experiencing intimate partner violence help is available call 1-800-799 Safe text start to 88788 or visit thehotline.org where they have a live chat option all of these resources will be linked in our show notes if you feel like you’re in danger it is never too soon to call please do not wait until it is too late
