JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – The Latest on allegations against Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (all times local):

1:20 p.m.

Missouri lawmakers have subpoenaed Gov. Eric Greitens to testify before a special panel considering whether to try to impeach and remove him from office.

The chairman of the House investigatory panel announced Friday that it has subpoenaed Greitens to appear before the committee on June 4.

The Republican governor has so far declined to testify before the committee, which has been investigating allegations against him since March. A Greitens’ attorney said Friday that she did not know whether he will comply with the subpoena.

Lawmakers are looking into claims of sexual misconduct, misuse of a charity donor list for political fundraising and other campaign finance allegations against Greitens.

The interactions between lawmakers and the governor’s attorneys have grown increasingly heated this week during public committee hearings.

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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – An expert who analyzed Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens’ cellphone says he found traces of three photos from the day Greitens initiated a sexual encounter with a woman, but all three were “benign.”

Forensics expert Brian Koberna testified Friday to a Missouri House committee trying to determine whether to bring impeachment proceedings against Greitens.

A woman has testified that Greitens bound, blindfolded and took a photo of her while she was at least partially nude in the basement of his home on March 21, 2015.

Koberna said he found traces of three deleted photos on that date that were “absolutely benign.” He said it’s possible there were more deleted photos for which traces no longer exist.

Koberna analyzed Greitens’ phone for a criminal case against Greitens that has since been dismissed.

4p.m.

WICHITA —The Sedgwick County Coroner’s Office has identified the body of an unknown child discovered Thursday evening in Harvey County as 5-year-old Lucas Hernandez.

According to a media release, the boy’s identity was confirmed through an autopsy and dental records. A thorough exam of evidence continues, according to officer Charley Davidson.

Lucas’ stepmother, 27-year-old Emily Glass, has been arrested and booked into Sedgwick County jail for felony obstruction of justice. She is being held on a $250,000 Bond, according to t<a href=”https://ssc.sedgwickcounty.org/sheriffinmates/SheriffInmateDetail.aspx?nameId=214693″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>he jail booking report.</a> Lucas has been missing since Feb. 17.

Lucas’ body was discovered under a bridge near Southeast 96th Street and Woodlawn in Harvey County. Glass had taken a private investigator to the location. The private investigator had been hired by Lucas’ family.

The private investigator called the WPD to report the discovery of what he believed was Lucas’ body. The WPD and Harvey County Sheriff Office officials arrived at the scene.

WPD officials have interviewed the private investigator, David Marshburn of North Carolina, who said he arrived earlier this week. Marshburn told WPD investigators that Glass led him to the boy’s body on Thursday.

WPD Chief Gordon Ramsay said the investigation into Lucas’ disappearance continues; anyone with information related to the case should call WPD Homicide Detectives at 268-4181.

The WPD has mobilized significant personnel and volunteers and searched thousands of acres to find Lucas. Ramsay thanked the numerous volunteers and groups who have contributed to the search.

In March, volunteers with from Missing and Endangered from Northwest Missouri searched Chisholm Park in Wichita for the boy, according to the organization’s social media page.

2p.m.

A small, decomposing body found under a bridge in rural central Kansas is likely that of 5-year-old Lucas Hernandez, a Wichita boy who has been missing since February, police said Friday.

An autopsy to be performed Friday will confirm the body’s identity but “it is likely Lucas,” Wichita police chief Gordon Ramsay said at a news conference.

Law enforcement officers were called to the scene in Harvey County Thursday night after Lucas’ 27-year-old stepmother, Emily Glass, led a private investigator to the remains under the bridge on a gravel road near the town of Sedgwick, about 20 miles north of Wichita.

Ramsay said there were other details that indicate the body is Lucas, but that police cannot share that information.

The investigator, David Marshburn, called police about the body, and officers met him and Glass at the scene. Ramsay said Marshburn was hired by Lucas’ family. Marshburn told local media that Lucas’ paternal grandmother first contacted him for assistance.

Marshburn told police he arrived in Wichita from Smithfield, North Carolina, this week.

Pressed as to how Marshburn was able to locate the body so quickly when police have been searching unsuccessfully for months, Ramsay would only say that police are bound by “very strict rules” that do not apply to private citizens.

Glass was jailed Thursday on suspicion of felony obstruction of justice, but no charges are expected to be filed this week.  She is being held <a href=”https://ssc.sedgwickcounty.org/sheriffinmates/SheriffInmateDetail.aspx?nameId=214693″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>on a $250, 000 Bond,</a> according to the Sedgwick County Booking report.

Investigators are awaiting results of the autopsy later Friday before they can make a positive identification.

Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said in an emailed statement Friday that his office will review early next week the results of the autopsy currently being conducted, as well as evidence gathered by law enforcement throughout this investigation.
When asked if other arrests are possible, Ramsay said only that the investigation is still “very active.”

Glass reported Lucas missing from their home on Feb. 17. Glass told police she last saw Lucas playing in his bedroom before she took a shower and fell asleep. He was gone when she woke up from her nap. She has not been charged in the boy’s disappearance, but Bennett had previously said she is a person of interest in the case.

The boy’s father, Jonathan Hernandez, was not at home when Lucas disappeared. Glass cared for her daughter and Lucas while he worked out of state for weeks at a time. Lucas’ biological mother didn’t live in the Wichita area when he disappeared.

Glass was found not guilty in May in an unrelated case accusing her of child endangerment involving her own 1-year-old daughter. Prosecutors alleged she smoked marijuana before driving the child to a restaurant.

Lucas was reported missing the day after that trip.

A court document related to that case said Lucas was frequently seen with bruises and cuts before he disappeared. The Sedgwick County juvenile court document indicated the state of Kansas was told at least twice that Lucas was being abused and was living in a dysfunctional and violent situation.
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10:40 a.m.

Police say the stepmother of a 5-year-old boy missing since February led a private investigator to a body that detectives believe is the missing child.

Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsay said at a news conference Friday that Emily Glass showed David Mashburn where the remains were hidden, under a bridge on a gravel road in Sedgwick, about 20 miles north of Wichita.

Ramsay says Mashburn contacted police. Police retrieved the body and arrested Glass on Thursday.

Ramsay says police believe the body is that of Lucas Hernandez.

Glass is being held on suspicion of interfering with a law enforcement officer and obstruction.

The stepmother reported Lucas missing Feb. 17, saying she fell asleep after a shower and woke up to find him missing.

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10:30 a.m.

Police say a decomposed body found under a bridge in rural central Kansas is probably a 5-year-old boy who has been missing since February.

<a href=”http://thepost.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2018-03-03-at-7.29.07-AM.png”><img class=”size-full wp-image-304196″ src=”http://thepost.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2018-03-03-at-7.29.07-AM.png” alt=”” width=”196″ height=”222″ /></a> Lucas Hernandez

Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsay said at a news conference Friday that investigators believe the body found a day earlier on a county road about 20 miles north of Wichita, is Lucas Hernandez.

Emily Glass, Lucas’ stepmother, was arrested Thursday night on suspicion of interfering with a law enforcement officer and obstruction.

Glass reported Lucas missing Feb. 17, saying she fell asleep after a shower and woke up to find him missing. She has not been charged in his disappearance.

Glass was acquitted in May of a child endangerment charge after authorities say she smoked marijuana before driving with her 1-year-old daughter in the car.

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<a href=”http://thepost.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2018-02-26-at-4.57.29-PM.png”><img class=”size-medium wp-image-305406″ src=”http://thepost.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2018-02-26-at-4.57.29-PM-240×300.png” alt=”” width=”240″ height=”300″ /></a> Glass-photo Sedgwick Co.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The stepmother of a 5-year-old Wichita boy whom she reported missing in February was jailed Thursday evening, hours after a small, as-yet unidentified body was found under a bridge in a nearby county.

Emily Glass, the stepmother of Lucas Hernandez, was at a site in rural Harvey County hours before the body was found, Sedgwick County District Attorney Mark Bennett said. She was later booked into jail on suspicion of interfering with a law enforcement officer and obstruction.

Authorities have not identified the body, which was found under a bridge on a gravel road near the town of Sedgwick.

“When we arrived, there was a body underneath a bridge up there that appears to be a small human, but it’s unrecognizable,” Harvey County Sheriff Chad Gay said. No children have been reported missing in Harvey County, he said.

Glass reported Lucas missing from their home on Feb. 17. Glass told police she last saw Lucas playing in his bedroom before she took a shower and fell asleep. He was gone when she woke up from her nap. She has not been charged in the boy’s disappearance, but Bennett has said she is a person of interest in the case.

The boy’s father, Jonathan Hernandez, was not at home when Lucas disappeared. Glass cared for her daughter and Lucas while he worked out of state for weeks at a time. Lucas’ biological mother didn’t live in the Wichita area when he disappeared.

Glass was found not guilty in May in an unrelated case accusing her of child endangerment involving her own 1-year-old daughter. Prosecutors alleged she smoked marijuana before driving the child to a restaurant.

Lucas was reported missing the day after that trip.

A court document related to that case said Lucas was frequently seen with bruises and cuts before he disappeared. The Sedgwick County juvenile court document indicated the state of Kansas was told at least twice that Lucas was being abused and was living in a dysfunctional and violent situation.

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SEDGWICK COUNTY — The stepmother of 5-year-old Lucas Hernandez who has been missing since February is back in jail.

Just after 10:30p.m. Thursday Emily Glass was booked into jail, according to <a href=”https://ssc.sedgwickcounty.org/sheriffinmates/SheriffInmateDetail.aspx?nameId=214693″ target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>the Sedgwick County booking report</a>. The requested charges included interference with law enforcement officer and obstruction. There was no bond listed, according to the booking details.

Law enforcement authorities have not confirmed that a body found in Harvey County Thursday is the missing boy.

The body was found under a bridge on a gravel road. Sedgwick County District Attorney Mark Bennett says Glass had been in the area hours earlier. Authorities have not released any information on the remains.

Glass reported Lucas missing from their home on Feb. 17. She told police she discovered he was missing after she woke up from a nap.

The boy’s father, Jonathan Hernandez, was not at home when his son disappeared.

On May 16, Glass was released from jail after she was found not guilty of child endangerment in an unrelated case involving her own daughter.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – A former FBI agent in Kansas City contends in a lawsuit that she was sexually harassed by another agent and then punished when she reported it.

The Kansas City Star reports the former agent, Julie Meriano, says she contacted Kansas City police abou the male agent’s behavior, which included creating a fake profile on a dating website with her picture and spreading damaging rumors about her.

The lawsuit says the harassment eventually caused Merinao to take an extended medical leave. She alleges FBI management reprimanded her and told her not to talk about the situation, even to police.

She says a few months after she filed a filed a discrimination complaint with the agency, she was fired.

A spokeswoman for the FBI in Kansas City said Friday the agency won’t comment on pending litigation.

CASS COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating an attempted abduction.

Just before 2p.m. Thursday, police were notified of an attempted abduction in Harrisonville, according to a media release.

Officers contacted the mother who stated that her son, a 12-year-old was walking home from a business on the square when he was approached by a man  driving a black mini-van with blacked out windows and a blue “Revenge” sticker in the back window.

The man pulled up to the boy and told him to get in the van. This happened in the area of Butler and Wall Street, according to police.

The man was wearing a mask. The 12-year-old reported that he hit the man with his skateboard and fled the area. At this time reported they do not have a description of the suspect.

By BRIAN GRIMMETT

Westar Energy and Great Plains Energy, the parent company of Kansas City Power & Light Co., won approval from state regulators Thursday to merge as equals.

That clears the way for a combined company worth $14 billion serving more than 1.6 million customers in Kansas and Missouri.

“We feel (it’s) good for our shareholders, good for our communities, good for our customers, and good for our employees,” Westar spokeswoman Gina Penzig said.

The Missouri Public Service Commission and the Kansas Corporation Commission both approved the long-pending merger proposal on Thursday. The companies had tried to combine last year, but saw their proposal rejected by Kansas regulators.

The merger is projected to save Kansas customers $183.5 million in its first five years.

Savings from the merger will allow Westar to cut the amount it is asking for in a rate case pending before the KCC. With the decrease, the average residential customer would see a hike in monthly bills of $2.80 per month, rather than the more than $5 previously asked for by Westar.

The new company will be called Evergy, a combination of ever and energy, and will be headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. The merger terms approved by regulators also require the company to keep at least 500 employees at a Kansas headquarters in Topeka for at least 5 years.

“For the most part we’ve really been trying to emphasize letting employees stay where their families are and where they are today,” Penzig said.

In rejecting a merger last year, the KCC argued the proposal would have put too much financial stress on the new company and would not benefit customers.

This time around, executives at the two companies tailored their proposals to calm the regulators’ worries.

The result is a larger regional electric utility company that members of the commission said will ultimately benefit Kansas consumers.

Jim Zakoura, who represented several large industrial customers during the proceedings, said he’s disappointed with the decision. While he wasn’t against the merger, he wanted a bigger commitment from the new company to reduce electric prices.

“The commission needs to address it and bring the utilities in and help get a plan to bring us back to competitive levels,” he said.

For now, customers will continue to get their service, and bills, from their current provider, KCP&L or Westar. Rebranding won’t occur until 2019.

Brian Grimmett is a reporter focusing on the environment and energy for the Kansas News Service. Follow him on Twitter @briangrimmett. 

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A second man has pleaded guilty to kidnapping and raping a suburban Kansas City sheriff’s deputy.

Twenty-three-year-old Brady Allen Newman-Caddell entered the plea Thursday to aggravated kidnapping, two rape counts and aggravated criminal sodomy.

Another man, William Luth, was sentenced previously to more than 41 years in prison for abducting the deputy in October 2016 from the parking lot of a detention center in Olathe, Kansas, as she arrived at work. She wasn’t in her uniform. She was released in the Missouri suburb of Lee’s Summit two hours later.

Newman-Caddell and Luth are both from suburbs on the Missouri side.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas water park where a boy was killed on a giant waterslide in 2016 planned to open for its annual season as scheduled Friday with 11 of its rides closed following a state audit that park attorneys called a “malicious effort” to “stir up unfounded fear” about safety.

The Schlitterbahn park in Kansas City, Kansas, announced on its website Thursday night that six attractions would be operating. None of them were specifically mentioned in a Kansas Department of Labor audit released earlier this week after an inspection last week. The department issued a notice alleging 11 violations of state amusement park regulations, mostly pertaining to record-keeping and safety signs.

The rides the park planned to keep closed initially were all mentioned in the audit and included various slides, a surfing ride and the Soaring Eagle ZipLine, a “dry” ride that pulls riders in a two-seat chair across the park 100 feet above the ground. The park said in its Facebook posting that it has addressed the bulk of the audit issues but wants to let state and local officials, inspectors, park staff, consultants and attorneys finish “their process.”

“Until that process is complete, we will not open the other rides,” the statement said.

But, the park also said, “We are glad to say that we have addressed the bulk of the issues in the report and we are fully confident that our rides and park are safe and ready.”

Attorneys for the park’s management company argued in a letter Wednesday to the department that it exceeded its legal authority in conducting the audit and was required to give the park “reasonable” time to rectify any issues. The attorneys also rejected audit findings that equipment for the ZipLine had not been replaced as recommended by its manufacturer.

Despite their “strong disagreement” with the audit report, the attorneys wrote, the park would not open rides until audit questions were “fully addressed.”

“This appears to be nothing more than a malicious effort on the part of the State to stir up unfounded fear and cast doubts on this company in the wake of the tragic accident in 2016,” attorneys Erik Beard and Melanie Morgan wrote. “The State’s action is unconscionable and we demand the State take remedial action to end this abuse.”

The letter demanded a response by Thursday, but there was no indication whether the department sent one.

Department spokeswoman Barbara Hersh did not respond directly to the attorney’s criticism but said the department was “encouraged” that the park said it would not open rides until the attractions complied with regulations.

“It is important to be proactive when conducting audits for the safety of the public,” she said in an email.

Department officials promised in March to audit the Schlitterbahn park’s records after a local grand jury issued multiple criminal indictments over the August 2016 death of 10-year-old Caleb Schwab. He was decapitated while riding a 17-story Verruckt waterslide, which was billed as the world’s tallest and was shut down after his death.

The co-owner of the Texas-based Schlitterbahn Waterparks and Resorts, one of the Verruckt slide’s designers, the Kansas City park’s former operations director and the company that built Verruckt all face numerous felony charges. They have pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The recent audit made dozens of findings and said safety signs in some park areas were inadequate, records were not available for review, and some operating and training manuals were incomplete. Schlitterbahn’s attorneys noted that no rides were in operation at the time and that most of the issues raised “do not generally impact guest safety.”

The notice said the 11 violations listed in its notice, each covering multiple findings, represented a first offense and the department was issuing the park a warning.

One count in the department’s notice said inspection checklists, trainer qualification and other records for the ZipLine weren’t available for review and added that it has not replaced parts as recommended by the manufacturer.

But Schlitterbahn attorneys said the manufacturer did inspections each of the past two years and was issuing a “bulletin” saying the existing parts are safe.

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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas water park where a boy was killed on a waterslide says it won’t open this season until it resolves issues raised by a state audit but that it thinks the audit was “malicious.”

Attorneys for the company that operates the Schlitterbahn park in Kansas City, Kansas, say in a Wednesday letter to the Kansas Department of Labor that although the park won’t open until the audit’s points are addressed, they think the audit should be withdrawn.

A recent inspection turned up 11 violations, mostly involving record-keeping and safety signs.

The park is scheduled to open for the season on Friday.

The department said Thursday that it was preparing a response.

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (AP) – An 18-year-old who put his suburban Kansas City high school for sale on Craigslist has been banned from graduation after the senior prank went awry.

The Kansas City Star reports Kylan Scheele listed Truman High School in Independence, Missouri, for the bargain price of $12,275 last week. Problems arose when someone reported the posting as a possible threat because of Scheele’s choice of wording. He wrote that the reason for the sale was “the loss of students coming up.”

Scheele says he was describing the loss of the graduates and has apologized. But he’s been booted from Saturday’s commencement.

District spokeswoman Jana Corrie says significant hours were spent tracking down the post’s source. She says police even issued an emergency subpoena to Craigslist before determining there wasn’t a credible threat.