An investigation into the death of a Doniphan County woman is currently underway in St. Joseph.
Capt. Jeff Wilson with the St. Joseph Police Department confirmed Tuesday that police are working a death investigation in reference to a 34-year-old woman from Doniphan County. Wilson said the woman passed away Monday at Mosaic Life Care in the Intensive Care Unit.
“Circumstances are being investigated,” Wilson said.
He said her body has been sent to Kansas City, Kan. for an autopsy.
A cold front, currently moving through KC and surrounding areas, will finally break the heat of the past few days. Sunny skies and normal temperatures can be expected for the weekend. Here’s your 7-day forecast from the National Weather Service:
Today: Sunny, with a high near 73. Northwest wind 8 to 17 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph.
Tonight: Mostly clear, with a low around 51. North wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.
Wednesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 70. East northeast wind 5 to 8 mph.
Wednesday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 48. North wind 6 to 8 mph.
Thursday: Mostly cloudy, then gradually becoming sunny, with a high near 61. North wind 8 to 10 mph.
Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 40.
Friday: Sunny, with a high near 66.
Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 44.
Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 70.
Saturday Night: Clear, with a low around 47.
Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 72.
Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 48.
Monday: Sunny, with a high near 70.
The St. Joseph Police Department has identified a 17-year-old girl as the victim in a weekend homicide investigation.
Capt. Jeff Wilson said the victim has been identified as Kaytlin Angela Root.
Authorities started investigating the case as a homicide after Root’s body was found by a runner Sunday morning in Krug Park off of the bike trails. The park was shutdown shortly after for police to investigate the crime scene but has since reopened.
Police are continuing to investigate the case and little information is being released at this time. Wilson said currently no one is in custody in connection with the case. Anyone with information is asked to call the TIPS Hotline at (816) 238-TIPS
(Update 2:14 p.m.) – Krug Park is back open but police are continuing to investigate after a woman’s body was found in the park over the weekend.
At 2:15 p.m. police issued a Nixle alert to say the park is now open.
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(11:15 a.m.) – Krug Park remains closed as police continue to investigate a possible homicide after a woman’s body was found over the weekend.
Capt. Jeff Wilson said authorities have been investigating since around 9:20 a.m. Sunday after a runner found the body in the Krug Park area off of the bike trails.
“There’s a lot of moving parts in this investigation so there’s little information that can be released at this time,” Wilson said. “We spent the day yesterday running down leads and the crime scene investigators spent the entire day working the crime scene in the Krug Park area. They will continue that work throughout the day today.”
Wilson said the body has been sent off for an autopsy in Kansas City, Kan.
Police are not yet releasing the woman’s identity or a cause of death. As we previously reported, police have said the victim is a female in her late teens to early 20s. Police currently do not have anyone in custody in connection with the investigation.
“We’ll continue to update you as more information comes in that we are able to release,” Wilson said. “There is a lot of moving parts and a lot of people that need to be spoke with.”
He said he anticipates the park which has been shutdown since Sunday morning will reopen later today.
“When the park is released I feel it is perfectly safe to conduct business as normal in the park area,” Wilson said.
The week will start with unusually warm conditions for mid-October. High temperatures are expected to reach into the upper 70s to mid 80s today, and soar well into the 80s to near 90 tomorrow. Normal temperatures for this time of year are near 67° for afternoon highs and in the mid 40s for low temperatures.
Today: Sunny, with a high near 88. Breezy, with a south wind 11 to 16 mph increasing to 18 to 23 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 33 mph.
Tonight: Mostly clear, with a low around 57. South southwest wind 6 to 9 mph becoming west northwest after midnight.
Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 73. North northwest wind 7 to 9 mph.
Tuesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 50. North wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.
Wednesday: Partly sunny, with a high near 69. North northeast wind 3 to 7 mph.
Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 48.
Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 63.
Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 42.
Friday: Sunny, with a high near 67.
Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 45.
Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 71.
Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 48.
Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 70.
(Update) The St. Joseph Police Department is investigating a possible homicide after a body was discovered Sunday morning at Krug Park.
Capt. Jeff Wilson said little information is being released at this time. He said the body was found off of the bike trail early this morning and a homicide investigation is now underway.
Wilson said a jogger found the body around 9 a.m. The park located at 3500 St. Joseph Ave. was shut down shortly after.
According to police, the victim is a female in her late teens to early 20s.
Police sent out a Nixle message shortly before 11 a.m. to ask the public to avoid the area of Krug Park and that the park is closed until further notice.
As we learn more information we will update this story.
A child with Cerebral Palsy in northeast Kansas now has a safer ride after a community effort.
Cindy Moorhaus is a Hiawatha, Kan. resident and a mother of three including 13-year-old Katie who has Cerebral Palsy and Microcephaly. Recently, Brown County Sheriff John Merchant said he learned that Katie needed a special car seat for her condition.
The car seat retails at $1,900, something Cindy said her family couldn’t afford with two other children to care for.
“We kind of got a few folks together and made it happen,” Merchant said. “These car seats are manufactured for special needs children for those special conditions. Like in Katie’s case she has Cerebral Palsy so she doesn’t have a lot of neck or muscle control in the upper torso. It’s basically a reinforced seat that provides extra padding, or reinforcement.”
Cindy said she mentioned to John in June that Katie was having issues with her car seat.
“I just got to saying ‘she’s laying over in her seat and I just don’t feel safe going back and forth to Kansas City to Children’s Mercy because we’re constantly having to stop to adjust her so she’s not laying over,” Cindy said.
This is the second specialized car seat Katie has had. Cindy said about eight years ago, Katie had a car seat until their van was stolen in the middle of the night.
“We got another car seat but it wasn’t a special needs car seat,” Cindy said. “I didn’t think anything of it until her seizure activity increased and she was laying over more.”
Sheriff Merchant said he did some research after hearing about Katie’s need.
“Phyllis Larrimore, we really owe a big debt of gratitude to her. She works at Children’s Mercy,” Merchant said. “She walked me through how to order this car seat based on Katie’s measurements and everything else and make sure everything was the right fit for her.”
Merchant said volunteers came together from not just Brown County but some from across the state to get Katie a new seat. Last week, Phyllis Larrimore, the Program Coordinator for Children’s Mercy Hospital, came up to Hiawatha and installed the new seat. The staff with the sheriff’s department and many community members came together to witness the installation and see Katie try out her new fit. Cindy said, so far the seat is a success.
“She absolutely loves it. She sits up, not completely straight but she’s up and looking out the window more. She’s not flopped over, it’s amazing. She’s so safe now,” Cindy said.
Now, Cindy said she feels much more comfortable taking Katie to Kansas City for her treatments. Sheriff Merchant said he was happy to see the community come together for Katie.
“I want to personally thank everyone for their support of this very worthwhile project and to let you all know how much it means to have the support of the county when it comes to the safety of this little girl. You are all to be commended,” Sheriff Merchant said.
After a winter emergency several years ago, faculty at Northwest Missouri State University noticed the need for providing training for emergencies.
John Carr is an instructor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Northwest. He also directs the Emergency and Disaster Management Program. Carr said the program got its start after the ice storm of 2007 when several people on campus noticed a need to train people to be prepared for emergencies and disasters.
“We assembled together some of the classes that we had on campus and created a minor,” Carr said. “From that, a lot of interest grew from our existing student population, other students started hearing about this minor and coming to Northwest specifically for it. Fast forward to now, we have a bachelor’s program in Emergency and Disaster Management which is our four year program, we also have the minor in EDM as well as a number of other certifications individuals can get related to that field.”
Carr said there are 45 majors and 40 minors within the program.
“We’re always surprised at at the number of individuals that are interested in this,” Carr said. “Usually whenever I talk to other folks that are interested in the program they say, ‘Well this is a great thing, this is something that everybody needs nowadays.’ If you watch the news or you listen to the radio, you hear all these stories and we need individuals that know what to do whenever bad stuff happens. That’s really what we emphasis with our classes.”
Carr said there is a broad range of fields that students go into after completing the program including the military, local government, insurance companies, non-profits and more.
“The bottom line with our major is that we train individuals that are self-sufficient, that they are motivated that they are ready to go into some of these fields and take on some of those responsibilities,” Carr said. “So if they can take these skills that we teach here, the communities, their school districts, their businesses, wherever they’re located, are better because of that.”
Courtney Leeper is a Senior in the Emergency Disaster Management Program at Northwest. She said after graduating, she would like to work at a non-profit organization.
“I’ve always had this passion for helping people and there’s a lot of fields out there that had the ability to do that but this one stood out to me because you have the ability to help people in a way that most people don’t know how,” Leeper said. “When someone survives a disaster, there’s so much going through them and not a lot of people know how to help them get through that and get back to their normal life, but within this field you learn how to help them get back to normalcy.”
As part of the program at Northwest, an experienced based learning opportunity is offered through the Missouri Hope exercise.
The training exercise was held last weekend at Mozingo Outdoor Education Recreation Area and featured numerous other schools, first responders and area agencies. The exercise gives students and area volunteer first responders experience in carrying out disaster response through simulations and giving them the chance to work with equipment. Carr said simulations include scenarios such as going into a damaged building following a tornado to look for individuals and provide treatment.
To learn more about the Emergency and Disaster Management Program at Northwest, click here.
A man’s death is being investigated as suspicious in Chillicothe.
According to the Chillicothe Police Department, officers responded Thursday around 9:45 p.m. to 1020 S. Washington Street in reference to an unresponsive individual.
When they arrived officers attempted lifesaving measures on the man until Chillicothe EMS arrived and transported him to Hedrick Medical Center where he was later pronounced dead.
The department said an investigation is currently being conducted with assistance from Livingston County. The man’s name is not yet being released as authorities continue to look into the case.
According to a news release at this time police are looking at two or possibly three individuals in reference to the investigation for involuntary manslaughter, and distribution of a controlled substance.
The department said a woman and a man have been arrested on unrelated drug charges and transported to the Daviess/DeKalb Regional Jail.
A suspect on the run for more than a month after allegedly tasing a strike-force officer has been arrested in Kansas.
According to Captain Shawn Collie, Commander of the Buchanan County Drug Strike Force, members of the U.S. Marshal’s Service arrested Justin Wolf on Wednesday in Leavenworth.
“We had information that he had left the area,” Collie said, “and so we requested assistance from the United States Marshall’s Service, who took over the case for the apprehension of Wolf.”
As we reported earlier, the suspect was spotted by an investigator who tried to arrest him near 12th and Highland in St. Joseph on September 2.
“The investigator had actually caught up to Wolf, went to take Wolf into custody at which time Wolf was able to take control of the Taser while the deputy was trying to handcuff him,” Collie said.
“Wolf used the Taser on the deputy and then ran again, with a second foot pursuit, where Wolf jumped into a car that was waiting for him,” he said.
That car was later spotted at the St. Joseph REC Center, where a witness said he saw Wolf get into another vehicle. The deputy was not seriously injured.
Collie says Wolf is being held in Leavenworth pending extradition on charges relating to the alleged officer assault, some property damage, and the alleged theft of a student’s car at Missouri Western.
