Police in Kansas City tow the man’s car and discover a body inside.
The Kansas City Star reports that a homicide investigation is underway into the death of Adam “A.J.” Blackstock Jr.
Why a man’s body in the cargo area of his own SUV wasn’t discovered by Kansas City police until after it was transported to a Missouri police station earlier this month is being questioned by family members and a forensic expert.
The Kansas City Star reports that a homicide investigation is underway into the death of Adam “A.J.” Blackstock Jr.Police in Kansas City tow the man’s car and discover a body inside.
The Kansas City Star reports that a homicide investigation is underway into the death of Adam “A.J.” Blackstock Jr.
According to the publication, when they had the car impounded on January 17 without a search warrant and Blackstock hadn’t been formally declared missing, the police justified their first handling of the case.
Before moving the car, the cops ought to have checked inside, a forensic expert told the newspaper.
“It’s just irresponsible to take a car into custody without searching inside or opening the trunk,” forensic scientist and criminologist Brent Turvey of the Forensic Criminology Institute in Sitka, Alaska, said.
About what happened to Blackstock, 24, who left behind an 18-month-old kid, family members said they want answers.
“We really are asking for justice,” Danielle Blackstock, his older sister, told the newspaper. “We can’t have him back. But we need justice.”
The paper quoted Kansas City Police Department spokesman Sgt. Jake Becchina as saying last week that detectives were making headway toward identifying persons of interest in the case, but charges had yet to be filed.
Adam Blackstock Sr. said he called police after being unable to reach his son when the family returned from a trip to Disneyland. He used GPS to locate what he believed was his son’s vehicle in a driveway in the Kansas City, Missouri, neighborhood of Oak Park Southwest. The SUV was covered by a gray tarp.
When officers arrived, the homeowner said the vehicle belonged to her uncle and provided the phone number of a man who said it was his.
Blackstock Sr. convinced police otherwise, in part by using a remote starter to turn on the vehicle. Officers persuaded the woman at the home to let them remove it. They noticed what appeared to be a bullet hole in the driver’s seat and blood on the floorboards, but didn’t immediately investigate further.
They saw the lifeless body in the back only after towing the SUV.
Becchina said that the officers showed “very creative thinking to talk the homeowner into allowing the vehicle to be towed based on consent at that time, when there was no other legal standing to enter onto the property, much less process the car on the property.”
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