For Immediate Release
Nov. 15, 2017
A 35-year-old husband has been charged with felonies in connection with dismembering and abandoning the corpse of his wife, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker announced today.
Justin T. Rey, cob: 2/25/1982, faces Abandonment of a Corpse and Endangering the Welfare of a Child.*
According to court records filed today, Lenexa, Kan., Police were alerted by a storage facility there of a suspicious person who talked about his wife's death during childbirth. The man, Justin Rey, had with him a 2-year-old child and a newborn child. He told police that his wife had died and she was inside an Igloo cooler in the Lenexa storage facility. The police agencies, including Lenexa and Kansas City, MO, determined that the suspect, his pregnant wife and 2-year-old child checked into a hotel in the 8800 block of Leeds Road on Sept. 25, 2017. She was last seen on Oct. 20. Hotel management told police that three days after she was last seen, the suspect called the front desk and disguised his voice as a woman. Surveillance video showed the suspect walking out of the hotel that same day pulling the cooler and a toddler was walking beside him. The following day human remains were found inside the cooler in the storage facility in Lenexa. Rey told Lenexa police that his wife died after childbirth. Then he cut her up and disposed of parts of her body or put remains in the cooler. Rey told Kansas City police that he spent Friday and Saturday with the dead woman's body before he dismembered her. His children were in the room as he dismembered and disposed of her, he told Kansas City police.
Prosecutors requested a bond of $100,000 cash. Rey remains in custody in Johnson County. The case remains under investigation.
For more information, contact:
Michael Mansur
Director of Communication
Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office
Jean Peters Baker, Prosecutor
Work : (816) 881-3812
Mobile: (816) 674-3954
mmansur@jacksongov.org
http://jacksoncountyprosecutor.com
*Charges are only accusations and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until the defendant is either found guilty or has pleaded.