A man charged with burning a vehicle belonging to a 21-year-old Missouri woman who went missing last week was the subject of a 2007 protection order by his teenage girlfriend who hasn’t been seen since shortly after she accused him of kidnapping and abuse, according to court records. Kopetsky is still missing. It alleged that Yust kidnapped and restrained her, choked her and threatened to cut her throat during their nine-month relationship. He has not been charged in Kopetsky’s disappearance.
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FILE – In this June 8, 2007 file photo, Jim and Rhonda Beckford talk about their their daughter, Kara Kopetsky, who was 17 when she disappeared in May 2007 in their hometown of Belton, Mo.
Kylr Yust has a criminal history and an ex-girlfriend who was never found.
“I wish this wasn’t happening, and I know the families are hurt”, he added. Runions’ vehicle was discovered Saturday in south Kansas City, burned and abandoned.
On Thursday, Jessica Runions, 21, disappeared after attending a house party.
In the 2011 incident, Yust’s then-girlfriend told police he was “extremely intoxicated” and arguing with her about her plans to end their relationship. CBS News reports Yust spent nearly four years in prison after pleading guilty to a felony drug-trafficking count in 2013.
The Missouri Search and Rescue team were called to the scene to search the area for the missing woman, but it was called off after several hours due to “darkness”.
Yust is the same man who was the boyfriend of Kara Kopetsky.
Belton police Capt. Don Spears, an investigator in Kopetsky’s disappearance, told the AP on Monday that his department has been working with Kansas City police since Yust was arrested.
Beckford cast her daughter’s relationship with Yust as “volatile”, remembering him as manipulative and abusive.
Runions was last seen Thursday, leaving a party. Spears said Yust was “a person of interest” in the Kopetsky case, but he declined to elaborate.
Weeks before she vanished, Kopetsky wrote on Myspace: “So life hasn’t been the greatest for me lately, over the last 9 months of my life iv dedicated my life to kylr.I made no other time for any of my friends nor my family. over those 9 months i forgot the person that I was.im trying to find that person again”.
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Yurst hasn’t been charged in either disappearance. It’s unclear whether he has an attorney.
