Bullets, other items seized in Missouri missing-women probe

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Investigators looking into the Missouri disappearances of a woman and a teenager nine years apart have taken bullets and other items from the home of a man considered a person of interest in at least one of the cases, court records show.

Kylr Yust was returned to Kansas City on Wednesday to face a charge that he knowingly burned 21-year-old Jessica Runions’ vehicle. The woman from the Kansas City suburb of Raymore was last seen leaving a party Thursday night.

Yust, who turned 28 on Wednesday, had been jailed in Benton County, southeast of Kansas City, since his arrest Sunday.

Investigators haven’t said whether Yust, who is on parole in a drug case, knows Runions.

Search warrant documents that The Associated Press obtained Wednesday from Benton County court officials show police seeking evidence related to Runions’ vehicle and a “missing persons investigation” seized two 9 mm bullets from a home occupied by Yust, as well as clothing, hair, fingernail scrapings and swab samples from him.

Court and jail records that are available don’t list whether Yust has an attorney, and it was not immediately clear Wednesday when Yust will make his first court appearance.

Police say Yust is a person of interest in the 2007 disappearance of his ex-girlfriend, Kara Kopetsky, who was 17 when she vanished just days after filing for a protection order against Yust. She was last seen at her high school in Belton, south of Kansas City.

Yust, who also spent time in jail for assaulting a pregnant then-girlfriend in 2011, has not been charged in connection with the disappearances of Runions and Kopetsky.