K.C. Man Charged With Murder After Daughter Tells School Counselor She Found Mom's Body in Basement

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


7-Year-Old Who Found Her Mother Stabbed to Death 'Didn't Want to Be Next,' Police Say
By Heather Hollingsworth / AP 10:45 AM EST

(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) — A Kansas City man has been charged with fatally stabbing his wife after the couple’s 7-year-old daughter told a school counselor that she had found a body and authorities that she “didn’t want to be next,” according to investigators.

Benjamin Byers, 45, was charged Thursday with second-degree murder, armed criminal action, abandonment of a corpse and child endangerment in the death of Melissa Byers. Bond is set at $500,000. No attorney is listed for him in online court records.

A police detective wrote in the probable cause statement that the girl talked to a counselor Wednesday, one day after finding “lots of blood” and glimpsing a body in the basement with a “stab on the back.” She told a forensic interviewer that the face was covered but that the sweater on the body was her mother’s. The girl hadn’t seen her mother since school pickup on Monday.

The girl said she was leaving the basement when she received a call from her mother’s boyfriend, who said he was coming over. She said her father started acting “suspicious,” closing all the blinds and locking the door, according to the probable cause statement, which doesn’t say whether the girl’s father and mother were estranged or whether her mother still lived in the home.



Read more: http://time.com/5044898/benjamin-byers-murder-wife/

---

Kansas City Police

[janterry]

1. He looks awfully contrite

now that he's caught