When we lose a partner, a parent, a child, or even a friend, the pain can be unbearable. However, we all have our own way of dealing with the pain and the grief, which is why there’s no right or wrong way to grieve.
When police officers heard that a new father was left a single parent to two little girls after his wife passed away, they initially felt bad for him and sympathized with his situation. However, when they heard what he did right after his wife died, they arrested him on the spot.
A Concerning Tip
On October 24, 2017, police in Lenexa, Kansas received a call from someone who believed that people were living inside a storage unit at a local storage container property. Officers from the Lenexa Police Department were dispatched to the scene shortly after. What they found, however, left them speechless.
Arriving at the Scene
After arriving at the storage unit in the 9200 block of Marshall Drive in Lenexa, the officers discovered the family that the caller was talking about. They immediately began questioning the man, Justin Todd Rey, to try and figure out what was going on. Yet they knew something was off without having to ask any questions.
A Red Flag
While speaking to Rey, who was holding a newborn baby girl and had a 2-year-old girl with him, the officers couldn’t help but notice that the older child looked unwell. According to the officers, the 2-year-old was extremely pale and had dark bags under her eyes. She also had thinning hair.
Signs of Neglect
According to one of the responding officers, the child appeared to be so unwell that it looked as though she had cancer. The newborn also appeared to have a serious eye infection. Officers suspected that the 35-year-old father wasn’t properly caring for his children.
Heading to Arizona
The police officers also wondered where the children’s mother was. According to Rey, his wife, Jessica Rey, was in Arizona and he planned to meet up with her there. But as the conversation continued, Rey started changing the story.
The Story Changes
While questioning Rey, the 35-year-old told the officers that his wife had died. According to the officers, Rey claimed that Jessica had actually passed away while giving birth to their newborn daughter just days before. Then Rey changed his story again …
Another Discrepancy
After claiming Jessica died during childbirth, Rey later told the police that she committed suicide shortly after giving birth. The officers thought the discrepancy was strange, but they didn’t press him about it. Moments later, however, Rey volunteered some information that gave the officers no choice but to arrest him on the spot.
The Cooler
According to Jackson County Circuit Court records, Rey “spontaneously informed the officers his wife was inside the cooler and looked to the direction of a red and white Igloo-style cooler with wheels.” Before police stopped him, Rey explained that he had been getting ready to catch a train to Arizona.
Plans for a Burial
Once he and the girls made it to Arizona, he planned to give Jessica a proper ceremony and burial. At that point, the officers couldn’t tell if the man was insane or if he was telling the truth about having his dead wife’s body in the cooler. They had no choice but to look and find out.
The Body
Like Rey had told them, the officers discovered a dismembered body inside the cooler. However, they couldn’t be sure if the body belonged to his wife, Jessica, because of the state the body was in. In fact, the officers couldn’t tell the age, gender, or race of the remains.
The Fingerprints
The dismembered body was immediately sent to the Jackson County Medical Examiner. They hoped they would be able to have better luck identifying the body. Eventually, the medical examiner was able to confirm the body belonged to Jessica Rey with fingerprints taken from the body.
An Investigation Begins
Meanwhile, Rey was arrested and the two little girls were taken into protective custody. The police opened up a missing persons/suspicious death investigation. They charged Rey with two counts of aggravated child endangerment and two counts of contributing to a child’s misconduct. He was placed on a $1 million bond.
Retracing the Family’s Steps
Investigators at the Lenexa Police Department contacted the Kansas City police to help them retrace Rey’s steps the days leading up to Jessica’s death. While it’s still unclear when the family arrived in Kansas, police discovered they checked into a hotel along Interstate 70 on September 25.
Checking Out
When they checked in, Jessica was still pregnant. According to the police, Jessica was last seen alive at the hotel on October 20. During the investigation, hotel management explained that Rey called the front desk and pretended to be Jessica while checking out of the room over the phone.
The Security Footage
Surveillance video taken at the hotel shows the family leaving the room on October 23, however, Jessica is nowhere to be seen. In the footage, Rey can be seen walking through the hotel pushing a stroller and pulling a red cooler on wheels as his 2-year-old walked beside him. That red cooler was the same one police found Jessica’s body inside the next day.
Rey’s Reasoning
While in custody, Rey explained that Jessica committed suicide. He feared that if he called the police or got medical help, they would take the children away from him. So instead, he took a photo of his children posing with Jessica’s body. Then he started cutting her into pieces.
An Eight-Hour Process
According to Rey, it took him eight long hours to finish cutting up the body. According to the authorities, Rey claimed to have flushed some body parts that wouldn’t fit in the containers down the drain. During a preliminary hearing, however, Rey testified in order to set some things straight.
Setting the Record Straight
During the preliminary hearing, Rey explained that he believed what he did was the only way to keep his family together. “It’s something I had to do,” Rey said in Johnson County District Court. “My family is very dear to me. It’s something I had to do to protect my family.”
The Testimony
“I didn’t endanger my children. My children were perfectly healthy,” Rey said in his testimony. “It was not fun for me.” While the court previously heard that Rey and the children had been living in the storage unit, he claimed in his testimony that they had only been at the unit for 11 hours and that he was about to leave for Arizona when the cops arrived.
Facing Justice
Rey has since been charged with abandonment of a corpse. He will face that and his previous charges in a trial, which has been scheduled for November 5. “My sister deserves justice,” Rhonda Monteiro, Jessica’s sister, told The Kansas City Star. “He could have taken her to a hospital, but he didn’t. Instead, he chopped her up and put her in a cooler. She was a good person. She was influenced by this guy in a bad way. She felt sorry for him, and she was loyal. She was good with the kids.”
Man Claims Disturbing Response to Wife’s Death Was to Protect Their Kids is an article from: LifeDaily