Yust Convicted in Deaths of Two Women

A Kansas City man has been convicted of killing two women nearly a decade apart.

A Cass County jury on Thursday found Kylr Yust guilty of voluntary manslaughter in the death of 17-year-old Kara Kopetsky and second-degree murder in the death of 21-year-old Jessica Runions.

Yust left a party with Runions before she disappeared in September 2016.

Kopetsky had filed a protection order against Yust in April 2007, a month before she was last seen leaving Belton High School.

The women’s remains were found near each other in a wooded area in 2017.

Yust’s attorneys argued during the trial that investigators did not consider other suspects, and that no physical evidence linked Yust to the deaths.