KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Linn County, Kansas, man faces charges of abandonment of a corpse in connection with the death of a missing 13-year-old boy.
On Sunday night, the Linn County Sheriff’s Office asked for the public’s help in locating a missing 13-year-old boy last seen around 8 a.m. Sunday in the Holiday Lakes community.
Linn County Sheriff James Akes said in a news release Tuesday that search crews from several jurisdictions searched a large wooded area Sunday night into the early hours of Monday morning before suspending their search.
Crews resumed the search Monday morning before authorities received information from an outside agency that “led to the search transitioning into a recovery investigation.”
Sometime on Monday, the Bates County, Missouri, Sheriff’s Office received a call from a man, later identified as Damon Leonard, 47, of Pleasanton, Kansas, who told them he knew where the missing boy was located and that the child was deceased.
Deputies responded to Leonard’s location and, during an interview, learned that Leonard had transported the deceased child from Linn County across state lines into Bates County.
Leonard drove deputies to the location where he had placed the deceased child. Deputies later located the boy’s body in rural Bates County, down a large ravine in a creek bed.
Court documents reveal Leonard “admitted that he transported the deceased child from Kansas to Missouri and left the body in the bottom of the creek before traveling back to Kansas, where he resides.”
On Tuesday morning, the Bates County Prosecutor’s Office charged Leonard with one count of felony abandonment of a corpse.
Leonard remains in custody on a $100,000, cash-only bond. He was set for an initial court appearance Tuesday morning in Bates County Circuit Court.
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation is providing assistance in the case. A KBI spokesperson said the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department is the lead agency for the investigation.
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