KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City, Kansas, police identified the body pulled from the Kansas River last weekend as a 19-year-old Independence man.
KCKPD detectives investigating the body, which was discovered around noon Saturday by a kayaker, identified the deceased as Johnathan Devol.
Police said Devol was last seen Oct. 16 below the 12th Street Bridge near the Kansas River.
“Initial autopsy results indicate the death was accidental,” KCKPD said in a statement.
KCKPD had previously considered Devol as a missing person, according to an Oct. 19 Facebook post.
That missing person alert said “there was concern that he may have entered the Kansas River in an attempt to cross over to Metropolitan Avenue.”
The 12th Street bridge, which spans the Kansas River, is located between U.S. 69 and U.S. 169 and links KCK’s Armourdale and Shawnee Heights neighborhoods.
Devol’s body was found more than 2 miles downstream past the Kansas Avenue bridge along the eastern banks of the Kansas River just south of Interstate 670.
The incident remains under investigation, according to KCKPD. Anyone with information is asked to contact the department’s Major Case Unit or call the Greater Kansas City Crime Stoppers Tips Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477).
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