Judge denies convicted killer Kylr Yust's motion to set aside conviction, sentence

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Cass County Presiding Judge Michael Wagner denied convicted killer Kylr Yust's motion to vacate his sentence and conviction.

Yust filed the amended motion in 2024, three years after he was sentenced to 15 years for voluntary manslaughter and life in prison for second-degree murder in the deaths of Kara Kopetsky and Jessica Runions.

FULL COVERAGE | Yust trial

An evidentiary hearing was held in September for Yust to argue the motion.

He listed several reasons why he believed his attorney during the trial, Sharon Turlington, was ineffective, and why the conviction should be thrown out.

Yust said Turlington should have filed a motion to sever the charges, so both cases wouldn't be tried together. He also said Turlington should have objected to the prosecution "presenting the two charges as proof of one another."

Judge Wagner denied all of the claims.

In his judgment on Friday, Judge Wagner said the state's arguments didn't suggest that one crime was proof of another but "even if it had, it would have been permissible for the state to suggest that K.K. and J.R. were found together in a location near a place with ties to Movant, both had been in a relationship with Movant, and those relationships had issues at the time of each victim's disappearance. Both were seen with him on the last day they were seen alive," per court documents.

The judge, however, did grant a request to correct Yust's sentence on the written record.

The jury in 2021 decided Yust should serve life in prison for the second-degree murder charge, but in the written judgment, the length was incorrectly listed as "99 years."

Judge Wagner agreed the record should be amended to reflect the correct length of time as "life imprisonment."

In Missouri, a life sentence is capped at 30 years with eligibility for parole after 85% of the sentenced has been served. In total, Yust is serving a 45-year prison sentence.

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