Despite a restraining order forbidding it, Kylr Yust, the 23-year-old ex-boyfriend of Kara Kopetsky, was arrested Thursday in the company of a woman he attacked in July.
North Kansas City Police discovered his warrant during a traffic stop for speeding near the Bond Bridge on I-35.
Prior to when she vanished in 2007, Kopetsky had filed her own restraining order against Yust alleging he choked her and threatened to kill her. Police have said Yust passed a lie detector test and has an alibi in the Kopetsky case.
The Jackson County Sheriff's Office manually entered Yust's warrant into the system Tuesday when he ignored a judge’s order to appear in court on a felony charge he stole equipment from a Kansas City tattoo parlor.
The 18-year-old woman with Yust during his arrest had filed a restraining order against him in August after he attacked her in the Kansas City apartment they shared.
Tuesday, the woman had asked a judge to dismiss the restraining order, saying “I don’t need it anymore,” but pending a hearing the order remains active.
A separate judge had also ordered Yust to stay away from the woman
In a September hearing when Yust pleaded guilty to the assault, a Judge placed him on supervised probation ordering him to stay away from the woman who was pregnant during the attack.
"As far as you're concerned, she doesn't exist anymore," Kansas City Municipal Court Judge Leonard Hughes III said in September. "Leave her alone."
The judge told Yust the probation deal was a "gift from the justice system."
"Next time you come down here, you're getting a broken arm," Hughes told Yust. "You're going to jail, son."
Despite the harsh warning, a few days later Yust appeared in Hughes’ court again on charges he killed the victim’s three kittens and was released him on a $1,000 bond.
A spokesman with the North Kansas City Police Department, where Yust was arrested during a traffic stop this week, said Yust wasn’t charged with violating the restraining order.
Police said there was no documentation Yust was ever properly served with restraining order papers.
Police reports indicate during the July attack on the woman, he choked the 6-month pregnant woman, and killed her three kittens.
He has a January hearing related to the animal abuse case.
In a police report obtained by the NBC Action News Investigators, the victim claimed Yust told her that he’d killed others.
Click here to see the report:http://media2.nbcactionnews.com/NWT/20110906_kylryustincident.pdf
“I’ve killed people before, even ex-girlfriends out of sheer jealousy,” the victim told police Yust said. “I will kill you.”
"If you scream again, I will kill you, faster than you can let another scream out of your throat," the police report quoted the victim.
"Yust was holding the kitten in his hands," the victim told police. "He began to slam the kitten on the floor repeatedly."
A spokesman with the North Kansas City Police Department said Yust bonded out a few hours after his arrest Thursday.
Police said the woman was with Yust willingly when they arrested him Thursday.
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