KANSAS CITY, Kan. — The Kansas City, Kansas, community is heartbroken and angry, wondering how something so awful could have happened to 3-year-old Olivia Jansen.
Strangers are shedding tears for the toddler. A heartbreaking memorial at the foot of a trail in the woods near South 34th Street and Steele Road, where Olivia's body was found on Friday, grows every day, with people stopping by to leave flowers, candles, notes, balloons and teddy bears for the child.
"Heartbroken, devastated," Kayla Ferris said.
Olivia's death hits home for Ferris. She was once married to the man accused of killing Olivia — the girl's father, Howard Jansen III. Jansen and Ferris also have a child together, who is Olivia's half-sister.
"It's my daughter's sister. She's the first baby that made her a big sister, Lily said that," Ferris said. "And it's heartbreaking and devastating and she said her sister didn't deserve this. And she's right, she didn't deserve any of this."
Jansen and Olivia's stepmother, Jacqulyn Kirkpatrick, both face charges of first-degree murder, child endangerment and criminal desecration in connection with Olivia's death.
Ferris said she was terrified the second she heard Olivia was missing on Friday morning.
"I was very worried because the house he said she was missing from, I knew no one lived for months," Ferris said. "And it was just very odd and fishy to me that she would just walk right out the door of a house that you were no longer living in."
Jansen reported Olivia missing from a house near South 45th Street and Gibbs Road. Neighbors also told 41 Action News utilities at the home had been turned off and had been empty for months.
Police also searched a second nearby residence at South 48th and Ottawa streets, where neighbors said Olivia stayed with Jansen and Kirkpatrick.
Ferris said her daughter hadn't seen Olivia in nearly a year because she wasn't seeing her father anymore. Ferris said other family members hadn't seen Olivia since March.
Ferris said Jansen is an angry man and wasn't a present father but that to her knowledge, he has never been violent toward their daughter. She said she never thought anything like this would happen.
"It's sad that the people that did try to stand up for Olivia and try to help Olivia. She did not get the help she needed," Ferris said.
Olivia's grandparents told 41 Action News they were worried about her safety and called the police and the Kansas Department for Children and Families to do a welfare check.
Now, Ferris is trying to help her daughter process this.
"To try to explain to your 9-year-old that she'll never see her baby sister ever again," Ferris said. "She doesn't understand the concept of death."
