CASS COUNTY, Mo. — With the scheduled murder trial of Kylr Yust four months away, the amount of evidentiary material in the case continues to mount.
Cass County prosecutors charged Yust in 2017 with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of abandonment of a corpse in the deaths of Kara Kopetsky in 2007 and Jessica Runions in 2016. Their remains were found in rural Cass County in 2017.
Yust has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
During a virtual hearing Monday, Yust’s public defender Sharon Turlington sought answers as to why discovery material she expected to receive on Friday never arrived by mail.
Assistant prosecuting attorney Julie Tolle said it was mailed and blamed the slow postal service.
As for where things stand, Turlington told Judge William B. Collins, “I guess we’re not a lot different than we were two weeks ago.”
“Unfortunately, it's sort of like we get some new discovery and I look at it and it opens up a whole new can of worms, which is I think what we're all trying to avoid and clear up here,” she added. “Every scrap of paper needs to be turned over.”
Both sides in the case have filed numerous motions seeking potential evidence for trial, including witnesses’ phone records, access to the two skeletal remains for forensic examination, and documentation pertaining to a tracking device that law enforcement sought to put on Yust’s car in 2007.
Yust was scheduled to go on trial in November 2019, but it has been delayed multiple times, including for reasons related to the coronavirus pandemic.
The jury trial is now scheduled to begin April 5, 2021.
On Monday, Collins said along with seating the required jury, he would like four alternate jurors due to the trial’s potential length.
The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Nov. 30.
