Months after KCPD unknowingly towed SUV holding missing man’s body, case is unsolved

Three months after Kansas City police unknowingly towed away a vehicle containing the body of Adam “AJ” Blackstock Jr., his killing remains unsolved and his family pleaded Monday for help.

Flanked by community and faith leaders gathered on a basketball court in the Oak Park neighborhood, a few blocks from where police were led to her 24-year-old son’s body in January, Adrinne Blackstock vowed she would not rest until her family finds justice.

She implored the mothers and grandmothers of those responsible for ending his life to stop shielding them from accountability.

“You know who these individuals are. They’re in your family. They are the ones that you’re hiding, and you’re not speaking up about,” she said during Monday evening’s prayer vigil.

“It must stop. It must stop. God is looking, and he is seeing and it is time for us in the African-American community to stop hiding criminals and murderers.”

A prayer was also said for Sgt. Mark Slater and detective Nicole Anderson of the Kansas City Police Department, who are assigned to the case and attended Monday’s vigil.

Speaking to The Star, Slater said the late discovery of Blackstock’s body in the vehicle after it had been towed from the initial scene to a police station had not created a challenge for the homicide unit. Slater said the investigation has progressed as well as it could have otherwise.

However, at least one forensics expert consulted by The Star has said it was a mistake for police not to search the vehicle before removing it from a possible crime scene.

Body not found at scene

Blackstock, of Grandview, was living with his parents when he suddenly stopped communicating with family over Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend while they were out of town.

After returning home, his parents noticed his vehicle was not there.

On Jan. 17, as he remained missing, his father Adam Blackstock Sr. drove to a home in the 4300 block of Montgall Avenue where a GPS locator showed his son’s vehicle’s last location.

Parked in the driveway of a stranger’s house was a car covered by a gray tarp that Adam Blackstock Sr. was certain belonged to his son. Kansas City police officers were dispatched to handle what was initially described as a property dispute.

Police officers were told by a woman who answered the door at the home that the car belonged to her uncle. As Adam Blackstock Sr. demonstrated that the vehicle’s engine could be started remotely from his electronic device, police reached a man by phone who continued to claim the vehicle was his, according to court documents.

Permission was ultimately obtained from a person at the house to remove the vehicle from the property as Grandview police were starting a missing person investigation for Adam Blackstock Jr.

When the tarp was removed, officers reported seeing apparent blood and bullet damage in the front seat area of the SUV.

Police towed the car from the house and took it to the department’s East Patrol station.

Hours later, police searched the car and found the body. They returned to the house to continue the investigation that night.

When police arrived at the house with a search warrant, the woman who gave them permission to tow the vehicle could not be contacted by police.

Police collected as evidence the gray tarp that was left behind earlier that day. A bottle of cleaning product had been noticed on the ground earlier by the responding officers but it was not included on the search warrant’s property inventory list.

Police have defended the decision not to search the car at the house before towing it away, saying they made the best choice in the moment based on the totality of circumstances that were in the best interests of the case. A police spokesman also cited concerns about property rights protected by the Fourth Amendment.

Kansas City Police Department procedures say officers towing vehicles should check the contents inside before moving them.

But a procedure document dated Oct. 25, 2017, and published on the department’s website with other policies, says officers towing vehicles and taking them into protective custody should — when permitted by policy — create a “detailed inventory and listing of items located inside of a vehicle being towed, which may include its trunk and engine compartments.”

Brent Turvey, a forensic scientist and criminologist with the Forensic Criminology Institute in Sitka, Alaska, said searching the vehicle before taking it away is a basic step that would have allowed police to find Blackstock’s body at that scene.

“The idea of taking a vehicle into custody without searching inside a vehicle or opening the trunk is just negligent,” Turvey said. “It is an unthinkable level of negligence.”

“Whether they would find anything in it or not. You’re supposed to check because you don’t know what’s inside.”

Asking the public for help

Blackstock’s family pleaded with Kansas Citians to step forward and help police solve his killing.

Adam Blackstock Sr. and Adrinne Blackstock, pastors of the Glory Bible Fellowship International Church, based in Lee’s Summit, have spent the past several weeks seeking to shed light on the case in hopes of helping police arrest his killer.

In their pleas to the community, the Blackstocks have shared their memories of the funny, talented, bright father whose 20-month-old son also bears his name. As they again called for the community to help bring them resolution on Monday, they also pointed to the state’s lax gun laws and the broader problems of gun violence concentrated in some disadvantaged Black and brown communities of Kansas City.

Older sister Danielle Blackstock fought back tears as she begged for anyone to come forward, saying witnesses can provide information to police anonymously.

“We all know how it is to be, I guess a snitch, in the community,” she said. “But this was somebody’s father, somebody’s brother, somebody’s son. And he is missed dearly. And we all have to continue at life as-is, knowing that somebody is out there who has not paid for this crime.”

As of Monday, Slater said detectives wanted to speak with friends of Adam Blackstock Jr. who might have additional insights about his life and his activities leading up to when he died.

Kansas City police were asking anyone with information to call homicide detectives at 816-234-5043 or the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS.