The family of a Missouri teen missing for a decade finally received closure in a most unexpected way

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Kara Kopetsky walked out of her high school 10 years ago never to be seen again. The mystery of her disappearance has finally come to a close as remains found in Missouri during the spring have been identified as being those of the teen.

A mushroom hunter stumbled upon the girl’s skull, one of two sets of human bones found in April in a wooded area near Belton, Mo. The second set of bones were that of 21-year-old Jessica Runions.

“I’ve probably been within a football field [of her body],” private investigator Marlene Rockwell told 41 Action News. “The sheer luck of hunting mushrooms. That’s what it takes sometimes.”

Kopetsky was 17 when she disappeared and she had been missing since May 4, 2007 when she left Belton High School. Her remains were identified through DNA testing.

Runions disappeared in September 2016, the same year she was seen with a man named Kylr Yust, 27. Both girls’ disappearances were linked to Yust.

“We always felt when they found one, they would find both,” Kopetsky’s mother Rhonda Beckford said. “So of course we felt from the very beginning that the other set of remains were Kara.”

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She continued: “We’ve gotten Kara identified and now we can have a funeral and put her to rest, the way it always should have been, and move toward prosecution … Kara was 17 when we lost her and she was robbed of her life and she deserves justice. It’s up to us now to make sure she gets that justice.”

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Kopetsky had filed a protection order against Yust in April 2007, according to court records. Yust has not been charged in either disappearance. He was charged with burning Runion’s car, which was found in the days after she vanished.

“Kara is finally home,” stepfather Jim Beckford told the Kansas City Star. “Even though she isn’t here physically, she will be loved forever.”

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