How did Randy Potter, a missing Kansas man end up sitting dead 8 months unnoticed at KCI airport? A family demands answers.
The family of 53 year old Kansas man, Randy Potter have besieged authorities after the revelation the missing man sat up to eight months dead at a busy airport airport.
Notice of the man’s death came after the former T-mobile project engineer’s body was found decomposing from his parked white Dodge 2014 ram pick up truck at Kansas City International Airport.
The missing man’s discovery came after passerbys complained of a ‘foul odor’ coming from Potter’s pick up truck.
The Kansas City Star reported so badly decomposed was the body, found in the driver’s seat, that investigators couldn’t initially determine the gender or race of the individual in the vehicle.
An autopsy later identified the individual as Potter, with the family man’s death ruled a suicide. It wasn’t immediately clear what might have led to Potter killing himself.
Potter was reported missing on Jan. 17 with the Lenexa Police Department. The family also contacted the airport’s police department saying her husband’s car had been stolen. A parking fee revealed more than $1000 levied.
Investigators say Potter’s truck was parked on the street level in front of the airport’s Terminal B, where travelers can park for both short- and long-term parking. How authorities didn’t notice the existence of the deceased man in plain sight wasn’t clear.
Demanded Potter’s wife, Carolina Potter, ‘How is it possible, in America?’
Adding, ‘A truck sitting there for eight months? He could have been found a lot sooner if everybody had done their job.’
Of note, temperatures this recent summer in the vicinity had reached over 100 fahrenheit.
Randy Potter missing: Where was authorities’ attention?
Told Potter lawyer, John Picerno, ‘It’s amazing that he wasn’t found in June or July,’
Adding, ‘Our goal is to find out what happened and why. What was done, what wasn’t done. And to try to make sure that this doesn’t happen again to somebody.’
Potter’s daughter, Nichole, told WDAF she found it ‘disgusting’ that her father’s body sat inside his truck at the airport for that long.
According to KCTV, Carolina said she was told by airport police that if her husband’s work vehicle was somewhere in the parking lot, it would be found.
Despite two police departments, and the family hiring a private detective, it took investigators eight months to locate the vehicle and find Potter’s body.
A spokesman for Kansas City said that officials are now working with S-P Plus, which manages the airport’s 25,000 parking spaces, to find out what exactly what happened.
‘The city of Kansas City and its Aviation Department express our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Randy Potter,’ spokesman Chris Hernandez said in a statement. ‘We wish them peace during this difficult time.’
Told Lenexa Police spokesman, Danny Chavez via people, ‘there was not at the time of the report any indication that he was endangered or suicidal,’
Adding, ‘He just had not shown up to work and family had not heard from him. There were no suspicious circumstances or foul place suspected.’
Reiterated Chavez, ‘One of the things we wanted to ascertain was, had he boarded any planes?’
Adding, ‘We were advised that he had not, so we wouldn’t have had any reason to conduct a search at the airport, but we were in contact with the airport authorities.’
Raymond Potter death: A disregard for human life say family.
Potter’s relatives say the delay in finding Raymond Potter’s body is unacceptable, calling it a ‘total disregard for human life.’
Potter’s niece, Melissa Alderman, told the Kansas City Star that she flew from Florida to assist with the search in the days after Potter disappeared. She eventually got the idea to check parking lots at Kansas City International Airport.
Alderman even gave Potter’s license plate number to authorities there in hopes of locating his truck, which would be found if it was indeed parked there, she recalled an airport police official saying. How the relative’s requests came to be overlooked wasn’t clear.
‘Losing a loved one is hard,’ Alderman said. ‘Losing a loved one to suicide is 10 times harder. Knowing that they sat there and baked for eight months — I can’t breathe … How many thousands of people drove by the vehicle? How many people walked by? It’s disgusting. And it’s infuriating. It’s a total disregard for human life.’
Welcome to a brave new America….
