Kansas City police: IDs on 3 bodies could take awhile

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Three bodies found over the weekend in a Kansas City industrial area were so badly decomposed that it might take awhile to identify the victims.

Police say the bodies, which autopsies revealed to be those of a woman and two men, could have been lying where they were dumped in the eastern part of the city for as long as a month. The deaths are being investigated as homicides, although it is unclear how the victims died.

Sgt. Tony Sanders said it doesn't appear that the slayings took place in the wooded area near the Blue River where the bodies were found Saturday.

"They were killed somewhere else, the detectives believe, and dumped at that site," Sanders told The Associated Press on Monday. "All three were dumped at the same time. That's the way it appeared to the detectives."

Sanders said the bodies were "in advanced stages of decomposition."

"We don't know when the positive identifications will be made, based on the bodies being so decomposed," he said.

A city water services worker helping volunteers with an annual cleanup of the Blue River found the first body about 9:30 a.m. Saturday. Sanders said the body was under trash, brush and leaves next to a secured gate that the city installed to try and keep people from illegally dumping garbage.

The worker was using a backhoe to remove trash when he uncovered the body. He called 911, and detectives sent to the scene soon recovered the second body under ground cover. The third body was found about three hours later.

Sanders said the bodies were found in the same general area. Whoever dumped the bodies was not able to get past the gate and appears to have rolled the bodies down a hill that leads to the gate, Sanders said.

The area is near industrial and office buildings and a union hall. But it is littered with trash and overgrown with trees and brush, so anyone dumping waste at the site could have easily overlooked the bodies, Sanders said.

During the annual cleanup in 2006, a body was found in a different area.

Sanders said detectives, of course, have handled scenes involving multiple victims before. "But it doesn't take away the shock factor that someone would throw away someone's brother or sister like this," he said.

As part of their investigation, detectives are looking at the city's missing person cases.