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Body Of Missing Kansas Man Sits Unnoticed In Airport Parking Lot For Eight Months, Family Wants Answers

By Aaron Homer
Published on: 05:25 PST, Sep 18, 2017

The family of a Kansas man is demanding answers after his decomposing body was found in an airport parking lot, where it had apparently sat, unnoticed, for eight months.

As the Kansas City Star reports, Randy Potter, of Lenexa, Kansas, went missing in January of this year. While authorities and his family frantically searched for any information about his whereabouts, his decomposing body sat in his truck, in plain sight of anyone who would have chanced to look his way, in a parking lot at Kansas City International Airport.

Potter, who at the time was 53 and a manager at T-Mobile, was last seen alive on the morning of January 17. His disappearance was reported to Lenexa and Kansas City police, who were initially helpful, circulating fliers about the man’s disappearance and asking the public’s help in finding him.

Soon, however, the family found that they were getting nowhere. They hired a private investigator, and Potter’s niece, Melissa Alderman, flew in from Florida home to help with the search. It was Alderman who hit upon the idea that some sign of Potter might be found at the airport, believing that if he left town, his vehicle would be in an airport parking lot.

Alderman told her theory to airport authorities, who assured her that, if Potter’s vehicle were in an airport lot, their security cameras would have caught it on camera. An official told Alderman that staffers routinely check license plates of vehicles parked in airport spaces, even if a vehicle lacks a front license plate and was backed into the space, as Potter’s vehicle was.

Regardless, authorities and other passengers failed to notice the decomposing, dead body that was literally right in front of their noses.

“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.”

Remarkably, even though Kansas City summers can be brutally hot, it wasn’t until September that the smell of Potter’s decomposing body became strong enough to be noticed. It was only this weekend that someone noticed the smell and reported it to police, who finally found the body.

So decomposed was Potter’s body that, at first, authorities couldn’t identify it. However, DNA evidence later confirmed that the body belonged to Potter. His death has been ruled a suicide.

Potter’s family, meanwhile, is demanding to know how a dead and decomposing body can sit in an airport parking lot for the better part of a year without anyone taking notice. Private investigator Lester Underhill tells KCTV (Kansas City) that the family didn’t scour the airport parking lot themselves because they believed airport officials were on it.

“These family members feel that they’re responsible because they didn’t check it because they felt the responsibility was on the police department and the officials there at the airport. It didn’t happen and it’s ridiculous.”

Meanwhile, Kansas City police, in a statement, apologized to the family and promised to get to the bottom of it.

“The City of Kansas City and its Aviation Department express our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Randy Potter. We wish them peace during this difficult time. We are working with all parties to determine the facts involved, including SP Plus, which manages the 25,000 parking spaces at Kansas City International Airport.”

[Featured Image by antpkr/Thinkstock]

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