Man tells court wife died after childbirth before he chopped up her body
A man testified Tuesday that he spent about eight hours cutting up his wife’s body following her death, after she gave birth at a hotel, because he was afraid authorities would take away his children.
Justin Rey, 36, said protecting his family was the reason he didn’t call for medical help after his wife delivered a baby at a hotel in the US state of Missouri in October and then killed herself, The Kansas City Star reported.
Investigators later found Rey with his newborn and two-year-old daughter, along with bags of body parts, at a storage shed in the town of Lenexa, Kansas.
Rey is not charged in his wife’s death, but faces child endangerment charges and is charged with abandonment of a corpse.
‘We both ate some’: Couple horrified after disgusting find in popcorn
Paramedics’ kind gesture for elderly patient heading to palliative care
Uber rating crackdown: Why you could soon be banned from the app
After Tuesday’s hearing, a not guilty plea was entered for Rey to Johnson County, Kansas, charges of two counts of aggravated child endangerment and two counts of contributing to a child’s misconduct.
“It’s something I had to do. My family is very dear to me. It’s something I had to do to protect my family,” Rey testified.
One officer who met Rey at the storage unit said the two-year-old appeared unhealthy and “almost looked like she had cancer.”
The baby had a serious eye infection, according to several witnesses. The children were put in protective custody.
Rey has said in the past that his wife died in childbirth, but Lenexa police detective Shannon Murphy testified that Rey told her his wife had killed herself.
After having his children pose for photographs with her body, Rey said he “skinned her like a fish,” Murphy testified.
Murphy said Rey flushed body parts that would not fit in containers down the toilet.
Deputy Johnson County Coroner Charles Glenn testified that “a number” of stab were wounds found on some parts of Jessica Rey’s body but that it wasn’t possible to tell whether the injuries were inflicted before or after she died.
Rey told the court that he and the children had not been living at the storage locker, as witnesses said, but had been there for only about 11 hours while preparing to travel to Arizona, where he said he intended to give his wife a proper burial. He also said his children were well cared for.
“I didn’t endanger my children,” he testified. “My children were perfectly healthy.”
Rey also denied flushing anything but a placenta down the toilet.
His trial on the Kansas charges was scheduled for November 5.
