Missing High School Senior Found Dead After Classmates Organize Search
“It didn’t make sense, and someone needed to figure out where he was,” a teacher at 18-year-old Amara Jones’ school says.
Screenshot via FOX 4
18-year-old Amara Jones
Klowie Krebs, a Raytown High School classmate of 18-year-old Jones, told WDAF-TV posts were going around “but nobody would actually go out and look for him” — until she joined some of the teenager’s concerned friends, classmates and teachers in organizing a search effort.
“He was missing and we don’t know when exactly he went missing," teacher Emily Ullrich explained. “Things aren’t right and it started to make people really worried and it didn’t make sense, and someone needed to figure out where he was. Kids need to see that someone actually cared enough to say this is not going to be another statistic.”
On Dec. 22, Krebs and two other teenage girls combing a wooded area not far from Jones’ home found his body. “We saw his beanie and his Vans, and he loved his Vans, so we just knew it was him,” one of the girls told WDAF-TV.
Rachel Gervy, a parent who helped with the search, told KSHB she could tell Jones “had been there for a while.”
“He looked placed. He looked like he was just sleeping, like it was unreal, but I knew as soon as I got closer to him… he was mummifying,” Gervy said.
Friends recalled Jones was a talented artist and a fun person. “[He was the] real life of the party, had his own style, everything,” Xavier McGill told KSHB, noting Jones was “always uplifting” for those around him. “Everyone loved him in Raytown.”
Jones' cause of death was unknown. Kansas City police said they did not suspect foul play, however, they had not ruled it out, according to WDAF-TV.
