From left: Felix Watson (Saline County Jail), Amber Simpson (Kansas City Police) and Damon Thomason (Saline County Jail).
Authorities in Missouri arrested two men after the discovery of a missing woman’s body in a burn pit in a rural area 90 miles from where she disappeared.
Damon Thomason, 54, and Felix Watson, 30, are facing charges of abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence in the disappearance of 41-year-old Amber Simpson.
Simpson was last seen on May 10 in Kansas City and reported missing on June 3, though probable cause arrest affidavits state that Simpson was already dead by the time she was reported missing.
Authorities believe the suspects burned Simpson’s body on May 28 on Thomason’s property in rural Nelson in Saline County, which is about 90 miles away from Kansas City.
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It’s unclear what led investigators to the area on June 18, but they came armed with a search warrant. Cops followed tire tracks that led to a burn pit with chicken bones. Next to the pit were human bones, specifically a femur. They also discovered Watson’s ID bracelet from a recent hospital stay, per the affidavit.
A cadaver dog also alerted detectives to other human bones in the pile. A forensic anthropologist recovered “numerous bones determined to be human from in and around the burn pit.”
“The forensic anthropologist indicated the severe degradation of the human bones were caused by one fire that continued for an extended period of time or multiple fires over an extended period of time,” detectives wrote.
Police have yet to release exactly what happened to Simpson. The arrest affidavits suggest she was killed, although cops have not revealed her cause and manner of death. No one has been charged with killing her. Thomason and Watson were vague in their interviews with investigators.
Watson allegedly told cops a man and two women showed up to the property with the victim, but the defendant claimed he did not know what they were there to do. They went behind the house at the burn pit, but Watson claimed he was not with them.
When confronted with the fact that his medical bracelet was allegedly found next to the human bones, he said it must have been part of the burned trash. Watson then ended the interview and said he wanted to speak with a lawyer.
Thomason initially feigned ignorance as to what was being burned on his property during his interview with police. He allegedly said Watson told him “another girl had killed” Simpson a few days later. Detectives told Thomason that they believed she was killed on his property.
“Thomason began to get upset and stated, ‘The most I figured was they brought her there,'” cops wrote.
He allegedly admitted to seeing what he thought was a leg bone in the pit, but he was unsure.
“I don’t know, it was a bigger bone than I wanted to see,” he told cops.
Per cops, Thomason said Watson burned things in the pit over several days.
“I told [Watson] to go down there and clean that s— up, whatever it was,” Thomason told cops.
Watson and Thomason have been in the Saline County Jail since June 18. Their next court date is set for Wednesday.
The Kansas City Police Crime Lab extracted DNA from one of the bones. Last week, the bones were identified as belonging to Simpson.
The post ‘Bigger bone than I wanted to see’: Missing woman’s body found in burn pit on property 90 miles from where she disappeared, cops say first appeared on Law & Crime.
