Sentenced: Child’s Remains Found Buried In Rose Hill Backyard, Adoptive Monsters Arrested

[Sugar Cookie]

On Wednesday, Rose Hill police uncovered a child’s body buried in a backyard. Police say the remains have been buried for quite a while, if not years.

The Rose Hill Police Department said that on Tuesday, around 7:30 p.m., officers received a call about an adult occupant in distress near Rose Hill Road and Rosewood Street.

While on the scene, officers learned of a possible past homicide and started investigating. At about 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, police recovered a child’s body in the backyard, whose decomposition suggests that they were buried for possibly a couple of years.

Rose Hill Police Chief Taylor Parlier said police are investigating it as a homicide and have a list of potential suspects. The body is not connected to a missing person case.

“Right now, we have individuals that we’re looking at, but the investigation is so young we don’t want to be myopic and just focus in on one person,” he said.

Chief Parlier said he does not recall any child abuse calls at the residence. He also said he was unable to provide any information on whether there had been police calls to the home in the past.

“I haven’t been able to put those numbers together yet. It was not what would be considered a problem house for us,” he said.

Chief Parlier couldn’t confirm whether the current owners were living in the home at the time of death or if the child was connected to the owners. The owners do live in the house currently; it is not being rented out, and police confirmed children are living in the home.

“We have suspicions, but until the autopsy comes back based on the state of decomposition, there was not an immediate identifiable way to identify the individual,” said Chief Parlier.

That autopsy should help determine when the child died, but Chief Parlier said the body was there for some time, likely years.

Continue reading

MSN

 

[Sugar Cookie]

A Kansas mother tells KSN she is sure that a child’s remains found buried in a Rose Hill backyard, are that of her daughter’s. Investigators say identification of the remains could come as soon as next week.

Christa Helm told KSN’s Derek Lytle she gave DNA to investigators last Friday, to help confirm the identity of the child.

Rose Hill Police Chief Taylor Parlier said Friday, the Sedgwick County Forensic Science Center said results of the autopsy could be done by mid-next week. He confirmed that Helm is the biological mother of three children who lived at the home.

Helm said she is 100% certain the remains belong to one of her daughters, who was adopted into the home with her two sisters five years ago.

Helm relinquished custody of three of her daughters in late 2018. She said she struggled when her kids were younger, spent time in jail, and dealt with substance use. In 2017, she says her kids were taken from her, and she became homeless. The three children were taken out of her care and adopted into the Rose Hill family’s home in 2019. Helm said when she saw the discovery of the child’s remains at the home last week, her heart dropped.

“It’s disgusting, it hurts. How did my daughter end up in there, and what happened to her, to be able to be so buried,” Helm said.

She said a Rose Hill detective told her that two of her kids were accounted for and one was missing. Chief Parlier would only confirm to KSN that all juveniles in the home had been taken into protective custody, but wouldn’t say how many children were in the home when the remains were found.

Helm says she wants answers to how someone could bury a child in the backyard, especially with other children in the home.

She said nothing will ever bring full justice for what happened, but if her daughter is confirmed to be the child, she wants those responsible to be punished.

https://www.ksn.com/news/biological-mother-of-three-placed-in-rose-hill-home-says-childs-remains-are-her-daughter/

 

[Sugar Cookie]

Interesting fact if the state even considered returning the surviving children to the bio-mother (which they probably will not) she would have to go through the foster/adoption process since her rights have been terminated.


A friend of the mom has created a gofundme for the mother.

Donate to #JusticeForNatalie : Bring Ashtan and Rickie Home, organized by Jessica Pilcher

Hello, my name is Jessica Pilcher, I am raising money for my best fr… Jessica Pilcher needs your support for #JusticeForNatalie : Bring Ashtan and Rickie Home

www.gofundme.com

 

[Sugar Cookie]

Police in a small town near Wichita have publicly identified the child whose decomposing body was found in a backyard after officers were called to a home for an unrelated matter earlier in September.

Rose Hill police chief Taylor Parlier on Friday identified the girl as Kennedy Jean Schroer, who is believed to have been about 6 years old when she died. Kennedy was born July 14, 2014, and was adopted in November 2018. Police believe she died in late 2020.

"She was a beautiful child, with an infectious smile," read a Friday news release from the Rose Hill Police Department.

Emergency responders were initially called to a home the evening of Sept. 10 on a report that an adult occupant was possibly barricaded inside and making comments of self-harm. While there, "Information was developed of a past homicide," Parlier said. The afternoon of Sept. 11, "Human remains were found in the backyard of the residence."

Police named Kennedy's adoptive parents, but neither of them nor anyone else has been arrested or charged with a crime.

Continue reading

Kansas police identify adopted child's decomposing body found in backyard

Adopted child Kennedy Jean Schroer would have been 6 years old when she died in November 2020, and Kansas police found her body in September 2024.

www.cjonline.com

 

[cubby]

I think I'm gonna need a diagram with arrows to understand this living arrangement.

Okay, mom didn't know her baby was buried in the backyard, tho she lives in the house where this happened? She didn't notice that one of her three children was not there? How did she come to live in the same house her baby was adopted into? And now she lives there with her other two children, but she still couldn't count to THREE?

I'm thoroughly confused.

 

[Sugar Cookie]

Kennedy Jean Schroer

 

[runninfawn]

I think I'm gonna need a diagram with arrows to understand this living arrangement.

Okay, mom didn't know her baby was buried in the backyard, tho she lives in the house where this happened? She didn't notice that one of her three children was not there? How did she come to live in the same house her baby was adopted into? And now she lives there with her other two children, but she still couldn't count to THREE?

I'm thoroughly confused.

ok i didn't read anywhere that the bio mother lived in the same house as her kids and their adopted parents .. now i am also confuse because i only read where the bio mother lived in kansas did i miss anything about where bio mother lived???

 

[GoneWest]

ok i didn't read anywhere that the bio mother lived in the same house as her kids and their adopted parents .. now i am also confuse because i only read where the bio mother lived in kansas did i miss anything about where bio mother lived???

No you didn’t-someone else needs to go back and reread.

 

[Sugar Cookie]

Two people from Rose Hill are in jail, looking at several charges against them in connection with the death of a six-year-old girl whose remains were found in September in the backyard of a Rose Hill home.

Information from the Rose Hill Police Department shows that Crystina Elizabeth Schroer, 50, is booked into jail on charges that include first-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, four counts of child abuse (torture), felony theft, four counts of forgery, Medicaid fraud and desecration of a corpse.

Joseph Shane Schroer, 53, is booked on four counts of child abuse (torture), liability for crimes of another, interference with law enforcement, felony theft and Medicaid fraud.

Investigators believe the girl, known as Kennedy Jean Schroer, died in November 2020 when she was six years old. Her body was discovered following an incident with an adult at the home of her adoptive parents, Crystina and Joe Schroer, who took custody of Kennedy in 2018.

Prior to her adoption, the girl’s name was Natalie Garcia.

On Sept. 27, DNA testing confirmed the identity of the remains as those of Kennedy Schroer (adopted name)/Natalie Garcia (birth name).

“As the investigation began, six detectives with the Butler County Sheriff’s Office assisted in the dig, neighborhood canvasing, initial interviews, and organizing information as it came in. Andover Police Department detectives assisted as well with initial interviews of people with knowledge of this house but not living in the immediate area,” police said. “As we progressed, other agencies were brought in to assist, such as the Butler County Attorney’s Office, Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI, Wichita Satellite Office), FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU, Quantico), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Kansas Attorney General’s Office Medicaid Fraud Division, Department of Children and Families (DCF) investigation division, Exploited and Missing Children’s Unit (EMCU), and Civilian experts in the fields of trauma and abuse. On November 20, 2024, personnel with the Sedgwick County Forensic Science Center completed their postmortem report.”

That report found that the girl’s cause of death was probably suffocation and that her manner of death was homicide, Rose Hill police said. In its news release, the department touched on the challenges with the case, especially as it pertained to the timing from the initial discovery to the arrests finally being made.

" Sometimes investigations are complex and require patience, particularly in light of the severity of the suspected crimes. We shared in that sense of urgency. We know that there has been a strong desire in our community for answers, but the specific needs of our investigation would not permit us to provide them in detail before now,” Rose Hill police explained in the department’s news release announcing the arrests. “Please know that we conducted this investigation with the time, attention and seriousness that it required. We assessed that there was not an ongoing risk to public safety during the investigation and that making arrests only after the investigation concluded was the necessary course of action to ensure the best possible outcome. During the last five months, Detective Missy Tharp and members of the (RHPD) put in over 2,000 hours into this investigation. “With assisting agencies putting in several hundred additional hours. This case was built through the development of timelines spanning more than four years, which is the primary reason for the length of the investigation. Natalie has always been the focus of this investigation, and we believe we can now tell her story accurately.”

Adoptive parents arrested for murder, child abuse after girl’s remains found in Rose Hill backyard

A Rose Hill man and a woman face charges including murder and child abuse in connection with a young girl’s remains being found in a Rose Hill backyard in September.

www.kwch.com

 

[Sugar Cookie]

Kennedy was adorable

 

[Sugar Cookie]

Sitting in a recorded interrogation room, a young girl became upset as she tried not to answer questions from a female detective about how her sister, who would eventually be found buried in the backyard of their Rose Hill home, went missing, according to an affidavit released Friday in the case.

After the detective left, the girl told her father, Joseph Schroer, how her mother, Crystina Schroer, stuffed her 6-year-old sister in a box; she would be allowed out after 10 minutes, but, because she kept moving, Schroer stacked a crib, heavy blanket and more boxes on top of it, the court record says.

Being crammed into a box, even a dog kennel, was a common form of discipline Schroer visited upon her adopted children, according to the affidavit.

Crystina Schroer eventually kicked the box to let her out, but Kennedy’s body fell out, limp and blue, the girl recalled when she later told the detective the true story a few days later, according to the affidavit.

Kennedy was killed in December 2020.

Her body was found about four years later, in September 2024.

Kennedy’s body was in the fetal position inside two black plastic bags, buried in the backyard in an area of the Schroers’ cul-de-sac home in an area the family stopped maintaining.

After Kennedy was found, Rose Hill police chief Taylor Parlier said the remaining children, who were all under 13, had been removed from the home.

Schroer, 50, has been charged with several counts, including first-degree murder, child abuse, theft by deception, making false Medicaid claims and criminal desecration of a body.

Kennedy was only discovered in September 2024 after Crystina Schroer took a “bunch of pills” and tried to kill herself, which led to first responders going to the home, the affidavit says.

Crystina told officers that another daughter had killed Kennedy and that, after she drove around with her body for several hours, she buried her in the backyard, the records say.

Less than two weeks before the girl’s body was found, a Kansas Department of Children and Families social worker went to the home after a report that a “sister killed the other sister,” the affidavit says.

Crystina Schroer told the social worker that she didn’t need to see the children to check on their welfare, which led the worker to close the case because of “insufficient evidence,” the affidavit says.

The 44-page affidavit provides the most detailed account of what the siblings allegedly endured: Rationed meals, monitoring of the children’s movement with cameras throughout the house, torture, isolation from each other and from the outside world.

The affidavit also characterizes Crystina Schroer as a person with a gambling addiction who told outlandish stories about the children being disturbed in order to get higher reimbursements from the state.

The Schroers also kept collecting monies designed to support Kennedy, even after her death, the affidavit says.

A woman who lived with them when the woman was 17 described the Schroers as a loving couple who would work through their issues. But things were different when the woman moved back into the house from October 2023 to March 2024.

Schroer told the woman that she wanted to send the children away to boarding school. The children were not allowed to go outside or play, the woman said.

“They never went to a doctor’s appointment and were pulled out of school and home schooled,” the affidavit says. “DCF and TFI (assume The Family Initiative) never came to visit the home.”

The woman thought about making a report to DCF, but didn’t.

“The foster kids were in their rooms 24 hours a day for seven days a week,” the affidavit says. “Crystina would make them lay on the floor without a pillow or blanket, completely still without being able to move for several hours at a time. Crystina would give the kids a piece of bread with a jelly packet for a meal.”

Schroer told the woman and her friend that Kennedy had gone back to the state.

The document doesn’t say where Joseph Schroer thought Kennedy went, but that he did get a text from his wife that day “that something was going on at the house, but (Crystina) had it under control.”

The court record, which has redactions in it, stated that someone had been choked and that someone was taken by ambulance to a psychiatric facility.

Crystina Schroer left the home with Kennedy, but didn’t return with her. After returning home, a child “said her mother showed her photographs on her phone of children strapped to beds and told her they were tortured, and she would be next.”


The mother also would “tell all the girls that (redacted) was burning in a fire in hell and if they were bad, they would burn too,” the affidavit says.

One witness told police how, when he was 16, he ran away from home after he “flipped” out and attacked Schroer after it sounded like she was drowning another child.


“(Redacted) was in the shower on her knees, and she was asking her mom to stop and was crying,” the affidavit says.

Texts show Schroer also became more agitated.

In a Jan. 9, 2023 text about a bowl broken by her biological child, Schroer told her husband that: “IDC (I don’t care) if she told you or not, I about punched her in the face. I’m done, these girls have me on edge. I’m going to kill everyone soon.”

Witnesses said Schroer’s gambling problems put a financial strain on the home and caused issues in the marriage. Witnesses told police that Schroer had to shuffle money around from different accounts and was “always needing money due to her bank accounts being locked up,” the court document says.

‘Please do not make us get in the boxes’: Court doc details death of adopted girl buried in Rose Hill

The 44-page affidavit provides the most detailed account of what the siblings allegedly endured

www.yahoo.com

I would read the entire article there are other accounts from children that were fostered by the Schroers.

In January 2025, a new foster parent of the girls emailed a case worker a photo of a storage box they were using to store Christmas decorations. One of the girls girl “freaked out” and started screaming, “please do not make us get in the boxes, please, please we will never fight again,” the foster parent said.

It took over an hour to calm the girls down. After they did, they pointed to the edges of the box, where the lid goes, and said “those really hurt when the door is closed and locked.”

These children are going to need long term therapy after what the Schroers did to them.

 

[GoneWest]

Less than two weeks before the girl’s body was found, a Kansas Department of Children and Families social worker went to the home after a report that a “sister killed the other sister,” the affidavit says.

Crystina Schroer told the social worker that she didn’t need to see the children to check on their welfare, which led the worker to close the case because of “insufficient evidence,” the affidavit says.

WTF?!? Just when you think CPS can’t get any worse.

 

[Sugar Cookie]

A Rose Hill man pleaded no contest Tuesday to charges in the death of his 6-year-old adopted daughter, whose remains were found buried in their backyard nearly four years after she died.

Joseph Schroer pleaded no contest to two counts of aggravated endangering a child and Medicaid fraud in the death of his adopted daughter, Kennedy Schroer. Counts involving making false information and interfering with law enforcement were dismissed.

Rose Hill police found the remains of six-year-old Kennedy Schroer buried in the backyard of her adoptive parents’ home in Rose Hill, Kansas, on September 11, 2024. Authorities believe she died in November 2020. A report says Kennedy likely died from suffocation.

Due to the decomposition, investigators could not identify the cause of Kennedy’s death. The Sedgwick County Coroner’s Office said her body showed no signs of trauma or signs of healing trauma.

Joseph’s wife, Crystina Schroer, entered a no-contest plea in July to an amended charge of second-degree murder, child abuse, making false information and theft.

By entering the no-contest pleas, the Schroers do not admit to having committed these acts, but do not contest that they did not commit them.

The Schroers will be sentenced in person. Crystina is set for sentencing on Nov. 10. Joseph will be sentenced on Dec. 3.

MSN

 

[Sugar Cookie]

Crystina Schroer is headed to prison for nearly two decades after she stuffed her adopted 6-year-old daughter in a box and left her inside while she suffocated to death.

Crystina Elizabeth Schroer, 50, was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for the death of Kennedy Schroer, whose body was discovered buried at the family's home in September 2024 in Rose Hill.

Schroer in August pleaded no contest to second-degree murder, child abuse, making false information and welfare fraud. She was originally facing a first-degree murder charge.

this bitch tried to blame another child in the home

Crystina Schroer claimed she took the blankets and cradle off the box and opened it to find Kennedy in the box, "unconscious and without a pulse."

The mother tried to complete CPR on Kennedy but to no avail, and she realized the girl was dead. She then proceeded to drive around with the girl's body, and eventually decided to bury her in a 23-inch grave in the backyard of her home. She said it was one of the kids who put her in the box.

Detectives interviewed the child, but they couldn't get her to speak and they left the room. Some time later, Joseph Schroer came out and asked to go to the bathroom, and told investigators they should review the video from the room as he was able to get the girl to open up.

The girl said the incident occurred when her dad was at work. She said her mother would force the kids to enter a storage container box if they moved during the night. According to the affidavit, she said her mom forced Kennedy into the box. The girl had to listen for her sister to make any movements or noises. Kennedy made a noise.

"[The sister] believed her mom heard that and came back into the room, asking 'is she still making noises?'" the affidavit said.

The defendant then placed the blankets and crib on top of the box before leaving the room.

"When mom came back into the room, [the sister] was bawling, and mom asked why and she stated she Kennedy thought was dead, because she wasn't making any noise," detectives wrote.

She opened the box and Kennedy fell out. The girl was "blue." The sister never saw Kennedy again. Detectives wrote that Crystina Schroer told her husband and other family members that the state took back custody of the girl because she was unable to live in a foster home because of behavior issues.

Mom stuffs adopted 6-year-old daughter in box where she suffocated — then buries her in grave

A Kansas mom is headed to prison for nearly two decades after she stuffed her adopted 6-year-old daughter in a box and left her inside where she suffocated to death.

lawandcrime.com

Bullshit sentence.

I wholeheartedly support elder abuse. The bitches on her cell block better rag tag her ass and humiliate her everyday of this pathetic sentence.

 

[thuumpr]

ok i didn't read anywhere that the bio mother lived in the same house as her kids and their adopted parents .. now i am also confuse because i only read where the bio mother lived in kansas did i miss anything about where bio mother lived???

Confusion... Just concede @cubby is middle aged. Her mind got there ahead of the rest of her.

 

[Sugar Cookie]

Joseph Schroer told the court he was sorry for his actions and said he failed his kids. He also stated the children did nothing wrong to be mistreated.

That statement irked Chief Judge David E. Ricke.

"If they didn't do anything wrong, Mr. Schroer, why were they so severely disciplined?" the judge asked. "And that is something that should haunt everyone that knows anything about this case, Mr. Schroer, including you."

Man oblivious while wife killed 6-year-old daughter hears fate for torturing other child

A Kansas dad who says he did not realize his wife had murdered their 6-year-old adopted daughter and buried her in a box in the backyard was sentenced for the "torture" of another child.

lawandcrime.com