WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT Justin Rey, 35, was found in astorage unit with his two daughters and the dismembered remains of his wife who died after giving birth in a motel room
WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT Justin Rey, 35, was found in astorage unit with his two daughters and the dismembered remains of his wife who died after giving birth in a motel room
In a grim story of life, birth, and death, a father-of two-has been found living in a storage unit alongside his daughters and the skinned and dismembered remains of his wife, who supposedly died just hours after she had delivered their baby girl.
Justin Rey, 35, horrifically “skinned” Jessica Monteiro “like a fish” following her death aged just 32 in a motel, before taking a shocking photograph with her body and their two children.
Jessica’s body parts were discovered spread across several containers. Rey initially insisted she had taken her own life, though he later claimed she died during labour. The coroner conducting the post-mortem was unable to establish a definitive cause of death.
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After Jessica died following the birth in a Kansas City motel, Rey failed to contact emergency services, instead dismembering her body in the bathtub. He defended this appalling act by saying he feared their two daughters would be removed from his care, reports the Express US.
Rey spent eight harrowing hours cutting up his partner’s body before placing it in a cooler, according to Jessica’s sister, reports the Mirror.
At his preliminary hearing, Rey gave evidence: “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.”
Following his arrest in October 2017, Rey admitted his culpability to Johnson County District Court, expressing his desire to keep his family intact. Following reports of someone living in the storage unit with two children, police discovered Rey alongside his newborn baby girl and his two year old daughter.
An officer gave evidence that the older child “almost looked like she had cancer”. Rey subsequently told officers he was heading to Arizona to give his wife a proper ceremony. Rey was arrested and his children were placed into protective care.
Lenexa police detective Shannon Murphy gave evidence that Rey had made his children pose for photographs with their mother’s dead body, and Rey confessed that he had “skinned her like a fish”.
Murphy presented evidence Ray admitted to placing the body parts that wouldn’t flush down the toilet into containers.
Deputy Johnson County Coroner Charles Glenn told the court there were a “number” of stab wounds on the body parts but said it couldn’t be established whether they occurred before or after her death.
During his disturbing testimony, Rey claimed they had only been at the storage facility for 11 hours when they were discovered. He also told the court he only flushed the placenta down the toilet and not any other body parts.
“It was not fun for me,” he said.
Investigators alleged Rey took photographs with his wife’s body and his newborn and two-year-old, then dismembered the body two days later in a hotel bathtub and placed some of the remains in a large cooler. CCTV footage captured him manoeuvring a red cooler with a black bag atop it through the hotel, whilst pushing a pram with a toddler ambling alongside.
When probed about the dismemberment, Rey told The Associated Press, “What was I supposed to do? I wasn’t going to leave mama behind.”
Rey’s solicitor only cross-examined him regarding the images discovered on his mobile, thereby preventing the prosecution from grilling him about the children and the fate of his wife. However, during a series of telephone interviews, Rey claimed he refrained from alerting the police as he didn’t want them to “steal more children.”
He alleged that he and his wife had six children together and that the police had previously “stolen our children before.”
In a letter addressed to AP dated 23 June, Rey penned, “My children had not been in any danger, I’m not a murderer, I never abandoned a corpse, never lived in a storage unit/facility, never looked up/screenshot child porn.”
Yet, he conceded: “I did dismember a dead corpse under religious views.”
Rey was facing charges including two counts of aggravated child endangerment and two counts of contributing to a child’s misconduct – these were unrelated to his own offspring but rather stemmed from photos of teenagers found on Rey’s phone after he asked law enforcement to scrutinise it for evidence he believed would assist him at trial.
Rey was made to watch the hearing via video link from a separate room after his numerous interruptions led to a judge ordering his removal. As part of his nine-year prison term, Rey will be obliged to register as a sex offender.