A Wichita, Kansas woman, who helped locate the decomposing body of her ex-boyfriend's son, was found dead Friday morning with a gunshot wound to her head along with three suicide notes and a rifle at her feet, according to police.
Emily Glass, 27, was a person of interest in the death of 5-year-old Lucas Hernandez after she led a private investigator to his decaying body under a bridge at the end of last month.
Glass’s former boyfriend, Jonathan Hernandez, called police around 1:40 a.m. after he found her body inside his home, saying she killed herself, Wichita Police Officer Charley Davidson said during a press conference.
But the official cause of death will be determined by the coroner’s office.
In February, when Glass reported Lucas missing, Hernandez was not at home and Lucas’ mother, Jamie Taylor-Orr was not living in Wichita at the time. While Hernandez was absent for weeks at a time for work, Glass would watch her daughter and Lucas together. She told police she last saw him playing in his bedroom before she took a shower and fell asleep.
On May 24, Glass led David Marshburn, a private investigator hired by Lucas’ father, to the boy’s decomposing remains under a bridge covered with debris about 20 miles north of Wichita.
It’s unclear if an autopsy and toxicology examination will determine how Lucas died because of the decomposed state of the body.
Police arrested Glass on suspicion of lying to authorities but she was freed as a person of interest in the ongoing case.
Hernandez said he no longer believes or supports Glass and was a “bit confused by” her release from jail in an interview for the podcast “Crime Stories with Nancy Grace” that aired Monday.
He also told Grace that Glass revealed to the investigator she panicked after she found Lucas dead in his bed one evening or morning, along with a recording of Glass in a shaky voice: “I can't do jail. I can't!”
Hernandez and Taylor-Orr said Glass “chose to end her own life” in a statement to the Wichita Eagle.
She added: "This is not the ending we would have chosen for Emily. She was the only person on this earth who could tell us what the last moments of our child's life were like. We wanted answers and we still want justice. Our hope is that the truth will still come out, that there will be answers to the many questions we have."
In an unrelated case, Glass was acquitted of child endangerment in which the prosecution accused Glass of smoking marijuana and driving her daughter to a restaurant one day before Lucas went missing.
In that case, documents revealed that Lucas was frequently seen with bruises and cuts, and once with black eyes. Officials were told at least twice that Lucas was being abused and the documents reportedly detail the boy's dysfunctional and violent family life.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The hottest stories ripped from the headlines, from crime to courts, legal and scandal.
