INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (AP) — A man accused of killing a Kansas City survey worker in 2004 has been found not guilty.
A Jackson County jury returned the verdict Thursday in the first-degree murder trial of Jeffrey Sauerbry. He was accused of killing 54-year-old Summer Shipp, who vanished in December 2004 while conducting door-to-door surveys in a neighborhood in Independence where Sauerbry lived. Her dismembered body was found four years later.
Sauerbry was charged in 2012, hours after he was convicted of murder in an unrelated 1998 case. He is serving a life sentence for that crime.
A witness testified Sauerbry told him that he had killed Shipp.
Sauerbry insisted he had nothing to do with Shipp's disappearance. His attorney argued the witness was unreliable and no physical evidence tied Sauerbry to the crime.