Amber Simpson’s remains were identified through DNA after investigators searched a rural property about 90 miles from Kansas City.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In Missouri, four individuals now face felony charges connected to the handling of Amber Simpson’s body after investigators found her remains at a rural Saline County property, but authorities have not charged anyone with killing the 41-year-old Kansas City woman.

The case has expanded significantly since investigators first announced charges against property owner Damon Thomason, 54, and Felix Watson, 30. Saline County prosecutors later charged Joseph Kitara, 34, of Independence, and Brianna Nicole Willis, 35, of Kansas City. All four are accused of abandonment of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence. The charges concern what authorities say happened to Simpson’s body after her death. They do not establish who caused her death, and police have continued treating that central question as part of an open death investigation.

The investigation began as a search for a missing woman, although public records have given different dates for Simpson’s last known contact. Kansas City police said in a June 9 missing-person notice that Simpson had last been seen May 27 near Kensington Avenue and East 23rd Street, close to Ashland Square Park. A later police account said the missing-person report was taken June 3 and indicated she had last been seen around May 10. A Missouri State Highway Patrol missing-person bulletin listed May 3 as the date of last contact. Authorities have not publicly reconciled those different dates, leaving the precise timeline of Simpson’s disappearance unsettled.

What is clearer is how the investigation moved roughly 90 miles east of Kansas City. Court records cited by police and news organizations say Kansas City investigators contacted the Saline County Sheriff’s Office after receiving information that Simpson was dead and that her remains had been taken to property near Nelson. Investigators obtained a search warrant and went to the rural property on June 18. The land was identified in charging records as belonging to Thomason. Officers followed evidence toward a burn area behind the residence, where a cadaver dog alerted to possible human remains.

Investigators said they recovered human bones from in and around the burn site along with burned tires and animal remains. A forensic anthropologist from the University of Missouri assisted in recovering and examining the material. According to charging documents summarized in multiple reports, the anthropologist concluded that the condition of the human bones was consistent with prolonged burning or repeated fires. Police also reported finding other objects in the area, including a burned fire poker. The discovery changed the missing-person inquiry into an investigation centered on identifying the remains and determining how the woman had died.

Statements attributed to Thomason and Watson became part of the initial criminal cases. According to court documents, Thomason told investigators that he had seen what he believed could be a large human leg bone in the burn area. He denied taking part in burning Simpson’s body but acknowledged telling Watson to clean up the area after becoming suspicious about what had been burned. Watson, meanwhile, told investigators that a man and two women had come to the property and gone toward the field behind the house. He acknowledged burning ordinary material in the area but denied knowing that a body was being burned, according to the records.

Investigators said another detail connected Watson to the site. A medical identification bracelet associated with him was reportedly found near the human remains. When detectives asked him about it, Watson offered explanations that investigators described as inconsistent before ending the interview and asking to speak with a lawyer. The presence of the bracelet was included in the probable cause material supporting the charges against him, but it does not by itself establish how Simpson died or who was responsible for her death.

The investigation broadened again when authorities filed cases against Willis and Kitara. According to the probable cause material, an anonymous source told Kansas City police that Willis had killed Simpson and that Simpson’s body was later taken to the Nelson property to be burned. Another witness account reported by KCTV said Simpson had been involved in a sexual relationship with Willis’ business partner and alleged that Willis was responsible for the killing. Those assertions remain allegations from witnesses and informants. Prosecutors have not filed a murder charge against Willis or any of the other three defendants, and the allegations have not been proved in court.

Authorities have also cited evidence they say places Kitara in the Nelson area. Investigators said cellphone records showed his phone near the property on the morning of May 28, the date authorities allege Simpson’s body was placed in the burn area. Kitara also faced separate allegations stemming from a Missouri State Highway Patrol pursuit along Interstate 70 that ended with his arrest in Independence. The chase-related case is separate from the Saline County allegations involving Simpson’s remains, though investigators cited the cellphone information when describing the developing timeline.

Identification of the remains provided one of the investigation’s most important confirmed findings. Kansas City police said its crime laboratory extracted DNA from material recovered with the remains. Later testing identified the remains as Simpson’s. Reporting on the probable cause statements said DNA from tissue associated with a femur fragment produced a profile strongly supporting the identification. Police announced the positive identification in late July and said missing-person detectives would continue working the matter as a death investigation while coordinating with prosecutors in Jackson and Saline counties.

Even after the identification, officials had not publicly announced Simpson’s cause or manner of death. That distinction remains important because the evidence establishing that her remains were burned does not, on its own, establish what killed her. The anonymous tip described a killing before the body was allegedly moved or burned, but police have not publicly confirmed that account as a final investigative conclusion. No homicide charge had been filed against any of the four defendants in the latest reporting reviewed for this article. Each defendant remains accused only of the offenses formally charged.

Simpson’s family has tried to keep attention on the person behind the investigation. Relatives and friends gathered at Ashland Park in Kansas City on Aug. 21 for a vigil that included candles and balloons. Her niece, Kira Robinett, described Simpson as funny and remembered her as a mother, sister and aunt whose family wanted accountability for what happened. Earlier family interviews also described Simpson as generous and welcoming. Those remembrances provided a different picture from the court documents, which largely reduce the case to locations, physical evidence, phone data and competing accounts from people questioned by investigators.

The four prosecutions are now one part of a wider inquiry that crosses county lines. Saline County authorities are handling charges tied to the alleged abandonment and destruction of Simpson’s remains, while Kansas City detectives have continued examining the circumstances of her disappearance and death. Public reporting said the defendants had court proceedings scheduled in August, but no verified later report reviewed for this article established a homicide charge or a final resolution of the four pending cases. The basic question that began the investigation has therefore changed but not disappeared: Simpson has been found and identified, while authorities still have not publicly established in court who caused her death.

Author note: Last updated September 9, 2026.