Kansas sheriff offers ‘substantial reward’ after inmate says he buried bodies years apart
Officials are trying to find the bodies of two men who have been missing for decades after a man in prison admitted to burying them both, Butler County Undersheriff Daimon Cundiff said Friday.
The Butler County Sheriff’s Office is offering what it called a “substantial reward” for tips that lead them to the bodies of Franklin “Punkie” Harrod Jr. or Ricky L. Nelms.
The reward amount was not disclosed.
Sheriff Monty Hughey told investigators last year to look “further into finding the location” of Harrod’s remains when they learned about Nelms, according to a news release. Cundiff said the man in prison admitted to burying the bodies years apart, but not killing either person.
Based on what he told them, they dug in one part of southwest Butler County last summer and used ground-penetrating radar in that area too, Cundiff said.
He said it’s possible the bodies are there and that they were just feet away.
Harrod, of Rose Hill, was killed in 1997 when he was 24. His wife reported him missing. It took four years before family found out he was killed, a former Butler County detective told Oxygen.
Three people, including his former wife, were sentenced to prison in that case after she convinced another couple that lived with them to kill her husband, according to previous Eagle reporting. Witnesses at her trial painted a picture of a love triangle between the suspects.
The only person still in prison in that case is Jerry Wayne Trussell, who is now 61.
Trussell was found guilty by a jury and sentenced in 2007 to at least 37 years in prison before he could be eligible for parole after his wife and Harrod’s took plea deals and testified against him, according to The Butler County Times-Gazette.
Kelly Harrod, who went by the last name Bishop at her 2006 sentencing after filing for divorce, received 32 months in prison; Tammy Trussell received about 11 years.
No one has been charged in the disappearance of Nelms.
Nelms’ mother filed a missing person report in Sedgwick County in 1988 after not hearing from him for six months after he came to Wichita from Moulton, Alabama, to work in roofing, the Times-Gazette reported.
Harrod left behind three daughters, a former Butler County prosecutor told Oxygen.
His mother, Blanca Harrod, told Oxygen “the only thing I want, is if somebody’s out there that knows anything, or if they helped Jerry (Trussell), or if they’ve heard about where Jerry put my son’s remains, that’s what I would like, to put him to rest, to lay him down to rest and say our goodbyes and have a little bit of closure. That’s the only thing that I look forward to. And I won’t rest until I see that.”
Cundiff said they have also been in contact with Nelms’ family, who want closure as well.
Anyone with information about the cases can contact the sheriff’s office at crimetips@bucoks.com, message the department’s Facebook page or call anonymously at 316-322-8817.