When a person or child goes missing, their family members and friends put their lives on hold and spend every second possible trying and hoping to find their loved ones alive.
When a 31-year-old woman suddenly vanished without a trace after a night out in Grand Rapids, Michigan, her family and friends hoped they would be able to find her and bring her home alive…
A Bad Smell
On Thursday, November 29, 2018, Yashieka Christian came home to her two-apartment home near the 900 block of Franklin Street in Grand Rapids, Michigan. According to Christian, she remembers coming home late that night because she was struck by a bad smell.
The Smell Of Sewage
“[I] walked in the house and it smelled like sewage,” Christian told WWMT. At first, she didn’t think anything of the bad smell and just went to bed. Christian, who lives on the first floor of the house, explained that a few days later she found boxes on the porch of the home.
The Neighbor’s Garbage
Christian also saw that a trash can was completely full with a number of different items including what looked like work boots. At first, Christian assumed that Jared Chance, her upstairs neighbor, was moving out and clearing out old junk.
Getting Suspicious
“Those were on top of the trash can. Some boxes on his steps and inside the back door. I’m like, ‘he’s moving,'” Christian said. However, in the days that followed, the foul smell that Christian had noticed continued to get worse and she started getting suspicious.
Getting To The Bottom Of The Odor
According to Christian, it seemed the smell was coming from the basement of the home. By Sunday, December 2, 2018, the smell was unbearable so Christian begged her boyfriend to go down into the basement to see where the odor was coming from.
The Tarp
“I told my boyfriend to go downstairs and see,” Christian said. When the couple went downstairs into the basement, they discovered something wrapped in a tarp on the staircase. “I didn’t know what it was at first,” she said. “It was something wrapped up. It was a big piece of tarp on the steps.”
A Grisly Discovery
Christian’s boyfriend looked closer at the tarp and discovered there was blood leaking out of it. After peaking inside, the pair discovered what looked like a dismembered body. The smell that Christian had described as ‘sewage’ was actually the smell of rotting flesh.
The 911 Call
“It was disturbing,” said Christian, who ran back upstairs with her boyfriend to her apartment where they immediately called 911 to report what they had just discovered. At about 4:13 that Sunday afternoon, police received their call. Officers from the Grand Rapids Police Department immediately got a search warrant and went to the home.
A Dismembered Body
When the police arrived, they discovered a woman’s severed torso in the basement of the home just as the tenant described. “Officers arrived at the scene and were able to slightly open up the bag and see that inside of it was a human body,” Grand Rapids Police detective Erika Fannon testified.
Searching The Home
Police then received a search warrant to search the entire home. They went straight up to the second-floor apartment where 29-year-old Jared James Chance lived. After apprehending Chance and taking him into custody, investigators began searching his apartment for any evidence linking him to the body.
The Evidence
During their search, police found a literal link to the body when they uncovered other missing body parts that they suspected belonged to the female torso that had been found in the basement. Authorities also found blood in Chance’s apartment as well as cleaning supplies and tools that could be used to dismember a body.
The Missing Woman
Police then suspected that Chance dismembered the victim to conceal her identity. The following day, police were notified about a missing 31-year-old woman, Ashley Regina-Maria Young from Kalamazoo. According to her family, she had last been seen in the early morning hours of November 29 at a bar in East Grand Rapids called Mulligan’s Pub.
The Cases Get Linked
While out at the bar, Young was photographed by friends with Chance, who the 31-year-old reportedly went home with. According to Young’s family, she had not been seen or heard from since that night. The police instantly thought about the unidentified body they discovered but didn’t want to jump to conclusions.
Identifying The Body
“Because of the nature of this particular investigation, identity of the victim will take a little bit of extra time,’’ Grand Rapids Police Sgt. Daniel Adams told the Detroit Free Press. “The remains we have at this point cannot be positively identified at this time.’’
The Charges
While police worked to identify the victim’s body, Chance was charged with the mutilation of a dead body as well as concealing the death of an individual. The mutilation charge is a 10-year felony and the concealing a death charge is a five-year penalty.
Confirming The Identity
By Friday, December 7, the police managed to identify the body that had been found. By using DNA, the authorities were able to confirm that the body belonged to Ashley Young and the police had to break the tragic news to her friends and family members.
A Devastated Family
Up until that point, they had been holding out hope that Young would be found alive. “She had a very kind soul, and she exuded that not only in her presence,” Kellie Boers, missing person advocate and spokesperson for Young’s family, told NewsChannel 3. “You could see that she was a beautiful, beautiful girl by the way she treated people, she showed it, that she was that way on the inside too. Very, very amazing soul.”
A Fourth-Felony Offender
So far, no one has been charged with Young’s death. However, Chance still faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted of the crimes he’s been accused of so far because of his prior convictions. Over the years, Chance has been convicted of a number of offenses including drug possession, drug use, as well as resisting a police officer. As a result, he is now being charged as a fourth-felony offender.
Additional Charges
Recently, Chance’s parents, 63-year-old Barbara Louise Chance and 76-year-old James Howard Chance, have also been charged. According to the police, the couple knew what chance did to the 31-year-old, but failed to tell the police. Now, they are both facing felony charges of perjury and accessory after the fact.
A Family’s Nightmare
“This whole nightmare has made their lives unbearable,” Young’s family wrote in a post on the Facebook page they created when she went missing. “It started with having to file a police report that their loved one was missing, then went on to not knowing, after a horrific crime occurred, if the victim of that crime was their missing loved one. Then they find out that, in fact, it was their loved one who was killed in the most inhumane way, to then have to figure out when they can have a funeral while they wait to find out when their loved one’s body will be released. Now to find out that the killer’s parents were helping him and lying to police to protect him.”
