KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Police have a suspect behind bars in the case of a woman found murdered in a Kansas City hotel room. Jackson County Prosecutors have charged 25-year-old Paul Simmons with second degree murder. He’s accused of killing 49-year-old Brenda Anderson a week ago Saturday at the American Inn at 32nd and Broadway. Police say it was a business card in the hotel trash can that lead them to the suspect.
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The call to 911 reported a woman screaming, police found the victim dead in the shower. Investigators found a business card with Simmons name on it in the hotel room’s trash can, he’s in the hotel surveillance video, and they found his fingerprints at the scene.
The news of the arrest comes as a relief to Brenda’s family, but they say it does little to ease their heartache. Brenda was laid to rest Saturday, just one week after her death.
“My grandmother, she collapsed at the casket,” said Brenda’s daughter Nakiesha. “This is the first child she’s lost.”
Nakiesha Anderson says the funeral was tough for her too. She’s seven weeks pregnant and can’t believe her mom won’t meet her grandchild.
“My hardest days are the ones to come, knowing i can’t pick up the phone and call her,” she said.
Nakiesha says her mother had Sickle Cell Anemia, so the family was prepared to lose Brenda at some point.
“But to lose her in this manner, in this way, it`s effecting us hard,” Nakiesha said.
Nakiesha says she doesn’t know Simmons, the suspect, or why her mother was with him at the hotel.
“We`re still clueless as to what all happened at this point,” she says.
But despite her family’s pain, she also feels for his family.
“I have to feel for his family too,” she says, “my mother was the victim but their family is about to lose somebody for years to the justice system.”
Nakiehsa says her mother taught her to care about others. Brenda was the kind of person who helped people when they were down and she was very trusting, maybe too trusting.
“Like I said yesterday at the funeral, I don`t want the ending of her story to be how she was found how she was murdered, I want people to know the kind caring person my mother was,” she said.
Even though police have arrested Simmons, the family says they believe at least one other person was at the hotel and possibly involved in the murder so there could be more arrests in this case.
Simmons faces second-degree murder charges and is being held on a $250,000 bond.
