page_title: Suicide of Randy Potter
section_title: Search
hierarchical_section_title: Suicide of Randy Potter / Search
caption_attribution_description: English: Ram 1500 photographed in Pointe-Claire, Quebec, Canada. Français&#160;: Ma photo d'un Ram 1500, à Pointe-Claire, Québec, Canada.
context_page_description: On September 12, 2017, police investigating a report of a foul odor emanating from a parked truck at Kansas City International Airport discovered a heavily decomposed body under a blanket in the front seat. Its race and sex could not be determined at first, but it was later identified as Randall Wayne "Randy" Potter, who had last been seen leaving his Lenexa, Kansas, home one morning the previous January. He had been reported missing after he failed to arrive at his job that day; his death was ruled a suicide.
  Potter's family, who had been searching for him and his truck since his disappearance and keeping the media's attention on the case, were outraged that his body was found at the airport parking lot, an area authorities told them they had searched immediately after they reported him missing. His wife believes that he had purposely taken his life at the airport on the expectation his family would look for him there first. The Kansas City Aviation Department, which runs the airport, apologized to the Potters and promised to investigate how the contractor that manages its parking lots allowed the body to remain undiscovered for almost eight months.
context_section_description: The family began organizing search parties on its own, and set up a Facebook page. Melissa Alderman, a niece of Potter's from Florida who flew up to assist them, suggested that he might have flown somewhere, so they went to the airport, approximately a 45-minute drive from Lenexa, and looked through the parking lots there. They gave airport police the license plate number of Randy's truck, and they were told it would be checked for regularly as the police recorded the plate number of every vehicle in the lots.
  The Lenexa police, however, found no record that Randy had flown anywhere or left the country after checking with federal authorities. They therefore concentrated their search on the greater Kansas City metropolitan area. Joe Underhill, a private investigator hired by the family, looked through lakes and parks in both Kansas and Missouri where Potter might have gone to hunt, fish, or just walk. The Potters' daughter Nichole took fliers and passed them out on trips out of the area, as far away as Denver.
caption: A white Dodge Ram pickup truck similar to Potter's
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