Authorities in Missouri were searching Sunday for a 21-year-old woman who vanished three days ago and whose burnt-out SUV was found early Saturday morning.
Jessica Runions, of Raymore, Mo., was last seen on Thursday night at 9:30 p.m. (10:30 p.m. E.T.) driving the SUV, Kansas City police said in a statement.
The Chevy Equinox was found burned and unoccupied at 2 a.m. on Saturday near an overpass in South Kansas City, police said.
“Just locating her vehicle in that condition — that’s just suspicious in nature and we’re concerned for her welfare,” police spokeswoman Captain Stacey Graves told NBC affiliate KSHB.
Runions, who works as a baker at a retirement home cafeteria, was seen leaving a party on Thursday night with her boyfriend’s childhood friend, Kylr Yust, Jessica’s aunt, Michele Runions, told NBC News.
Michele said that authorities told her family about Yust, 27, though Kansas City police did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Yust did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.
A former girlfriend of Yust’s, 17-year-old Kara Kopetsky, disappeared in 2007 after filing a restraining order against him alleging that he choked her and threatened to kill her, KSHB reported.
Yust was not charged in her disappearance, the station added, and Kopetsky has never been found.
In a separate case in 2011, Yust pleaded guilty to domestic violence charges after a girlfriend accused him of choking her until she passed out, KSHB reported. He was also charged with killing two of her kittens, according to the station.
Michele Runions said it was unclear if police had spoken with Yust.
"We're sitting in limbo," she said, adding that it was unusual for her niece to remain out of touch for so long.
"It's out of character — her not calling, not responding," she said. "We just want her home safe."