GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The man accused of dismembering the body of a Kalamazoo area woman reported missing is responding to her mother’s plea to bring her home.
Jared Chance, 29, is charged with mutilation of a dead body and concealing the death of 31-year-old Ashley Young of Oshtemo Township.
In a Friday jailhouse interview with 24 Hour News 8, Chance apologized to Young’s mother, who stood outside Jared Chance’s parents’ home in Holland hours earlier to share this message:
“I want to bring my daughter home. They know, the parents know something. There are people out there that know something. I just want my, my baby. I want her to come home. Please I need help finding her I do. I really do. I want her home. Ashley no longer has a voice and I have to be her voice.”
“I want to give her some of that peace. I really would, um, but I don’t. I don’t even. I don’t know what to do here. This situation is, I don’t know what to do, so. I don’t know what to say or do,” Jared Chance said after hearing the recorded message from Kristine Young.
On Facebook, Young’s family said she was last seen with Jared Chance in the early hours of Nov. 29 in Grand Rapids’ Eastown neighborhood.
Police say Jared Chance mutilated her body on Nov. 30 at the home on Franklin Street near Dolbee Avenue.
On Dec. 1, detectives say Jared Chance told his parents that Young was dead and that he had dismembered her body and hid some of the remains.
On Dec. 2, the couple living downstairs from Jared Chance noticed an unusual smell coming from the basement. One of them said he went to check it out and found a tarp leaking blood. He called police, who took Jared Chance into custody.
According to court records, police said they found blood and “articles that … could have been used to dismember a human body” in Jared Chance’s apartment.
“What happened? I mean, you were friends with Ashley. She seemed like a lovely girl, a bright girl,” 24 Hour News 8’s Heather Walker asked Jared Chance.
“She was, yeah,” he answered.
Jared Chance said he wants to give Ashley Young’s mother some peace, but stopped short of saying anything else about the situation.
When the questioning turned to what he told his parents, Jared Chance appeared distraught.
“I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I’m sorry, Ashley’s mom. I apologize. I can’t do this right now,” he said, hanging up the jail house phone, turning away from the camera and hunching over before walking back to his cell.
Jared Chance’s parents are charged with perjury and being an accessory after the fact in the mutilation and disinterment of a dead body. As they walked out of the Kent County jail Wednesday, free on bond, Barbara Chance said they did call police and James Chance said “I turned him in.”
Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker said that wasn’t quite the case, but didn’t want to elaborate because the investigation is ongoing.
