how does a truck sit at an airport parking lot for 8 months with no one in security ever wondering what going on? How does that truck sit there 8 months with a dead body in it, baking in the Missouri summer heat and humidity, without anyone smelling it?

A 53-year-old project engineer at T-Mobile and a Navy vet missing for eight months has been found dead inside his work truck at Kansas City International Airport. His parking pass is dated Jan. 17, the day he disappeared.

The truck's windows are tinted, but are light enough to allow anyone to see inside. When an airport police officer found the body, it was covered up by a blanket, according to a police report.

Police in Kansas City found his body Tuesday after the stench coming from his pickup truck was reported. His body, which was found in the driver’s seat, was so badly decomposed that investigators couldn’t initially determine the gender or race

His truck was parked on the street level in front of the airport’s Terminal B, where travelers can park for both short- and long-term parking. There is no limit to how long vehicles can be parked in the lot, said Joe McBride, a spokesman for the Kansas City Aviation Department. Owners of vehicles parked for long time periods may receive letters and their vehicles are eventually towed, McBride said.

His widow is a flight attendant, searched the airport parking lot within a week of her husband being reported missing and said authorities reassured her that, if he was in the parking lot, they would find him.

His widow and neice gave a description of the vehicle, year, make, model, color, and license plate and were told that airport security checked the lots on a regular basis.

So the family continued searching elsewhere.

Potter’s niece told the Kansas City Star that she flew from Florida to assist with the search in the days after Potter disappeared. She eventually got the idea to check parking lots at Kansas City International Airport. Alderman even gave the license plate number to authorities there in hopes of locating his truck, which would be found if it was indeed parked there, she recalled an airport police official saying. She’s now livid that her instincts were correct but were seemingly not heeded by authorities.

http://nypost.com/2017/09/18/dead-man-sat-in-truck-at-airport-parking-lot-for-eight-months-and-no-one-noticed/
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/midwest/ct-kansas-city-airport-dead-body-20170919-story.html
http://people.com/crime/missing-mans-decomposing-body-sat-in-truck-for-8-months-in-airport-parking-lot-as-family-searched/

In August 2016, the VA released what was billed as the "most comprehensive analysis of veteran suicide rates" ever conducted, which examined more than 55 million veterans' records from 1979 to 2014 from all 50 states.

"The current analysis indicates that in 2014, an average of 20 veterans a day died from suicide" -- or one every 72 minutes, the report said.

The data also showed that only six of the 20 veterans who die in the U.S. each day are enrolled in the VA and only three are in active treatment, indicating a need for more outreach by the VA.

The VA's report said that about 65 percent of all veterans who died from suicide in 2014 were 50 years of age or older, and veterans accounted for 18 percent of all deaths from suicide among U.S. adults, a decrease from 22 percent in 2010.

Since 2001, the rate of suicide among veterans who use VA services increased by 8.8 percent, while the rate of suicide among veterans who do not use VA services increased by 38.6 percent, the report said.

The toll-free Veterans Crisis Line is 1-800-273-8255, press 1

"As some of you may know, veterans tend to come to a VA -- either drive a car or come to the VA -- and actually suicide on our property," Shulkin said last Tuesday, stressing the need for the Department of Veterans Affairs to do more to curb veteran suicides, estimated at 20 daily nationwide.

"There are a number of reasons, not all of which I completely understand," for veterans to choose to end their lives at the VA, he said, "but one of them being they don't want their families to have to discover them."

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/08/14/parking-lot-suicides-roil-va-hospitals.html