Monica Rivera’s aunt is demanding city action after the 24-year-old Kansas mother of two was found dead beneath a bridge where she had taken her morning walk.
Rivera, of Wyandotte County, vanished early Friday while walking along Kansas City’s 7th Street bridge. She was reported missing later that same day, and a body was discovered that morning in an industrial area directly underneath the span. Police confirmed the remains were hers.
The preliminary autopsy showed no evidence of foul play, authorities said. Investigators now believe Rivera may have slipped through a gap in the bridge decking in what police spokesperson Nancy Chartrand described to the Kansas City Star as a “tragic accident.”
“It kind of looks like it’s one continuous deck … but there’s actually a gap,” Chartrand explained. “If you were trying to go from one side to the other, you could possibly fall.”
Rivera’s family contends her death resulted from a failure by the city to fix a known hazard. Her aunt, Cassie Bennett, launched a Change.org petition calling for immediate repairs and accountability.
Bennett asserted that community members had raised repeated concerns about the bridge flaw without response. “This fatal accident could have been avoided if the city had taken timely action to ensure the safety of its citizens,” she wrote in the petition. “The neglect of this apparent flaw goes against these standards and must be rectified immediately.”
She added that closing the gap would “prevent further accidents and ensure our loved ones are safe when they traverse this bridge.”
Friends of the single mother mourned her online as a warm presence now lost. “Fly high & stay dancing in the sky. Thank you for being a friend,” pal Crystal Lynn wrote of Rivera.
Rivera leaves behind two young children. The circumstances of her final moments remain under police investigation as her family presses for structural changes to the bridge she crossed that Friday morning.