GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- According to court documents filed Thursday, the parents of accused murderer Jared Chance were far more involved in the death of Ashley Young than previously known.
Ashley Young
Young's body was found on Sunday December 2 in a home in the 900 block of Franklin SE in Grand Rapids. Jared Chance was arrested shortly thereafter on the mutilation charge. Chance's parents have also been charged with perjury and accessory after the fact in the case. In a probable cause affidavit filed Thursday in Kent County, investigators outline why Chance's parents were charged in the case.
Investigators outline in the document that they eventually came to find out that on December 1 Jared Chance was picked up by his parents, James and Barbara, along with his brother. They say that boxes from Chance's apartment were loaded into his parent's Honda before driving out to the parents' home in Holland. The family also stopped at Ashley Young's abandoned vehicle to retrieve a box inside before leaving Grand Rapids.
Investigators subsequently got a search warrant for the parents' home, where they found a saw under a living room couch. Traces of human blood and tissue were later positively identified on the saw blade as well as inside the parents' car. According to the autopsy report later completed, a saw was used in mutilating Young's body. The medical examiner noted in his report that all of the mutilation happened after Young was killed.
Police originally responded to Chance's apartment on December 2 when his neighbor had called 911 after finding a bloody tarp in their shared basement while looking for the source of a disturbing smell. Police located the tarp along with dismembered body parts found in a cardboard box on a stairwell landing that was leading down from Chance's apartment. Police say the cardboard box appeared to have been a shipping box previously addressed to Chance. Several of her body parts have not yet been located.
The court documents also state that a neighbor told investigators that Chance had invited a "white female" to the home a few days prior to the discovery of Ashley Young's body. A few days after that, Chance asked him for help getting into and moving the woman's vehicle from their shared driveway. The neighbor told police that he never saw the girl leave from their building. He later identified that woman as Ashley Young to investigators. Young's vehicle was later found a few streets away in the 900 block of Franklin.
That neighbor also told police about a disturbing conversation he had with Chance a few days before Young was murdered. The two were apparently talking in Chance's kitchen while Chance was picking up and moving a .22 caliber revolver. During this conversation, the neighbor says that Chance told him that he knew "how to murder someone and get away with it." Police did discover several rounds of .22 caliber ammunition in the basement area where Young's body was found.
Police say they found suspected blood remnants in Chance's upstairs bathroom. Apparent blood smears were also identified on the stairwell leading down to the area of the home where the box containing some of Young's remains was discovered.
