KC Unsolved: JP Scheidecker’s hit-and-run death to enter another year without answers

LIBERTY, Mo. (KCTV) - It’s been a year and a half since John Paul Scheidecker’s death, but the circumstances surrounding that night remain a mystery.

On July 30, 2023, John Paul Scheidecker, known to friends and family as “JP,” was found dead on the side of a rural Liberty, Missouri, road with his truck idling nearby.

Nobody knows why he got out of his truck or who hit him, but his family knows the hole his death has left in their lives.

“Somebody will tell me something special about him every day”

JP’s mother, Elaine Scheidecker, said he was a daredevil who loved an adrenaline rush— “everything he did was extreme.” He wasn’t afraid to climb on any roof to string Christmas lights, he was a champion wakeboarder and a hunter, and he was always looking for an adventure.

“He was hard to keep up with because he always had a new idea or new plan,” Elaine said.

JP was a graduate of the University of Missouri with a degree in biomedical engineering. He lived near Liberty and owned his own business.

Above all else, he was a family man.

He confided in his mom and made sure she always had what she needed. She said he took her out for meals and regularly called to check in “without being asked.”

She described the special bond he shared with his young niece and nephew.

“He would chase them and have a great time or teach them how to ice skate,” Elaine said. “He would play with them, throw them up in the air. He’d do everything with them.”

His sudden death just a few miles from home has left his family wondering what happened and why nobody is stepping forward.

“We have no idea why he would even pull over”

Officers were called to the scene of what they believe to be a hit-and-run at 3:52 a.m. on Sunday, July 30, 2023.

The person who called it in said when he first approached the scene, he was blinded by the lights of JP’s 2024 Chevy Silverado as it idled on the side of the road. When the man broke through the light beams, however, he saw JP’s body lying partially in the road and partially in the gross.

John Paul’s truck was parked in the eastbound lane. His body was found in the opposite lane of traffic, partly in the grass, where a memorial marker is located.

Detectives believe JP stopped his truck in the road, got out, and was hit by another car. Nobody knows exactly why, how or even when. A camera on the highway captured when he was near that area. Investigators believe his truck had been stopped there for approximately three hours before the man driving by called 911. They’ve found nothing yet to indicate when in those three hours JP was hit.

The medical examiner determined his cause of death was blunt force trauma caused by a motor vehicle accident involving a pedestrian, and the manner of death was an accident.

Johnson hoped that one of the nearby homes might have camera footage that could help them identify a possible person of interest.

The area JP was hit was rural, but there are three homes with driveways that face the street.

“I would have thought that some people out in that area, given the area that it’s in, would have a camera that reached the roadway, but nobody did,” Johnson said.

Investigators learned the upscale trim model of JP’s truck has multiple cameras and checked those without any luck. They even subpoenaed data from the truck’s On Star system, but because there was no crash that night, there is no recording.

“The problem is with the event data recorders, which is what the black boxes are on vehicles, typically, those are engaged when a crash occurs,” Johnson explained. “You know, significant braking, speed input, steering input, things like that. There has to be a significant event to the vehicle.”

Despite a thick file of data and a list of leads to continue following up on, Johnson said they are not “anywhere close to calling anyone a suspect yet.”

The search isn’t over yet. Using cell tower data, Clay County investigators are continuing to comb through a list of people who were in the area that night as possible leads to reach out to.

“We’re able to narrow down certain phone numbers and/or certain devices, and then you can use that information to backtrack, and then you have to do additional search warrants to pinpoint who those devices belong to,” he said.

He believes that someone knows something, but they might just be scared to come forward.

“Maybe they told a friend of theirs, hey, I think I hit something out there. I wish that a friend would come forward and tell us.”

Unanswered Questions

The end of 2024 marks the first full-calendar year without JP.

Elaine said she and her family aren’t trying to be vindictive to the person who did it, they just want closure and to understand what happened that night.

“Like, what happened? What could I have done to prevent it, or how could I have helped him?” she asked. “It’s not like trying to get revenge on someone or justice, it’s just wondering what happened.”

As the investigation continues, Johnson wants local mechanics and body shops to think back to July 2023 and report if they made any car repairs that could be consistent with the hit-and-run.

“Maybe the person repairing a vehicle that turned in, you know, saw, you know, undercarriage damage, something like that.”

All Elaine wants is for the person who did it to step forward.

“I’m not going to lose my faith about this, because I just, I have a strong belief, and you know, that things will come out OK in the end.”

There is still a reward for information that leads to an arrest in this case. Anyone with information is asked to Lt. Johnson directly at 816-407-3732 or the anonymous TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS.

To read previous KC Unsolved stories, click here.

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