On Monday, Aug. 22, 2016, a young man whose father was reportedly “in and out of prison” and a rootless older woman who had moved here from Texas hooked up somewhere, somehow for at least part of one day.
For both, the meeting was disastrous. The older woman — Julianna Pappas, 46 — lost her life. The young man, Korrey Rinke, then 22 or 23, of Ottawa, KS, pleaded guilty Tuesday to killing her, and he is going to spend at least the next 25 years in prison.
This is one strange case. I’ve been following it since it was first reported more than two and a half years ago. The questions that permeate this story are very simple:
Who are these people? What’s their background? And what would have led to this explosive convergence?
Through bits and pieces — an email here, a blog comment there — I’ve learned a little about these two.
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I don’t know where they met. She was taking part in a clinical research program at IQVIA (formerly Quintiles), near the Sprint campus in Overland Park. Her body was found about three miles due west, in a wooded area south of 115th Street, between Switzer Street and Indian Creek Parkway.
One person who commented on a blog post I wrote about the case said Rinke and Pappas had met while participating in the study at Quintiles.
Video taken the morning of the crime shows Pappas arriving at Quintiles in a truck resembling one that Rinke owned. The video also shows her leaving in the same vehicle a few hours later.
Rinke
I don’t know if Rinke was in the truck, but I assume he was. Although Rinke was charged with and pleaded guilty to kidnapping, I think Pappas voluntarily accompanied him in his vehicle the day he killed her.
What happened between them I don’t know. No one other than Rinke knows for sure. They may have had sex once that day. The story is he wanted to have sex again later but she said no because he didn’t have a condom. He became enraged, beat her and abandoned her in the wooded area. Her body was found about a week later, after police caught up with him and he confessed.
Rinke has been in jail ever since. At first, prosecutors said they intended to go for the death penalty, but this week he accepted a state’s offer to plead guilty to first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping, in return for the state dropping the death penalty.
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Those are the basic facts. Now, here’s what I’ve been able to find out about the two principals.
In November 2016, about two months after the crime, a woman named Joanne sent me an email saying she, Pappas and several other people had shared a house in Kansas City.
Joanne wrote:
“I was shocked to read about the murder of Julianna Pappas. She and I were briefly roommates in a big house on Campbell Street. There were several people living there. Our rooms were across from each other and she moved into my room when I moved out. She had just moved to the KC area from Houston. She said it was to do a study at Quintiles. She was very sweet and outgoing, a free spirit, maybe too trusting of strangers.”
In a later email, Joanne said the house was near 39th Street and added this:
“I don’t think Julie was shallow, just a victim of circumstance. She told me she had a felony drug conviction from when she was young and that’s why she found it hard to get housing and employment. She went to visit her parents in Houston once while living at Campbell. She was very into her Greek heritage. She’d been to Greece a couple of times. I got the impression she was only interested in dating Greek men. I doubt she was interested in this thug. Probably just accepted a ride from him.”
I went in search of an obituary. What I found was a one-sentence obit in the Houston Chronicle that had her first name as Juliaanna — as in the combination of Julia and Anna.
Pappas
The only photo I’ve ever seen of Pappas was a grainy one that looks like it was cropped from a group photo. It shows her smiling and looking relaxed.
Above, I referenced a person who had posted a comment saying Pappas and Rinke had met at the Quintiles study.
The commenter — who went only by the initial “S” — said:
“They were both at Quintiles the morning of her disappearance. She didn’t drive anything but an electric motor bike…so I’m assuming he offered her a ride home. He was at Quintiles again Wednesday morning (two days after the crime) acting as a ‘normal’ person would. I did not speak to this man besides in passing, but he seemed mild mannered/timid. Someone I wouldn’t have thought as a threat.”
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As for Rinke, all I knew from news reports was he worked at an Ottawa company that manufactured and installed covers for trucks.
I got this bit of detail from a commenter who went only by “Stephen.” He wrote:
“This guy is something else. He worked for me at ATC (Truck Covers) here in Ottawa for several months, rode home from work together every day, even had him in my home several times. One thing that stands out to me is, every time we hired any female employees, he would be very awkward, inappropriate and some times rather sexist towards them. He would constantly ask them about their ‘sign.’ I knew something was off about him, but never would have expected this. Also, his father has been in and out of prison most of Korrey’s life. I also know that he does not have any prior felony convictions.”
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In the end, this looks like the case of a woman who had little to show for her nearly half century of life and a punk who was headed in the same direction — nowhere — but also had an anger problem.
Aimlessness and anger…Not a good combination. In this case, deadly.
Rinke is scheduled to be sentenced at 11 a.m. September 12 in Johnson County District Court.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Good reporting, Jim; thanks for keeping up with it. What a needless waste of two lives.
One thing I’m pretty sure of: that wooded area is probably covered with high-six-figure homes now.
I know the general area but not the specific, “wooded area,” Gayle. I’ll check it out next time I’m out that way…
You know, I debated hyphen/no hyphen on “high,” and figure v figures … guess you can’t get by an old newspaper guy.
Two points, the first, this is why we need to keep the death penalty on the books. Even though our corrupt Kansas Supreme Court has rendered it virtually useless, it can still be used as a bargaining chip since the criminal would have to weigh the probability that we would get some decent justices.
Secondly, I find it offensive that it took two and a half years to get this guy to a plea deal and sentencing. That’s a joke. Back when a couple of drunks kidnapped and murdered 5-year-old Bobby Greenlease, it took 82 days from the day they murdered him until they were both executed. That is justice that deters. These morons of the bench have turned the whole system into a pathetic joke.
Gayle — Just to explain…The “high” is part of the adjective phrase “high-six-figure” houses. If you don’t hyphenate the word “high,” the meaning changes to “six-figure” houses that are high, or tall. In making the change, I assumed you were talking about nearly million-dollar houses.
(And in case you’re wondering, in that last sentence, why the word “nearly” is not hyphenated, adverbs aren’t hyphenated.)
As for “figure” vs. “figures”…”figures” just doesn’t sound right, especially with the noun also ending in “s.” Go figure.
(You’re an “A” student, Gayle.)
Thanks, Prof.
Jim: I don’t know Kansas or Missouri law, so maybe this is not an issue, but how are we sure that the defendant will spend at least the next 25 years in prison? When I was a courts reporter in Illinois a few decades ago, the law allowed an inmate to earn a day off his sentence for every day of good behavior in prison. Thus, a con sentenced to 25 years could get out in 12 1/2 years if he kept his nose clean.
Well, the plea agreement calls for life in prison with the eligibility of parole after 25 years. I don’t know, however, if that is guaranteed once he gets in the custody of the Department of Corrections — if they have jurisdiction and can release him before then.