In a troubling case that has gripped Missouri, a 28-year-old man, Jacob Block, has confessed to trying to conceal the body of a woman who disappeared following a suspected overdose. Block’s admission sheds light on the fate of 22-year-old Abbi Schaeffer, whose disappearance in May 2022 left her family and community in distress.

Block has pleaded guilty to charges of abandonment of a corpse and tampering with evidence, offering some resolution in the grim saga of Schaeffer’s disappearance. Her skeletal remains were eventually discovered in a ditch, encased in a broken box, nearly a year after she was reported missing. Although a definitive cause of death could not be pinpointed due to the advanced state of decomposition, investigators found fentanyl in her system, suggesting a possible overdose.

The Kansas City Police Department had traced Schaeffer’s last known movements, revealing that she was seen entering Block’s home on the day she vanished. Unfortunately, she never reemerged from the residence, raising suspicions about the circumstances surrounding her disappearance.

According to a probable cause affidavit, Schaeffer’s family last saw her on May 23, 2022, via their Ring camera, leaving their home and getting into a gray BMW, accompanied by her cat. They tracked her movements using the Life360 app until the signal ceased on May 24 at a different location in Jackson County, Missouri.

When police visited the location on June 1, 2022, they found the house empty. A neighbor informed them that a white male, who drove a dark-colored BMW, lived there. Intriguingly, a U-Haul truck had been spotted in the driveway over the weekend, and a cat matching the description of Schaeffer’s pet was seen nearby.

The investigation took a significant turn when Kansas City police linked the BMW to Block. It emerged that federal agents were also monitoring Block and the vehicle for a separate investigation. In February 2024, Block was convicted of involvement in a fentanyl trafficking conspiracy, which included distributing fentanyl resulting in a fatal overdose back in 2020. This conviction adds another layer to the complex and unsettling narrative surrounding his actions.

According to probable cause affidavits, police caught up with Block and Eunice Carlo-Martinez on June 2, 2022. Block denied knowing Schaeffer and denied that she ever got into his car. But when detectives got a hold of surveillance videos taken at the home where Schaeffer’s Life360 app last pinged, they found both Block and Schaeffer walking inside together on the night of May 23, 2022.

Police said Block and Carlo-Martinez were seen going in and out of the house the following day “several times.” Two days after Schaeffer was last seen entering the house, Carlo-Martinez was allegedly seen “moving mops and buckets away from the sliding glass door” at the back of the house. She also allegedly pulled a power cord to deactivate one of the cameras, which came back on about 45 minutes later.

On the morning of May 26, 2022, Block and Carlo-Martinez were allegedly seen loading a “large black box-like object” into a U-Haul truck parked by the home.

Cameras never captured Schaeffer leaving the residence.

Detectives wrote that a search of Facebook accounts associated with Block and Carlo-Martinez indicated that the two allegedly gave Schaeffer fentanyl and she “suffered an overdose” the night she went missing.

A box that resembled the same one Block and Carlo-Martinez were allegedly seen moving out of their home was found in a ditch on the side of a road on April 1, 2023. Inside were skeletal remains that were positively identified as Schaeffer on April 4, 2023. Brain matter recovered from the remains tested positive for fentanyl, THC, and benzoylecgonine, a metabolite of cocaine, but due to the state of Schaeffer’s remains, “other manners of death could not be excluded, and normal toxicology could not be ascertained.”

Block and Carlo-Martinez were both charged with accessory to abandonment of a corpse and accessory to tampering with physical evidence.

Block pleaded guilty to both charges against him and was sentenced on Friday to six years in prison. In January 2025, he was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for participating in a conspiracy to distribute fentanyl and distributing fentanyl.

Carlo-Martinez’s case is still open. Her next court date was not available.