Alleged killer met victim in drug recovery
Staff writer
A woman whose decomposing body was found inside a black box in the Ninnescah River June 7 met the man charged with her murder when both lived at a sober living community in Wichita, according to court documents.
Shalan Niccole Gannon was reported missing in Wichita two months before her body was found by fishermen.
Robert Bruce Mans, Jr. is charged in district court with murdering her at Canada the same day they moved out of an apartment complex together.
Gannon’s roommate told police she began moving her things out of a Liberty Way apartment April 8, but didn’t have a vehicle.
A manager at Liberty Way told investigators Gannon was romantically involved with resident Mans and the pair had requested to move in together, but instead had hastily moved their belongings out.
Jeremy Henrich, an addiction recovery mentor at the complex, told investigators he suspected the pair left the apartments during a drug relapse. He called Mans back to Liberty Way April 11, but Mans refused to submit to a drug test and was told he could no longer stay at the apartment complex.
When Henrich asked about Gannon, Mans said he’d “just left her” and that she was “fine.”
Phone records show Gannon’s cell phone was last used for an April 8 call from Mans’ phone. Mans’ next call was made the following day from an area around 1941 Narrow Rd. in Marion County. That address was searched two months later after Gannon’s body was found in the river.
Investigators interviewed property owners Michael and Jason Kirkby, and a garage on the property was searched June 12. Kansas Bureau of Investigation agents found what appeared to be blood stains and a clump of human hair.
Mans is scheduled for preliminary hearing on Nov. 18.