Police confirm the body found Friday in Gladstone was 13-year-old Jayden Robker

Gladstone police confirmed Sunday that 13-year-old Jayden Robker, who was reported missing for over a month from Kansas City’s Northland, had been found dead Friday.

Police found Jayden’s body Friday morning in a pond near North Broadway and Northwest Englewood Road, about a mile from where he lived. While police waited until Sunday to officially identify the body pending the autopsy results, family members said on Friday they’d been told by police that the body matched his description.

Authorities said the initial autopsy results didn’t indicate any obvious signs of foul play, but Gladstone police are still investigating.

“The officers of both agencies extend their deepest sympathies to Jayden’s family,” said Gladstone Police Capt. Karl Burris in a news release.

Jayden was last seen on Feb. 2 at Northwest Plaza Drive and Northwest Plaza Avenue. Family members said he got home from school, grabbed his electric skateboard and left. No one from the family had seen him since, they said.

Heather Robker, Jayden’s mother, said she only talked to one person who had spotted her son since he left the house that day. A worker at the QuikTrip across the street from their home told her that surveillance footage showed Jayden using the bathroom around 3:30 p.m. before he went east past the Family Dollar.

Officials published a media release four days after Jayden’s disappearance. Robker, and a spokesperson for the Kansas City Police Department said part of the reason it wasn’t immediately posted was because they couldn’t find a current photo of Jayden.

Capt. Corey Carlisle, a spokesman for the KCPD, said police began their search for the teen immediately after his disappearance was reported, despite the delay in getting public word out.

Last Sunday, dozens of people attended a canvassing event hosted by the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime aimed at spreading awareness of Jayden’s disappearance. And on Wednesday, the FBI offered a $5,000 reward for anyone with information on the boy’s whereabouts.

Days later, his body was discovered, less than a mile from his home and near the QuikTrip where he was last seen on surveillance video after using the restroom.

In an interview with The Star on Saturday, Robker said the news of her son’s death made her fall apart.

“I just went hysterical,” she said.