Reservoir death listed as a suicide

By MADELINE REIDA

Staff writer

A part-time deputy noticing an abandoned 2016 Ford passenger car with a Wyoming license plate July 27 at Marion Reservoir’s Hillsboro Cove led to the discovery of the body of Deborah Hensley, 65, 30 to 40 yards away, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

A Marion County deputy coroner placed the time of death between midnight and 3 a.m., at least 16½ hours before the car was discovered at 7:30 p.m.

Hensley lived in Newton and Peabody before moving to Douglas, Wyoming. Sheriff Robert Craft suspected she had come back to Kansas to visit family.

Hensley left a suicide note in her car. She was convicted for conspiracy to deliver methamphetamine in Wyoming in 2002. Her next of kin have been notified.