Police confirmed another person died at the same bridge in 2023 as a new petition calls for changes to the structure.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — The accidental death of a 24-year-old woman has renewed questions about an open gap separating the roadway decks of the 7th Street Bridge, where police say another person also died after a fall in 2023.
Monica Rivera was found dead Friday morning below the bridge just north of Southwest Boulevard after she was last seen walking north on 7th Street. Kansas City, Kansas, police concluded her death was accidental and said there was no evidence of foul play. Investigators believe Rivera tried to cross between traffic lanes and went over a concrete barrier without realizing there was no bridge deck beneath the space separating the roadways.
The bridge carries northbound and southbound traffic on separate surfaces. From roadway level, police said, the configuration can be deceptive because the two sections may appear to form a continuous deck. Instead, an open gap runs between barriers separating the travel lanes, with Division Street dozens of feet below.
Detective Mark Bundy said many people may not recognize that the bridge is made up of two different surfaces. Police believe Rivera was walking north when she tried to get across the roadway and encountered the opening. Her body was discovered around 9:45 a.m. Friday in the area below the bridge.
The fatality was not the first reported at the location. Police confirmed that John Lee Brown died Jan. 2, 2023, after falling through the same bridge gap. That earlier death has become a central concern for Rivera’s relatives and friends as they question whether a physical change to the bridge could reduce the risk of another similar incident.
A family friend began an online petition after Rivera’s death calling for the gap to be covered or otherwise addressed. The campaign initially focused on local government, but the bridge is maintained by the Kansas Department of Transportation rather than the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas.
KDOT said Wednesday that it was aware of Rivera’s death but had not taken part in the police investigation. An agency spokeswoman said the bridge received a routine inspection in August 2026. The most recent work on the structure was a maintenance project involving joint repairs that was completed earlier this year.
The agency statement did not announce a plan to cover the gap or make another structural change. Whether such a modification is feasible or planned has not been established publicly. Rivera’s family friend said the goal of the petition remains the same regardless of which government agency has responsibility for maintaining the bridge.
Police have urged people who walk in the area to be aware that there is no pavement between the northbound and southbound bridge surfaces. The warning comes after investigators reconstructed Rivera’s final movements and determined that she most likely crossed a barrier believing she could continue across the roadway.
Rivera, a mother of two young girls, was last seen early Friday and was reported missing later that day. Her relatives have said investigators and the coroner told them the death involved no foul play. Family members held a vigil after her death while friends and relatives began discussing both support for her children and possible changes to the bridge.
The two confirmed deaths, separated by nearly four years, have shifted attention from the circumstances of Rivera’s death to a broader infrastructure question: whether anything will change at a location police themselves describe as potentially deceptive to people unfamiliar with its design. As of Thursday, KDOT had acknowledged the incident but had not publicly announced a new project or safety modification for the bridge.
Author note: Last updated October 30, 2026.