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In a deeply disturbing case, a father of two was discovered in a storage unit alongside his daughters and the skinned and dismembered remains of his wife, just hours after she had given birth to their baby girl.

Justin Rey, 35, horrifically "skinned" Jessica Monteiro "like a fish" following her death at the age of 32 in a motel, before taking a chilling photograph with her body and their two children.

Jessica's body parts were found scattered across multiple containers. Rey initially maintained that she had taken her own life, before later claiming she had died during childbirth.

The medical examiner was unable to determine a definitive cause of death.

After Jessica died following childbirth in a Kansas City motel, Rey failed to contact the emergency services, instead choosing to dismember her body in the bathtub.

He justified this shocking act by claiming he feared their two daughters would be taken into care.

Rey spent eight gruelling hours cutting up his partner's body before placing it in a cooler, according to Jessica's sister.

At his preliminary hearing, Rey testified: "It's something I had to do. My family is very dear to me. It's something I had to do to protect my family."

Following his arrest in October 2017, Rey confessed to his actions at Johnson County District Court, expressing his wish to keep his family together. Following reports of an individual living in a storage unit with two children, officers discovered Rey alongside his newborn baby girl and his two year old daughter. A testifying officer stated that the older child "almost looked like she had cancer".

Rey subsequently informed officers that he was travelling to Arizona to give his wife a proper ceremony. He was placed under arrest and his children were taken into protective custody.

Lenexa police detective Shannon Murphy presented evidence that Rey had forced his children to pose for photographs with their mother's corpse, and Rey acknowledged that he had "skinned her like a fish".

Murphy further presented evidence that Rey confessed to placing the body parts that would not flush down the toilet into containers.

Deputy Johnson County Coroner Charles Glenn told the court there were a "number" of stab wounds on the recovered body parts, though indicated it could not be determined whether these had occurred before or after her death.

Throughout his harrowing testimony, Rey insisted they had only been at the storage facility for 11 hours when discovered. He also told the court he had only flushed the placenta down the toilet and no other body parts.

"It was not fun for me," he said.

Investigators alleged that Rey photographed himself with his wife's body alongside his newborn and two-year-old, before dismembering her remains two days later in a hotel bathtub and placing some of them in a large cooler. Security camera footage showed him manoeuvring a red cooler with a black bag on top through the hotel, while pushing a pram with a toddler walking beside him.

When questioned about the dismemberment, Rey told The Associated Press, "What was I supposed to do? I wasn't going to leave mama behind."

Rey's solicitor only cross-examined him regarding images found on his mobile phone, which effectively prevented prosecutors from questioning him about the children and the fate of his wife.

However, throughout a series of telephone interviews, Rey insisted that he did not contact police because he did not want them to "steal more children."

He claimed that he and his wife had six children together and that law enforcement had previously "stolen our children before."

In a letter to AP dated June 23, Rey wrote, "My children had not been in any danger, I'm not a murderer, I never abandoned a corpse, never lived in a storage unit/facility, never looked up/screenshot child porn."

Nevertheless, he conceded: "I did dismember a dead corpse under religious views."

Rey faced numerous charges, including two counts of aggravated child endangerment and two counts of contributing to a child's misconduct, charges unrelated to his own children, but arising from photographs of teenagers discovered on Rey's phone after he requested that law enforcement examine it for evidence he believed would support his case at trial.

Having been ejected from the courtroom by a judge following a series of repeated outbursts, Rey was forced to watch the proceedings via video link from a separate room. As part of his nine-year custodial sentence, Rey will be placed on the sex offenders register.