Father of Woman Beaten to Death and Found Dead in a Bathtub Says He 'Collapsed' Upon Seeing Her Body

Mackenzie Hopkins was found slain in her Kansas City home in 2022

The father of Mackenzie Hopkins, the Missouri woman who was found dead in a bathtub in her home, is reflecting on her life and tragic death.

In an interview with KMBC-TV, Shannon Hopkins recalled seeing Mackenzie’s body in her bathtub at her Kansas City home on Jan. 15, 2022, after she was beaten to death. Her then-4-year-old daughter, Bella, was also beaten and suffered severe head trauma.

Shannon, who arrived at the scene with Mackenzie’s sister Hazel, told the Kansas City outlet that he only “got a few feet inside her home,” where "there was a lot of blood.”

“The police pulled me out of the house and went in,” he said, “and she and I just collapsed in the yard.”

“I think that I thought, ‘It’s not possible that they’re dead. It’s not possible that this has happened this way and it’s not possible that we’ve lost one or both of them,’ ” he recalled to the outlet.

Elsewhere in the interview, Shannon added, “It's impossible that this happened this way.”

The dad also said his daughter “came into her own as an individual when she became a mother.”

"She was caring,” he told KMBC-TV. “She was the most loving person."

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.

Last Tuesday, over two years after Mackenzie was fatally beaten, Jose Escalante-Corchado pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and assault, per court records. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Shannon told KMBC-TV that while Escalante-Corchado is in prison, “we will learn how to make Mickey's death mean something.”

"We will have to learn to live with the horrific actions that he took that day that changed not only our family's life but Bella's life," he said. "I'm confident it has affected his family's everyday life, knowing they have this dark history to live with."

Bella, now 6, is now living with her father in Puerto Rico, per KMBC-TV.

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.