Murder Charges Filed In Kansas Teen Death

[omarbratley]

Murder Charges Filed In Kansas Teen Death

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., June 7, 2007(CBS/AP) A man videotaped leaving a store in this Kansas City suburb shortly before a teenager was abducted in the parking lot was charged with murder Thursday, authorities said.

Edwin R. Hall, 26, was accused of premeditated first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping in the death of 18-year-old Kelsey Smith, the Johnson County Court Web site said. Bond was set at $5 million.

Hall, who was being held in a jail in nearby Gardner, Kan., was expected to appear in court later Thursday by closed-circuit video, said Brian Burgess, spokesman for the Johnson County district attorney's office.

The charges came a day after Smith's body was found in the woods. She had been missing since Saturday night, when she went to the Target store in Overland Park to buy a gift for her boyfriend.

Surveillance video showed her being forced into her car around 7:10 p.m., and the car driving off. It was found in a nearby mall parking lot about two hours later.

Police Chief John Douglass said Hall appeared to be the same person shown in the video leaving the Target soon after Smith. He was wearing a white T-shirt, sneakers, shorts and a goatee.

"This community has lost a vibrant and promising life, and a family has suffered unimaginable tragedy," said Phill Kline, prosecutor for Johnson County.

Police said Hall's vehicle matched the description of a dark mid-1970s Chevrolet pickup that was seen entering the Target parking lot shortly after Smith's car.

"I want to again express my condolences to the Smith family," Douglass said. "I realize that this is not the preferred conclusion. While we cannot give them their daughter back, we can at least give them justice."

Detectives said a tip led them to Hall, of nearby Olathe.

If convicted, he would face a minimum sentence of 25 years to life in prison for the murder charge and more than 12 years for aggravated kidnapping, Burgess said.

Douglass said police had received more than 500 tips in the case and had questioned numerous people, including Hall, who was arrested at the end of his interview Wednesday.

Douglass said there was no evidence that Hall and Smith knew each other. He declined to offer a motive for the attack or to specify whether investigators had determined that Smith was killed in Kansas, where the murder charge was filed.

Police found Smith's body in a wooded area near Grandview, Mo., about 20 miles east of the Target store. Authorities have not say how she died.

Officers had been searching the lake area since Tuesday after tracing signals from Smith's cell phone. Investigators isolated two signals from an area in south Kansas City, Missouri.

Hall and his wife, Aletha, and a 4-year-old son lived in south Kansas City, Mo., earlier this year.

"Just a nice young family," former neighbor Sarale Russ told The Kansas City Star. "Nothing unusual."

Before a memorial service Wednesday evening, Smith's father, Greg Smith, thanked the hundreds of volunteers and everyone else involved in the search for his daughter.

Smith remembered his daughter as a young woman "scrubbed in sunshine," reports CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers.

"She could walk into a room full of strangers and walk out with a room full of friends," Smith told the gathering, fighting tears.

"Her excitement and passion for life was unmatched," he said. "She lived more in 18 years than many people do with a great deal more time."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/...n2898345.shtml



Doesn't this SOB look like Elijah Wood?

[chefcraig]

And this relates to Van Halen how?

Try this, in Non-Music: http://www.vhlinks.com/vbforums/showthread.php?t=38158

[5150rob]

they should cut the bastards balls off and hang him out to dry for what he did to that poor girl..

useless peice of crap is now going to get to live while the family he destroyed lives in pain.... plus he will probobly claim insanity so he will get off....

minimum of 25 years???!!!! what a joke..... the system in this country makes me sick.... I work in the Criminal Justice system and I hold a degree in it and it still makes me sick. . . so unfair for the victims and their families.

put a bullet in his head and rid the world of one more peice of trash.....

"sorry for the rant its just that I should not have read the post... I have been reading about this all day and its bugged me and it was time for me to vent.. sorry to those who dont agree with me... I was just venting..."

[Blount5150]

maybe it's because people in the justice system don't know how to spell "piece". Sorry, just had to do it.

[ZeoBandit]

Fry him.

[Viking]

This falls a little to close to home for me. We just saw this on Headline news this morning. We are a couple of hours from Overland Park, but it's still fairly close.

This especially bothers me since I have a 15 year old niece.

[Rebel]

Fry him.

Agreed, and do it slow. that piece of shit will get what coming to him. If he gets off with life, maybe they'll send him to Angola where he can get ass raped for the rest of his life.

[Yesterdays]

I believe in the death penalty and my heart goes out to the family that will be deprived of their "sunshine". I can't help, also, but think of the murderer's wife and 4-year-old son. By neighbor's accounts the murderer doted on the boy. What has he done to them?