Post by ۞Quaalude™۞ on Jun 6, 2007 23:25:51 GMT -5
Too Fvcking unreal QC
Several sources confirmed to FOX 4 that a suspect was in custody in Kelsey Smith's death on Wednesday night. A news conference is expected at 11:30 p.m. Smith's family spoke on Wednesday evening, following the discovery of her body earlier in the day. Police confirmed Smith's body was found near a shallow creek bed in Grandview.
Sources confirmed that a suspect was in custody on Wednesday night
www.myfoxkc.com
It dont mater what they do to the person that did this . _ *Pulls Out Knife*-
in a Short Time No One Will Be Even Talking About This .
That Name is What Matters Kelsey Ann Smith
I Pray They Set Up a Fund in That Name to deal with Events such as This .
as for Kelsey Ann Smith R.I.P
I Think Her Parents are Going Nuts .
Police arrested a man in the slaying of Kelsey Smith on Wednesday night, hours after her body was found in southern Jackson County.
Edwin R. Hall, 26, of Olathe, is expected to be charged this morning with aggravated kidnapping and first-degree murder, Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass announced at an 11:30 p.m. news conference.
Douglass said Hall was one of many people interviewed who matched the description of a “person of interest” caught on surveillance tape at the Target store where Smith was last seen on Saturday night. He was interviewed Wednesday afternoon and arrested later in the day.
Smith’s parents, Greg and Missey Smith, spoke briefly after the news conference, thanking police for their work in the case.
Douglass said of the Smiths, “I realize this is not the preferred conclusion. While we cannot give them their daughter back, at least we can give them justice.”
For four days, family, friends and strangers who had never met Kelsey Smith vowed to bring her home. But Wednesday afternoon, authorities searching a 900-acre area found what her family prayed they wouldn’t.
In a wooded area near Longview Lake searchers found the 18-year-old’s body.
Just two weeks ago, Smith received her diploma from Shawnee Mission West High School. She would attend Kansas State University in the fall and be in the marching band with her sister. She planned to be a veterinarian someday.
“She lived more in her 18 years than many do with a great deal more time,” her father Greg Smith said, choking up Wednesday night as he read a family statement before a church service in his daughter’s honor. He said some described his daughter as being “scrubbed with sunshine.”
At an earlier news conference, Douglass said investigators had questioned several people Wednesday, trying to find the “person of interest.” That individual was seen on surveillance video entering a Target store after Smith on Saturday evening and leaving before her.
The same tape shows Smith being forced into her 1987 Buick Regal by someone who sprinted up behind her. Police say they still don’t know if Smith was picked at random in broad daylight or was kidnapped by someone she knew.
Douglass acknowledged during the news conference that his department was in contact with police in Belton, where a month ago a 17-year-old girl disappeared. Kara Kopetsky was last seen on the morning of May 4 at Belton High School. She was expected to walk home after school but never arrived.
Smith’s body was found about six miles from Kopetsky’s home in Belton.
The tips in Smith’s case had piled up to more than 500. Douglass said Wednesday night that one of those tips led to Hall’s arrest.
After releasing information Tuesday night about a dark-colored, older model Chevrolet pickup that pulled into the Target lot immediately after Smith, investigators received 200 tips in 12 hours.
That pickup truck was also seen in surveillance video leaving the Target parking lot at 9:29 p.m. Saturday, 12 minutes after Smith’s car was parked at the nearby Macy’s in Oak Park Mall. Douglass said Wednesday night that the pickup had been located.
Earlier, he said investigators had checked out numerous reports of pickup trucks matching that description.
“Some we’ve stopped in traffic, some we’ve stopped at houses and some we’ve checked on in other ways,” Douglass said.
•••
Smith had been gone nearly three days before authorities finished analyzing cell phone data that would eventually lead them to her. On Wednesday, they combed the area in southern Jackson County near Longview Lake where Smith’s cell phone sent signals to cell towers in the area. Authorities began gathering the data shortly after Smith was reported missing but said it took time for detailed analysis.
That data showed that her phone passed through telephone cells located on Interstate 35, Interstate 435 east to U.S. 71, then south to the Longview Lake park area.
While there were several signals known as “pings” in that wide vicinity, there were two from near Longview Lake around 8 p.m. Saturday, said Overland Park Police spokesman Matt Bregel.
“Pings” occur when a phone is in use, either receiving a call or sending one.
Authorities believe that in this case, they were from calls coming in. Smith’s boyfriend, John Biersmith, began calling her phone about 7:30 p.m. Saturday when she hadn’t returned to her home where he was waiting.
He and Smith’s family and friends continued calling throughout the night.
“Apparently her cell phone was traveling,” Bregel said during a news conference Wednesday afternoon. “We focused near where it hit twice.”
The data showed the “pings” in that area were within 12 minutes of each other, Bregel said.
Though Overland Park police and others quietly searched the area Tuesday, authorities didn’t disclose the location until Wednesday. That’s when more than 240 officers, from multiple agencies, canvassed the area.
No one but law enforcement and authorized teams were allowed in the search area.
Only a few people stopped by to see what was going on.
Among them was Edith Duskin of Kansas City, who had been helping in the search for Smith since Sunday. Duskin was on her way to the Longview Lake area to post fliers when she heard a body was found.
“I was hoping to God she would come home,” Duskin said. “This world ain’t right.”
•••
After each new lead, from the pickup truck to the cell tower “pings,” family remained hopeful. Smith’s parents went from one national media interview to another to keep their daughter’s name and face in the public’s eye across the country.
They insisted she would come home to them and her three sisters and one brother.
In the family statement Greg Smith read Wednesday night, he acknowledged the hundreds of people who spent long hours in the hot sun looking for his daughter.
“While the outcome wasn’t what we hoped for,” said Smith, a public safety officer at Johnson County Community College with 16 years of law enforcement experience, “it did not lessen the effort of those out there helping.”
The family asked Mark Seversen to deliver much the same message to the scores of teens and volunteers at the prayer service that followed at Hillcrest Covenant Church in Prairie Village.
“You did not fail. You did not fail. You did not fail. You did not fail,” the senior pastor repeated at the start of the service. “You did an extraordinary thing. You stepped in and you stood for Kelsey. And you gave your energy and you gave your hearts to it and you made a statement about how extraordinary Kelsey is and how important her life is.”
Every seat in the 560-seat sanctuary was taken, and about 200 people stood in back or in the overflow area.
Reading from Psalm 121, Seversen spoke of God as a guardian.
“God is guarding Kelsey right now,” he said. “We don’t like the place where he’s taken her, because we want her here.”
The congregation’s youth pastor, Nate Severson, opened a half hour of prayer for Smith, inviting those gathered to pray out loud or in their hearts, to write a message on poster board in the front.
Young people began streaming to the front of the church, using brightly colored markers to write messages, hugging each other and the family, the air punctuated with talk, tears and occasional laughter.
“We’re just going to take some time to lift our friend Kelsey up who lived an unbelievable life,” Severson said, “who rubbed off on every single person she came in contact with.”
•••
For three days they gathered in the Target parking lot at 97th Street and Quivira Road. Her friends spread out in the surrounding neighborhoods first, determined to put fliers with Kelsey Smith’s face on them on every car and front door they passed.
First they covered a couple-mile radius. Each day that grew until they had reached seven miles out.
All along the way, Eric Hillmer organized Kelsey’s Army. A close friend, he spent the night at the Smith home more than once this week, constantly working on the search.
And after police released news of the search near Longview Lake, Hillmer felt even more energized. This was good news.
About 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, he planned to lead a group of volunteers on a search of I-435 and the businesses and homes on the way to Grandview.
“We’re going to go a mile at a time, all the way down the highway, until we get some information or find her,” Hillmer said.
He had no way of knowing that officers had already found his friend’s body.
Within half an hour, though, Hillmer had heard the news. He was on his cell phone, his face in his hands.
That energy he and others outside Target felt all week was gone. Now they would grieve, for their friend or the young woman they wished they had a chance to meet.
After word spread that police had found her body, volunteers wrote on message boards: “Kelsey you will be dearly missed,” and “Kelsey, you will always be loved beyond measure and are always in our thoughts and hearts.”
Kimberly Kinkaid, who was organizing the message boards, hugged and cried with friends.
“Why, God?” she asked. “Why?”
www.godofradio.com/kramershow_339.htm
Several sources confirmed to FOX 4 that a suspect was in custody in Kelsey Smith's death on Wednesday night. A news conference is expected at 11:30 p.m. Smith's family spoke on Wednesday evening, following the discovery of her body earlier in the day. Police confirmed Smith's body was found near a shallow creek bed in Grandview.
Sources confirmed that a suspect was in custody on Wednesday night
www.myfoxkc.com
It dont mater what they do to the person that did this . _ *Pulls Out Knife*-
in a Short Time No One Will Be Even Talking About This .
That Name is What Matters Kelsey Ann Smith
I Pray They Set Up a Fund in That Name to deal with Events such as This .
as for Kelsey Ann Smith R.I.P
I Think Her Parents are Going Nuts .
Police arrested a man in the slaying of Kelsey Smith on Wednesday night, hours after her body was found in southern Jackson County.
Edwin R. Hall, 26, of Olathe, is expected to be charged this morning with aggravated kidnapping and first-degree murder, Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass announced at an 11:30 p.m. news conference.
Douglass said Hall was one of many people interviewed who matched the description of a “person of interest” caught on surveillance tape at the Target store where Smith was last seen on Saturday night. He was interviewed Wednesday afternoon and arrested later in the day.
Smith’s parents, Greg and Missey Smith, spoke briefly after the news conference, thanking police for their work in the case.
Douglass said of the Smiths, “I realize this is not the preferred conclusion. While we cannot give them their daughter back, at least we can give them justice.”
For four days, family, friends and strangers who had never met Kelsey Smith vowed to bring her home. But Wednesday afternoon, authorities searching a 900-acre area found what her family prayed they wouldn’t.
In a wooded area near Longview Lake searchers found the 18-year-old’s body.
Just two weeks ago, Smith received her diploma from Shawnee Mission West High School. She would attend Kansas State University in the fall and be in the marching band with her sister. She planned to be a veterinarian someday.
“She lived more in her 18 years than many do with a great deal more time,” her father Greg Smith said, choking up Wednesday night as he read a family statement before a church service in his daughter’s honor. He said some described his daughter as being “scrubbed with sunshine.”
At an earlier news conference, Douglass said investigators had questioned several people Wednesday, trying to find the “person of interest.” That individual was seen on surveillance video entering a Target store after Smith on Saturday evening and leaving before her.
The same tape shows Smith being forced into her 1987 Buick Regal by someone who sprinted up behind her. Police say they still don’t know if Smith was picked at random in broad daylight or was kidnapped by someone she knew.
Douglass acknowledged during the news conference that his department was in contact with police in Belton, where a month ago a 17-year-old girl disappeared. Kara Kopetsky was last seen on the morning of May 4 at Belton High School. She was expected to walk home after school but never arrived.
Smith’s body was found about six miles from Kopetsky’s home in Belton.
The tips in Smith’s case had piled up to more than 500. Douglass said Wednesday night that one of those tips led to Hall’s arrest.
After releasing information Tuesday night about a dark-colored, older model Chevrolet pickup that pulled into the Target lot immediately after Smith, investigators received 200 tips in 12 hours.
That pickup truck was also seen in surveillance video leaving the Target parking lot at 9:29 p.m. Saturday, 12 minutes after Smith’s car was parked at the nearby Macy’s in Oak Park Mall. Douglass said Wednesday night that the pickup had been located.
Earlier, he said investigators had checked out numerous reports of pickup trucks matching that description.
“Some we’ve stopped in traffic, some we’ve stopped at houses and some we’ve checked on in other ways,” Douglass said.
•••
Smith had been gone nearly three days before authorities finished analyzing cell phone data that would eventually lead them to her. On Wednesday, they combed the area in southern Jackson County near Longview Lake where Smith’s cell phone sent signals to cell towers in the area. Authorities began gathering the data shortly after Smith was reported missing but said it took time for detailed analysis.
That data showed that her phone passed through telephone cells located on Interstate 35, Interstate 435 east to U.S. 71, then south to the Longview Lake park area.
While there were several signals known as “pings” in that wide vicinity, there were two from near Longview Lake around 8 p.m. Saturday, said Overland Park Police spokesman Matt Bregel.
“Pings” occur when a phone is in use, either receiving a call or sending one.
Authorities believe that in this case, they were from calls coming in. Smith’s boyfriend, John Biersmith, began calling her phone about 7:30 p.m. Saturday when she hadn’t returned to her home where he was waiting.
He and Smith’s family and friends continued calling throughout the night.
“Apparently her cell phone was traveling,” Bregel said during a news conference Wednesday afternoon. “We focused near where it hit twice.”
The data showed the “pings” in that area were within 12 minutes of each other, Bregel said.
Though Overland Park police and others quietly searched the area Tuesday, authorities didn’t disclose the location until Wednesday. That’s when more than 240 officers, from multiple agencies, canvassed the area.
No one but law enforcement and authorized teams were allowed in the search area.
Only a few people stopped by to see what was going on.
Among them was Edith Duskin of Kansas City, who had been helping in the search for Smith since Sunday. Duskin was on her way to the Longview Lake area to post fliers when she heard a body was found.
“I was hoping to God she would come home,” Duskin said. “This world ain’t right.”
•••
After each new lead, from the pickup truck to the cell tower “pings,” family remained hopeful. Smith’s parents went from one national media interview to another to keep their daughter’s name and face in the public’s eye across the country.
They insisted she would come home to them and her three sisters and one brother.
In the family statement Greg Smith read Wednesday night, he acknowledged the hundreds of people who spent long hours in the hot sun looking for his daughter.
“While the outcome wasn’t what we hoped for,” said Smith, a public safety officer at Johnson County Community College with 16 years of law enforcement experience, “it did not lessen the effort of those out there helping.”
The family asked Mark Seversen to deliver much the same message to the scores of teens and volunteers at the prayer service that followed at Hillcrest Covenant Church in Prairie Village.
“You did not fail. You did not fail. You did not fail. You did not fail,” the senior pastor repeated at the start of the service. “You did an extraordinary thing. You stepped in and you stood for Kelsey. And you gave your energy and you gave your hearts to it and you made a statement about how extraordinary Kelsey is and how important her life is.”
Every seat in the 560-seat sanctuary was taken, and about 200 people stood in back or in the overflow area.
Reading from Psalm 121, Seversen spoke of God as a guardian.
“God is guarding Kelsey right now,” he said. “We don’t like the place where he’s taken her, because we want her here.”
The congregation’s youth pastor, Nate Severson, opened a half hour of prayer for Smith, inviting those gathered to pray out loud or in their hearts, to write a message on poster board in the front.
Young people began streaming to the front of the church, using brightly colored markers to write messages, hugging each other and the family, the air punctuated with talk, tears and occasional laughter.
“We’re just going to take some time to lift our friend Kelsey up who lived an unbelievable life,” Severson said, “who rubbed off on every single person she came in contact with.”
•••
For three days they gathered in the Target parking lot at 97th Street and Quivira Road. Her friends spread out in the surrounding neighborhoods first, determined to put fliers with Kelsey Smith’s face on them on every car and front door they passed.
First they covered a couple-mile radius. Each day that grew until they had reached seven miles out.
All along the way, Eric Hillmer organized Kelsey’s Army. A close friend, he spent the night at the Smith home more than once this week, constantly working on the search.
And after police released news of the search near Longview Lake, Hillmer felt even more energized. This was good news.
About 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, he planned to lead a group of volunteers on a search of I-435 and the businesses and homes on the way to Grandview.
“We’re going to go a mile at a time, all the way down the highway, until we get some information or find her,” Hillmer said.
He had no way of knowing that officers had already found his friend’s body.
Within half an hour, though, Hillmer had heard the news. He was on his cell phone, his face in his hands.
That energy he and others outside Target felt all week was gone. Now they would grieve, for their friend or the young woman they wished they had a chance to meet.
After word spread that police had found her body, volunteers wrote on message boards: “Kelsey you will be dearly missed,” and “Kelsey, you will always be loved beyond measure and are always in our thoughts and hearts.”
Kimberly Kinkaid, who was organizing the message boards, hugged and cried with friends.
“Why, God?” she asked. “Why?”
www.godofradio.com/kramershow_339.htm