Murder of Kelsey Smith

Kelsey Ann Smith (May 3, 1989 – June 2, 2007) was an 18-year-old from Overland Park, Kansas. On June 2, 2007, she was last seen at 7:07 p.m. in the parking lot of a Target store at 97th and Quivira, behind Oak Park Mall. Surveillance video showed her buying a gift for her boyfriend and calling her mother before leaving the store. About four hours later, her car was found abandoned outside a Macy's in the Oak Park Mall parking lot, with her purse, wallet, and purchased items still inside.

Target's internal surveillance system showed a white man in his early twenties, wearing a white shirt and dark shorts, entering the store shortly after Smith and appearing near her throughout the footage without approaching her. Parking-lot video, when slowed down, showed a flash consistent with someone running near Smith's car, and captured a 1970s-era Chevrolet truck leaving the lot. Mall surveillance later showed Smith's car being left at Macy's at 9:17 p.m., with a figure in similar clothing exiting and running toward the street. Fingerprint analysis of the car isolated unidentified prints on the seat belt after ruling out those with legitimate access to the vehicle.

Investigators used a cell-phone tower ping, obtained after a four-day delay by Verizon Wireless, to narrow the search area. On June 6, 2007, at 1:30 p.m., searchers found Smith's body in a wooded area near Longview Lake in Grandview, Missouri, 18 to 20 miles from where she was abducted. An autopsy determined she had been strangled with her own belt and had been sexually assaulted.

A tip from a woman who recognized the surveillance subject as her neighbor, combined with information about the truck, led police to arrest 26-year-old Edwin Roy "Jack" Hall of Olathe, Kansas, on the evening of June 6, 2007, as he was preparing to leave town with his wife and son. Hall was charged on June 7 with premeditated first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping. He had a juvenile record involving assault but no adult criminal history. He admitted being at Target but denied approaching Smith; his fingerprints on the car's seat belt contradicted his account.

On August 1, 2007, a Johnson County, Kansas, grand jury indicted Hall for murder, rape, and aggravated sodomy, making him eligible for the death penalty, which the district attorney chose to pursue. On July 23, during what had been scheduled as a change-of-venue hearing, Hall pleaded guilty to all four charges. Investigators concluded that Hall had followed Smith into the store, retrieved a gun from his truck, forced her into her car in the parking lot, driven her about 20 miles to Missouri woods, and sexually assaulted and strangled her there.

On September 16, 2007, Johnson County district judge Peter V. Ruddick sentenced Hall to life in prison without parole for the kidnapping, rape, and murder. Hall apologized to Smith's family in court. He is incarcerated at Lansing Correctional Facility in Lansing, Kansas. The case later prompted the federal Kelsey Smith Act, enacted in February 2021, allowing cell-phone carriers to locate a phone at law enforcement's request when a subscriber is believed to be in danger.