Kelsey Smith

[Nomad]

This one is really bothering me. Its just turning my stomach. She looked so vivacious and alive. I feel sick about it. Sick and sad.



$5 million bond set for suspect in Kelsey Smith murder

By LAURA BAUER and DIANE CARROLL

The Kansas City Star



Edwin R. Hall appeared before a Johnson County judge via closed-circuit TV this afternoon and said he wants to hire his own attorney.

Hall was charged this morning with first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping in the death of 18-year-old Kelsey Smith.

District Judge Daniel W. Vokins granted the prosecution’s request to set bond at $5 million.

Smith’s family attended the brief hearing, entering the courtroom after Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline, deputy Stephen Maxwell and two assistants.

Vokins set Hall’s next court date for June 14.

Afterward, Kline said during a press conference that the investigation was ongoing and that new warrants had been issued today.

When asked if the case might be transferred to federal court or if prosecutors might seek the death penalty, Kline replied: “Everything is on the table.”

Filing the murder charge in Johnson County does not necessarily mean that the murder occurred here, Kline said. There is no question the crime originated in Johnson County with Kelsey’s abduction, he said.

Kline declined to comment on questions regarding evidence. He also has declined to comment on how Kelsey was killed.

Hall’s arrest Wednesday night came as a shock to neighbors and former neighbors, some of whom said he liked to work on cars and collect scrap metal.

Hall and his wife Aletha and young son weren’t known to cause any trouble for neighbors. Their little boy, who was around 3 when they lived in a Newton Avenue town home in Kansas City, loved to play in his Batman cape.

“Just a nice young family,” said Sarale Russ, who lives in the 9300 block of Newton Avenue where the Halls lived until earlier this year. “Nothing unusual.”

Like countless others in the metro area, Russ followed the disappearance of Kelsey and has seen the surveillance video.

“It didn’t look like” her former neighbor, she said. Russ now remembers the family’s dark-colored, older model Chevrolet pickup — seen in surveillance video pulling in after Kelsey in a Target parking lot Saturday — that Aletha Hall would often drive to work.

Hall currently lived in a small yellow home with blue trim in the 500 block of North Lincoln in Olathe. Neighbor Cameron Migues described a nice, normal guy who worked in a restaurant. He lives next door and the two men often would work on cars together.

Migues has a 3-year-old child who played with Hall’s son. On Tuesday, the two worked on a car in the driveway as the children played in the backyard.

“We were talking about school,” Migues said this morning. “He wanted to go back to be a mechanic. It was a normal conversation. Nothing any different.”

Later that day, Migues’ wife saw the picture of a “person of interest” in the Kelsey Smith case on TV. Hey, that looks like our neighbor, they said, and laughed about it.

“It wasn’t until the whole truck came in the picture until we were like, ‘OK, I need to call,’” Migues said.

He then called police and told them that his neighbor looked like the person of interest and his truck matched the vehicle.

Migues said he had not seen Hall, who had only lived at that house for three or four months, at all over the weekend.

Shortly after Kelsey’s body was found in a wooded area not far from Longview Lake Park, detectives were talking with Hall. They said Wednesday night that it was tip from the public led them to the 26-year-old Olathe man.

Smith had been missing since Saturday evening, when she didn’t return from an errand to a Target store at 97th Street and Quivira Road.

Her body was found as more than 200 law enforcement officers searched a 900-acre area in south Kansas City. The search there came after police discovered that Kelsey’s cell phone signaled a tower in that vicinity Saturday night.

[RedGlitter]

Who knows why these things happen.

It is sad and troubling.

And this girl is just one who was found.

There are buried unknowns just like her everywhere.

Heinous.

[JacksDad]

Nomad;632310 wrote: This one is really bothering me. Its just turning my stomach. She looked so vivacious and alive. I feel sick about it. Sick and sad.




I'm with ya there, Nomad.

[Patsy Warnick]

Nomad

Is this the case where the cameras showed this guy following the young lady around the store? I only heard a minute of this on the news - I can't stomach this so I click the news around, its happening so much - very disturbing and scary.

Just awful - its difficult to watch the news anymore.

Patsy

[Marie5656]

As of last night they arrested the guy who was following her. At least I think that is who it was...looks like him.

[zinkyusa]

Looks like there may have been some sort of contact on my.space..