OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — Police on Wednesday arrested a man in the abduction and death of a teenager who disappeared four days earlier from a store parking lot.
Authorities said 18-year-old Kelsey Smith's body was found across the state line at a lake in Grandview, Mo., a suburb south of Kansas City
Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass identified the suspect as Edwin R. Hall, 26, of Olathe, Kan. He was expected to be charged today with premeditated first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping.
Douglass said Hall was interviewed Wednesday after police acted on a tip that matched Hall and a vehicle to surveillance video from the Target store parking lot where Smith was abducted Saturday evening.
Smith's body was found about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday about 20 miles east of the abduction site.
Douglass declined to comment on the circumstances of Hall's questioning or evidence in the case but said police had located a vehicle that matched the description of one seen in surveillance video pulling into the Target parking lot about a minute after Smith parked there.
He said Hall appeared to be the same person shown in the video walking into the Target soon after Smith entered the store.
Johnson County prosecutor Phill Kline said charges would be filed this morning.
"This community has lost a vibrant and promising life, and her family has suffered unimaginable tragedy," he said.
Kline said his office would ask the state to set bond at $5 million.
Officers started searching woods at the Missouri lake Tuesday after investigators traced two signals from Smith's cell phone to an area about 15 miles east of the Target store in suburban Kansas City.
Before a church memorial service Wednesday evening, Smith's father thanked everyone involved in the search.
"She could walk into a room full of strangers and walk out with a room full of friends," Greg Smith said, 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."
Just before 7 p.m. Saturday, the pickup pulled into the parking lot aisle where Smith had parked about a minute earlier, police said. A man is seen leaving the pickup and going into the Target store Smith had entered.
On Tuesday, police released video showing a woman they believe is Smith being forced into her car. The tape was being enhanced at a forensics lab.
Smith, who graduated from high school less than two weeks ago, left the store around 7:10 p.m. and was putting packages into her car when someone ran toward her, police said.
"You see two individuals come together, and there is no separation of those two individuals," Douglass said. "So it is easy to conclude there was some kind of incident at the back of the car. Then the car leaves."
Investigators said they don't know whether Smith was picked at random or abducted by someone she knew.
About two hours after Smith disappeared, her grandparents found her car in a parking lot at a mall in suburban Kansas City with her purse and packages still inside.
Greg Smith, who has been in law enforcement for 16 years, described his daughter as an outgoing young woman who planned to be a veterinarian.