DA's office: Kelsey Smith was strangled

— Prosecutors say Kelsey Smith was strangled.

Johnson County District Attorney's Office Spokesman Brian Burgess said today that some type of ligature was used to strangle Smith after she was abducted from a Target store last Saturday.

He did not specify exactly what was used to kill the 18-year-old Smith, or give details of how or where it happened.

Prosecutors may seek the death penalty for Edwin Hall, the 26-year-old Olathe man charged with first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping in Smith's death. His bond is set at $5 million.

District Attorney Phill Kline did not rule out moving the case to federal court. Kline said that he does not necessarily believe Smith was killed in Kansas.

Smith's body was found in Missouri.


Comments

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Jun. 8, 2007 at 7:30 p.m. (Suggest removal)layla (anonymous)

Obviously, this girl was stalked by Hall, possibly even for weeks before he murdered her. Everyone asks, how would he know her? And his blog says his favorite movie is about a sociopath that tortures a police officers' daughter. Hmmmm, let's think about this. She JUST GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL, and I'll bet the newspaper ran a bio of some sort on all the new graduates, including who Mom and Dad are, where they work etc etc. It's sad, but I think the time has come to really limit the information that is so freely shared about our children, like school lists that go into every home in the district, listing phone, addresses, and in some cases, how many children in each family. How many times have we all, as parents, innocently and freely given out such helpful information about our kids, never thinking WHO might use it for their own sick purposes.
Think about it, and think about giving out things like social security numbers, home schedules, addresses and cell numbers; watch your kids on the computer, keep it in the dining room or kitchen where you can see it all the time, kids don't need privacy on their computers, even big kids. Guard what you have, first and foremost your children. Maybe everyone could learn just one small thing from this terrible tragedy that might save someone else's child from the same fate, Kelsey would like that, I think.

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