An Easy Target

Kelsey Smith was 18 and had finished high school only days earlier when, on the evening of June 2, 2007, she stopped at a Target in Overland Park, Kansas, to buy an anniversary gift for her boyfriend. Edwin Hall, 26, followed her through the store. As she got into her car in the parking lot, he rushed her from behind and forced his way in at gunpoint.

Her car was later found abandoned at a nearby mall. Her family and police spent days trying to get her phone’s location, and Verizon did not hand over the tower records until the FBI became involved. Once investigators had the data, searchers found Kelsey’s body within 45 minutes, on June 6, in woods near Longview Lake in Grandview, Missouri, about 15 miles away. Hall had sexually assaulted her and used her own belt to strangle her. Hall was arrested that same day.

On July 23, 2008, Hall pleaded guilty in Johnson County to capital murder, aggravated kidnapping, rape and aggravated sodomy, avoiding a possible death sentence. On September 16, 2008, Judge Peter Ruddick sentenced him to life without parole plus 47 years. Kelsey’s parents then campaigned for the Kelsey Smith Act, which requires phone carriers to give police location data when a person is in danger. Kansas passed it in 2009, and Wisconsin became the 31st state to adopt a version in 2024.