Kelsey Smith

*A Note from Rebecca*
Please pray for this family. This is a terrible way to lose a child. *Wipes tears* It gets me every time. I hate it.


Missing Overland Park girl found dead in south KC

A body found this afternoon in south Kansas City is that of Kelsey Smith, police said.

Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass said at a 4 p.m. news conference that investigators had found a body about 1:30 p.m. in south Kansas City.

Although positive identification had not been made, Douglass said, “We have reason to believe we have found Kelsey Smith.”

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.

The body has not yet been positively identified.

Shortly before 2 p.m., two Overland Park police detectives came to the Target where family and volunteers have gathered and asked to talk with the family. The detectives left to talk with Smith’s parents at their home.

A family spokesman was expected to make a statement soon.

Volunteers who have been handing out fliers and canvassing the neighborhoods near the Target at 97th Street and Quivira Road had heard about the body being discovered but said they would keep searching because the body has not been positively identified and clues may be still out there.

At a noon news conference, police said Kelsey Smith’s cell phone signaled the tower at 8 p.m. Saturday. Kelsey’s car was last seen at 7:10 p.m. leaving the Target in Overland Park, which is about 20 miles from the search location.

Overland Park police said an analysis of cell phone data showed that the phone passed through telephone cells located on Interstate 35 to Interstate 435, then east to U.S. 71 south, and from there to an area in the vicinity of Longview Lake park.
*A Note From Rebecca*
This rips me up...every time. Please pray for Kelsey's family.

According to a police department news release: Cell phone signals, known as “pings,” occur when a phone is in use, either receiving a call or message, or sending a call or message. Family and friends were attempting to contact Kelsey on Saturday night.

FBI spokesman Jeff Lanza said about 240 officers are involved in the search, which began just before 11 a.m.

Standing shoulder to shoulder, searchers moved into a wooded area, combing it for clues to Smith’s whereabouts. The site was near a residential development to the west of Byars Road.

The officers are from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration; police departments from Overland Park, Kansas City, Grandview and Lenexa; and police academy students from Johnson County Regional Police Academy, Kansas City, Kan. and Kansas City.