Missouri Mayhem: Mystery & Murder with Mindy & Megan! · Megan Owens & Mindy Johnson

The Tragic Abduction & Murder of Kelsey Smith - Kansas & Missouri 2007

·42 min·2 clips

Hall says he saw Kelsey in the Target lot, followed her inside, and later made her drive to Longview Lake.

1. Missouri Mayhem: Mystery & Murder with Mindy & Megan! covers the 2007 abduction and murder of Kelsey Ann Smith in Overland Park, Kansas. 2. Mindy and Megan host the episode, and they connect the case to their own family stories, their New Year's-resolution talk, and Mindy's police-officer father. 3. The episode asks how Kelsey Smith disappeared from a Target parking lot in daylight and why the response took so long. 4. Kelsey Ann Smith was born in 1989 in Charleston, South Carolina, to Missy and Greg Smith, and she was the third of five children. 5. Greg Smith moved the family back to Overland Park after retiring from the Navy, and he later became a Kansas City police officer. 6. The hosts describe Kelsey as known as “No-No,” a nickname tied to her getting into things and hearing “No-No” from adults. 7. In high school, Kelsey played clarinet, did theater, sang in choir, danced, and ran track, and her mother said her house was always full of friends. 8. Kelsey had just graduated from Shawnee Mission West High School nine days before the abduction, and she had been accepted to Kansas State University. 9. She planned to study veterinary medicine, had been accepted into the university band, and had been dating her boyfriend John for about six months. 10. On June 2, 2007, Kelsey left home around 6:30 PM to buy a memory box and wrapping for John’s six-month anniversary gift. 11. She stopped to grab a CD she had forgotten, told her father, “I love you, dad. I’ll see you later,” and entered Target at 6:55 PM. 12. Target surveillance shows her calling her mother for help finding memory boxes, then checking out and walking to her car around 7:10 PM. 13. The footage briefly shows a person in a white shirt and dark pants running toward her car, and the car was later found outside Macy’s across the street. 14. The episode says John arrived around 7:30 PM to pick her up, and both parents and her boyfriend were questioned and then cleared. 15. By Sunday, June 3rd, the Smith home had become a command center, and friends, relatives, and volunteers organized as “Kelsey’s Army.” 16. Officers reviewed video from more than 40 Target cameras and saw a white male in his early 20s appear about 30 seconds after Kelsey entered the store. 17. The hosts say the man seemed to follow her through the aisles, left when she checked out, and later appeared in the parking lot footage. 18. When investigators found her car, they recovered belongings on the driver’s side, including gift wrap and a Coach purse, plus unidentified fingerprints on the seatbelt. 19. Verizon initially refused to unlock Kelsey’s cell phone because she was 18, and the hosts say investigators waited four days before receiving the records. 20. The episode is conversational, detail-heavy, and emotionally direct, and it will suit listeners who follow true-crime cases with family, forensic, and policy angles.

As heard by us

A conversational true-crime recap that keeps the timeline clear and the victim at the center.

Missouri Mayhem, Mystery & Murder takes up the 2007 Kelsey Ann Smith case and keeps the timeline easy to follow, from the Target stop to the car turning up at Oak Park Mall.

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Why you'd press play

You want a careful, conversational path through Kelsey Smith’s case and the aftermath.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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