OLATHE, Kan. – A judge sentenced a suburban Kansas City man to life in prison without parole for the 2007 kidnapping, rape and murder of 18-year-old Kelsey Smith, who was abducted from a Target parking lot.
Twenty-seven-year-old Edwin R. Hall pleaded guilty in July to capital murder to avoid the death penalty.
Hall also pleaded guilty to aggravated kidnapping, rape and aggravated sodomy in Smith's death. Each of the other three counts carries sentences of more than 12 years in prison to more than 54 years in prison.
Hall abducted Smith from an Overland Park Target store parking lot in June 2007. The Overland Park teenager's body was found four days later about 15 miles away in a Missouri park.
Smith's relatives gave tearful victims' statements, and a weeping Hall told them simply that he was "so, so sorry" for what he did.
Johnson County District Judge Peter V. Ruddick, who also told the family he was sorry for what they had gone through, sentenced Hall Tuesday afternoon to life in prison without the chance for parole.
The sentence was expected.
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