Kansas City, Mo. ? An anonymous tipster who could have received a $40,000 cash reward for information that led to an arrest in a high-profile slaying has turned it down, directing that the money go instead to an educational fund established in the victim’s name.

Ali Kemp, a 19-year-old student at Kansas State University, was strangled two years ago in June while working at a neighborhood swimming pool in Leawood, Kan., an affluent Kansas City suburb.

The widely publicized case had produced thousands of leads and tips that failed to pan out. Then last month, former Kansas City area resident Benjamin Appleby was arrested in Bantam, Conn., where he was living under another name. Leawood police said anonymous tips provided information crucial to finding and arresting Appleby, 29, who is charged with capital murder and attempted rape. He is being held on $1 million bond.

Crime Stoppers, a Kansas City agency that operates a hot line to help solve crimes, announced Monday that the tipster who provided the key information in the case asked that the $40,000 go to the Ali Kemp Educational Foundation.

Roger Kemp, father of the slain young woman, whose family had contributed $24,000 toward the reward fund, said he was “floored” at the news.

“It just goes to show how wonderful people in Kansas City are,” Kemp said.

The reward fund in the case actually totals $50,000, one of the largest ever raised for a Kansas City area crime. Authorities said $10,000 from the fund would be paid to another tipster.

Officials of Crime Stoppers said information from the second of the two tipsters was more significant, and thus that person was chosen to get most of the tax-free reward money. Both anonymous callers said they had noticed billboards about the unsolved crime, displays that had been donated by Lamar Advertising.

Craig Sarver, who helps coordinate Crime Stoppers, said there had been other occasions where tipsters requested that reward money they could have claimed go to a charity instead.

“Like with a drug house,” he said. “They say, ‘I don’t want a reward, I just want this out of my neighborhood.”‘