Vehicle identified in connection with teen’s abduction

This photo provided by the family shows missing Overland Park teen Kelsey Smith. Smith has been missing since Saturday when she did not return from a trip to a nearby store in Overland Park.

? Police have identified a vehicle they believe is connected with the apparent abduction of an 18-year-old woman from a store parking lot in this Kansas City suburb.

At a news conference Tuesday night, Overland Park police spokesman Jim Weaver said surveillance video at a Target store parking lot shows an older, dark-colored Chevrolet pickup truck that may have been driven by a man involved in the disappearance of Kelsey Smith on Saturday evening.

“We think that there’s a connection,” Weaver said. “We need to know more.”

Weaver said police are pursuing more than 300 leads in the case. Earlier Tuesday, police released surveillance video showing what they believe to be Smith being forced into her car.

Weaver said that just before 7 p.m. Saturday, the 1970s-model pickup pulled into the same parking lot aisle where Smith had parked about one minute earlier. A man is seen leaving the pickup and going into the Target store soon after Smith entered.

Smith, who graduated from high school less than two weeks ago, left the store around 7:10 p.m. and put packages into her car when someone ran toward her and shoved her inside, police said.

“You see two individuals come together, and there is no separation of those two individuals,” Police Chief John Douglas said. “So it is easy to conclude there was some kind of incident at the back of the car. Then the car leaves.”

The tape was “just not detailed enough” and was being enhanced at a forensics lab, Douglas said.

“We see activity,” Douglas said of the videotape. “We are moving on the assumption – because the prudent thing to do is to treat this as an abduction – that there was some kind of force involved.”

At 9:29 p.m. Saturday – a little over 10 minutes after Smith’s gray 1987 Buick was found in a nearby mall parking lot, her purse and packages still inside – the video shows a man getting into the pickup and leaving the Target lot.

More than 50 detectives and officers from the area and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were involved in the case, Douglas said. A Web site, www.findkelsey.com, has also been set up.

Police earlier released video of Smith walking into and out of Target and of the man they called a “person of interest,” said Detective Bob Miller.

They were not calling the man a suspect, but said he may have information and they wanted to speak to him.

Miller said the Smith family was bearing up “as well as can be expected.” They have increased the reward for information about Kelsey’s disappearance to $25,000.

“I talked to the dad early this morning. They’re starting to crumble a little bit because we’re past the 48-hour window,” Miller said. “He knows the urgency and the gravity of the situation now.”

Smith’s father, Greg Smith, has been in law enforcement for 16 years. He earlier described his daughter as an outgoing young woman who plans to be a veterinarian.

Investigators said they don’t know if Smith was picked at random or abducted by someone she knew. But Kelsey Smith’s 23-year-old sister, Stevie Hockersmith, said she was sure her sister did not know the man police were seeking for questioning.

Wherever Kelsey is, Hockersmith said she felt sure her sister was putting up a fight.

“He doesn’t know what he’s in for,” she said. “Honestly, she’ll raise all hell, and she won’t stop. Kelsey won’t stop until her body makes her stop basically, until she just can’t go on anymore.”