LJWorld.com / 1,000 attend service for slain teen

Archive for Wednesday, June 13, 2007

By Steve Brisendine - Associated Press Writer

June 13, 2007

Leawood — The best way for Kelsey Smith's friends to honor the slain teen is for them to dedicate themselves to positive change in themselves and society, ministers said Tuesday at her memorial service.

The 18-year-old, who had planned to attend Kansas State University and become a veterinarian, was a victim of a culture replete with violence and sexual exploitation, said the Rev. Jeff Kirby, an associate pastor at the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection.

"You can say, 'It doesn't affect me,'" said Kirby, who challenged young people in the congregation to boycott violent and overly sexualized films, music and television programming. "Maybe it doesn't affect you. Maybe it affects the psycho neighbor down the street."

Kirby also challenged Smith's friends to honor her memory by developing their own faith and pursuing careers that would benefit others.

Almost 1,000 people, many of them wearing blue - Smith's favorite color - attended Tuesday afternoon's memorial service. Smith was buried Tuesday morning in a private ceremony.

Smith was abducted June 2 from a Target store in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, and her body was found three days later near a lake about 20 miles away in Missouri.

Hundreds of volunteers, many of whom had never met the woman, distributed fliers and searched for her after surveillance cameras recorded her being forced into her car in the store's parking lot on that Saturday evening.

On June 6, police arrested 26-year-old Edwin R. Hall of Olathe, acting on tips generated by the surveillance footage. He was charged the next day with first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping.

The reasons for Smith's killing may never be fully understood in this life, said her pastor, Mark Seversen of Hillcrest Covenant Church in Prairie Village.

Seversen, whose own church would not have been big enough to accommodate the mourners, cited the first letter to the Corinthians from the New Testament, in which St. Paul likens human understanding of eternal matters to a dim reflection in a clouded mirror.

"We can only understand in part," Seversen said. "This is not a perfect world. It's a flawed place."