Update: Kelsey has been found deceased in the area of search. I don’t know what else to say but that my heart goes out to her family, and her friends, this is a terrible thing to hear.
Please do keep helping by looking for the person of interest below.
Fox News also has an update and pictures of the person of interest police are looking for, as well as a ’70s model Chevrolet pickup truck they believe might be related.
From the article posted prior to the news that they found Kelsey:Â
200+ law enforcement officials are searching a 900 acre area in South Kansas City, Missouri for the missing Kansas teen, Kelsey Smith. The area is near Longview Lake park, and they are focused SE of 71 highway. Here is the police briefing on why they are searching this area. (Click the thumbnail to enlarge area to left.)
The police are triangulating on this area because the last signal pings from Kelsey’s cell phone came from there. Which brings me to a consideration for all parents: please make sure your children’s cell phones have GPS locator capabilities and that GPS is turned on — in a case like this the cell phone location can be pinpointed very quickly with GPS on, however without GPS locator then cell tower ping triangulation takes massive cell tower data searches, a long analysis, and there must be calls to or from the phone to get the pings. It’s better if you can pull up your own child’s location on the internet instantly, and if you can give police permission to do so in an emergency.