Blue Springs, MO —
It’s likely to be a little easier for the police to find a missing person, under a bill sponsored by a local state representative.
The Missouri General Assembly wraps up its 2012 session next Friday and as of a few days ago still had passed fewer than two dozen bills. One is the Kelsey Smith Act, named for the 18-year-old from Overland Park who was abducted and murdered in 2007, nine days after she graduated from high school. The law would make it easier for police to use a missing person’s cell phone to track that person’s location, information that could be vital in the minutes and hours after an abduction.
http://liarcatchers.com/missing_persons_investigations.html
State Rep. Jeanie Lauer, R-Blue Springs, sponsored the bill, which the House passed in March. She said it was “a common-sense issue – forget the party lines – that people can agree upon.”
She talked with fellow legislators, including Sen. Mike Parson, R-Bolivar. Parson, a former sheriff, saw the value of such a law, Lauer said. The measure was written as a consent bill, meaning it would not get bogged down with several amendments, as commonly happens with much legislation.
“I met with everybody, laid the groundwork, had a plan,” Lauer said.
The Senate passed the bill this week, and now it goes to Gov. Jay Nixon, whose office has not officially said he’ll sign it, though the governor’s past practice often has been to wait until the General Assembly adjourns and then take a few weeks to review each bill before signing or vetoing it. Still, Lauer notes, the governor has spoken supportively of this legislation. It would take effect in August.
The law also has been passed in Kansas and six other states and is pending in Missouri and three others, according to www.kelseysarmy.org. It’s also been introduced in Congress. The goal is to track the cell phones of those at the risk of serious harm or even death because they’re missing or have been kidnapped. There are limits. It wouldn’t be used if, for example, an angry teenager ran away from home for a couple of days.
Kelsey Smith was abducted at a department store at the Oak Park Mall in June 2007. Her body was found four days later near Longview Lake. Her killer, Edwin Roy “Jack” Hall of Olathe, pleaded guilty to charges that included kidnapping, rape and murder. He is serving a life sentence, with no chance of parole, in Kansas.
