Billboard Ad Helps Town Nab Girl's Murder Suspect

Oct. 28, 2005 — -- Ali Kemp seemed to be leading a charmed life. The 19-year-old grew up in a loving home with her parents and two brothers in the idyllic setting of Leawood, Kan., a peaceful, tree-lined suburb just outside of Kansas City. By all accounts, she was a remarkable young woman, who dreamed of someday going to Russia to work with needy children. But she never got the chance.

On an overcast day in June 2002, Ali lost her life in a moment of terrible, senseless violence like nothing even veteran police officers in the community had ever seen before.

"I'd have to say that in my 35 years of experience it was probably the most horrific thing that could happen to a community like this," said Maj. Craig Hill of the Leaway Police Department.

Kemp had just finished her freshman year as an honor student at Kansas State University, and was working as an attendant at a neighborhood pool, just four blocks from her family's home.

"It was a wonderful job, a neighborhood pool. And you would think the safest place in the world," her father, Roger Kemp, told "20/20" correspondent Don Dahler.

But that June day, when overcast skies left few people at the pool, Ali was randomly confronted by a man in the pool's pump room. Moments later, he would brutally beat and strangle her.

At around 3 p.m. she called her friend Laurel Vine to come keep her company during her shift at the pool. She then called her boyfriend, Phil Howes, on his cell phone. But Howes missed her call. "I wish I could have answered that, because maybe she was in trouble then, and was trying to get hold of me."

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary when Vine pulled into the pool parking lot. "I saw a man walking out. I presumed he was a maintenance worker. And I just kind of looked around and saw Ali's stuff there. I just assumed that she had gone to do something really quickly. And then I left and went home," she said.

Two hours later, when Ali's brother, Tyler, showed up to relieve her of her pool duties, he noticed her purse and cell phone on a table but no sign of his sister. So he called his father, who came over to help find her.