July 17, 1959: Darryl Thomas Kemp is linked to the killing of Marjorie Hipperson. He killed again a few months after being paroled in 1978.
Kemp was convicted of murdering Hipperson. The jury found him sane, in spite of tremendous evidence to the contrary, and gave him the death penalty. He was sentenced to death in February 1960.
Almost immediately, he was sent to the State Mental Hospital where he was treated until December 1968. In February 1969, doctors said Kemp had regained his sanity, but before he could be returned to death row, the California Supreme Court was forced to reverse his sentence because of a 1968 U.S. Supreme Court decision on improperly excusing prospective jurors over their views on the death penalty.
In May 1970, jury selection began to determine whether Kemp should once again be given the death penalty. By now, much of the evidence had been destroyed, several witnesses had died or disappeared and some of Kemp's statements were no longer admissible because of the Miranda rights, which had been introduced after he was convicted. Two months later, despite these challenges, Kemp, now 34, was again given the death penalty for killing Hipperson.
Kemp spent two more years on death row. Then in 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned California's death penalty. Kemp was among 102 men on death row who became eligible for parole when their sentences were converted to life in prison. He was paroled to Pleasant Hill, Calif., in July 1978.
On Nov. 14, 1978, Armida Wiltsey, the 40-year-old wife of a Kaiser Steel executive, went jogging on a popular trail around the Lafayette Reservoir, off California 24 between Berkeley and Walnut Creek. A search for her began after she failed to pick up her 10-year-old son from school and a police dog found her body about 60 feet off the running path. She had been raped and strangled after putting up a terrific fight, judging by traces of the killer's blood found under her fingernails.
Much later DNA testing would tie him to this killing. In the meantime, Kemp had moved to Austin, Texas, and in 1983, he broke into the home of six university students and raped and choked them, drawing a life sentence.
Brilliant investigative instincts in working the cold case of Armida Wiltsey led to Kemp. He was brought back to California and on Dec. 3, 2008, at the age of 73, Darryl Thomas Kemp was sentenced to die -- for the third time.
Some folks say this case is an argument for the swift execution of convicted killers. Others say very simply, people like Kemp should not be let out of jail.
What's your opinion?
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