VACAVILLE – An elderly man awaiting execution for the rape and murder of a woman at the Lafayette Reservoir in the late 1970s died of natural causes over the weekend, according to authorities.
Related Articles
Oakland corruption probe: Duong family supported Sheng Thao to rake in taxpayer funds, prosecutors say
East Bay librarian kidnapped during daytime robbery, police say
Temporary replacement for DA Pamela Price announces first staffing changes; county leaders to begin search
‘They shot my brother’: Oakland murder trial will hinge on witness ID versus ‘rumor’ mill
Sideshows: The tire-spinning, rubber-burning Bay Area phenomenon that some hate and some love
Darryl T. Kemp, 88, was pronounced dead at 9:45 p.m. Saturday at the California Medical Facility, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a news release.
Kemp was tried, convicted and sentenced to death in 2009 for the Nov. 14, 1978, murder of Armida Wiltsey.
It was the second death sentence for Kemp, who was convicted of two rapes and of raping and murdering a Los Angeles nurse in the 1950s. In 1972, his first death sentence was commuted to life in prison when the California Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional.
Kemp was paroled on July 23, 1978, and murdered Wiltsey roughly four months later.
Wiltsey was found in brush near a jogging trail. She had been strangled and had evidence of binding on her wrists.
The murder went unsolved for decades. But a break in the case finally came in 2002 when the Contra Costa County forensic lab matched DNA in Kemp’s hair with the genetic makeup of a speck of blood found on one of Wiltsey’s fingernails.