Emanuel Kemp was sentenced to death by the State of Texas for the murder of Johnnie Mae Gray
According to court documents five days after getting out of prison Emanuel Kemp would hijack a city bus and force the driver to keep the bus moving while he sexually assaulted and murdered Johnnie Mae Gray. Kemp would later stab the driver who thankfully survived
Emanuel Kemp would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Emanuel Kemp Photos
Emanuel Kemp Now
SID Number: 03079730
TDCJ Number: 00000909
Name: KEMP,EMANUEL JR.
Race: B
Gender: M
Age: 57
Maximum Sentence Date: DEATH ROW
Current Facility: POLUNSKY
Emanuel Kemp Case
A Tarrant County judge called off the upcoming execution of Emanuel Kemp, a Fort Worth killer once deemed too insane to be put to death.
But his scheduled punishment was canceled not over concerns about his sanity, but in light of a need for further DNA testing, according to court filings
Kemp was scheduled to die on Nov. 7 for a decades-old crime. The high-school dropout had been out of prison for just five days when he hijacked a public transit bus at knifepoint in 1987, forcing the driver to drive around town while he raped and murdered the only passenger, Johnnie Mae Gray.
The 34-year-old died from nine stab wounds to the chest and throat according to Texas prison records. The driver was stabbed in the neck but lived.
Kemp was arrested three days later and sent to death row the following year after a whirlwind six-day trial.
In the years after his conviction, Kemp was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, according to his attorney, Greg Westfall.
He has been very psychotic to entirely utterly out there since about 1990,” Westfall said.
By the mid-90s, one court deemed Kemp incompetent for execution, though a higher court later reversed that decision after years of medication
Since then, his attorneys raised claims of bad lawyering, violations of due process, questions about jury selection and denial of funds to get mental health experts.
After he lost in federal court in the early 2000s, according to Westfall, the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office under another administration agreed not to seek another death date – so the decision to schedule a November execution came as a surprise to defense counsel
“It was agreed that he was too insane to execute,” Westfall said earlier this year. “Since then, the leadership there has changed and now they have sought an execution date. It was really out of the blue
But on Friday, the trial court greenlit an order withdrawing the execution date “so that matters related to his Motion for Forensic DNA Testing Can be fully litigated,” according to court filings.
The state, according the paperwork notes, has agreed to the motion.
Neither Westfall nor the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office could be reached Monday for comment.
The canceled execution is now the second death date called off from Tarrant County in the past week.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Friday stayed an October death date scheduled for Juan Segundo, who was sent to death row in 2005 for the cold case murder of 11-year-old Vanessa Villa. The order opens the door to investigate claims that he’s too intellectually disabled to be put to death.
With Segundo’s date called off, Kwame Rockwell – also from Tarrant County – is the next prisoner scheduled to die. The Lone Star State has executed 10 men so far in 2018. There are another six death dates on the calendar in the coming months, including two in 2019.
