|
Post by Joanna on Oct 3, 2016 0:03:39 GMT -5
Were Portsmouth Women Victims of a Serial Killer?September 28 is the 35th anniversary of the murder of Laura Kempton (above right) of Portsmouth, N.H., and police Detective Sgt. John Peracchi is optimistic her killer will be caught. “The advances in modern forensic science have given investigators new possibilities with evidence that was perceived to be degraded, no longer viable,” he said. “We are revisiting all those people that were persons of interest during the initial stages of the investigation.”
On Monday, Sept. 28, 1981, around 9:30 a.m., the body of Kempton, 23, was found dead in her apartment at 20 Chapel Street (pictured below). Autopsy revealed she died of massive head trauma, consistent with being struck by a blunt object, causing contusions and lacerations of the brain. The young woman was a student at the Portsmouth Beauty School and employed at Marco Polo, Inc., and Karen’s Ice Cream Parlor. According to police, she was last seen by a friend leaving the Ranger Club, a bar on Congress Street, in the early hours that morning. “Generations of detectives have carried the case,” Peracchi added. “It began with the director of detectives, William Mortimer, and it has never gone cold.” Peracchi is one of those detectives and he worked as the lead investigator on the cold case from 2004 through 2010. He and the late Paul Lindsay, a retired FBI agent and novelist from Rye, N.H., interviewed “hundreds of people,” he said.
Thirty-five years after the murder, investigators are revisiting the case. “The modern techniques,” coupled with evidence collected decades ago, provides hope the case will be closed, Peracchi explained. “It’s amazing what a great job they did with evidence collection,” he said of the officers who processed the murder scene in 1981. “Their evidence collection techniques have really helped us.”
A reward of up to $20,000 remains in place for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Kempton’s killer. The same reward is active for information that would lead to a conviction in the unsolved murder of Tammy Little (above left), whose mother found her dead in her apartment at 315 Maplewood Avenue on October 19, 1982. The 20-year-old woman also was a student at the Portsmouth Beauty School and, like Kempton, died as a result of massive head injuries. The women lived approximately a mile from each other and both occupied ground-floor apartments. Neither had a steady boyfriend and both frequented the Ranger Club.
In an interview with the Portsmouth Herald five years ago, now-retired detective Mike Leclaire said the murders of Kempton and Little have too many similarities to ignore and the women were likely killed by the same person. The two had photographs taken of themselves with the intentions of creating a portfolio they intended to send to modeling agencies, he added. Additionally, both were assaulted during the autumn months in the early morning hours on a weekend and both were beaten beyond recognition. If it were a serial killer, Leclair reasoned, there may have been “a kill” before Kempton and/or after Little.
Anyone with information concerning these murders is encouraged to leave anonymous tips with Seacoast Crime Stoppers at (603) 431-1199, by text to CRIMES (274637) and including TIPSCS in the message, or at seacoastcrimestoppers.org Sources: Elizabeth Dinan, SeacoastOnline, September 25, 2016; The Portsmouth Herald; and The Bangor Daily News.
|
|
|
Post by madeline on Oct 3, 2016 9:24:33 GMT -5
The girls were probably killed by the same person, but that doesn't mean he was a serial killer. They were both attending the same beauty school, so it could have a connection to the school. Some murderers kill only if they have the opportunity to kill. Not every killer goes out hunting for someone to kill.
|
|
|
Post by Joanna on Nov 1, 2017 19:09:38 GMT -5
New Leads in 1981-82 Cold Cases Police in Portsmouth, N.H., received four new leads during the past four days in a pair of unsolved murders, said Detective Sgt. John Peracchi. The tips came in after the Portsmouth Herald published a story reporting that Police Chief Robert Merner now lives at 315 Maplewood Ave. (above), where 20-year-old Tammy Little was found beaten to death 35 years ago. Peracchi said the Herald story prompted the tips and that he welcomes new information at all times.
Little was found dead Tuesday, October 19, 1982, a year after Laura Kempton, a 23-year-old aspiring model, who was found beaten to death on September 28, 1981. Kempton’s body was discovered by a now-retired police officer, who went to her Chapel Street apartment to talk to her about unpaid parking tickets.
Rewards of $20,000 remain in place for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer or killers of both women.
Merner said last week that he didn’t know his new home was a cold-case crime scene when he moved in, but since finding out, he’s been studying the cases. The police chief plans to share evidence with a former colleague at the Boston Police Department whose specialty is cold cases and who “put the finishing touches on the Boston Strangler case.”
In an interview with the Portsmouth Herald six years ago, now-retired police detective Mike Leclaire said the murders of Kempton and Little have too many similarities to ignore and the women were likely murdered by the same person. Both women, he pointed out, lived alone in ground floor apartments in the downtown area, were studying to become beauticians, were regulars at the Ranger Club, and while they socialized and dated, neither had steady boyfriends.
Anyone with information concerning the murders is encouraged to leave anonymous tips with Seacoast Crime Stoppers at (603) 431-1199, by text to CRIMES (274637) and including TIPSCS in the message, or at seacoastcrimestoppers.com. Peracchi emphasized that no amount of information is too small.Source: Elizabeth Dinan, The Portsmouth Herald, October 24, 2017.
|
|
|
Post by JoannaL on Jul 20, 2023 21:36:22 GMT -5
Laura Kempton’s Rapist/Killer Identified!On September 28, 1981, 23-year-old Laura Kempton was found dead in her ground-floor apartment at 10 Chapel Street in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Now, after more than four decades, her killer has been identified. Unfortunately, he’s dead: Ronney James Lee died of a cocaine overdose in February 2005.
The assault on the young beauty school student was brutal. Lee used a cord from an electric blanket to tie her ankles and there was a phone cord around her neck and shoulder area. After immobilizing her, she was violently beaten, particularly on the left side of her head, leaving a pool of blood on the rug where she lay. She was also raped, either before, during, or after the beating. Before leaving the apartment, Lee covered the corpse of his victim with the mattress and bedding from her bed.
A cigarette butt, pillow and glass bottle collected at the scene all revealed male DNA, but it wasn’t until 2022 that a suspect was identified using advanced forensic genetic genealogy technology.
In September 1981, Lee, who was 21 at the time, was employed as a security guard by MBI Security at Liberty Mutual in Portsmouth. Born in 1960, he had served in the army, with his enlistment ending in May 1981. He lived at 198 Rockhill Avenue with his mother, and was arrested in 1982 on a charge of attempted theft. Between July and September of 1983, he was linked to four residential burglaries and one commercial burglary. According to court documents, he pled guilty “to one of those offenses where he broke into an apartment on Austin Street in Portsmouth at around 2:30 a.m. on July 26, 1983, by breaking a window, reaching in, and unlocking it before crawling in.” He also pled guilty to breaking into a residence on Dennett Street the previous night around 11 p.m., where he stole a handbag.
In 1987, Lee was convicted of charges stemming from a burglary in Keene, N.H., during which he sexually assaulted a woman. For this crime, he was incarcerated from December 1987 until July 1990.
Attorney General John Formella called the identification “bittersweet,” but added it should “send a message to anyone who has been affected by a case that has gone cold in this state that we will never stop working these cases. We will never forget about these victims.”
Laura Kempton’s family issued a statement, expressing their “deepest gratitude” to the Portsmouth Police Department.
At this time, it isn’t known whether Lee also assaulted and murdered Tammy Little, who, like Kempton, lived in a ground-floor apartment. Ms. Little also died of massive head injuries. “It is our hope what we’re announcing today will lead to additional information,” Formella said.Sources: Glenn Sabalewski, The Portsmouth Herald, July 20, 2023; Greg Wehner, Fox News, July 20, 2023, and The Associated Press.
|
|
|
Post by catherine on Jul 21, 2023 19:06:57 GMT -5
If there's any DNA from the murder of the other girl, I'm 99% certain they'll find the same fiend is responsible. Portsmouth isn't a big city, and it was even smaller back then, so it's very unlikely two men with the same MO would have been breaking in homes and assaulting women at the same time. This is another example of so-called criminal profilers doing more harm than good. Any time there's a murder that may have been committed by a serial killer, they inevitably claim the killer is a white male of a certain age, a loner, etc. But this is the 4th or 5th case that I know of where the authorities were looking for a white man, but the killer turned out to be black. In the murders of JB Beasley and Tracie Hawlett in Alabama, a police officer said at no time had anyone ever considered the killer was black, but he was. The same thing happened in Baton Rouge with Derrick Todd Lee. Even though people saw the killer and identified him as black, the police ignored them and continued searching for a white man.
|
|