Kevin Murphy was sentenced to death by the State of Pennsylvania for the murders of Doris Murphy, 69; Kris Murphy, 43; and Edith Tietge, 81, at Ferguson Glass. According to court documents Kevin Murphy was upset that his family would not support him in a relationship with a married woman so he would shoot and kill his mother, sister and aunt at his business. Kevin Murphy would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Pennsylvania Death Row Inmate List
Kevin Murphy 2021 Information
| Name | Name Type |
| KEVIN MURPHY | Commit Name |
| KEVIN LEE MURPHY | True Name |
Parole Number: LA4324
Age: 60
Date of Birth: 12/11/1960
Race/Ethnicity: WHITE
Height: 5′ 10″
Gender: MALE
Citizenship: USA
Complexion: MEDIUM
Current Location: PHOENIX
Permanent Location: PHOENIX
Committing County: WESTMORELAND
Kevin Murphy More News
State Corrections Secretary John Wetzel signed a notice of execution Wednesday for an Indiana County man convicted in 2013 of first-degree murder for shooting his mother, sister and aunt just months after the state Supreme Court upheld his death sentence.
However, the death warrant setting Kevin Murphy’s execution for Dec. 19 was immediately stayed, allowing the 55-year-old a chance to appeal, according to Department of Corrections documents.
A Westmoreland County jury convicted him of shooting Doris Murphy, 69; Kris Murphy, 43; and Edith Tietge, 81, at Ferguson Glass in Loyalhanna Township on April 23, 2009. The three women worked at the family business, which Kevin Murphy owned.
Murphy used a .22-caliber revolver to shoot the women in the head because they disapproved of his romantic relationship with a married woman and didn’t want her to live at the family home near Saltsburg, police said.
The jury imposed the death penalty for Doris Murphy’s killing and imposed life sentences in the deaths of Kris Murphy and Tietge. The state Supreme Court upheld the death sentence in March.
According to the corrections department, once the state Supreme Court affirms a death sentence on direct appeal, the case is sent to the governor’s office along with the trial record, including transcripts of the sentencing hearing, imposition of the sentence and the court’s opinion.
If the governor does not issue an execution warrant within 90 days of receiving the record, the secretary of corrections must issue a notice of execution under the death penalty statute.
“This is what happened in the Murphy case and others during the Gov. (Tom) Wolf administration,” said Amy Worden, press secretary for the corrections department.
After the warrant is issued, the execution is stayed to permit the defendant to file a collateral challenge to the death sentence in state court under the Post Conviction Relief Act, the Department of Corrections reported.
If that petition is denied by the lower court and the state Supreme Court affirms that denial, the stay of execution is lifted.
The governor is then required by law to reissue the warrant within 30 days of the state office of general counsel receiving notice that the court’s action has lifted the stay. When the next warrant is issued, the execution is stayed, usually by a federal court, to allow the defendant to challenge the death sentence in federal court, and the process repeats itself, the corrections office reported.
In previous appeals, Murphy has argued prosecutors failed to prove he was the killer and the verdicts were against the weight of the evidence.
In a 14-page ruling last spring, five Supreme Court justices disagreed.
“Viewed in its totality, we find the Commonwealth presented sufficient evidence to enable a reasonable jury to find all elements of the crimes of first-degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt,” they said in an opinion authored by Chief Justice Thomas Saylor.
Jurors imposed the death penalty based on evidence Murphy “deliberately and maliciously” killed his relatives, according to the opinion, and prosecutors “plainly established … aggravating circumstances found by the jury, given the multiple killings involved.”
Justices Max Baer, Debra Todd, Christine Donohue and Kevin M. Dougherty joined in the opinion. Justice David N. Wecht did not participate in the proceedings.
Gary Heidnik was the last person to be executed in Pennsylvania — in 1999 — for murdering two women he had imprisoned and tortured in the basement of his Philadelphia home.
Murphy is incarcerated at SCI Greene in Waynesburg.