Tag: kenneth thompson

Kenneth Thompson Murdered In Prison

Kenneth Thompson

Kenneth Thompson was sentenced to death by the State of Arizona however other prisoners decided to speed up the time line and would murder him inside of the Arizona Department Of Corrections. Kenneth Thompson would receive a death sentence after traveling from Missouri to Arizona where he would murder his sister in law and her boyfriend before setting the house on fire. Kenneth Thompson tried to blame Scientology for the murder as his beliefs taught him that psychology was evil. The Arizona Department of Corrections have said they believe two people are responsible for Kenneth Thompson murder however the names have yet to be made public

Kenneth Thompson More News

Kenneth Thompson — the Missouri man who traveled to Arizona, killed his sister-in-law and her boyfriend and used Scientology as a defense — died Wednesday, according to the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry. Officials are investigating his death as an apparent homicide.

Thompson was pronounced dead shortly after 1 p.m. Wednesday, the department announced. He was found in his “assigned housing unit where life-saving measures were conducted,” the department said. He was an inmate in the Arizona State Prison Complex Eyman, in Florence.

The department has identified two suspects, also inmates, “for the attack,” but did not offer more details.

Thompson’s crime was shocking, and the subsequent northern Arizona trial was gripping. In 2012, he traveled to Arizona from his home in Missouri and used a hatchet and a knife to kill his sister-in-law and her boyfriend. He poured acid on their bodies, set the Prescott Valley house on fire and fled.

A Prescott jury in 2019 found him guilty of first-degree murder, burglary, arson, criminal damage and tampering with evidence. He was sentenced to death.

Whether Thompson killed his sister-in-law and her boyfriend — Penelope Edwards and Troy Dunn — wasn’t up for debate in his 2019 trial. His attorneys didn’t dispute that.

But they took issue with the prosecution’s portrait of Thompson as a premeditated killer. He was concerned about the two children in his sister-in-law’s care, they argued.

Thompson’s wife had taken care of them while Penelope Edwards was in prison. Once she was released and got the children back, Thompson and his wife often worried about them. When Thompson learned one of the children was receiving psychiatric treatment at a children’s hospital, that was the last straw. 

Thompson was raised as a Scientologist and his attorneys argued that Scientologists view psychology as “evil and a scam.” He believed he was on a mission to rescue these children from spiritual death, they argued.

Court testimony helped piece together a narrative of what happened in Prescott Valley in 2012.

Thompson took off for Arizona. His attorneys said even his then-wife, Gloria, didn’t know about his plans. He had told her he was heading to Memphis to deal with legal issues surrounding his parents’ estate.

His attorneys said he arrived at a junction at Interstate 40 and impulsively decided to bear west, heading to Arizona. As he drove to Arizona, which court testimony said took him just more than one day, Gloria began texting him. But Thompson left his phone at home.

He stayed at a motel. He went to Walmart the next morning to buy a hatchet and a change of clothes. His attorneys maintained the hatchet was for a camping trip he planned.

He took a taxi to his sister-in-law’s house. Details became much more muddled after that.

Thompson told the jury he wanted to bribe his sister-in-law into letting him bring the children back to Missouri with him. The Prescott Daily Courier reported he testified to the jury for almost four hours.

He claimed the conversation turned violent. His attorneys said he struck in the heat of passion. They asked for a manslaughter verdict.

Hours after he arrived at his sister-in-law’s home, neighbors reported a house fire. Responding crews discovered the victims’ bodies. Police pulled Thompson over on I-40 heading east.

A search revealed a hatchet with human hair and blood on its blade.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-breaking/2021/12/30/convicted-murderer-kenneth-thompson-who-used-scientology-as-defense-found-dead-in-arizona-prison/9059881002/

Kenneth Thompson Arizona Death Row

kenneth thompson

Kenneth Thompson was sentenced to death by the State of Arizona for two murders. According to court documents Kenneth Thompson used a hatchet to murder Penelope Edwards, and her boyfriend, Troy Dunn. Afterwards he would set the bodies on fire. Kenneth Thompson was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.

Arizona Death Row Inmate List

Kenneth Thompson 2021 Information

ASPC Eyman, Browning Unit
PO Box 3400
KENNETH W. THOMPSON 334538
Florence, AZ 85132
United States

Kenneth Thompson More News

The man who tried and failed to convince jurors that his upbringing as a Scientologist helped rationalize why he bludgeoned two people to death and set their bodies on fire was sentenced Wednesday to death by a Prescott jury.

The jury announced its verdict of death shortly after noon, according to a public information officer for the Yavapai County Superior Court.

Kenneth Wayne Thompson, 35, used a hatchet and knife to kill his sister-in-law, Penelope Edwards, and her boyfriend, Troy Dunn, in March 2012, according to court testimony. He then poured acid over the bodies and set the house on fire before fleeing the scene.

A jury convicted him of the killings Feb. 20. Jurors began deliberating on March 30 whether Thompson should spend his life in prison or die by lethal injection.

Prosecutors with the Yavapai County Attorney’s Office painted the crime as a deliberate plan, hatched in Thompson’s mind days before and carried out unbeknownst to anyone, including his wife, Gloria.

As evidence, prosecutors told jurors how Thompson bought a gun and a temporary cellphone in the days before. He then told his wife he was leaving their home in the Ozarks region of Missouri to travel to Memphis to deal with a legal issue involving his parents’ estate.

Instead, Thompson drove to Arizona, making the journey in just over a day with minimal stops, according to court testimony.

Thompson’s attorneys didn’t dispute the bare facts. But they offered a different motivation and rationale, rooted in Thompson’s being raised as a Scientologist.

Thompson, in his attorney’s version, saw himself on a mission to rescue two children who were in his sister-in-law’s care. Thompson’s wife, Gloria, had cared for the children temporarily while her sister, Penelope, had served a prison sentence. After the children were returned to their mother, Gloria still fretted about the kids’ well-being, testimony showed.

Thompson and his wife had just discovered that one of the children was being treated in the psychiatric ward of a children’s hospital. And for Thompson, who was raised as a Scientologist, that was akin to killing the child spiritually.

“(Scientologists) think psychology is evil and a scam,” defense attorney Robert Gundacker told jurors in his opening statement.

Thompson, according to his attorneys, came to a junction of Interstate 40 and made an impulsive decision to head west to Arizona rather than east to Tennessee.

Thompson’s wife sent increasingly frantic text messages to his phone, imploring him to contact her. But Thompson didn’t take his phone on the trip, testimony showed. He had a temporary phone; his usual phone was found at his Missouri home weeks later, his wife testified.

The trip was not evidence of premeditation, his attorney said, but showed how seriously Thompson took his religious belief that the child receiving mental treatment was in spiritual peril and needed rescuing.

Thompson, speaking to jurors before they began deliberating his sentence, said he showed up at the house aiming to bribe his sister-in-law to let him bring the children back with him to Missouri.

I was going to try to buy happiness for these two children,” Thompson said, according to a story in the Prescott Daily Courier. Thompson, according to the Courier, spoke to the jury for nearly four hours.

Thompson told jurors the conversation about the children turned violent.

“I can’t say I’m sorry they’re dead,” Thompson told jurors, according to the Courier. “Penelope Edwards hurt her children all the time. Troy hurt children. He was not a good guy.”

His attorneys argued that Thompson killed the couple in the heat of passion. They asked jurors to return a verdict of manslaughter.

The jury deliberated less then two hours before returning the verdict that Thompson was guilty of first-degree murder. That same jury then began deciding whether the crime merited the death penalty.

Gregory Parzych, one of Thompson’s attorneys, said his client showed little emotion in the courtroom when the verdict was announced.

Parzych, who defended Thompson along with two public defenders from Yavapai County, said the defense team was disappointed that their strategy of trying to get jurors to see the crime through Thompson’s unique upbringing did not keep their client off death row.

“When you get a death verdict, you will always second-guess yourself and you always regret certain things that you did or did not do,” he said. “That’s just inevitable.”

Though the state objected to the defense, the judge allowed Thompson’s attorneys to spend the better part of a day at trial walking jurors through the beliefs of Scientology.

An expert in the religion, flown in from Canada, gave sworn testimony about the origins of the religion, which included a warlord named Xenu who buried beings in a volcano on what is now Planet Earth.

Jurors also heard about the use of introspective counseling called “auditing” that Scientology adherents believe can rid the body of unwanted thetans, leaving a person in the desired state of “clear.”

Thompson’s ex-wife, Gloria, testified that Thompson had stopped being a practicing Scientologist, partly because of the expense.

Other testimony suggested that Thompson was a so-called “free zone” Scientologist. That schism of the faith adheres to what it says are the original teachings of the church’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, and does not follow the church’s current leader, David Miscavige.

The Church of Scientology was not pleased to see its religious beliefs become entangled in a brutal murder trial.

A Church of Scientology spokesperson, Karin Pouw, in a statement sent to The Republic in February, said the testimony about Scientology was distorted and incorrect, contributing to “hate, intolerance and bigotry.”

Deputy Yavapai County Attorney Steve Young echoed that sentiment during his closing arguments to jurors before they decided whether Thompson was guilt

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2019/04/03/jury-delivers-death-sentence-man-who-blamed-killings-scientology/3338233002/

Kenneth Thompson Death

Kenneth Thompson was murdered in prison on January 1, 2022. The killers have yet to be identified