Laura Kempton Wiki – Laura Kempton Biography

Laura Kempton was just 23 years old when she was raped and murdered at her home in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in September 1981. More than 40 years later, law enforcement say they have finally cracked the perplexing Granite State cold case.

“The Kempton family would like to express our deepest gratitude to the Portsmouth Police Department for resolving Laura’s case,” her family said in a victim impact statement. “Her diligence and determination, along with extraordinary personal commitment over the past several decades, have led to this moment for Laura.”

However, justice will prove elusive because the man suspected of the horrific crime died in 2005, according to a press release issued by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office. Kempton was last seen alive during the early hours of September 28, 1991. She returned to her apartment alone after a night out with a friend. The next morning, an officer trying to serve a subpoena made the grim discovery, the attorney general’s office explained.

Laura Kempton Age

The age of Laura Kempton was 23 year.

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Why Laura Kempton’scase is closed now

“As [Officer Ron Grivois] approached, he noticed that one of the wooden door panels to his apartment was missing and that a piece of thin metal was blocking most of the resulting hole in the door,” a report from the attorney general’s office explains. “Through the remaining opening in the door panel, he could see a body lying on the floor.

Officer Grivois saw that the upper part of the body was covered with a blanket, but two legs were visible and were tied with a white cord. He was also able to see what appeared to be blood splattered on the back wall of the apartment.” A green pillowcase was also found wrapped around her head and neck. An autopsy showed that Kempton died from blunt force trauma to the head. The murder weapon is believed to have been a bottle of wine.

Years passed and the case went cold. A major break came in 2002 when technology enabled the testing of physical evidence recovered from a crime scene to produce a male DNA profile, the AG report notes. Then the case went cold again. Two more decades passed. In May 2022, Portsmouth Police Detective Erik Widerstrom was notified that a profile uploaded to a third-party public genetic genealogy database could help crack the case.

That profile led investigators to the suspect’s biological parents. A task force of several New Hampshire and Maine law enforcement agencies, along with Identifinders International, used forensic genetic genealogy technology to determine that those parents had exactly one child: Ronney James Lee. Police later learned that Lee died of acute cocaine poisoning at age 45 on February 9, 2005.

He was 21 years old at the time of the murder. In June, an analyst directly compared Lee’s DNA profile, taken from a “blood card” taken during his autopsy, with a cigarette butt, scrapings from the victim’s thighs and sperm left on the green pillowcase covering Kempton’s head. It was a confirmed match.

The attorney general’s office said that if Lee were still alive, they would seek first-degree murder charges for knowingly causing Kempton’s death before, after, or while committing or attempting to commit an aggravated criminal sexual assault and, alternatively, intentionally causing Kempton’s death by striking her with a blunt object.

“I hope this conclusion and announcement is the long-awaited first step in bringing the closure that the criminal justice system can provide to Laura Kempton‘s family and community,” said New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella. “The Portsmouth Police Department is to be commended for their commitment and perseverance in seeking justice for Ms. Kempton and her family.”Read more……