William Macumber - BonPasse Exoneration Services

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Bill Macumber, Imprisoned For 1962 Arizona Double Murder, Pleads No Contest And W... Page 1 of 1
March 13, 2013
Bill Macumber, Imprisoned For 1962 Arizona Double Murder,
Pleads No Contest And Walks Free
Posted: 11/08/2012 1:36 pm EST Updated: 11/08/2012 1:36 pm EST
After nearly four decades behind bars, an Arizona inmate who long maintained that his ex-wife
framed him for a double-murder walked out of prison a free man.
Bill Macumber, 77, received a sentence of time served when he pleaded no contest to two
counts of second-degree murder on Wednesday, allowing his release under an agreement with
prosecutors in Maricopa County Superior Court, the Arizona Republic reports.
Macumber was twice convicted of the 1962 slayings of Joyce Sterrenberg and Tim McKillop,
two telephone company workers and had been serving a life sentence, the Associated Press
reports.
Bill Macumber
Though Macumber is a free man, Judge Bruce Cohen still cast doubt on his innocence.
“We will never know with certainty what happened on that 1962 night,” the judge said in court.
According to ABC News:
On May 24, 1962, the young couple was found shot and killed next to their car in an area now near Scottsdale. The case went cold for 12
years until Macumber's wife, Carol Kempfert, went into the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office department where she worked and told her
supervisors that her husband had confessed to the murders. Macumber was arrested a week later.
With Kempfort's testimony, County prosecutors built a case against Macumber using a palm print, .45 handgun, and bullet casings
found at the crime scene.
After the state Supreme Court overturned the guilty verdict in his initial trial, a second ruling convicted Macumber.
Macumber insisted he was innocent and eventually the Arizona Justice Project picked up the case. The organization, which works to
free wrongly convicted prisoners, filed a motion calling into question the ballistics and handprint evidence as well as the testimony of
Macumber's ex-wife.
They also presented previously ignored evidence -- a confession from a man named Ernest Valenzuela. In 1964, Valenzuala admitted
to authorities that he killed two people in the desert near Scottsdale. By the time Macumber went to trial, however, Valenzuala had
already died in a prison fight.
In 2009, Gov. Jan Brewer denied a recommendation from the state's clemency board suggesting Macumber's life sentence be reduced.
Asked by ABC News if she framed her ex-husband, Kempfort responded, "No, absolutely not."
A cousin of one victim was upset with the decision to release Macumber.
"How do you take a blow in your stomach? How do you describe that? We know he's guilty," said John McCluskey, according to CBS-5.
"We know in our hearts that man killed those two young people."
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Arizona murder mystery: Guilt of man in 1962 killings thrown into question
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Arizona murder mystery: Guilt of man in 1962 killings
thrown into question
Murder in the desert
1962 killings
by John Faherty - Jun. 5, 2011 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
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It was 1962, and the area was still pure desert, creosote
bushes and scrub grass that ran all the way out to the
mountains.
By the time sheriff's deputies arrived at the scene, just
northeast of Scottsdale and Bell roads, it was morning. The
bodies of Joyce Sterrenberg and Tim McKillop had been there
all night.
The killings made no sense. The victims, a couple, were good
kids. Everybody said so.
For the next 49 years, investigators, politicians, lawyers and
family members would try to understand what happened.
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A strung-out addict said she saw it happen, but then she
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A wife, angry and defiant, finally broke the case open. She
was the one who led investigators to Bill Macumber and
helped get him convicted.
But he said he didn't do it. And there are many who now
wonder if he did.
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On May 24, 1962, Detective Jerry Hill was having breakfast at Helsing's Coffee Shop on
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Across the table was his partner, Sgt. Lester Jones.
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They were both with the sheriff's department, major-crimes division.
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Morning was still breaking when the call came in. Two bodies in the desert. The pair left
the coffee shop and headed across town.
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By 8 a.m. they were off Scottsdale Road, where deputies were combing the desert.
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The deceased: Joyce Sterrenberg and Tim McKillop. Both 20. Both worked for Mountain
Bell Telephone. He was a lineman. She was an operator. They had been dating since
October.
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The crime scene: A bare stretch of earth just north of a dirt track east of Scottsdale. The
white Impala had pulled north off the track and parked. Behind it was another set of tire
tracks, where a car had pulled up, then backed away.
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The murder weapon: A .45-caliber, judging by the four shell casings found in the dirt.
Each victim was shot twice in the head.
The motive: Unclear. A rejected suitor? Someone who had followed the couple, enraged
after being cut off on the road? A vicious gang out for violence?
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The next day's newspaper headline blared: "Seek savage killer of young couple."
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"This was a spur of the moment slaying," Sgt. Jones told reporters. "It is the type
committed by a bunch of punks driving around looking for trouble."
Jones said the evidence suggested that there were people with the killer when he pulled
the trigger.
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And he added, ominously, that those people should be nervous.
"These punks," he said, should worry that "this guy who fired two slugs into each of the
victim's heads may turn on them to keep them quiet."
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The next day's headline: "Thrill-kill blamed in 2 slayings."
The day after that, Sterrenberg and McKillop were buried, side by side.
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The department spent months scouring the Valley for more clues.
Residents were horrified. A killer in their midst. The tips poured in.
The department kept records of everything. One man called to warn of a neighbor, always
acting "funny." One woman was suspicious of the man next door. He was "Catholic."
Deputies scoured gun shops to ask about anyone who owned a .45. Those who did were
asked to hand them in for testing.
But nothing broke. The days became weeks. The weeks became months. The months
became years. Still, nothing.
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Then, on a hot August day in 1974, a woman walked into the sheriff's office to talk to
deputies about a crime.
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She told them an astonishing story.
Her husband said he was the killer.
The revelation
Carol Kempfert Macumber was well known to the deputies in the station. She had worked
there as a secretary for years.
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That Friday evening in August, she was there for a different reason. A window at the
home of her husband and children had been shot out. Police didn't know who did it, but
she was certain she did.
She and her husband, Bill, were separated. She thought Bill had shot out the window,
then tried to blame it on her.
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Bill did those sorts of things, she told investigators. He often carried his .45. And she said
every time she told him she was leaving him, he started acting crazy.
She said that one night, they were lying in bed, and he told her "that he had killed the two
kids from Mountain Bell Telephone."
Suddenly, a broken window became a murder
investigation.
And not just any murder. Twelve years later, the two
unsolved murders still cast a shadow over the
department.
Deputies pried for more about the case. Transcripts of
the interview reveal the conversation.
Carol started describing Bill's story. Her details fit the
evidence from the scene.
Carol even suggested a motive. Bill's temper behind
the wheel, she said, it could be terrifying.
Five days later, detectives asked Macumber to come
to the station. He was known to deputies, too, as a
volunteer with the sheriff's search-and-rescue posse.
He didn't know what he was walking into when he
entered Room 10 in the Internal Security Office.
Investigators asked whether he had shot out the window at his house. They questioned
him, then took him to have a polygraph test. Records show he failed the test.
Only then did Macumber learn there was something else to talk about.
"I have an allegation of a criminal nature," a detective told him, "and I believe that I had
better read you your rights."
They told Macumber Carol's story and handed him a copy of his wife's statement.
"Bill, you did tell Carol you killed those people, didn't you?" a detective asked him.
Their transcript shows his response. "Macumber hung his head for a moment, and looking
at the floor said, 'Yes.' "
At trial, the evidence stacked up against him.
Deputies at the 1962 crime scene had collected 15 prints from the outside of the Impala.
Some belonged to the victims; some were smudged and not usable. The FBI examined
four and never found a match.
But there was one, the first print lifted, that had never been analyzed. Detectives lifted it
from the chrome strip along the driver's side window. Unable to determine if it was a finger
or palm print, investigators never sent it to the FBI.
Print No. 1 matched Macumber's palm. It was as if he had rested his hand on the door
while leaning into the window.
The other key piece of evidence came from the four shell casings at the scene.
After a semi-automatic weapon is fired, a series of small mechanisms push the spent
casing out of the gun, clearing the chamber for another shot. The process leaves a
variety of marks on the brass casing.
The FBI crime lab examined the casings from the scene. Most of the marks were
indistinct.
But the ejector marks were a match. Marks on three of the four casings matched the
ejector pin on Macumber's Ithaca .45-caliber.
Carol never took the stand at trial, though her story was the foundation of the case.
The judge's instructions to the jury were clear. The palm print was enough to put
Macumber at the scene.
On Jan. 24, 1975, the jury convicted him on both counts. He was given two life
sentences.
After his conviction, he told this newspaper he was innocent.
"Regardless of what happened in the courtroom and the verdict," he said, "thank God that
saying it doesn't make it so."
On appeal, a judge ruled Macumber's defense had not had the opportunity to present its
own ballistics expert. Macumber was retried in 1977 and convicted again.
Carol took their three children and later moved away, finally settling in Washington state.
For decades, Macumber has moved from one prison to another. And every day since, he
has insisted he is innocent.
But if Macumber didn't commit the murders, who did?
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Murder in the desert
by John Faherty - Jun. 5, 2011 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
1962 killings
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The trail of evidence in the 1962 murder of Tim McKillop and Joyce Sterrenberg would lead to William
Macumber (center), who 12 years later would be tried for the murders and sentenced to life behind bars.
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On Aug. 10, 1967, a man named Ernie Valenzuela met a couple in a downtown Phoenix
bar.
BREAKING NEWS
The three drank until the bar closed.
Then they went to the couple's house.
When the liquor there ran out, they
drove into the night, looking for more.
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Then Valenzuela pulled a gun, court
records say.
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Get out, he said.
The husband and wife ran in different
directions. They hid in the dark.
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As the sun rose, the woman thought
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Valenzuela yelled for the man to come out or he "was going to fix his wife."
Valenzueala shot the man and put him in the trunk, still alive. He drove around awhile
before pulling the man from the trunk and shooting him again. He placed the man's dead
body back in the trunk. Then he raped the man's wife.
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Valenzuela drove the woman to her home and let her out. He fell asleep in her driveway.
That is where the police found him.
Because he was a Pima, and because the crime happened on the Gila River Reservation,
the case went to federal court.
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Thomas O'Toole was fresh out of law school at the time, just beginning a career with the
Federal Public Defender's Office.
He knew right away Valenzuela was dangerous. The client wasn't a big man, 5 feet 9 and
150 pounds or so, with long, thick dark hair pushed straight back. But he frightened
O'Toole.
"He had a homicidal personality," O'Toole says now. "A ticking time bomb."
O'Toole was assigned to defend Valenzuela, but the man had committed two awful crimes
and left one witness. He was going to prison.
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As they talked, O'Toole learned something else about Valenzuela. He never shut up.
"He relished talking about the crimes he committed," O'Toole says. "He didn't brag. He
was just in another world."
During one of their talks, Valenzuela told the attorney he had committed other murders.
Two people in the desert, back in 1962.
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O'Toole knew the case right away. The double murder had been big news and remained
unsolved.
He needed to know if the confession was true. He had Valenzuela interviewed by a
psychiatrist who used sodium pentothal: "truth serum." Valenzuela's story never changed.
But the revelation would remain a secret. It was subject to attorney-client privilege, a
bedrock of criminal law.
Valenzuela pleaded guilty to the rape and murder on the reservation and was sentenced
to 15 years.
Although Valenzuela never stood trial for the 1962 murders in Scottsdale, O'Toole
believed the killer had been punished.
Valenzuela took his secret with him to the U.S. penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan.
He died in a knife fight there in 1973.
Nine months later, O'Toole picked up the newspaper and nearly fell out of his chair.
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"Posse chief arrested in '62 double killing," the headline read.
O'Toole went to the state Bar's ethics panel seeking permission to break attorney-client
privilege.
But it wouldn't matter. The judge heard the account and called it hearsay. Unreliable.
A jury would never hear O'Toole's story about Valenzuela.
For decades, O'Toole struggled with the memory. He believed he had met the real killer.
But he was also a believer in the justice system.
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"I didn't necessarily agree with it, but legally it was valid," he says today. "I put my faith in
the criminal-justice system to get it right."
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In 1999, O'Toole read a newspaper article and then picked up the phone.
By then, he was no longer a public defender. He was a Superior Court judge, one with a
reputation for being tough on defense attorneys.
That's what made his phone call so surprising.
Larry Hammond, one of the state's top defenders, answered the call.
Hammond had just founded the Justice Project, which would work to free the wrongly
convicted or unfairly sentenced. The project had just been featured in the newspaper.
Hammond was shocked to hear from the judge. But O'Toole had an old story he couldn't
let go.
"It had bothered him for years," Hammond recalls now. "He said if we were going to
investigate a case, this should be the case we start with."
The print
Law students and Justice Project investigators started pulling old files and reviewing the
trial evidence. Hammond saw right away that Carol was the key to the case against her
husband.
But Hammond didn't see Carol as a frightened woman, a reluctant witness coming to the
sheriff's department after her husband confessed to an unspeakably evil crime.
Her 1974 interview seemed almost planned, the details almost too perfect.
Carol had casually noted that her husband liked to "reload" ammunition for his .45,
keeping used casings to refill them with a new bullet and powder to be fired again. The
casings at the scene were "reloads."
Carol had told deputies she thought Macumber's tale was made up, a ranting of a
manipulative husband. But her remarks read as though she was suggesting Macumber's
guilt.
Carol said that back in 1962, Macumber had tossed and turned in his sleep for months,
thrashing about in a cold sweat. Then, she said, he had taken his gun to have the barrel
replaced and threw the old one in a canal. He slept better after that, she said.
The final piece, to Hammond, was the key evidence against Macumber at trial: His palm
print.
In her interview, Carol said she had heard the victim's purse had been rifled through and
described to deputies how her husband would have done so by leaning in through the
driver's side door. "I assume from that, the doors would have to be touched in some way,"
she told them, "but that is just an assumption on my part."
"That's quite an assumption, really," Hammond says today.
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At the time of the slayings, it was unclear whether Print No. 1 was a palm or a finger print.
Print No. 1 never went to the FBI for analysis. Print No. 1 for all those years remained in
an evidence box in the identification section of the sheriff's department - the same office
where Carol, a secretary, went to work every day.
And Carol had taken courses at Glendale Community College on how to lift prints
properly.
Hammond came to believe
Carol had lifted her husband's
print and put it into the
evidence box.
Otherwise, the evidence is
"entirely inconsistent," he says
today. The print "is a perfect
match at trial, but in 1962 it
was too small? It was not
good enough to send? You
could not identify it as a finger
or a palm? Well, which is it?"
The Justice Project worked on
the case on and off for 10
years, questioning the ballistics evidence, investigating the Valenzuela case, seeking
other possible witnesses. Justice Project lawyers and investigators talked to everyone
involved in the original case.
For Hammond, the entire case came back to the print.
"His wife framed him," Hammond says today. "If you believe he is an innocent man, you
have to believe she framed him."
'A long time'
Macumber is inmate number 33,867. Inmates now receive numbers above 260,000.
"Ooh, hoo, look at that number," a prison guard in Douglas told a reporter in January.
"This boy's been in here a long time."
"Oh yeah," an older guard remarked. "That's Macumber."
Beyond three sets of guards and a series of locked gates, the visitor's room glowed
brightly, a wall of windows on one side, a line of vending machines on another.
Macumber crossed the room and folded his 6-foot-7 frame into a chair. He wore a
standard orange jumpsuit.
"I didn't kill those kids," he said. "Of course I didn't. Why would I?"
He said looking at the world from prison is like looking through a looking glass. He is
staggered by how things have changed since he went in.
He has changed, too. Today he has emphysema, arthritis and heart trouble. He has a dry
cough and wheezes in between his words.
Later, he stepped into the courtyard for a cigarette. He rolls his own, a few a day.
"To tell you the truth," he said, "there very few things in here that I really enjoy, so I'll be
damned if I'm going to quit."
Macumber blames his wife for his conviction. He blames the investigators. But he doesn't
blame the jury. The evidence was too much.
"They had to convict," he said. "I understand their decision."
Making a case
In 2009, after 10 years of working on the case, the Justice Project and Hammond stood
before the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency. Macumber was with them. Two guards
stood at the side of the room.
Because he was sentenced under the law as it stood in 1962, Macumber is an "old-code
lifer," not eligible for parole. At the time, life meant life.
For Macumber to be freed, he needed the board to recommend that the governor shorten
or end his sentence.
The board is not a jury. But Hammond treated it like one and began making his case - the
case Macumber's defense attorneys were never able to make. The presentation took all
morning.
He questioned the physical evidence. Ballistics testing that had been considered so strong
in 1974, he said, was crude by today's standards.
He introduced another suspect. Ernie Valenzuela, he said, was the real killer, and while
Valenzuela was long dead, a retired Superior Court judge could vouch for his confession.
Most importantly, he said, Macumber had been framed by his wife. Their marriage failing
and a divorce looming, she pinned the crime on him.
Finally, Hammond finished.
In a clemency hearing, there is no long delay for deliberation.
One by one, the five board members spoke.
The first two recommended his sentence be shortened so he could be paroled.
The next recommended he be released based on time served.
The fourth was in favor of absolute discharge.
The chairman came last. He would write the board's unanimous letter to the governor.
"There is substantial doubt that Mr. Macumber is guilty," Duane Belcher would write. "An
injustice has been done in Mr. Macumber's case."
But not everyone agreed with their conclusions.
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CHAPTER ONE: PRIME SUSPECT
Mar 13, 2013 2:55 PM
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News » State » Article
Investigators zero in on Arizona murder case
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By Richard Ruelas
The Republic | azcentral.com
Mon Mar 4, 2013 10:46 AM
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William Macumber watched the Sheriff’s Office patrol car pull up to the
gas pumps at the station he owned with his father. He walked out to
greet who he thought were customers. But the deputies were trying to
solve a murder.
They asked Macumber if he owned a .45-caliber pistol. He said he did.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/state/articles/20130108william-macumber-story-freedom-from-prison.html[3/13/2013 2:56:35 PM]
How one Arizona man was
convicted, sentenced to life,
and then set free after 38
years. Read more at
macumber.azcentral.com.
Part 1: Prime Suspect
Part 2: Into Darkness
Part 3: Life Inside
Part 4: Finding Hope
Part 5: Still Justice
They asked if they could see it. He asked them why.
They told him they were trying to solve the slaying of a young couple
from a few days before. Macumber knew about the crime. It was big
news that year, 1962, in a city that hadn’t yet sprawled as far as the
murder scene. The newspapers were printing gory details of the
engaged couple, whose bodies were found outside their car in a
lovers-lane area of open desert near Scottsdale and Bell roads.
The deputies told Macumber that the bullets used in the killings were a
specific type — a reloaded bullet, meaning a spent casing that had
been refilled with gunpowder, something usually done to save money.
They were going through a list of about 800 customers who had
purchased kits to reload bullets. Macumber’s name was on the list.
They asked if he had any objection to deputies taking his weapon to
run some tests on it.
“None whatsoever,” Macumber answered.
Macumber fetched the pistol from a desk in the office, unloaded it and
handed it over. Deputies gave him a receipt for the gun.
“Four or five days later, they came back,” Macumber said, “brought the
.45 back, gave it to me, thanked me.”
Macumber handed back the receipt. “And that was the last we heard
about it,” he said.
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Until 12 years later, when he faced deputies again.
That time, he was their prime suspect.
The case against Macumber
The key testimony against him would come from his ex-wife, who told
deputies that Macumber had suddenly confessed the killing to her, possibly in an attempt to keep their
strained marriage from ending.
By the time of his arrest, Macumber was 39. He was a father of three, a university graduate and working as
an engineer at a computer company. He was a Little League coach. He had founded a volunteer searchand-rescue unit at the same Sheriff’s Office that would arrest him.
He denied the killings. Family members, friends, neighbors and co-workers said it seemed out of character
for the man who had never received so much as a speeding ticket before his arrest.
But prosecutors presented an expert who said that only Macumber’s gun — which was retested following
his 1974 arrest — could have fired the deadly shots. And police said his palm print was found on the
victim’s car, something that detectives didn’t spot 12 years earlier.
The jury delivered its verdict. Macumber was guilty.
He saw little chance of convincing anyone of his innocence. He resigned himself to the reality of his
sentence: life in prison.
But he also determined that his life would not be defined by his conviction. He still wanted to find a way to
live a decent life behind bars.
Macumber was first placed in maximum security for the brutality of his crime but would go on to earn
extraordinary latitude from his jailers.
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At times, he was trusted to leave prison in the morning for work detail and return by evening. On occasion,
he traveled the state and the country — sometimes escorted by an officer, sometimes not.
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He also built an impressive resume in prison. He started businesses. He led civil-service organizations. He
won poetry contests.
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Macumber said he was angry and resentful during the first few years in custody. But he called those
“temporary emotions.” He didn’t allow prison to change his core being.
“I guess we all revert, no matter who we are,” he said. “We revert to what we are after a period of being
down and whatever — whatever the case may be. We are what we are.”
He spent nearly 38 years as an inmate — almost as long on the inside of prison as he had lived outside.
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Then suddenly in 2012, the prison doors swung open.
Attorneys persuaded a judge to take a fresh look at the evidence and consider granting a new trial.
Prosecutors — knowing evidence from the 1960s murders had long been discarded — offered a plea deal.
Macumber pleaded no contest.
On a November afternoon, after spending half of his life in prison, he walked out a free man.
Macumber’s history
William Macumber was born on Aug. 31, 1935, the first son of Harold and Merylle Macumber. He was
raised in Davenport, Iowa. Everybody called him Bill.
In court paperwork, Macumber described his childhood as normal and happy with a close-knit family. His
father worked as a mechanic. Mom was a housewife. The family attended Lutheran services.
Macumber was blessed with height and played basketball in high school despite a diagnosis of heart
murmurs. He was shy and carried himself in a way that had people describing him as “gangly” rather than
tall.
Macumber attended dances and had some dates. But those never seemed to flourish into relationships.
Odd jobs after school took up much of his social time.
He was among 60 students to graduate from Bettendorf High School in the Class of 1954. Shortly after
that, his family moved to Phoenix, and Macumber joined the Army. He didn’t want to wait to find out if he’d
be drafted.
He was inducted on Feb. 14, 1955. It was the first time he had been away from his parents. He trained in
the Signal Corps, dealing with communication equipment. He received a commendation for graduating in
the top 10 percent of his class. He was honorably discharged in 1959.
Returning home, he worked as a mechanic at a tire shop and a gas station. Then, he and his father started
operating their own.
It was around this time that his younger brother, Robert Macumber, went on a few dates with a girl named
Carol Kempfert. He stopped seeing her. But she kept hanging around the group of friends that included
Bill. The two started dating. Bill became smitten.
When she turned 18 in 1961, Carol left her house to stay with Macumber at his parents’ house, he said. He
asked her to marry him. Two days later, they were hitched in a backyard ceremony. He was 26.
He married despite warnings from his brother, Robert, that he was about to make a big mistake. “It didn’t
do any good,” Robert said. The two bought a house in Phoenix. Months later, Carol was pregnant with the first of their three sons.
‘Blood everywhere’
One night shortly after their wedding, Macumber was on his way home when he saw a truck with its hood
up on the side of the road, with three stranded teens. He and his father always made it a practice to stop
and help disabled motorists.
He was looking under the hood, he said, when he saw he was about to be attacked. “I just happened to
turn to ask them a question,” he said. “Here’s this kid with this damn tire iron.”
Macumber gave an open-hand chop to the teen’s nose. “And you know what that does,” Macumber said.
“Blood everywhere.”
He got in his truck and sped away. That’s when he noticed he had blood splattered all the way down his
clothes. At home, he told his wife what happened.
It was an incident she would remember, telling police about it 12 years later.
Around the same time, the Valley was rocked by a shocking crime. An engaged couple who had spent part
of the evening looking at model homes were brutally shot to death in a desert area north of Scottsdale that
was known as a lovers lane. Joyce Sterrenberg and Tim McKillop were each shot twice, with one shot each
coming at close range. There were bullet casings and tire tracks at the scene.
The killings, which police said were done for the thrill of it, dominated the conversation in the Valley.
Macumber read about the crime in the newspaper and saw television coverage. That, he said, was all he
knew about it on the day detectives came into the gas station and asked to see his gun.
After the deputies’ visit
By 1964, Macumber and his father closed the gas station. Macumber took a job at General Electric,
assembling computer doors. “It was the lowest-paid job in the whole damn factory,” Macumber said. The
company would later be called Honeywell.
Macumber would father two more boys in the next two years. As they got older, he became an active
coach in Little League. He took his boys on hunting and fishing trips. The boys got involved in BMX bike
racing.
In his backyard, he built a full-size replica of a spaceship. He outfitted his three boys with spacesuits and
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helmets. The ship had all manner of lights and instruments and alarms and a sensor to detect heat. “If
anything got too hot, it sent off a really loud signal,” Macumber said. “I had an escape hatch in the back. …
You would see three little bodies jump out of the spaceship.”
By 1968, he enrolled at Glendale Community College at night. By the time he earned his associate degree
and enrolled at Arizona State University, he was a supervisor and was on his way to becoming an
engineer.
“It was a steady walk up the ladder,” Macumber said.
But by the early 1970s, his marriage was suffering. His wife, Carol, took a clerical job with the Maricopa
County Sheriff’s Office, keeping track of the case files. She got the job through friends she met after her
husband started a desert-rescue volunteer posse with the office.
But Carol was putting in long hours, including ride-along shifts with deputies two or three times a week.
Macumber said he suspected an affair. Once, he returned home in the middle of the day and found a
deputy at his house.
“I evicted him pretty quickly,” he said. He then ordered his wife out of the house.
She moved in with a friend.
That friend, Frieda Joy Turner, later told an investigator that Carol seemed to enjoy single life, according to
a sworn deposition. “I believe Carol thrived in the playhouse environment,” Turner said. “She knew a lot of people, mostly men,
and she loved the attention they would give to her.”
“I think Carol just saw Bill as a ‘country bumpkin’ kind of guy,” Turner said in the deposition. Carol has long
denied the allegations of the affairs. She did not return phone calls seeking comment for this article.
The sheriff at the time, Paul Blubaum, would later recall that Carol was facing an investigation at work over
the allegations. He said that after he disciplined her, she told him her husband had confessed to the
unsolved slaying of a young couple in the desert in the 1960s.
Carol told the sheriff that Macumber had confessed a few months earlier. She didn’t speak up right away,
she said, because she thought it was just another of his wild stories. She also saw it as a desperate bid on
his part to keep their marriage together.
According to Carol, Macumber told her he was working for the Army as an assassin and was contracted to
kill two people, but he got the wrong ones. She would later tell a court officer, in a presentence report, what
she figured was his motive for confessing: “I’ve been living with this terrible guilt. Please feel sorry for me
and stay with me.”
She told deputies about the night he came home with his shirt stained with blood. Maybe that was the
night.
She also said she remembered him telling her something odd: that if they ever checked the prints left on
the car, they would be a match for his.
‘I have said too much’
Deputies had a reason to question Macumber. He had called in a report of a shot being fired into his home.
He suspected his wife, Carol, had done it. Blubaum told reporters he wanted to get to the bottom of both
allegations involving his trusted posse member.
Deputies asked Macumber about the shooting incident, the sheriff told reporters. Macumber agreed to a
polygraph about it, but deputies told him he failed it. Then they told him about the story his wife gave them,
about the confession to murder. Deputies asked him to take a polygraph about that. He refused. But he did
allow deputies to search his home and take his fingerprints.
Detectives opened the long- dormant file and compared Macumber’s palm print with one in the file. It
hadn’t been checked before because the technician figured it was not good enough to test. But, now, it
appeared testable. It also appeared to match Macumber’s.
Told of this in an interview room, Macumber, according to a police report, seemed dumbfounded. “I know
you are not lying to me, I know that those are my prints,” he told a detective, “but I can’t explain how they
got on that car.”
He was given his wife’s statement. He made marks on it, seeming to correct it. When a deputy tried to
question him further, he refused, realizing the situation he was in.
“I think I have said too much already,” he said, ending the five-hour interrogation. “I am only going to hurt
myself. I think I need an attorney.”
A deputy placed him under arrest. Days before his 39th birthday, he was accused of the killings. The arrest
made national news: The captain of a sheriff’s posse suspected of brutally slaying two sweethearts, solving
a case that baffled investigators for a dozen years.
Macumber’s father and brother came to visit him in jail.
Robert remembered his brother seeming worried and frantic. “He was totally at a loss,” Robert said. “It’s
like somebody had their whole world dropped out from under them.”
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Arizona man convicted in 1962 murders freed
Mar 13, 2013 8:44 PM
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Bill Macumber is released from prison after 37 years as he walks out with his brother
Ronald Macumber (far right), at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Phoenix on Nov. 7,
2012.
PHOTO BY: Michael Schennum/The Republic
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By Richard Ruelas
Fri Nov 9, 2012 11:03 AM
The metal mesh door at the state prison complex in Phoenix slid open
and a tall man shuffled through. Relatives of William Macumber, who
were gathered in the lobby of the prison, cheered his first steps as a
free man. He had spent 37 years in prison. He had been convicted of
a murder he insisted he did not commit.
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But Macumber, who was found guilty of shooting a young couple to
death in the desert north of Scottsdale in 1962, pleaded no contest
Wednesday to charges of second-degree murder in a deal with
prosecutors that allowed him to walk free the same afternoon.
Bill Macumber
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Macumber, 77, wore a brown-checked Western shirt and bola tie. His
attorney said Macumber insisted he look nice on the day he walked out
of prison, so his family brought him some favored clothes.
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“It’s a big day, but it’s a family day,” he said. It was a polite way of
telling the scrum of reporters he wouldn’t say much more.
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Macumber’s release came after the Arizona Justice Project, which
works to free inmates it believes were wrongly convicted, filed a motion
that called into question both the forensic evidence that was introduced
in Macumber’s trials, and evidence that was kept out — another man’s
multiple confessions to the crimes.
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Jordan Green, an attorney who volunteered his time on the case, said
it was important to Macumber that he was able to plead no contest, rather than guilty, to the crimes.
“He made it real clear that he would never change that,” Green said. “That if he had to die in prison, he
would do so maintaining his innocence.”
But County Attorney Bill Montgomery, during a news conference following the hearing in Maricopa County
Superior Court, cautioned against saying Macumber had been exonerated. The no-contest plea still
resulted in a felony conviction.
“He’s not innocent,” Montgomery said. “He’s guilty.”
Judge Bruce Cohen, before vacating the convictions and handing Macumber his freedom, said this was not
a clear-cut case of an innocent man going free.
“We will never know with certainty what happened on that 1962 night,” he said in court.
Some would say justice was served when Macumber was convicted and sentenced to life, Cohen said.
“Others would argue that these decades serve as a constant reminder of the injustice that at times occurs,”
he said.
The shootings
The shootings occurred on May 24, 1962. The bodies of Joyce Sterrenberg and Timothy McKillop were
found at a “lovers lane” area of what was then open desert near Scottsdale and Bell roads. Each had two
gunshot wounds to the head. The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office investigated but could find no evidence
that led to a suspect.
Three months later, a 17-year-old named Linda Primrose told the Sheriff’s Office she had information
about the murders. She described being with a group of people bent on stealing a stash of drugs.
Her description seemed credible: She gave police detailed descriptions of the crime that included some
information that had not been released to the public. She gave police the name of the gunman, whom she
mainly knew by his street name. According to court records, the Sheriff’s Office could not locate the people
Primrose was with.
Two years later, Scottsdale police arrested a man named Ernest Valenzuela, 20, for a traffic violation.
Valenzuela admitted to officers that he killed two people in the desert north of Scottsdale. He repeated his
confession to sheriff’s detectives.
Valenzuela matched the description that Primrose had given. But detectives did not connect the dots.
Valenzuela was released after spending five days in jail. An attorney with the Arizona Justice Project said
detectives dismissed Valenzuela’s murder claims as the rantings of a lunatic.
In 1967, Valenzuela was arrested for murdering a man and raping his wife on the Gila River Reservation.
Valenzuela confessed to his federal public defender, Thomas O’Toole, that he also killed two people in the
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desert north of Scottsdale. O’Toole knew the conversation was protected by attorney- client privilege and
did not tell authorities.
Valenzuela was convicted in the Gila River murder and was sent to the federal prison in Leavenworth. He
died during a prison fight in 1973.
The 1962 shootings remained unsolved.
In 1974, 12 years after the shootings, Macumber’s estranged wife, who worked at the Maricopa County
Sheriff’s Office, told detectives that Macumber had confessed the killings to her.
Macumber denied it during interviews with detectives. But authorities charged him with the crime, citing
forensic evidence that matched his palm print to one left on the victims’ car and some markings on bullet
casings that matched a part of the firing mechanism in a gun Macumber owned.
Macumber was convicted in 1975, but the verdict was tossed out on appeal. Macumber was retried in
1976.
When O’Toole read that Macumber was accused in the Scottsdale deaths, he asked to testify at his
second trial. Valenzuela’s death freed him from his ethical obligation to keep his client’s confession
confidential.
But a judge ruled that his testimony — and other testimony of confessions Valenzuela gave to attorneys
and psychiatrists — was hearsay and wouldn’t be allowed.
Macumber was found guilty a second time.
In a 2011 interview with The Arizona Republic, Macumber said he did not blame the jury that found him
guilty, given the evidence they heard.
“They had to convict,” he said. “I understand their decision.”
The Arizona Board of Executive Clemency voted in 2009 to release Macumber. It called the case a
“miscarriage of justice” and said it had doubts about Macumber’s guilt.
Gov. Jan Brewer rejected the clemency recommendation. The board considered the case again in March,
with some members voting to recommend clemency.
In April, Brewer replaced a majority of the board’s members. Her office said it was time to bring a fresh
perspective to the body.
Duane Belcher, who was ousted after serving as chairman of the clemency board for 20 years, told The
Republic at the time that he got the sense that Brewer was unhappy he had voted for Macumber’s release.
Attorneys with the Arizona Justice Project filed a motion for post-conviction relief in February. Among the
reasons cited were evolving science that cast doubt on the reliability of palm prints and ballistic evidence.
The motion also said that under today’s rules, the jury would have heard about Valenzuela’s multiple
confessions.
“Had it heard this evidence,” the motion reads, “(the jury) would not have found Macumber guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt.”
The Macumber case was one of the first investigated by the Arizona Justice Project after it was formed in
1999 by defense attorney Larry Hammond. The firm Perkins Coie volunteered to write the motions for a
new trial in 2011.
“It’s taken far too long,” said Lee Stein, another attorney who worked on the Macumber case. “But to
actually be involved in a matter where a man who spent his entire adult life in prison for a crime he didn’t
commit and is able to find his way out of prison is overwhelming.”
The future
At the beginning of Wednesday’s hearing, Macumber’s attorneys asked if the shackles around their client’s
ankles could be removed. The judge agreed. After unlocking the restraints, a deputy sheriff asked the
judge, “Everything off, sir?” Judge Cohen said, “Yes, if you would.” The deputy removed the chain from
around Macumber’s waist and released the pink handcuffs.
“Thank you,” Macumber said to the deputy.
Stein and Green declined to say where Macumber would live, citing privacy concerns. Macumber is on
medication for heart and stomach issues, his attorneys said. He was briefly hospitalized in 2011 with a
staph infection.
Macumber has a son, Ronald, who lives in Denver. But Ronald Macumber said his father would be the one
to decide where he wants to live.
Ronald Macumber said he had vivid memories of a loving father who coached his Little League and BMX
bike-racing teams. But he hadn’t seen him since age 7, his mother convincing him his father was a brutal
killer.
Ronald Macumber received a call from Hammond in 1999 telling him the Arizona Justice Project thought
his father might be innocent.
“It took quite a bit of time to realize what had all been done and what the actual truth was,” said Ronald
Macumber, 44.
The two formed a connection through prison visits. At first, they discussed the case and evidence.
But as time wore on, the visits became about family. Ronald introduced his daughter, and two years ago,
his grandchild to his father.
Ronald Macumber said he has no relationship with his mother, Carol Kempfert, whom he said is living in
Washington. Macumber had been using his stepfather’s name, but, in 2010, changed it back to Macumber.
Kempfert did not return a call seeking comment Wednesday.
William Macumber was a model inmate. Prison records show only one infraction in 37 years: participating
in an unauthorized gathering in 1996.
Green, the attorney, said Macumber taught a class in early American history to other prisoners and, for a
time, was allowed to drive himself to a nearby junior college to teach a history class there.
“His capacity to find a way to live life and find some joy while serving 13,850 days in prison for a crime he
didn’t commit, it’s unbelievable,” he said. “Absolutely unbelievable.”
But Macumber’s release brought no comfort for the surviving family members of the victims of the 1962
crime.
Judy Michael, who was the sister of Joyce Sterrenberg, said she felt Macumber had several opportunities
to make his case in court.
“He’s had two trials, two clemency hearings, and now here he is today to get more justice for himself,” she
told the judge. “And where is the justice for us?”
John McCluskey, who was the cousin of Timothy McKillop, asked the judge if the questions surrounding the
evidence in this case were so unique that they merited such special attention. “Is this really a precedentsetting case?” he asked.
From the bench, Cohen gave him an answer: “I don’t know the answer to that, sir. It is a valid question.”
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David Sorrento ·
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kinda makes you wonder how many more there are like him
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· February 28 at 10:16am
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Mary Clark · Scottsdale, Arizona
I attended the conversation/celebration at ASU law school today. Fascinating! To state that Mr. Macumber's
case was a miscarriage of justice is a gross understatement. How a man remains an elegant and articulate
gentleman after 38 years in prison is a wonder to me. However, William Macumber has accomplished
that with grace. Congratulations to Mr. Macumber and his dedicated legal team!! Jan Brewer is a disgrace as a
governor.
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· March 4 at 10:00pm
Shelley Anne Vebber
Jan Brewer is evil, but so much of the voting population of Arizona (and Utah) are crazy
sheeple...sigh
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· March 6 at 2:32am
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Terrie Fischer ·
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Top Commenter · On going
Of course the state is not going to admit they made a mistake. By a No-Contest plea, he will not be able to sue
for false arrest/conviction. I know that all the money in the world can not give him back the years of freedom
he has lost but it would have certainly made his remaining years easier. Shame shame on you Arizona for
robbing this man of so much...
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· November 8, 2012 at 5:47am
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Tommie Sisco
I knew this man personally and worked with him when he lead the Sherrif's dessert search and rescue possie. I
was always doubtful of the evidence and the manner in which it was presented. Just to many things didn't line
up. In any case I glad he's got his freedom for what little time he has left.
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· November 8, 2012 at 5:39am
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Diana Lucia
I hope God gives him enough time to enjoy his family! He has always been very respectful and never gave any
officer a hard time. Mr.Mucumber I wish you the best! And thank you for always being yourself! You are an
amazing person from what i have heard from your friends! Take care God Bless always!
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· November 7, 2012 at 11:42pm
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Chris Coronella ·
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Top Commenter · Tempe, Arizona
Good job Jan....
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· November 7, 2012 at 3:57pm
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Lori Cason
"Valenzuela matched the description that Primrose had given. But detectives did not connect the dots.
Valenzuela was released after spending five days in jail. An attorney with the Arizona Justice Project said
detectives dismissed Valenzuela’s murder claims as the rantings of a lunatic."
If not for opportunities in law enforcement, how many people would this country have asking me if I want fries
with that? The average police officer is so ill suited for their job and inadequately trained they can't stop a jay
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CHAPTER TWO: INTO DARKNESS
Mar 13, 2013 8:36 PM
81°
Phoenix
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With one man in prison, another confession goes unheard
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By Richard Ruelas
Mon Mar 4, 2013 10:47 AM
William Macumber sat in jail, having gone in a matter of hours from
family man and respected member of the community to a murder
suspect.
After a five-hour interrogation session, sheriff’s deputies had told him
he was under arrest for the slaying of two 20-year-olds that had taken
http://www.azcentral.com/news/state/articles/20130227william-macumber-story-confession-unheard.html[3/13/2013 8:37:43 PM]
open
place 12 years earlier.
years. Read more at
Part 3: Life Inside
Macumber, a father of three with a career at a computer plant, had
never had so much as a speeding ticket before this August 1974
arrest. Now, he was being called a cold-blooded killer, a man who shot
a young couple for the thrill of it.
His first visitors were his brother, Robert, and his father, Harold. To his
brother, Macumber looked ashen and lost, as if he were unsure of
anything.
His father looked his son in the eye and asked him, point-blank, if he
had done it. “No,” Macumber told him.
Macumber had been raised to never tell a lie to his father. His denial
was enough to convince both his father and his brother he was
innocent.
But it wouldn’t work that way for the courts. Macumber’s denials would
go unheard for nearly 38 more years. He would be a convicted
murderer spending life in prison.
Then, in November 2012, a deal would allow him to deny his guilt and
walk free.
‘Richest man in the world’
at
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After his 1974 arrest, reporters talked to Macumber’s neighbors.
Outside of complaining his yard was dirt rather than grass, all said he
was a fine man.
Macumber’s father put up his trailer as collateral to help raise the
$55,000 bail. Macumber’s brother did the same with his home. So did
two neighbors. One put up American Telephone and Telegraph stock.
Six weeks after his arrest, Macumber was released from jail. He spoke
briefly to reporters as he left. “If a man’s wealth is measured by his
friends and family and by all those who help him, I guess I’m about the
richest man in the world,” Macumber said.
Macumber lived with his parents while awaiting trial. His wife asked if
he wanted the children there, and he said yes. She promptly dropped
them off, and they remained there through Macumber’s trial, he said,
living in a camping trailer parked in his parents’ driveway.
Justice delayed, Part One
“Now what woman in her right mind, who really believed her husband
was a double murderer, would willingly turn her children over to that
guy?” asked Macumber, during an interview following his release.
Macumber’s wife, Carol, in newspaper interviews at the time, said she
only dropped the children off around the holidays. She did not return
phone messages asking to speak with her for this article.
At trial, Macumber sat stoically as the evidence seemed to mount against him. Most damning was
testimony from forensic experts who said a certain marking on shell casings found at the scene —
produced when the bullet was ejected — could only have been made by Macumber’s handgun.
A sheriff’s deputy also testified that Macumber admitted to him, on the night of his arrest, that he had told
his wife he had murdered the young couple in the desert north of Scottsdale. Under questioning from
Macumber’s attorney, however, the deputy also said that he did not record or take notes during the fivehour interrogation.
Another confession
But while the jury heard two tales about whether Macumber confessed, they did not hear anything about
how another man had confessed to the murders.
While under arrest for the murder of another couple, years earlier, a man named Ernesto Valenzuela had
told two attorneys he committed the slayings near Scottsdale.
Valenzuela had been sent to prison in the other case, and there, he had been killed. But the trial judge
ruled that his conversations with his attorneys needed to remain confidential, even after his death. What
Macumber felt was a key point in proving his innocence could not be used.
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Macumber took the stand in his own defense. He politely denied telling the deputy that he confessed the
killings to his wife. “I don’t want to call (the deputy) a liar,” Macumber testified. “I prefer to say he is
mistaken.”
At the end of his testimony, the county prosecutor showed Macumber a picture of the grisly murder scene
and asked him if it was his “handiwork.”
“No sir,” Macumber said, “and I thank God it is not.”
The jury deliberated for about five hours before reaching a verdict. Macumber said he was not shocked
when he heard he was found guilty. He handed his brother his wallet and his hand-tooled leather belt.
The day of his conviction, he gave a jailhouse interview to The Arizona Republic, in which he said his wife
had framed him. “In all honesty, if there’s one feeling I have (for her), it’s pity,” he said. “Because no matter
what happens now, she’s got to live with what she’s done for the rest of her life. It’s not me she’s hurting,
but three kids — and I’ll never forgive her for it.”
His wife, who consistently denied framing him, told a reporter at the time that she was “relieved and glad
it’s over.”
Life behind bars
On Feb. 20, 1975, he entered the maximum-security unit at the state prison in Florence, double-bunked in
a cell so tiny that the 6-foot-6 Macumber could sit with his back against the wall and have his feet touch
the opposite wall.
Other prisoners had followed the case and knew Macumber on sight. They also knew he was associated
with law enforcement. Macumber had started a desert-rescue volunteer posse with the Maricopa County
Sheriff’s Office, and newspaper headlines made the fact known.
He wasn’t a sworn officer, but the connection was enough to warrant some beatings while in the prison
yard. “I always managed to get a lick in,” Macumber said, “but it’s pretty damn hard to beat down five, six
people.”
Macumber taped magazines to his body before heading out to the yard, makeshift protection against
prison-made knives.
The couple’s divorce proceeding, which had been on hold during his trial, resumed. Macumber asked for
visitation rights, and a judge said that his children should be allowed to visit him in prison. But when it
came time for the visit, according to newspaper articles from the time, his oldest son, Scott, refused to go.
The other two, Steve and Ronald, went once, escorted by Macumber’s parents, and did not want to go
back, Macumber said.
Macumber wrote letters to his three sons, trying to keep a connection with them. But the letters started
coming back unopened. A stamp on them said they were refused.
“After that, I thought, what’s the use?” Macumber said. “They’re never going to get the letters anyway.”
A new trial ordered
By January 1976, there was renewed hope. The Arizona Supreme Court threw out Macumber’s conviction
and ordered a new trial.
In the first trial, the judge had barred an FBI ballistics expert from testifying. The expert was going to cast
doubt on the notion that only Macumber’s gun could have produced the marks on the shell casings found
at the scene. A new trial would allow the information.
Macumber was brought back to court to set a date for his new trial. Prosecutors demanded he be held
behind bars. But Macumber remembers the words the judge used in ruling he could be released: “What’s
the big deal? He didn’t run the first time. He ain’t gonna run the second time.”
Friends again put up real estate to secure his bond. Macumber told reporters that he would be acquitted in
his next trial. “I can assure you there will be some surprises,” he said.
Macumber went back home with his parents. His sons were with his ex-wife, Carol, who had moved to
Colorado. She told reporters at the time that she feared Macumber coming after her.
After spending more than a year in maximum security, Macumber again was an accused murderer, not a
convicted one. Macumber said he spent time golfing with his father nearly every weekend, and visiting
family and friends.
His freedom would be brief.
Back to prison
At his second trial, in December 1976, Macumber’s attorney pressed to let the jury hear the confession
from the other man, Valenzuela. But the judge still ruled it was hearsay and couldn’t be presented.
Macumber took the stand in his own defense again in his second trial. “No, I am not guilty,” he testified. “As
God is my judge, I am not guilty.”
Macumber said he and his wife had argued over her alleged affairs with officers and deputies, and that she
mentioned the long-ago slaying of the young couple, who were shot with a gun similar to one Macumber
owned. He testified that she warned she would get even with him if he mentioned her affairs in their
divorce proceeding.
This jury took almost a full day to deliberate, but it reached the same verdict. The sentence: life in prison
without the possibility of parole.
He was back in prison, back in maximum security, back to regular beatings. He had lost contact with his
children and had no reasonable prospects for being released. What had been his life had been stripped
away. He could see no promise in his new one.
“I couldn’t have cared less about anything,” Macumber said. “Everything was dark. I couldn’t see no light
on the horizon at all, in any respect.”
‘Roll up’
He lived in that darkness until April 1979, when the warden called him into his office.
Macumber can still recall the conversation word for word.
“If I put you in medium, are you going to run?” he said the warden asked him.
Macumber said no.
“Do I have your word on that?” the warden asked.
Macumber told him he did.
“Get the hell out of here,” the warden told him.
“So I left and went back to my cell,” Macumber said, “and said, that’s that.”
Three days later, a sergeant told Macumber to “roll up.” Macumber asked where he was being moved to.
The sergeant told him he didn’t need to know.
Macumber was put in the back of a pickup truck and driven out of the maximum-security yard. He was
driven across the street to the gates of the North Unit. That meant medium security.
And, although he didn’t know it quite yet, it meant Macumber was about to rebuild a life.
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Mar 13, 2013 2:58 PM
58°
Phoenix
Decades after conviction, a family and a chance to be free
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By Richard Ruelas
Mon Mar 4, 2013 10:50 AM
The letter addressed to William Macumber at the Arizona State Prison in Douglas
came in the evening mail call.
Macumber, who had spent much of his adult life serving time for a double murder,
did not receive many letters. He struggled to decipher the handwritten return
address on the envelope that held this one.
After several minutes, he figured out the name: Ronald Kempfert. It was his son,
http://www.azcentral.com/news/state/articles/20130214william-macumber-chance-at-freedom.html[3/13/2013 2:59:19 PM]
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whom he had not spent any meaningful time with since 1975. Now, in 2003, his
son, who had taken his mother’s maiden name, was writing to him.
years. Read more at
Part 3: Life Inside
A wave of nervous energy struck Macumber. He took the letter back to his prison
bed but didn’t open it for about an hour. He was afraid of what it might say.
When he finally read it, he was relieved.
In the letter, his son told him that he wasn’t sure what to believe about his father’s
case, whether to cling to his long-held beliefs that his father was a killer, or to listen
to the attorneys working on Macumber’s long-dormant case who had told him his
father was innocent. He did know that part of figuring it out involved reaching out to
the father he hadn’t talked with since he was a 7-year-old.
Macumber struggled to hold back his emotions. He was on his bed in a mediumsecurity unit, separated from other inmates only by a low wall. He said he almost
yearned to be back in the rougher maximum-security unit, where, at least, the tiny
barred cells offered privacy.
After reading the letter, Macumber wrote a stream-of-consciousness response that
ran 10 pages. “Nothing about guilt or innocence,” Macumber recalls. “That wasn’t
important.”
Instead, he tried to catch his son up on his life behind bars and let him know he
never stopped caring about Ronald and his two older brothers. He placed his bulky
reply in an envelope and prepared to mail it the next day.
He waited until lights out. The darkness offered some seclusion. He let a few tears
escape.
A second look
at
Macumber had pleaded his innocence since his 1974 arrest. He said he had
nothing to do with the 1962 murder of a young couple found shot to death north of
Scottsdale. He maintained his innocence during his first trial and his second. But he
was convicted both times. He maintained his innocence in appeals to have his life
sentence shortened. But he said state officials told him he could get mercy only if
he took responsibility for the crime. He said he would never do that. He would
rather remain in prison than admit something he didn’t do.
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His cousin, Jacquelyn Kelley, who lived on a ranch in rural New Mexico, was a
tireless advocate for his cause. She wrote letters to officials and lawyers, looking
for anyone who might help free her cousin.
So, when Macumber read a June 1998 column in The Arizona Republic about his
name being mentioned during arguments in a U.S. Supreme Court case, he sent
the clipping to Kelley. Maybe some of the people mentioned in the story could help.
Justice Delayed, Part One
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Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who was from Arizona, brought up the Macumber
case in her arguments. The column recounted how another man had confessed the
1962 killings to his lawyer, and how that lawyer, after his client’s death, tried to
testify on Macumber’s behalf. A judge had blocked the testimony.
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Kelley wrote a letter to that lawyer, who had become a Superior Court judge. He
wrote her back telling her to contact a defense attorney named Larry Hammond,
who had just started a project that looked to free the wrongly convicted. Kelley
asked Hammond to take a second look at the Macumber case.
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Macumber received a letter from Hammond in January 2000. It asked him if he’d be
open to a meeting about his case. About two months later, a group of five attorneys
and law students spent three hours meeting with Macumber.
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“That was the first time that I legitimately felt there was some hope, somewhere
down the road,” Macumber said during an interview after his release from prison in
2012. “I didn’t think it was going to happen, but I thought there was a possibility that
it could.”
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Struggle for a meaningful life
The possibility of freedom came long into an unusual life behind bars.
Despite the grisly crime, prison administrators had long considered Macumber a
low-security risk and, after a few years, placed him in medium, then minimum,
security. He was allowed to leave prison, sometimes escorted, sometimes not, to
do construction work at prisons. He gave speeches and attended conventions and
banquets as a member of his prison unit’s Jaycees chapter.
Macumber gained a measure of celebrity by serving as a host on the prison
system’s closed-circuit cable system, which he helped operate. Wearing a goofy
golf cap, Macumber would crack jokes, read letters from inmates and introduce that
evening’s movie.
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But Macumber’s privileges came at the whim of prison administrators. And when
the tide shifted to less liberal policies, Macumber saw some of his liberties taken
away. By the mid-1990s, the Jaycees unit was finished. So was the program that
allowed trusted inmates to leave the grounds.
Officials ordered the Jaycees snack bar closed in 1995. And Macumber lost his job
on the cable-TV system over a tussle over how he was procuring movies. He
wanted to buy them from a nearby video store, while prison officials wanted him to
go through proper channels.
Letters from Macumber’s prison file show that by the late 1990s, he was struggling
to find meaningful ways to pass his days.
In January 1997, he was assigned a job in the recreation department, sweeping the
basketball court of the East Unit. He sent a letter to the assistant warden asking for
something more, maybe in the library.
“(T)he important thing for me is to keep both mind and body busy and sweeping
the basketball court wouldn’t do that,” he wrote.
Macumber had developed a routine. He would get up about 4:30 a.m., well before
the other inmates in his dorm had stirred. He would make himself coffee and take
time to sit and enjoy the quiet.
There were no voices echoing off the tile floor and bare walls. No metal clanks of
gates. No crude jokes or banter. Just silence. He would wait to see the sun rise. He
watched light dance along the Chiricahua Mountains in the distance.
But between him and the mountains was always a double layer of fence.
‘Things made sense’
After January 2000, Macumber started getting regular visits from investigators with
the Justice Project to go over evidence in his case.
The all-volunteer investigation was painstaking and slow. Lawyers would update Macumber on the progress, but it seemed to
come in drips.
One private investigator had gone to the home of Macumber’s ex-wife, who lived in Washington.
Macumber had long suspected his ex-wife, who worked at the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office at the time of his arrest, had
framed him.
She testified at Macumber’s second trial that his allegations were false, and she later told reporters that she had no motive to
see Macumber locked up, leaving her as a single mother of three. At a 2012 hearing, Carol Kempfert told the state clemency
board that she passed a polygraph test that asked about tampering with evidence. “I did not frame William Macumber,” she
told the board, “nor did I tamper with evidence.”
Kempfert, still living in Olympia, Wash., did not return phone calls seeking comment for this story.
The investigator, before he was ordered off the property, told her he wanted to talk to her and her three sons about the case.
She then called her youngest son, Ronald, who lived in Colorado, and warned him that a man from something called the
Arizona Justice Project, working with an attorney named Larry Hammond, might be looking for him.
Ronald called Hammond’s office in Phoenix. When Hammond told him that they thought his father was innocent and was set
up by his mother, Ronald said everything clicked into place. “There was a lot to take in right then and there. But it just did not
surprise me. Things made sense,” Ronald said during a December 2012 interview at his Colorado home.
Ronald explained this story to his father in his letter to him. He also tried to explain how he was sorry for all the years they
missed. In March 2011, Ronald would legally change his name from Kempfert, once again using Macumber, the last name of
his father.
A father again
In March 2005, William Macumber wrote to prison officials asking to exceed the maximum number of visitors he could have
that next month. He listed the visitors he expected: his brother and sister-in-law, who were coming in from Chicago. His
cousin and her husband, who lived in Apache Junction.
And his son, Ronald, and his granddaughter, Megan Jensen.
Officials approved the visit, set for the first weekend of April 2005.
Ronald did not know his father had arranged a mini-family reunion within the prison walls. When he and his daughter entered
the visitation room, he reintroduced himself to a family he was too young to remember anything about. When he and his
daughter, Megan, talked later, they both felt this made sense, that this was the family they belonged to all along.
Behind the secured door leading to the room, Macumber could see the scene. The only people he didn’t recognize were his
son and his granddaughter.
Megan turned and saw him first, this tall man with a buzz cut, wearing an orange jumpsuit. She walked over to him and
immediately started to cry. “It was surreal,” she said.
Macumber and his son embraced, wordless for several minutes. Macumber felt like a father again for the first time in decades.
The reunion motivated Macumber to try to act on his own to get free.
He had felt the Justice Project’s work had hit a dead end. On his own, in December 2008, he filed an application to the
clemency board to commute his sentence. “It was just a shot in the dark, for my family’s sake,” he said.
Question No. 3 in the application asked why he deserved to have his sentence reduced. Macumber answered: “I am innocent
of the crime for which I was found guilty and I shall always remain innocent because (innocence) as well as guilt is infinite.”
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A second hearing
In March 2009, the board voted that Macumber’s case deserved a second hearing. This one would involve testimony from
friends and family and the possibility of the board voting to commute his sentence. It was the closest Macumber had been to
freedom.
That hearing took place in May 2009. Justice Project attorneys presented the case to the board. They talked about evolving
science on ballistics, the confession from another man that the jury never heard, and the possibility that fingerprint evidence
was fabricated, possibly by Macumber’s ex-wife. The board was convinced. It voted unanimously that Macumber deserved
mercy.
The chairman of the board made the recommendation in a letter to Gov. Jan Brewer. It detailed the new questions on the
fingerprint and ballistic evidence and said how Macumber’s ex-wife had the “motive, means and opportunity” to frame
Macumber.
“We consider William Macumber’s case truly unique,” wrote Duane Belcher, who had chaired the board for decades. “His
records and accomplishments are extraordinary for any person, but especially for a man who has spent the last 35 years of
his life in prison.”
The board cited “substantial doubt” that Macumber had committed the crime and said his sentence was an “injustice.”
To Macumber, release seemed imminent. “Everybody’s hopes were flying,” he said. “We were finally there.”
Macumber talked to his cousin about the clothes he wanted to wear when he got out. He wanted to look presentable. She
asked him his size and bought a new pair of Wrangler jeans.
The board’s recommendation went to the desk of Gov. Brewer. On Nov. 13, 2009, she issued her answer in a one-sentence
letter: “The application for clemency for William Macumber, ADC#33867 is denied.”
Age creates urgency
The denial of clemency did not make the news. But over the next year, stories about the case and the clemency denial began
to pop up on local TV, in the New York Times, on “Nightline.”
In his cell, Macumber saw he was getting favorable media attention. It was a far cry from his portrayal as a monster during his
trials in the 1970s.
But Macumber’s age brought an urgency to the matter. He knew all this might be moot if he died in prison.
In April 2011, Macumber went to a Tucson hospital with a bowel obstruction. That turned into internal bleeding and a blood
clot. He was placed on a ventilator. That stress led to a heart attack. He was then placed in a medical coma.
Prison officials called his family and told them to come to Tucson, fearing he would die there. But Macumber stabilized, then
started mending. He was taken to the Rincon Unit, a medical prison. He had a difficult time walking, and the first time he tried
to get up to use the bathroom, he slipped and hit his head, prolonging his recovery.
Macumber willed himself to walk again, hoping he would be approved to be released back to the Douglas prison.
It took some pressure from the warden at Douglas, but Macumber was allowed to return to the prison in June 2011.
One more chance
Macumber had a second clemency hearing in March 2012, when he was legally able to reapply. Listening to the proceedings
from his cell in Douglas, he could tell it was not going his way.
But for the first time in 37 years, he was able to hear the voices of his two other sons: Scott and Steve, who were testifying
on the telephone from Olympia, Wash. Their words to the board were stinging. Scott said his father was “flawed in character,
he has flawed integrity and the man knows nothing of the word honesty.” Steve told the board that “the correct man is in jail
for these murders, and he needs to stay there.”
Macumber was asked if he had anything to say to the board. “Are my sons still on the line?” he asked. A board member told
him they were. “Scott ...” Macumber said. Then, the board chairman cut him off. His comments needed to be addressed to the
board, not to witnesses.
“I’ll comment to the board,” Macumber said, “that I love my three sons with all my heart, regardless of how my two older sons
feel. That will never change till the day I die.”
The board voted 2-2 on Macumber’s release. It meant a denial.
But Macumber knew it wasn’t over. His attorneys had asked that his conviction be thrown out and he be given a new trial.
The petition for post-conviction relief had been filed in Maricopa County Superior Court in February and was working its way
to a criminal-court judge. On Oct. 5, 2012, Judge Bruce Cohen issued his ruling. “Defendant is entitled to an evidentiary
hearing,” it read. It meant Cohen was considering tossing out Macumber’s conviction.
A few weeks later, prosecutors approached Jordan Green, the attorney leading the courtroom fight on Macumber’s behalf,
and asked about a plea deal. The evidence in the case had long been discarded, and prosecutors feared they would be
unable to retry the case should it come to that. They were open to a deal that would secure a conviction, though it would let
Macumber out of prison.
Green traveled to Douglas to tell Macumber in person what was going on.
Macumber wanted to maintain his innocence, but Green told him that a trial that could clear his name might take years. “I’m
an old man,” Macumber said during a later interview, reflecting on his reasoning. “My health is not good. I want to spend
whatever time I can with my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren.”
Green talked about a no-contest plea. It would have the legal effect of a conviction, but Macumber could still say he had
never pleaded guilty to something he didn’t do.
On Nov. 5, 2012, the court sent an order to the Department of Corrections asking that Macumber be brought up from Douglas
to the Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix on Nov. 7.
The order said not only to deliver Macumber, but also to bring all the personal property in his cell.
He wouldn’t be going back.
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Mar 13, 2013 8:56 PM
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After half a life in prison, one fateful morning changes everything
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By Richard Ruelas
Mon Mar 4, 2013 10:53 AM
William Macumber, 77, shuffled into the courtroom in ankle shackles, a belly chain
and handcuffs, led by armed deputies. He wore red-rimmed glasses and an orange
shirt and pants that constitute the prison uniform. He took a seat at a table next to
some of the attorneys who had worked for nearly a decade to reach this day.
Macumber had served nearly 38 years in prison for a double murder he said he
didn’t commit. On this day, he was ready to walk free.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/state/articles/20130220william-macumber-justice-finally.html[3/13/2013 8:56:59 PM]
open
“Boy, this courtroom sure has changed since I was here,” Macumber said to his
attorneys, looking at his surroundings. He was in a newly constructed wing of the
Maricopa County Superior Courthouse in Phoenix.
years. Read more at
Part 3: Life Inside
The last time Macumber was at the county courthouse, a jury found him guilty of
the shooting deaths of two 20-year-olds whose bodies were found at an area north
of Scottsdale that was known as a lovers’ lane.
Macumber had consistently denied having anything to do with the 1962 shooting.
He denied it to officers when he was arrested in 1974. He denied it to a jury in his
first trial, and again at his second trial. He denied it in paperwork in 1989 and 1992,
when he asked to have his life sentence reduced. And, in 2011, he denied it to a
clemency board that unanimously recommended his release. That request was
denied by the governor.
On this November day in 2012, Macumber was in court, ready to be asked about
his guilt one last time.
A group of volunteer lawyers and law students from the Arizona Justice Project,
which aims to free the wrongfully convicted, had raised enough questions about the
case that a judge was considering tossing out the conviction and giving Macumber
a new trial.
Ready for a deal
Prosecutors, knowing that evidence in the decades-old case had been destroyed,
were ready to cut a deal.
Macumber sipped from a paper cup of water and made small talk with his
attorneys. He talked about his favorite hunting and fishing spots. He talked about
having to get a computer and an e-mail account. “I’m going to be very busy,” he
said.
at
Macumber rose along with the rest of the packed courtroom when Judge Bruce
Cohen entered. The attorneys introduced themselves. Then Jordan Green, one of
Macumber’s attorneys, made an unusual request of the judge. He asked for
Macumber’s ankle restraints to be removed.
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A deputy knelt and started undoing the shackles just above Macumber’s feet. The
deputy then stood and looked at the judge. “Everything off, sir?” he asked. The
judge answered, “Yes, if you would.”
The judge nodded and said yes, ordering a deputy to remove the chains.
The deputy unlocked the pink handcuffs, which had been placed around fabric wrist
bracelets to protect Macumber’s skin. Then, he unhooked the belly chain. “Thank
you,” Macumber told the deputy.
A few weeks before, Green had visited Macumber in Douglas, telling him
prosecutors were willing to enter into a plea deal that would free him.
Macumber was elated at thethought of being released. But part of him knew the
last few weeks of prison would be daunting. He had a lot of loose ends to tie up. “I
was busier than a one-armed paper hanger,” hesaid, “but it was a good feeling.”
Macumber was working as an instructional aide with Cochise College, which
offered courses to inmates. He said he converted history lessons he had created
into a self-study course. And did the same for a Spanish-language class.
He had a receiving line of inmates and staff saying their goodbyes. Some staff
came to the Douglas prison from Florence, where Macumber spent the first two
decades of his sentence.
Macumber often left original quotations on a bulletin board in his unit for the other
inmates to read. On his last day at the prison, he wrote this: “Justice, however late,
is still justice.”
Against release
As the court hearing began, however, Macumber heard from two people who did
not want him freed.
John McCluskey was a cousin of Tim McKillop, the 20-year-old who was shot along
with his fiancee on that 1962 evening. McCluskey talked about McKillop’s parents,
his aunt and uncle, who lost their only child.
McCluskey asked how many murder convictions had undergone this much scrutiny.
“How many of those were subsequently tossed out?” he asked the judge. He asked
why this case deserved so much attention. “Is this really a precedent-setting case?”
he asked.
Justice Delayed, Part Three
Judy Michael, who was the sister of Joyce Sterrenberg, the 20-year-old woman
who was shot, said that Macumber’s two trials and five clemency proceedings gave
him ample time to plead his case. “Now here he is today to get more justice for
him,” she said, “and where is the justice for us?”
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The judge asked the attorneys if they had reached an agreement on how to
proceed with the case. Both sides responded they had.
In his own words
Judge Cohen read a statement, addressing the brutality of the crimes and the
uncertainty of the case. Cohen said that it would be impossible to know what the
trial’s outcome would be under the “law, rules and analysis that now exists,” but
said there were “significant questions as to whether justice was done when Mr.
Macumber was convicted.”
The judge asked Macumber standard questions to determine whether the
defendant knew what he was doing.
Then he asked Macumber how he pleaded to the new charges: two counts of
second-degree murder, one for each person shot in 1962.
“No contest, your honor,” Macumber said.
Time served
The plea was the solution — after half his life in prison, after pursuing every other option. Macumber insisted to his attorneys,
his family and the world that he was innocent. But in court, while he would not admit guilt, he would not contest the charges.
The judge then moved to sentencing. He again asked the victims’ families to speak. McCluskey, the cousin of the man who
was murdered, said he had little to say that he hadn’t said before. “I feel he’s guilty and should be incarcerated for life,” he
said. McCluskey then spoke more emotionally, telling the judge that the cool, rational judgment of the system did not seem to
take into account his family’s suffering.
Michael also spoke up again for her sister, saying that the judges who twice sentenced Macumber and those who heard his
pleas for early release were all wise individuals, knowledgeable in the law. “If they didn’t allow him out (then),” she said, “I
don’t see why he would be let out today.”
Macumber was given a chance to address the court.
He thanked the judge for the way he handled the matter “with expediency and respect.” He did not address the victims’
families, figuring they would receive no comfort from any words he said.
The judge ruled Macumber would be sentenced to the time he had already served. He would not have to have any probation.
“Good luck to you, sir,” the judge said. Then he banged his gavel and ended the hearing. It was just before 2 p.m.
‘Show on the road’
Macumber was led out of the courtroom. The family reunions would come later. He wasn’t sure exactly when, but for now, he
was still in the custody of the state.
He was reminded of that as soon as he left the courtroom. Macumber said deputies handcuffed him again, placed a chain
around his belly and attached it to the shackles that were again fitted around his ankles.
He was driven to the small Alhambra prison facility in central Phoenix. There, things moved quickly.
He heard a deputy warden bark orders: “Let’s get this show on the road ... I want him out of here as quickly as possible.” He
also ordered that the restraints be removed from the 77-year-old man.
Through his attorneys, his family had delivered the street clothes he wanted to wear upon his release. Those included the pair
of Wrangler jeans bought three years earlier, after a unanimous recommendation of release from the clemency board made it
seem to his family that freedom was imminent. The jeans still fit.
Macumber put on a brown-checked Western shirt and accented it with a turquoise bola tie. He cinched his pants with the
hand-tooled leather belt he handed his brother when he was sentenced in the mid-1970s.
He stood in front of the prison camera for one last mug shot and was fingerprinted one last time.
The deputy warden asked where Macumber’s family was waiting. He then took the cart that held the box of Macumber’s
belongings and wheeled it down the hallway toward the proper exit.
Behind a mesh metal gate, Macumber could see his family. At about 4:18 p.m., the gate slowly slid open and they started
clapping and cheering. Macumber slowly walked out and hugged each person deeply.
He then made his way outside, where attorneys and volunteers from the Arizona Justice Project waited. He paused for
handshakes and hugs there, too.
A time for family
Reporters were kept a few yards away. As he neared the cameras and notebooks, Macumber politely said that this was time
for family. He wouldn’t have anything to say now.
Macumber got into his son’s car and drove away. The realization of what had just happened came across him in waves. He
looked out the car window at the city that seemed so familiar, but had changed so much.
At his cousin’s home in Apache Junction, he had pizzas and allowed himself one beer. He fancied another one, but feared
what would happen. It was his first drink in 38 years. It tasted like his first beer ever, he said — which was to say, not good.
One of the minor tortures in prison, he said, had been seeing all the food ads on television. The images of juicy steaks and
burgers just accentuated the blandness of prison food.
The next morning, he arose at 4:30, just as he had behind bars. He sat on the patio of his cousin’s house, smoking his pipe.
He watched rabbits and quail frolic in the desert backyard and waited for the sun to rise and illuminate the Superstition
Mountains.
“To see the sun come up over the peaks,” he said. “Really something.”
The next night, he went to a Mexican restaurant in midtown Phoenix, where he celebrated with the attorneys from the Justice
Project and his family. He had his previously favored beverage: a scotch and soda. Then, back at his cousin’s house, he had
a beer. It tasted like he remembered. “Maybe my taste buds are coming back,” he thought.
He wrapped up his first weekend of freedom with a fishing trip. “I just enjoyed the daylights out of it,” he said. “We didn’t catch
any fish to speak of, but it was a great day out there. We had a grand time.”
Life on a remote ranch
Macumber decided to live at another cousin’s house on a remote ranch in New Mexico, near the Four Corners region. After
spending some time in suburban Phoenix, especially at the cavernous Walmart, which startled him, he figured he made the
right choice.
“I don’t need the crush of people,” he said. “I need to be able to talk to the rabbits and squirrels. Get some good conversation
for a change.”
After a few weeks of living at the ranch — and having three-egg breakfasts — Macumber had gained 17 pounds. His health
seemed to improve, with some of his nagging aches and pains disappearing.
He also found ways to stay busy. He signed up for an e-mail account and went into town and bought an iPhone.
He also saw to organizing his cousin’s extensive movie collection. “Bill decided that my filing system for them left much to be
desired,” said Jacquelyn Kelley, his cousin, who had written to the Justice Project in 1999, urging a second look at
Macumber’s case.
It took Macumber two days to refile the 400 videocassettes and DVDs, organizing them first by category, then in alphabetical
order.
Reconnecting with loved ones
In early December, Macumber traveled to Aurora, Colo., to spend time with his son Ronald, his grandson James Atkinson, his
granddaughters Sara Esparza and Megan Jensen, and their children, Macumber’s great-granddaughters.
Macumber reconnected with Ronald, his youngest son, back in 2003. But he had not connected with his other two sons.
He last heard their voices in March 2012, during a hearing at which they told a state clemency board that their father
deserved to be in prison for the rest of his life. Scott Kempfert has not spoken to his father. He also did not return phone calls
from The Republic for this article.
Macumber’s middle son, Steve, died in June 2012. Macumber learned of his son’s death from Ronald, who found out himself
through Facebook. His relationship with his mother and brother have strained since he reconnected with his father.
Macumber spent much of the time at his son’s home simply relaxing. On one Sunday, they watched a Denver Broncos game
in the living room and bantered back and forth.
Macumber said his son had lost his tolerance for warm weather since moving to Colorado. “When he hits the heat, he’s a
wuss,” he said.
His son said, “Listen to you.” Then raised his voice in a mocking tone: “It’s cold. I need thermals.”
“Watch it, boy,” Macumber snapped back.
It didn’t take long for Macumber to draw up plans to improve his son’s home. He designed a new bookcase for the basement.
It was also time to share french fries with his great-granddaughters and share memories of when he was a child. He told one
that candy was 2 cents back when he was a kid.
“It would have been awesome back in the olden days,” said 8-year-old Abigail Esparza.
She had been studying mastodons in school and asked her great-grandfather if he was familiar with the extinct ancestor to
the elephant. “Back in the olden days, when you were born,” Abigail asked, “were there mastodons?”
Macumber hugged her. “Nope,” he said, “but the brontosaurus was giving us a lot of trouble.”
Savoring freedom
Their weeks together made Ronald think about all the years he missed with his father. “We don’t sit here talking about what
could have been because obviously that can’t be changed,” he said. “But if we’re going to be honest, yes, I still sit here and
think about the fact that I didn’t get a lot of this stuff.”
Although he plans to spend much of his time relaxing, Macumber has appointed himself an advocate for two causes. One is
the Arizona Justice Project, the volunteer legal group that worked to free him. He has told those lawyers he is less than a day
away in New Mexico, should the group need him to tell his story somewhere.
He also wants relaxed sentences for the small group of elderly prisoners who were convicted under Arizona’s old criminal
code. They can be released only with the consent of the governor, something that has left many stuck behind bars for life.
“It’s going to be a terribly hard sell,” he said, “but I am not deterred from a hard problem.”
Macumber looks to savor his remaining years as a free man. He said he let go of his bitterness years ago. He will not dwell
on what he’s missed.
“You don’t catch up. You never catch up. What’s gone is gone,” he said. “It’s what’s to come, and that’s what it’s all about.”
Plus, once the snow melts and the ground thaws, there’s a fence on the ranch that his cousin says needs repair.
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Angie Waite · Rio Salado College
I just want to say that this is one of the best articles I have read from the Republic in a long time. This story is
both heartwarming, and gut wrenching at the same time.
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Kim O'Connor ·
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Top Commenter
To all you who are constantly insulting lawyers, remember it was lawyers working for free for a decade who
made this happen simply because it was the right thing to do.
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Debbi Phillips
This is a fantastic story. It made me laugh and cry. I am so glad that through this article we have been able to
get to know this man.
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Mike Losey
Bill Macumber was a friend of my father's - they worked together at GE/Honeywell and were on the sheriff's
posse together. I had met Macumber a couple of times and both my father and I were shocked that he had
been accused of such a thing. Although the justice system took way too long it finally did the right thing. Good
luck bill in your new life.
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Karin Kroll Ross
Great article
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Allan Winston · Washington University in St. Louis
Its a sad commentary that he spent 38 years in jail and after a unanimous recommendation of clemency our
governor refused to allow it. He is an inspiration for what he has endured and yet perservered
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Mar 13, 2013 2:56 PM
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Amid a life sentence, finding a reason to live
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By Richard Ruelas
Mon Mar 4, 2013 10:49 AM
William Macumber did not know what a Jaycee was or why one would
want to meet with prisoners, particularly a prisoner like himself,
convicted twice of a double murder.
But he was always looking for ways to pass the time in prison, so he
showed up. About 50 other prisoners did, as well.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/state/articles/20130214william-macumber-life-inside-prison.html[3/13/2013 2:57:36 PM]
years. Read more at
Part 3: Life Inside
Macumber was five years into a life sentence. He was convicted in the
1962 slaying of a young couple in the desert north of Scottsdale.
Macumber’s wife, who had worked for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s
Office, told deputies in 1974 that Macumber had suddenly confessed
the crime to her, possibly as a way to save their crumbling marriage.
Macumber had maintained his innocence upon his arrest and on the
witness stand at trial and again in a retrial. It didn’t matter. Since his
conviction, he had divorced his wife, the woman he thought framed
him. She had moved his three sons out of state, and the letters
Macumber wrote to them were returned unopened.
Macumber’s ex-wife, Carol Kempfert, did not respond to requests
seeking comment for this article.
Macumber figured his life was now here, behind bars.
The Jaycees, a nickname for the Junior Chamber of Commerce, were
a group of well-meaning young business professionals who explained
to the prisoners they wanted to start a chapter of their civic-service
organization in this medium-security unit.
A Jaycee asked for a show of hands. Who would be interested in
forming a chapter? Macumber put his hand up. So did most others.
at
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The Jaycees left behind some training manuals and paperwork.
Macumber took it upon himself to call the inmates together for
meetings and adopt bylaws.
By February 1980, the Roadrunner chapter was officially recognized by
the Jaycees. Its first president was Macumber.
While others might have joined the group in hopes it would lead to an
early release, Macumber had no illusions of that.
He was seen as a man who shot two young people for the thrill of it,
and he didn’t see that changing. He also wasn’t doing this to impress
his sons, whom he figured would probably never find out about his
behavior behind bars.
Macumber would do this for himself.
Awards, commendations
When he was first put in prison in 1975, Macumber was held in
maximum security, a level befitting his grisly crime. But prison officials
saw Macumber was not a danger inside the walls. In 1979, he was
moved into medium security.
In the dormlike setting, he could wear street clothes. He saw inmates
with long hair or beards. And he noticed officers called inmates by their
names, not their numbers.
Macumber soon understood: Inmates were given privileges in the
hopes they would behave better.
“In those days, society had a fairly high degree of empathy in terms of
prisoners,” Macumber said in 2012, looking back on his time in prison.
“It was before we got into that iron-hearted ‘lock them up and throw
away the key’ mentality.”
Until he was freed last year, Macumber would spend the majority of his
adult life behind bars.
After nearly 38 years in prison, his file was thick with awards and
commendations, including one from the director of the state
Department of Corrections.
His applications to the parole board included kind letters from deputy
wardens and officers.
Behind bars, he had started businesses, performed charitable work and
written books of poetry.
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But not until age 77 would he walk free. In November, long-standing
questions about the evidence against him and the prospect of a new
trial resulted in a plea agreement that would deliver him the freedom
that no record of good behavior ever could.
A fellow inmate, Paul LaBarre, who was convicted of burglary, said
Macumber never quite fit into the inmate population.
“He was so out of pocket, he didn’t have a clue where he was at,” said
LaBarre, since released and living in Gilbert. “Bill didn’t understand
nothing. ... He didn’t grasp what was going on there.”
Most inmates, LaBarre said, found a way to continue elements of their
nefarious life from outside the walls, inside the prison. “Every one of
them’s got a game, got a scheme going,” LaBarre said. “Bill wasn’t into
any of that.”
President of the Year
Macumber entered a medium-security unit just as policies took effect
that allowed more privileges for low-risk offenders.
A previous warden of the Florence prison had stopped giving the
Jaycees access to inmates. It was part of his get-tough policies. But he
had been fired by Ellis MacDougall, the new state director of prisons,
who welcomed the groups back as part of his belief that treating
prisoners with respect improved security and safety.
Macumber used the Jaycees training manual to teach classes on
leadership, planning and public speaking. The new chapter then set about finding ways to do charitable
service.
Inmates decided to take family portraits during visitation time. Someone’s wife donated a camera.
Macumber’s family donated the first batch of film.
“For the first time in a long time, families were able to have pictures taken together,” Macumber wrote in a
November 1981 letter from prison, “and this meant a lot, not only to them but to our chapter also because
we were finally working towards that primary goal of helping our community.”
From money raised selling the portraits, the prison-bound Jaycees donated $150 to the Muscular
Dystrophy Association during its annual Labor Day telethon.
By October 1981, Macumber and the Jaycees opened a snack bar in the visitation area.
It straddled the yard, with half serving inmates and the other side serving the visitation area. The Jaycees
would use the proceeds to make donations to charities, and to fund racquetball and basketball courts in the
prison.
The chapter was ranked among the best-performing in the state, outperforming most chapters that were
made up of community members. And Macumber was named a regional Jaycees President of the Year in
1983. His parents were able to see him, in a suit, accept the plaque and applause at an awards banquet in
Phoenix.
The award gained the notice of a reporter for The Phoenix Gazette. Macumber, hearing of the interest,
wrote the reporter a letter detailing the brief history of the Roadrunner Jaycees.
“I had felt that all things of this nature would be impossible for me in prison, but this proved to me that I
could do the things here that I had done for many years on the outside,” he wrote, “and I knew also that
here those very things were more needed than anywhere else.”
Macumber asked the reporter to not dwell on the crimes of the men who now made up the Jaycees. “It is a
fact, I’m afraid, that most of the outside world holds the opinion that a convict is a convict and will always
remain a convict. A man better locked up and forgotten,” he wrote. “We had hopes that even in the
smallest way we might be able to alter that opinion.”
No wish to escape
For public events, Macumber would be picked up at the Florence prison by the Jaycee who oversaw the
inmate programs, James Conant.
Macumber would be dressed in street clothes and would not be handcuffed, Conant said.
The Jaycee knew about Macumber’s convictions but was not afraid to be ferrying around a convicted
double murderer on long road trips, including at least one overnight stay at the Grand Canyon.
“He could have killed you if he wanted to,” Conant said in an interview. “If he was a bad guy, we would
have seen it.”
Macumber knew there were ample opportunities to escape. But he didn’t take them because he wanted to
keep alive the slim hope for vindication. “If you were to escape, (it) just tosses your innocence right out the
window,” he said. “You’re automatically guilty.”
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Macumber remembered being taken to a Jaycee rodeo event in Yuma. The corrections officer driving him
missed the exit and continued on the freeway, into California and out of Arizona jurisdiction. “So, I didn’t
say nothing,” Macumber said. “I just sit back there and let him drive.”
The officer saw a sign that said “Welcome to California.” In a panic, he wondered what to do. “I told him, ‘I
don’t know what you’re going to do, but I think I’ll stop somewhere and have dinner,’” Macumber said.
After a few minutes of teasing, Macumber directed the officer toward Yuma. “But I’ll never forget that,”
Macumber said. “That was funny.”
In 1983, the national Jaycees organization wanted to give Macumber a special award of merit at its June
convention in Connecticut.
Macumber was able to get several letters of recommendation from prison officials, urging that he be
allowed to attend.
“I have personally escorted Mr. Macumber to various local and state Jaycee functions,” read one, from
corrections Officer James Piekarz, “and he has always maintained himself in a professional manner.”
He was allowed to travel and accept his award.
Hope for request
Macumber was hopeful as he prepared his first request for a shortened sentence in 1983. He solicited
letters from former co-workers and neighbors, as well as one letter from an inmate who talked about
spending time as a Jaycee.
“Bill and I come from two entirely different worlds,” read the letter from Cleatus King, then the vice
president of the chapter. “He from the stable, citizen type world and I from a totally criminal kind of
involvement.”
King wrote that he noticed a change in himself, that he started to emulate Macumber. “The difference
between myself now and what I was a few years back is like night and day,” he wrote, “and the same
applies to many men in this chapter.”
In Macumber’s application to the board of pardons and paroles, he listed the people he could live with
when he got out. He gave two possibilities: his parents, who still lived in the same trailer park in Glendale;
and a woman he called his fiancee, who lived in Phoenix. His application said he could live with her “after
marriage.”
The woman was someone Macumber knew before he was imprisoned, he would say years later, after his
release. Had he not been convicted, Macumber said, the two might have married after he separated from
his first wife.
His request for commutation was denied. Afterward, his fiancee came to visit Macumber. He told her their
relationship was over. That she should go find someone else to be with. It would be her last visit.
He had seen other wives come visit their imprisoned husbands, and he didn’t want that for her. “It’s not a
life I would ask of anybody,” he said.
Macumber found another outlet for his emotions: poetry. He would write rhyming verses on a manual
typewriter. He entered national writing competitions and started winning. One of his most lauded poems
was titled “Are There Puppy Dogs in Heaven?”
Macumber put his engineering skills to work, helping install and maintain a cable-television system in the
Florence prison unit.
He began hosting a movie night for the inmates, showing films he taped from premium movie stations or
that he had his family purchase. “Nobody else would get on TV,” he said.
He applied for commutation again in 1988.
This time, his application was bulkier. It contained letters from the prison’s chief security officer, detention
officers and deputy wardens.
“I believe he would do well on the outside,” wrote Fred Ballard, chief security officer of the East Unit.
In Macumber’s letter to the commutation board, Macumber didn’t ask for his sentence to be reduced to a
specific number. He just wanted to be given a number, any number, rather than the abstract “life” sentence
he was serving. “[S]uch that I might have light at the end of the tunnel,” he wrote.
But the board was not swayed.
Freedoms taken away
While he was not deemed worthy to leave prison, officials at Florence decided he was such a low risk
within prison that they moved him to minimum security, affording him even more freedom.
He was assigned to a construction crew. He said he worked on building the Picacho unit, about 30 miles
from the Florence prison. “I would get up in the morning, drive my truck, spend the whole day down there
working, drive back at night,” he said.
But changes at the top of the Corrections Department would start to affect Macumber.
The liberal polices of McDougall gave way to the tough-minded approach of the new director, Sam Lewis.
Macumber saw the freedoms he enjoyed begin to erode.
He was moved back to medium security because Lewis said convicted murderers could not be in minimum.
Recreation programs were cut. The snack bar closed. Travel was out. Macumber’s typewriter was taken
away. Then, he lost his job at the cable-TV studio over a tussle over buying movies. His family was buying
used tapes and delivering them. Officials wanted him to go through the proper procurement channels.
Macumber saw the removal of privileges as a political ploy. “Take away all the good things from prison that
are occurring in prison,” he said, “so that you can put the facade out to the public that a prisoner is a nogood, lazy do-nothing.”
In September 1992, Macumber reported not feeling well and was taken to the hospital. It was a heart
issue.
But a fellow inmate told officers he was worried about Macumber’s psyche. Macumber told him he didn’t
care about his health anymore.
According to an officer’s report, Macumber told him that “he was going to die in prison, so what the hell.”
Macumber applied for commutation again that year. His application contained some of the same words he
wrote in 1988, as if he figured it wasn’t worth rewriting the form.
The board denied his commutation in November 1992.
This time, Macumber said, a board member told him that until he was ready to feel remorse for his crime,
there was nothing the board could do.
Macumber said he told him, “Well, then there’s nothing you can do for me.”
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Rose Finocchio-Vizcarrondo · Lake View High School
My comment is to Jeffrey Egger: Mr. Macumber really didn't need to change his lifestyle. How he lived before
he was imprisoned was much the same as how he chose to be while inside - in service to help others. That is
his core personality, and what makes him happiest, as is shown by his story. He had no criminal background,
not even a traffic ticket, and worked with the Sheriff. So, what's to change? Not to murder anymore - only if
he, in fact, did it. And time would tell the story on that one. He did not take responsibility for the crime as he
says he didn't do it. Would you say you did if you didn't? And he didn't need to learn to be a good person as he
already was before he was imprisoned. Did you read the entire series? I realize he was convicted, but juries
have gotten it wrong many times before. I do agree that everybody deserves a second chance. However, in
this case I think he deserves more than that.
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Rose Finocchio-Vizcarrondo · Lake View High School
This is the saddest case I've ever read. Somehow it has really gotten to me. What a miscarriage of justice if
there ever was one. Nothing fits with the murder allegations. Even the hard evidence - the ballistics report and
palm print are seriously doubtful. The ballistics report was refuted by a ballistics expert at the second trial. The
palm print is highly questionable - it wasn't submitted for analysis originally as they said it was too small and/or
they couldn't distinguish if it was a palm print or finger prints. Then, 12 years ago it miraculously became a
viable, whole, distinguishable print by simply laying in an evidence box for 12 years - wow! How does that
happen? Add to that the fact that his wife knew how to lift prints from classes taken at the Sheriff's Dept., and
could have accessed the evidence box and re...See More
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Debbi Phillips
I can not agree more. I think he had a very vindictive ex wife. I am so glad that he is such an
inspiration.
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2 · Like
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Jeffrey Joel Eger ·
Reply
Top Commenter · Mesa, Arizona
I was president of the Tempe Jaycees in 1978-79 and it was a wonderful learning experience on how to lead
an organization..My mentor,teacher and friend was Gary Bird(Tempe Jaycee president 1977-78),who died
tragically in the 2nd tower of the WTC on 9-11.I remember when the AZ. State Jaycees extended the Az State
Prison Roadrunner Chapter with Gary and Cecil Flenge(ex Tempe and state Jaycee president) being part of this
extention.I bought a wallet from one of the Roadrunner's members who engraved my name ,Jeff,and Az
Jaycees on this fine brown leather item.I don't remember the prisoner who sold it to me,but he was
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Macumber didn’t confess, but was he wimpy?
Mar 13, 2013 2:53 PM
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Sun Mar 3, 2013 6:09 PM
Regarding The Republic’s series last week on William Macumber, “Justice Delayed”:
Ban drones from our sky
Studies suggest that people who confess to crimes that they did not commit (a) have “wimpy” personalities,
(b) have an exaggerated respect for authority (perhaps due to an exaggerated need for authority to help
them to fight their battles), (c) cannot recall what they were doing at the time of the crime, and (d) are
presented by the police with overwhelming evidence against them. So, they confess that they might have
done it, which authorities take that they “did it.”
Why I’m urging Medicaid expansion’s defeat
19
Anti-violence theory silly
Critique of CEO hogwash
Crandell’s twisted ‘logic’
Now, William Macumber
not confess.
But he showed exaggerated respect for authority when he
free articlesdid
remaining
this month.
believed what the police told him about “his” palm print being on the victim’s car. And he apparently could
not recall whatSubscribe
he had been
the time
todaydoing
for fullataccess
» of the crime. Also, the evidence against him, as presented
by law enforcement, was overwhelming.
Already Macumber
a subscriber?took
Activate
your account
now!
Meanwhile,
a polygraph
test.
Are people with wimpy personalities, in situations such as
this, more likely to fail polygraph tests? The conservative writer, editor and publisher William F. Buckley
once confessed that he had lied during a polygraph test — and passed it. He attributed his success to an
unyielding belief in the rightness of his cause.
—Richard P. Sibley, Gilbert
http://www.azcentral.com/opinions/free/20130228macumber-confess-wimpy.html[3/13/2013 2:55:14 PM]
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Susan Cuchiara · Scottsdale, Arizona
What happened to the bullet evidence that said they came from his gun? Was that part of his wife framing
him? I didn't recall reading the resolution to that.
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http://www.azcentral.com/opinions/free/20130228macumber-confess-wimpy.html[3/13/2013 2:55:14 PM]
http://ethicsalarms.com/2010/06/15/the-ethics-of-rejecting-clemency/
JUNE 15, 2010 · 6:26 PM
↓ Jump to Comments
The Ethics of Rejecting Clemency
A strange tale in the New York Times, told by reporter Adam Liptak, raises a persistent problem of
executive ethics. Is it unethical for a state governor to reject a recommendation of clemency based on
strong evidence?
As Liptak tells it, it had been 28 years since Ronald Kempfert had seen his father, imprisoned in an
Arizona prison in 1975 for a 1962 double murder, when a lawyer contacted Kempfert and told him
that his father had been framed—by his mother. Nearly the entire case against the father, William
Macumber, had been based on his wife’s testimony that he had confessed the murders to her.
Kempfert, knowing his mother, and knowing the toxic state of their marital discord at the time of her
testimony, agreed that she was quite capable of doing such a thing, and after doing some digging on
his own, concluded that his father, now elderly and ailing, had been wrongly sentenced to life
imprisonment without parole.
There was more.
The jury that sent Macumber to prison for life did not hear about a drifter named Ernesto Valenzuela
who, like Macumber, was charged with a double homicide. In 1967, Valenzuela told his lawyer,
Thomas W. O’Toole, that he had been the killer in the murders Macomber was convicted of
committing eight years later. O’Toole, who later became a state judge, has said that his client was
completely credible about claiming responsibility for the 1962 murders. “There is no doubt in my
mind that Ernesto Valenzuela committed those crimes….He was just making a point about bragging
about the people he killed. He was a cold-blooded killer who relished committing the murders.”
O’Toole was prohibited from revealing his client’s confession by his ethical duty to protect client
confidences. By the time of Macumber’s trial, however, Valenzuela was dead, killed in prison, and
O’Toole offered to tell the Macumber jury what he had been told. (Note: This would still have been a
breach of the lawyer’s duty of confidentiality, which survives the client. O’Toole courageously—and
rightly, I believe—decided that the situation required him to breach the duty in the interests of
justice.) But the judge refused to allow the testimony, ruling it hearsay, and similarly excluded the
testimony of others to whom the drifter had confessed, a second lawyer and a psychiatrist.
This, combined with Kempfert’s testimony about his mother, was enough for Arizona’s five member
clemency board, which unanimously ruled last year that there had been a miscarriage of justice and
recommended that Macumber be released.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer rejected the board’s recommendation, and has not explained why. The
Times piece reports speculation that she has refused clemency because Brewer faces re-election, and
clemency for convicted murderers generally loses more votes than it wins. If that is true—if her reelection prospects even entered into her reasoning in the decision—then her conduct is
reprehensible, approaching evil. Keeping an innocent man in prison for reasons of career
advancement is the stuff of pulp novel villainy. Assuming that Brewer has another reason for
rejecting the careful and unanimous analysis of the state officials who review such cases as their job,
what could it be? If she has one, she should articulate it.
Liptak quotes P. S. Ruckman Jr., a political science professor at Rock Valley College in Rockford, Ill.,
who is outraged by the Macumber case. “I have been following state clemency for 30 years,”
Ruckman says, “and this is easily, easily, the most disturbing. It’s borderline despicable. Commonsense notions of justice should compel a governor to provide an explanation for imprisoning a man
deemed innocent by an official board created to make such judgments,” he added. “You don’t
imprison a man for no reason.”
I would go further than that. Unless a state governor can honestly conclude with near certainty that a
clemency board is wrong, it is unethical—reckless, unfair, cruel, cowardly and irresponsible not to
defer to its recommendation. Maybe Brewer has a legitimate reason for her decision in the
Macumber case, but if she does, she has an obligation to Ronald Kempfert, the clemency board and
the public to explain what it is. Until she does, reporters like Liptak will speculate that she is like the
arch-villain Massala in “Ben Hur,” letting an innocent man rot in prison for her personal gain.
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9 Comments
Filed under Government & Politics, Law & Law Enforcement, Professions
Tagged as "Ben Hur", ABA Model Rule 1.6, Adam Liptak, clemency, confidentiality, cruelty,
deference, ethics, evil, fairness, Gov. Jan Brewer, imprisonment, legal ethics, Massala, mercy, Prof.
P. S. Ruckman Jr., punishment, responsibility, Ronald Kempfert, William Macumber
← Credential Deceit From Rand Paul
Sharron Angle, Responsible Leadership, and the Unforgivable →
9 Responses to The Ethics of Rejecting
Clemency
1.
Elizabeth
June 16, 2010 at 1:13 pm
With evidence in front of her that a now old man was unfairly convicted of murder, Governor Jan
Brewer refuses clemency for him. Is it politics? Is it ignorance? Is it prejudice? Is it hard-line justice?
I don’t know. Here’s a question: what other options does the D.A. have, or the defense, or the ACLU,
or anyone else? Marshall, answer this for me: at what point does the final decision rest with this
single person of dubious purpose? Although the “confessor” is dead, can his attorney (confidentiality
be damned) testify to what he knows? Can the courts — dedicated to justice — attempt to allow this
poor old man a few last years of freedom with his son?
PS Too bad “Law and Order” has been cancelled. It would have been a good episode…
Reply
2.
P.S. Ruckman, Jr.
June 30, 2010 at 1:48 am
See additional commentary on Governor Brewer’s behavior here:
http://www.pardonpower.com/2010/06/jan-brewers-private-justice-real.html
Reply
3.
Steve Kempfert
July 13, 2010 at 5:28 pm
AKA Stephen Macumber
I am on of the other son’s of William Macumber so lets talk about this man for a second.
There have been several lies told about what happened so lets clear some of them up and ill let you in
on a few things you all dont know about this man.
First my mother was not able to testify at the first trial and at the second only to what she had seen so
YES there was alot the jury did not hear.
Ask him about sleeping with our 17 year old babysitter in front of us during our vacation to Oregon.
Ask him about an ammo box me and my brothers found in the storage shed outside our house in
pheonix that contained multiple adult toys and kiddy porn.
Ask him why if he cared for his kids so damn much he and his father took everything of value we
owned and left us with nothing. This included a van and a gun collection.
Ask him about firing shots into our house with us kids inside and then failing a ploygraph afterwards
about it.
You all have no damn clue what your dealing with here. This man is a manipulator and youve been
simple enough to fall for it. My family went thru hell with this not just once but twice with the second
trial. and now 35 plus years later with all of this crap.
As for why this was not brought up at the clemency hearing well if we would have been notified of it
we would have been there.
So all you people who think you know him? You were not there, We were, and there is alot to this
story that has not been told like an entire series of events HE created leading up to his arrest.
The fact he FAILED the polygraph when asked about if he fired the shots thru our house.
The fact he tried to blame that incedent on my mother. It was only after this that my mother talked to
internal affairs about the other lies he had told her thru the years.
Oh he did not just lie to her but he lied to us also. Ask Bill about telling us kids about him being shot
in the belly in Korea and walking out 5 miles to a field hospital. He was a clerk here in the states we
found out later.
The fact there was not custody battle in fact they were doing a “do it yourself divorce” which has to be
UNCONTESTED.
The fact that my mother passed MULTIPLE polygraph tests on this subject and not just from
phoenix but from all over whenever she applied for a job as a sheriffs officer or corrections officer.
The fact that the EVIDENCE was never contested at the trials by his attorney. Now why would this
be? If hes so damn sure it was planted then where is the proof? Show it to me and i will believe it. No
more inuendo no more accusations I WANT PROOF.
We as a family were hoping this would just blow over and not get out of hand but apparently that
isn’t going to happen here. So after all this time it’s time for the gloves to come off and all of what
wasnt said to be said. If you want to call my mother a liar then you’ll have to call me one too along
with my older brother. And as for Ron, you want to start flinging accusations well all I can say to you
SHOW ME THE PROOF. NOT OPINION…..PROOF. I can tell you now you WILL be held liable for
your words so you had better be damned sure of what you are saying as you are playing in the adult
world now.
IS there more? Of course there is but we had hoped that we would not have to deal with it all over
again so what would have been the point of bringing all of this to light. I’m 45 now and will not stand
to see my mother’s name run thru the mud by a bunch of people who don’t want to print the truth.
Why not the truth? It’s not juicy enough. It doesn’t sell papers.
The simple fact is this. He murdered 2 kids and then left his own kids with nothing and has spent his
entire life lying about it. Now he is the big man again. Hes getting the attention he so craves. and you
are all doing nothing but help feed a monster. I hope you can sleep at night.
Reply

Jack Marshall
July 18, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Thanks for your perspective, Steve.
However, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the article you are commenting on, which involved
the process whereby a Governor grants clemency, the fairness of the judicial process, deference to
professionals who perform their job diligently and in good faith, and playing with lives for political
gain.
We don’t lock up people in the U.S. for being terrible people. We lock them up when they are
convicted of crimes by juries convinced of their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt by all the available
evidence. The other crimes and misdeeds committed by your father against your family and others:
not relevant. The fact your mother passed polygraphs: meaningless—many people can and do fool
polygraphs. They aren’t evidence.
I sleep at night knowing the government can’t convict and imprison someone on partial evidence
and a general consensus that the world would be better of without him. Two sons coming to
radically different conclusions simply proves that biased parties can’t be trusted to render a
judgment in such situations; that’s why objective panels are better adjudicators.
I am sorry, terribly, for your awful family situation. Nobody should have to endure what you and
your brother have. But I am very comfortable regarding my verdict on the manner and substance of
Gov. Brewer’s handling of this.
Reply
4.
Stephen Kempfert
July 22, 2010 at 11:26 am
Dont patronize me sir and for god sakes dont make any attempt to look at the evidence. This
“OBJECTIVE PANEL” you talk about did not notify us of the hearing or we would have been there.
If you or anyone including the Arizona Justice Project would have take the time to look thru what is
PUBLIC record you all would have know the FACTS. But the facts arent what matter here are they?
What matters is you all have your fodder to throw at whatever cause your currently all up in arms
about and this denial of clemency was just that. BE damned hes a double killer and probably more
Just make the governor look bad at all costs.
Well sir I and my family are part of that cost and I will not stand back and let people make up thier
own FACTS here. He was convicted not by 1 but 2 jurys of his peers were they impartial? All of the
lies that my mother had framed him, that she was under investigation for misconduct, all fabricated
and we have the proof.
Sir I am a registerd Democrat and swing towards the liberal side of the political spectrum so the
Governor is not one that I agree with on ANY level but she got this right. She says she made this
decision for personal reasons and if you look she lived in the same area we did at the same time so
MAYBE just MAYBE she does have her reasons. What those are I dont know.
As for my brother. This has nothing to do with my father as much as it has to do with him getting
back at my mother. He is using this for his own gain and not because of any deep seeded conviction
my father is innocent which makes him no better and in many ways worse than the rest of the talking
heads because he KNOWS better. He will be held accountable for his comments as he knows they are
blatenly false.
I have remainded quiet for 35 years about this issue and that I now have to come out and speak to
these issues bothers me greatly but with all that has been said I am left no choice left alone it will not
just go away.
If the Governor made this decision for political reasons then I agree there are definite ethics issues
here but I ask you investigate further as its very possible she does have her own personal reasons and
until the ethics issues against her are proven then her word is what we have to take. That is what I
call being impatial.
Reply
Jack Marshall

July 22, 2010 at 12:31 pm
No patronizing intended, Stephen—I apologize for seeming that way. But I’m not the Clemency
Board, not am I qualified to render a competent judgment on all the evidence and conflicting
theories here. From what I have read, if I were a juror (or a judge), I’d probably conclude that your
father was guilty by a preponderance of the evidence but not beyond a reasonable doubt—and that
the standard. The Clemency Board would be correct to recommend release even if they thought he
was guilty, but believed that he had been wrongly convicted.
None of which exonerates Governor Brewer from publicly explaining her rejection of the Board’s
recommendation. If she does so, as she certainly can, she has an obligation to the system and the
public to say why. She’s not a Queen: she needs to explain why she is rejecting clemency, and make
clear that it isn’t on a whim, or because she was in a cheery mood, or because she wants the hardass vote. YOU should want her to do so, so she can make a statement confirming her legitimate
belief in your father’s guilt. I’ve been a prosecutor and a defense counsel, and this is a messy case. It
needs some competent closure, not just a brush-off.
Reply

Stephen Kempfert
August 2, 2010 at 1:58 pm
Sir I cannot agree more if she made this decision on political grounds only. and if that is the case
then she needs to be investigated.
I just want everyone to understand there are real life concequences for people when these types of
issues are used as a p0litical football. There have been a lot of lies being trown about by my
fathers attorney and my brother and rest assured I will be getting the transcripts from the
clemency hearing to find out what was said since we were never informed it was taking place.
I too would like to apologize for coming off terse as this has been a very big strain on myself and
my family.
I agree that she needs to explain why she made her decision but please keep in mind even though
I may not agree with her politically she may have very valid reasons for not disclosing.
Thank you.
Reply
5.
Todd Anson
October 21, 2010 at 2:00 am
With all due respect to Mr. Macumber and his son, a jury heard the evidence and, if there is any
doubt to be cast on the verdict, there are appeals. What court would not release an allegedly innocent
man? Or even offer him a new trial? The Arizona Supreme Court has not done this, nor has any
appeals court. So, this leads me to believe that Mr. Macumber was properly convicted, and until I see
otherwise Governor Brewer is wholly justified in denying parole.
Reply
Jack Marshall

October 21, 2010 at 9:36 am
1) Clemency, not parole. 2) Of course she’s justified…assuming that she’s actually reviewed the
transcript and concluded that he is guilty, and that the verdict was just. Her refusal to discuss the
case suggests otherwise. 3) Your faith in the criminal justice system, juries and the appeals process
is touching, but naive. What court wouldn’t release an innocent man? Too many to count.
Reply

William Macumber - BonPasse Exoneration Services

Transcription

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