Bio 

Thomas Arnold Kemp was born on June 2, 1948. He was a white man who moved to Arizona. Before the murder of Hector Soto Juarez, Kemp had a criminal history that included a prior violent felony. By 1992, Kemp was living in the Tucson area and working as a maintenance man at a trailer park. He lived with his mother at the time. Reporting before his execution described him as a former trailer-park maintenance worker, while the uploaded case material states that several days before the murder, he bought a .380 semi-automatic handgun and told Jeffrey Logan that he needed money to pay bills.

Kemp’s accomplice, Jeffrey Logan, had escaped from a California honor farm and traveled to Tucson shortly before the crime. Logan and Kemp knew each other from prison. On July 10, 1992, Logan accompanied Kemp to a pawn shop, where Kemp bought the handgun later connected to the crime. The next night, the two men drove around Tucson looking for a victim.

Kemp’s later court record showed no accepted mitigating circumstances strong enough to prevent a death sentence. At sentencing, the court found aggravating factors that included a prior violent felony, pecuniary gain, and especially cruel conduct. The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the sentencing decision in 1996.

Murder Story

On the night of July 11, 1992, 25-year-old Hector Soto Juarez left the Tucson apartment he shared with his fiancée to buy food. He did not return. His fiancée later found the car he had been driving unlocked in the apartment parking lot. The car smelled of fast food, and insurance papers were found on the roof. After checking with relatives and friends, she contacted police.

Around the same time, Thomas Kemp and Jeffrey Logan were driving through Tucson. Between about 11:15 p.m. and midnight, they abducted Juarez from the parking area of his apartment complex. Kemp used Juarez’s ATM card to withdraw about $200. He and Logan then drove Juarez to the Silverbell Mine area near Marana, northwest of Tucson.

At the remote mine area, Kemp walked Juarez 50 to 70 feet away from the vehicle, forced him to remove his clothes, and shot him twice in the head. After the killing, Kemp made two unsuccessful attempts to use Juarez’s ATM card again in Tucson. The ATM retained the card after the second attempt.

Kemp and Logan then left Tucson. They painted Kemp’s truck, drove to Flagstaff, and sold it. They used the money to buy another .380 semi-automatic handgun. While in Flagstaff, they kidnapped a married couple traveling from California to Kansas and forced them to drive to Durango, Colorado. During that later crime, Kemp sexually assaulted the male victim. The couple eventually escaped and contacted police.

Logan separated from Kemp and contacted Tucson police about Juarez’s murder. He was arrested in Denver and led officers to Juarez’s body in the desert. Later that same day, police arrested Kemp at a homeless shelter in Tucson. He was carrying the handgun purchased in Flagstaff and a pair of handcuffs.

While awaiting trial, Kemp made incriminating statements to jail officers. He said he was in protective custody because the man he killed was Hispanic and he feared Hispanic inmates would attack him because they believed the crime was racially motivated. The Arizona Supreme Court later ruled that those statements were properly admitted at trial.

Kemp and Logan were tried separately. Logan was convicted first and sentenced to life imprisonment. Kemp was found guilty on June 7, 1993, of first-degree felony murder, armed robbery, and kidnapping. On July 9, 1993, he was sentenced to death for the murder.

At sentencing, Kemp made openly racist statements about Juarez and said his only regret was not killing Logan. His statements were later quoted in media reports before his execution. Reuters reported that Kemp refused to seek clemency and called the hearing process a “dog and pony show.”

Thomas Arnold Kemp was executed by lethal injection on April 25, 2012, at the Arizona state prison in Florence. He was 63 years old.