Roger Kemp, who was spurred to action after his daughter Ali was murdered in Leawood, dies
Roger Kemp, the father of Ali Kemp, a 19-year-old woman who was killed nearly 20 years ago while working at a swimming pool and who used her death as motivation to create self-defense classes to help women fend off attackers, died Tuesday. He was 77.
A cause of death was not given. The TAKE Defense Foundation, which Kemp founded in 2004, two years after Ali Kemp was killed, announced his death in a Facebook post.
“He will be long remembered for his strong work ethic, innovative entrepreneurship, passion for justice and his unmatched dedication for his family,” the post said.
Ali Kemp had just finished her freshman year at Kansas State University in the summer of 2002 and was working as a lifeguard at a Leawood neighborhood pool near 123rd Street and State Line Road.
She was killed on June 18, 2002, while she worked the 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift at the pool. Her father found her body in the pool’s pump room around 5:30 p.m. She had been strangled.
Following her death, Roger Kemp began a national campaign to help find the person who killed his daughter — and to help families who had suffered like his had.
Kemp worked with Lamar Advertising, a billboard company, and posted information about his daughter on billboards across the area. Then he asked officials to post information for suspects in other cases.
In August 2004, Kansas City police honored him with certificates of appreciation. Authorities said the billboards had helped police catch two murder suspects.
That same summer, Kemp and his family started the Ali Kemp Educational Foundation to offer TAKE Defense Training, a two-hour self-defense course offered to females age 12 and up. Since the program started, more than 67,000 women had participated, according to the organization’s website.
“If we can save one life out there, I don’t care what it costs, this whole program will be worth it,” Kemp was known to say at each program.
For all of his work, former President Barack Obama awarded Kemp in 2011 with the Presidential Citizens Medal, the nation’s second-highest civilian honor.
“We didn’t do this for this great honor,” Kemp said at the ceremony. “We’re all about saving lives, and there’s nothing more important in our society than our women and children.”
After a two-year investigation and a national publicity campaign, Benjamin Appleby was arrested in Connecticut in November 2004 and was charged with capital murder and attempted rape in Ali Kemp’s death.
Police had received about 3,000 tips in the time since her death.
Appleby confessed to the killing and was found guilty by a jury. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole for 50 years.
