Shawnee man sentenced to life in prison for 2022 murder of pregnant girlfriend
A Shawnee man was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday after fatally shooting his pregnant girlfriend in 2022.
According to court records, Doniel Lee Sublett Jr., 30, was arrested and charged with murder on September 20, 2022, after police discovered 25-year-old Kathleen Dampier in an apartment building in the 7400 block of Flint Street with a gunshot wound to the head.
A second charge of first-degree murder followed after Dampier’s autopsy revealed that she was pregnant, according to court documents and previous reporting by The Star. The charge of murder based on Dampier’s pregnancy comes under Alexa’s Law, a Kansas statute allowing for charges including murder when an act of violence against a pregnant person impacts the well-being of a fetus.
There was a witness to the shooting had a witness, and a second gunshot was heard while Shawnee police officers were first encountering Dampier’s body, The Star reported in 2023. Shawnee police arrested Sublett near the apartment building after a brief foot chase.
Sublett pleaded guilty to both murders in November, The Star reported.
A Johnson County judge on Tuesday handed down two life sentences, according to the office of the Johnson County district attorney.
The life sentences are to be served concurrently, according to the district attorney’s office. Sublett will not be eligible for parole for the first fifty years, in a sentencing style known as “Hard 50”.
Sublett, who lived in Shawnee, and Dampier, who lived in Kansas City, Kansas, had been dating on and off for at least three years, The Star previously reported. Dampier was a mother of three, according to social media.
According to court documents, Sublett and Dampier had come to the apartment on Flint Street to do laundry together before the shooting. Sublett initially denied being at the apartment during the shooting, according to court documents.
Sublett was initially held on a $3 million bond. Court records indicate he had been previously convicted on domestic violence charges in 2019.
Reporting by The Star’s Bill Lukistch and Katie Moore was used in this article.
