Kevin Darnell Pearson, now 49, will remain on California’s death row after the state Supreme Court unanimously rejected his appeal, affirming a death sentence tied to one of Los Angeles County’s longest-running capital cases. Pearson was convicted of the 1998 rape and murder of Penny Keprta, a 43-year-old married mother of three who was kidnapped off a Long Beach sidewalk while walking to a store for her wheelchair-bound roommate. Nearly 28 years after her death, the ruling closes out one chapter of a case that has cycled through retrials, reversals, and shifting prosecutorial policy.
Associate Justice Carol A. Corrigan authored the August ruling, finding that Pearson’s own admissions of active participation in the attack provided overwhelming evidence supporting the death penalty, according to MyNewsLA. Pearson admitted to helping pull Keprta down as she tried to flee, helping strip her clothes, raping her while a companion held her down, and repeatedly kicking her in the head and face with steel-toed boots. He also admitted to helping throw her over a fence and leaving her nude body beside the freeway, then disposing of evidence afterward.
The attack unfolded the night of December 29, 1998, after Keprta, 5 feet 2 inches tall and 110 pounds, was kidnapped from a sidewalk around 11 p.m. and dragged into a dark area along the 405 Freeway. According to court records and medical examiner findings reported by the Los Angeles Times, the three attackers had first approached her while intoxicated, shouting “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” across the street, which she politely answered before the ambush began. The freeway noise reportedly kept anyone from hearing her screams as Pearson, over 6 feet tall and roughly 180 pounds, and his co-defendants outnumbered her three to one.
A Body Mistaken for a Mannequin
Caltrans workers found Keprta’s nude body on a freeway embankment near Wardlow Road and Long Beach Boulevard, initially mistaking it for a mannequin, per the same Los Angeles Times account. She had been beaten to death with a wooden stake and robbed of just $6 worth of food stamps. The Times reported that she suffered 114 distinct injuries in total, including bite marks, partial removal of her right ear, roughly 90 external wounds, two dozen internal injuries, and at least 10 skull fractures inflicted before death…