Inmate surrenders in Oklahoma after missing since 1999

PanARMENIAN.Net - After 14 years on the run from the FBI and tips from witnesses in two countries, David Lee Kemp turned himself over to authorities in southwest Oklahoma early Friday, April 26 morning, local authorities said.

Kemp, of Lawton, Okla., was the only inmate to elude capture after escaping with eight other inmates on March 11, 1999, while awaiting trial on two first-degree murder counts in the killings of his ex-wife and her boyfriend.

Comanche County Sheriff Kenny Stradley said Kemp told police he was done running.

"He said that he was just tired basically of running and it was affecting his health," Stradley said.

Comanche County Jail records show Kemp was taken into custody at about 1:40 a.m. Friday on charges of felony first-degree murder and escaping from a county jail, a misdemeanor.

The sequence of events leading up to his arrest started at a rest stop along Interstate 44, Stradley said, when Kemp knocked on the window of a sleeping truck driver.

"He said, 'I need you to call Comanche County sheriff's department to come up here. I need to talk to them,'" Stradley said.

A deputy arrived and told Kemp he looked familiar. The deputy then asked for Kemp's name. Kemp told him and was immediately arrested, Stradley said. It's unclear if Kemp has a lawyer.

Kemp is charged in the deaths of Christina Cremer and her boyfriend, Robert Miller, whose bodies were found in August 1998, riddled with bullets in their Lawton apartment. He was apprehended by police in California several days later and taken to Comanche County, according to Associated Press.