Jaron N. Purham was convicted yesterday of first-degree
murder for his role in the kidnapping, torture, and execution of gender-fluid
high school student Kedarie Johnson, announced Acting Assistant Attorney
General John Gore of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and Des
Moines County Attorney Amy K. Beavers. Purham’s co-defendant, Jorge Sanders-Galvez,
was previously convicted of first-degree murder last year for his role in the
killing, and his been sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of
parole. The killing rocked the small town of Burlington, Iowa, where Kedarie
was a popular and well-loved member of the community.
Last year, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Acting
Assistant Attorney General John Gore authorized a federal hate-crimes
prosecutor from the Civil Rights Division, Christopher J. Perras, to be
cross-designated as a Special Assistant County Attorney to assist with the
prosecutions of both defendants in this case. Prosecuting hate crimes and
bringing perpetrators of these egregious crimes to justice is a top priority
for this Justice Department.
“I am proud of the collaboration and hard work conducted in
this case to bring two men to justice for their abhorrent actions,” said Acting
Assistant Attorney General John Gore. “The Justice Department will continue to
work diligently to ensure that individuals are able to live free from acts of
violence, no matter their gender identity, what they believe, or how they
worship.”
“I am privileged to have fought for justice for Kedarie and
those with alternate lifestyles,” said Des Moines County Attorney Amy K.
Beavers. “Alongside my partners in the Iowa Attorney Generals Office Laura Roan
and the U.S. Department of Justice Chris Perras with Sgt. Short and DCI Agent
Matt George I am grateful that justice was served.”
The evidence at trial established that on the night of the
murder, the defendants were pulling out of a grocery store parking lot when
they noticed Kedarie Johnson walking down the street all by himself. Kedarie
(who used male pronouns to refer to himself) sometimes dressed as a boy and
went by his given name, and sometimes dressed as a girl and went by the name
Kandiece. On the night of the murder, he was dressed in women’s clothing and
presenting as female, and the defendants began to follow slowly behind him.
Eventually, the defendants pulled up alongside Kedarie and flirted with him.
They convinced Kedarie to get inside, and they drove him to a location where
they often took young women to have sex with them. The physical evidence showed
that, at the house, the defendants knocked Kedarie unconscious, stuffed a
plastic bag down his throat, wrapped a makeshift gag around his mouth, and
wrapped another plastic bag around his head. They then drove Kedarie to an
alleyway. Forensic evidence established that at some point, Kedarie regained
consciousness and began struggling violently to breathe. The defendants got out
in the alleyway, threw Kedarie onto the ground, and shot him twice in the
chest, one bullet embedding in his spine and the other piercing his heart. The
defendants then doused Kedarie’s body in bleach to destroy any DNA evidence.
There were no eyewitnesses to the kidnapping or the murder,
so Purham and Sanders-Galvez were convicted largely on the physical,
electronic, and forensic evidence they left behind. Police found Kedarie’s
backpack and sneakers at the defendants’ place, as well as a ripped bedsheet
that matched fibers found on Kedarie’s body. When police located Purham, he was
driving the car that had been seen on surveillance video following Kedarie
shortly before his abduction and murder. When police searched the car, they
found a .357 revolver, which a ballistics expert determined to be the murder
weapon. Records from the Defendants’ cellphone and social media accounts
established that Sanders-Galvez had purchased the murder weapon over Facebook a
few months before the murder. Records also showed that the Defendants’ phones
both went dead during the two-hour period in which they committed the crime;
that the Defendants posted on Facebook, approximately one hour after the
murder, that they were skipping town; and that the Defendants both searched the
internet in the days following the murder for updates on the status of the
homicide investigation.
The investigation was conducted by law enforcement officers
from the Burlington (Iowa) Police Department and the Iowa Department of
Criminal Investigation, with assistance from the FBI. Des Moines County
Attorney Amy K. Beavers invited Iowa Assistant Attorney General Laura M. Roan,
an experienced state murder prosecutor, and Trial Attorney Christopher J.
Perras, a federal hate-crimes prosecutor from the Civil Rights Division of the
Department of Justice, to assist with the prosecution.
Purham will be sentenced on Nov. 19. The mandatory sentence
for first-degree murder in Iowa is life imprisonment without the possibility of
parole.
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