Ali Kemp’s Dad Used an Unexpected Technique to Help Solve Her 2002 Murder

After her freshman year at Kansas State University, 19-year-old Ali Kemp spent summer break at home in Leawood, Kan., where she worked at a neighborhood pool. When her younger brother came to take over her shift on June 18, 2002, he couldn’t find her. He called their father, Roger Kemp, to join the search. Roger found Ali's beaten body under a tarp in the pool pump room.

Ali had been strangled, and police suspected possible sexual assault.

Roger had the idea to use billboards to bring attention to the case and help police identify Ali's killer. An anonymous tip eventually led authorities to Benjamin Appleby (a.k.a. Teddy Hoover II). He was arrested in 2004 and convicted of Ali's murder in 2006.

To this day, police across the country follow in Roger's footsteps and use billboards to help solve crimes. A program that teaches women and girls self-defense skills also honors Ali's memory.

A season 9 episode of A&E’s City Confidential explains that police were still looking for Ali's murderer a year after her death. They'd collected DNA evidence, but found no match in official databases. Their main lead was a composite sketch of a man who'd been spotted near the pool by a friend of Ali's on the day of her death.

Roger was determined to find her killer. He appeared on America’s Most Wanted, placed an ad in USA Today and put flyers on trucks that drove across the country.

Roger also posted the police sketch on billboards in the Kansas City metro area and offer a $50,000 reward for information. The approach worked. "Once the billboards went up, it was just overnight, calls started pouring into our Crimestoppers hotline," Sgt. Dave Sarver, who worked on the hotline, told CBS News in 2006.

A call came in about local pool maintenance man Teddy Hoover. But after one conversation with police, Hoover fled town, per City Confidential.

Ali's autopsy showed defensive wounds, such as broken fingers and fingernails, indicating that she'd fought her attacker. Roger felt Ali might have survived if she'd had self-defense training. As the police search continued, he decided to help other women and girls learn how to face similar situations. T.A.K.E. Defense, an acronym for The Ali Kemp Educational Foundation, would oversee the classes, which they started rolling out in 2004.

"Later that year, we advertised in the county recreation activities brochure as an activity and received 368 interested participants,” the foundation’s Executive Director Jill Leiker tells A&E Crime + Information. “Our first large class format, over 100 participants, was at Kansas University later that year."

Though initially a local endeavor, Leiker explains that the program expanded nationwide, thanks in part to a partnership with Ali's sorority at Kansas State University.

Ali's death also transformed behavior in the community, Leiker says: "Neighborhood pools thought differently about having one attendant, really any job where people were alone, and I believe changes were made in many industries and services."

Also in 2004, Leawood police, assisted by postal authorities, tracked Hoover's girlfriend to Connecticut. A man named Benjamin Appleby was also getting mail at the girlfriend’s address. It turned out Appleby was the man Leawood police knew as Teddy Hoover, which turned out to be an alias.

Appleby had an old warrant in Connecticut and was arrested by state police on November 8. When Leawood detectives interviewed 29-year-old Appleby, he admitted to killing Ali, saying he "lost it" after Ali allegedly hit him when he came onto her. The next day, he was charged with her murder.

Appleby waived extradition and was brought back to Kansas. In December 2006, Appleby was convicted of capital murder and attempted rape.

Appleby successfully appealed his attempted rape conviction, but other appeals didn't work. He received a life sentence and is serving what's known in Kansas as a "Hard 50," meaning Appleby has no possibility of parole before 50 years. The Kansas Department of Corrections lists his earliest release date as November 8, 2054.

Relief at this outcome extended throughout Leawood. "It can be very healing to the community if a serious crime is successfully solved and a person is charged," David Carter, a policing expert and professor of criminal justice at Michigan State University, tells A&E Crime + Investigation.

T.A.K.E. Defense continues to offer classes. According to the foundation's website, more than 75,000 women and girls have taken these courses.

Leiker says lessons go beyond self-defense and help participants learn how to avoid danger. "The last thing we want is for people to have to fight back, although we teach people that piece," she says. "The most important message is how can we be more situationally aware, how can we begin to put our safety above all else to ensure we are here for those we love?"

Before his death in 2022, Roger shared how billboards helped in Ali's case and encouraged other departments and entities to adopt the approach. Today, police across the country continue to use billboards, Carter says.

"Billboards are much harder to miss than a commercial or public service announcement on TV or radio, or something on a website, and seem to touch a lot more people," he explains, though he clarifies, "That has not been empirically measured, but it has been anecdotally suggested that that is the case."

In 2012, Roger told People shared that assisting in the capture of other killers gave him some comfort. "When she was with us, Ali made a difference in people’s lives,” he said. “Through this work, she still is."