Convicted murderer says he should be stoned or shot

The defendant himself told his sentencing judge on Tuesday that he should be killed for murdering Amber Lehman.

“If there was justice, I should be taken out back and stoned or shot,” Randal Keesling said.

Lehman’s father told the sentencing judge he regrets that he didn’t kill Keesling for running over his daughter.

“Had I had my choice, and a quicker reaction time, I’d have snatched the pistol out of the holster of the sheriff’s deputy that day and killed him,” Craig Lehman said.

Keesling, 61, of Derby was sentenced to 22 years in prison for killing Amber Lehman of Wichita, a mother of two children ages 12 and 7.

Keesling, who said he was Amber Lehman’s longtime friend and who told authorities he had paid for her sexual services, ran over her with his car after an argument.

Lehman died in the grass beside the street in the 4500 block of South Oliver shortly before 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 25.

In a probable cause affidavit filed by prosecutors, a sheriff’s deputy who interviewed Keesling at the scene quoted him as saying that Amber Lehman hit him in the head inside his vehicle, then opened the door and stepped out after they argued.

Moments later, Keesling told the deputy, “I turned around and nailed her.”

“I blacked out,” Keesling told the family and the judge on Tuesday. “But I know what I did. I saw what I did.”

Keesling had been charged with first-degree murder, but a plea bargain dropped the charge to second-degree murder.

The sentencing hearing prompted Amber Lehman’s family to speak up as Keesling listened.

“You took my beautiful baby away,” Amber’s mother, Marsha Lehman, said.

In the affidavit, sheriff’s investigators wrote that Keesling told them immediately after the homicide that he had first met Amber as a “john,” a slang word for a prostitution customer.

But he also told them that he regularly gave rides to Amber Lehman, brought her son home from school and paid her weekly for cleaning his house. He told them he was trying to get her out of sex work, according to the affidavit.

Craig Lehman said in an interview after Tuesday’s hearing that he didn’t know for certain that his daughter did sex work. He said she was in an abusive relationship with another man, and that relationship led to bad decisions and the relationship with Keesling.

Keesling told the court that Amber Lehman had become his best friend, replacing his wife in that role a year after his wife had died.

“We used to joke that God loves old men and prostitutes,” Keesling told the judge. He said he had hoped to continue to help her improve her life.

But that day, after she hopped out of his car, Keesling turned his car around and gunned the engine, according to witnesses.

He knocked down a tree, hit a curb so hard with his car that it blew three tires – and ran Amber Lehman down.

He told the court that he owns three vehicles and a house and that he’d be willing to sign it all over to the Lehman family. He said the value of the property would far exceed the $5,630.30 that the judge ordered him to pay in restitution.

Some of Amber Lehman’s family burst into tears at that. And minutes later, outside the courtroom, Craig Lehman said what he thought about Keesling’s proposal.

He refused to shake the hand of prosecutor Melissa Green when she offered it.

He told her he didn’t want his family to have anything to do with Keesling’s property, unless authorities arranged to sign it all over to his grandchildren.

This story was originally published March 28, 2017 at 5:53 PM with the headline "Convicted murderer says he should be stoned or shot."