Intoxicated Wichita father who smothered baby as both slept gets prison sentence

A tearful Kyle Kempton — guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of his 2-month-old twin son — told a judge that he was ready to start alcohol treatment and wanted to tell his story so it could save others.

Kempton’s attorney asked that he get probation, not the 46-month sentence the prosecutor sought.

Instead, Judge David Dahl sentenced Kempton to 32 months in prison. That would be reduced by the time he has already been held in jail and trimmed more if he gets credit for good behavior in prison.

Kempton’s charges stemmed from the Aug. 30 death of 2-month-old Patrick Kempton, who died in a West Kellogg motel room. According to the District Attorney’s Office, while Kempton and Patrick were in bed, Kempton rolled onto the baby, smothering him. Patrick’s mother, Christy Rollings, and Patrick’s twin brother were asleep on the floor. Both parents were highly intoxicated, the office said.

Rollings, the mother, has already been sentenced to probation for the manslaughter charge and 24 months in jail for misdemeanor endangerment charges. Both parents faced the same charges.

Dahl, the judge, said he had to consider that both parents were reportedly “always drunk.”

Also, Dahl said, “No one here is advocating for Patrick, what wonderful life he would have had. I have to look out for that as well.”

Kempton’s sentences for child endangerment would run concurrent to his prison sentence.

Kempton looked jolted when the judge said he was going to prison.

Moments earlier, Kempton choked back tears as he stood and spoke to Dahl. Kempton said that he had set up treatment for himself. He can’t get that treatment in jail, he said. “I haven’t been able to deal with the loss of either of my sons at all.” The surviving son is in someone else’s care.

As he continued to speak, his voice halted, he reached down with his shackled hand to dry a tear and put his hand to his chest. Then he continued: “If we could change somebody else’s life … That day I lost everything. I lost my freedom. I lost my son Patrick forever. I lost my other son because of the loss of my first son.”

Kempton said he had been a chiropractor; “I’ve adjusted hundreds of kids.”

Now, he said, “my entire purpose in life is to help as many people as possible,” maybe not as chiropractor because of his felony. Still, he said he can speak to people, share his tragic story. “I loved my boys very much. They were my first kids.”

What Kempton left out, prosecutor Shannon Wilson said, is that Kempton and the twins’ mother met in substance abuse rehabilitation and kept using alcohol “knowing full well the dangerous consequences.”

And just two days before the death, the children had been removed from the parents because “they were too drunk” to watch over the babies, Wilson said. Police had gone to the motel and taken the twins to a relative, but the children ended up back with their parents.

After all that, Wilson, said, “there should be a consequence.”

Defense attorney Brad Sylvester had argued that although both parents were impaired, “they never thought ‘We’re ... going to hurt our children here’.”

Sylvester said Kempton’s rolling over onto the child was an accident, not done in anger. “He has to carry the fact that he caused this to happen. He has never said to me that this was his wife’s fault or somebody else’s fault.”

This story was originally published January 22, 2019 at 3:17 PM.