Twenty Kansas Department of Corrections offenders are eligible for parole hearings with the Prisoner Review Board in October and may become eligible for parole in November, including two men with Pawnee County convictions. Both of these men were in prison for other convictions and committed crimes while at the Larned Correctional Mental Health Facility.
Jose N. Deleon, 66, was convicted of attempted aggravated battery of a law enforcement officer in Pawnee County 22 years ago.
Deleon was admitted to the KDOC in 1983 and is now incarcerated at Hutchinson Correctional Facility - East where his custody level is low medium. His earliest convictions were for robbery and aggravated robbery committed July 8, 1978, in Sedgwick County. In 1982 he was transferred to HCF and was in a work-release program. He was paroled in April of 1983. On Aug. 9, 1983, he committed rape and aggravated kidnapping in Reno County and returned to prison that year. He attempted to cause intentional bodily harm to a law enforcement officer in Pawnee County on Feb. 23, 1998. He had been moved to the Larned Correctional Mental Health Facility in 1994.
Charles Curtis Hunter, 58, was admitted to the KDOC in 1982. He is incarcerated by El Dorado Correctional Facility Central where is custody level in maximum. He is working in a job. With multiple convictions for attempted rape, rape and aggravated burglary dating as far back as 1978, all in Douglas County, Hunter was transferred to LCMHF and Larned State Hospital multiple times over the years. His Pawnee County convictions were for battery against a youth center officer, committed in 2005, and attempted battery on a mental health employee, committed in 2014.
The Prisoner Review Board will hold public comment sessions Sept. 11 in Topeka and Sept. 16 in Derby. The September public comment session for Kansas City has been canceled. Written comments may be mailed to Kansas Department of Corrections, Prisoner Review Board; 714 SW Jackson St., Suite 300; Topeka, KS 66603.
In September, 24 inmates will have hearings for possible release in October. Among them is Thomas P. Lamb, also known as Michelle Renee Lamb, 79, who committed first-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping and robbery in January of 1970 in Johnson County. Lamb escaped in Pawnee County on June 29, 1987, and was eventually convicted of aggravated escape from custody. KDOC records show he also escaped from custody shortly after he was arrested in 1970 in Johnson County, and in 1979 in Leavenworth.
Lamb strangled and stabbed to death Karen Kemmerly, a 24-year-old Olathe woman, and later kidnapped 18-year-old Patricia Childs from the parking lot of an Overland Park shopping mall. He made Childs call her parents so he could demand ransom, but they called the police and she was rescued in a car chase. Lamb was sentenced to three life sentences. The story can be found online at the Kansas City Public Library’s archives or the Topeka Capital-Journal’s “History Guy” column.
