Resentencing of Kleypas set for this week

The resentencing of Gary Kleypas, a man convicted twice of the 1996 murder of Pittsburg State University student Carrie Williams, will carry on through this week in Wyandotte County.

Jury selection took place last week, setting the scene for his resentencing. At issue isn't his guilt – he's already been convicted multiple times. Instead, the jury will hear information about the case and decide his fate, either life in prison or the death penalty.

In order for the death sentence to stick, the prosecution must prove that the murder was conducted in a "heinous, atrocious or cruel manner", the requirements to make a case eligible for the death penalty.

Kleypas has faced a long court road to this point. He was originally convicted, and sentenced to death in the case, but was one of several death row inmates affected by the Kansas Supreme Court finding the Kansas death penalty as unconstitutional in 2004. But that ruling was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2006.

But Kleypas wasn't simply slapped with the death penalty again because that same U.S. Supreme Court threw out the verdict because of juror instruction error.

So now, his sentencing will fall on the shoulders of a new jury, and will be held in a new area. A change of venue motion was filed, and accepted, moving the case from Crawford County to Wyandotte County.

The new jury will hear all of the evidence before announcing his sentence. Both Kleypas and Williams were students at Pittsburg State University at the time of the murder.

When Kleypas was 21, he was convicted of killing a Missouri woman and was sent to prison, where he stayed until he was paroled at age 36. He then applied at Pittsburg State.

Williams, who was 20 at the time, was beaten and stabbed seven times in her apartment after Kleypas tried to rape her.