Steven DeMocker today is serving a natural-life sentence at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Douglas, Arizona, for the 2008 murder of his ex-wife, Carol Kennedy. He was convicted in October 2013, sentenced in January 2014, and has lost every appeal filed since, including a federal habeas petition that a magistrate judge recommended denying in January 2024.
Where He Is Incarcerated
Arizona Department of Corrections records list Steven C. DeMocker as inmate number 287802, housed in the Mohave Unit of the Arizona State Prison Complex in Douglas. His custody classification is medium/lowest, and his status is active. As of May 2026, his work assignment is listed as “Running Club.”
He was arrested three months after Kennedy was killed in her home on Bridle Path, off Williamson Valley Road in Prescott, on July 2, 2008. He has been in state custody since his 2013 conviction.
The Sentence He Is Serving
Judge Gary Donahoe sentenced DeMocker on January 24, 2014. The murder count carries natural life, meaning no possibility of parole. The judge added more than 20 years on six additional counts, ordered to run consecutively.
Donahoe also ordered DeMocker to pay $700,000 in restitution to Kennedy’s testamentary trust. That figure tracks the life insurance proceeds that had been paid to the couple’s daughters and then diverted to DeMocker’s first-trial defense after he pressured his daughter Katie to route the money to his attorneys.
Corrections records show a life sentence with a minimum of 25 years before parole eligibility on the murder conviction, along with concurrent sentences for burglary, fraudulent schemes, and tampering with physical evidence.
What He Was Convicted Of
On October 4, 2013, a Yavapai County jury found DeMocker guilty of first-degree murder and six additional charges. Carol Kennedy, a 53-year-old educator, printmaker, and therapist, had been beaten to death in her home; a medical examiner counted at least seven major skull fractures from a blunt object, and the scene had been staged to look like a fall from a reading ladder. The suspected weapon was a Big Bertha 7-wood golf club missing from a set at DeMocker’s home. The club itself was never recovered.
The case against him was entirely circumstantial. No DNA, blood, hair, or fiber evidence placed him at the scene. Prosecutors argued financial motive: the couple’s divorce had been finalized five weeks earlier, DeMocker owed Kennedy $6,000 a month in alimony, and he was the beneficiary of life insurance policies on her life totaling $750,000.
Why the Case Took Five Years
The gap between the 2008 murder and the 2013 conviction is the reason his prison record starts when it does, and it also explains the six non-murder counts he is serving time for.
Jury selection in the first trial began in May 2010. Two weeks into the prosecution’s case, presiding Judge Thomas B. Lindberg collapsed in his chambers on June 17, 2010, having been diagnosed with a brain tumor. He never returned to the bench and died on April 2, 2011.
The trial had a second, larger problem. DeMocker had orchestrated a scheme to fabricate evidence, claiming he heard a “voice in the vent” of his jail cell naming two Phoenix men as the real killers. He directed his younger daughter, Charlotte, to drive to a Phoenix café and send an anonymous email to the sheriff and defense team blaming Kennedy’s tenant, Jim Knapp, and gang members tied to a prescription drug ring. When his role in the email came out, the Yavapai County Attorney’s Office filed bar complaints against his defense team. On October 26, 2010, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that attorneys John Sears, Larry Hammond, and Anne Chapman could withdraw due to a “nonwaivable conflict of interest,” finding their client had used their services to perpetrate a fraud. New counsel obtained a mistrial on November 12, 2010.
A new grand jury re-indicted DeMocker on the murder and burglary charges and added counts tied to the fabricated evidence: fraudulent schemes and artifices, conspiracy, tampering with physical evidence, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The defense asked to sever the fraud counts from the murder counts; the court denied the motion, holding the evidence was cross-admissible. Those additional counts are the reason his sentence stacks well beyond the life term.
How His Appeals Have Gone
DeMocker has pursued three rounds of review, and none has disturbed the conviction or sentence.
On October 11, 2016, the Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed all convictions and sentences in a memorandum decision. The three-judge panel rejected arguments about the validity of search warrants, double jeopardy, the denial of severance, and the admission of evidence about DeMocker’s extramarital affairs, computer searches, and plans to flee. The court found the first mistrial had been caused by DeMocker’s own misconduct and therefore did not bar retrial.
He then sought post-conviction relief in state court. On March 16, 2021, the Arizona Court of Appeals granted review but denied relief, finding he had not shown the trial court abused its discretion. The Arizona Supreme Court denied his petition for review on November 3, 2021.
With state remedies exhausted, DeMocker filed a federal habeas corpus petition on November 3, 2022, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. On January 26, 2024, a magistrate judge issued a report and recommendation advising the court to deny habeas relief without an evidentiary hearing, finding several grounds barred under federal habeas law and the remaining claims procedurally defaulted.
He remains in Douglas, serving natural life.