Peter J. Kema, Jr. was a boy who went missing in 1997. His parents were charged with his murder in 2016 and both plead guilty to manslaughter.
Case[]
Peter was born in 1991 and had two older half-siblings as well as a younger sister. He was last seen by his family on September 11, 1997, although he was not officially reported missing until 1998.
Initially, Peter's father claimed that he sent his son to live with a family friend in an unofficial adoption, but by 2000 his case was officially classified as a homicide. There was no indication that the alleged family friend Peter was given to even existed, and records show that Peter had been abused by his parents since he was an infant. According to his siblings, Peter had been forced to eat dog feces, was shot with a pellet gun, was locked inside the trunk of his family's car, and was regularly beaten and tied up.
By 2016, both of Peter's parents were charged with second-degree murder. It is believed that Peter developed a wound on his arm that became infected, and that he died of septicemia due to the injury going untreated. It is likely his parents never sought medical care because they knew they would be outed for abusing their son if they took him to a doctor.
Both of his parents plead guilty to manslaughter, his mother in 2016 and his father in 2017. His father confessed to attempting to cremate Peter's body and dumping his remains in the ocean.
Gallery[]
Sources[]
- Peter Kema at NamUs
- Peter Kema at the Charley Project