Registered sex offender Billy Dupree was six months out of prison when he strangled a Black 16-year-old girl named Deleisha Kelley after raping her in 2014, then transporting her body across state lines from Kansas into Missouri, where he dumped her body.
But despite DNA evidence from Dupree’s semen and cellphone records obtained in 2015 tying him to the crime, Dupree was not arrested and charged with first-degree murder until 2023.
Earlier this month, prosecutors offered him a sweetheart deal that reduced the first-degree murder charge to involuntary manslaughter, which is the lowest level of homicide, without ever notifying Kelley’s family of the deal.
Turns out, Dupree’s uncle is the district attorney of Wyandotte County in Kansas, the same county where the trial was supposed to begin on Monday.
Mark Dupree’s office was not prosecuting the case because it was being prosecuted by the Kansas Attorney General’s office, but the trial was to be held in the same courthouse that is considered the “DA’s home turf,” according to an editorial from the Kansas City Star.
“Any suggestion that the judge or the Attorney General’s Office was influenced in any way by Mr. Dupree’s family connections is false,” a spokesperson for the state attorney general’s office told Fox 4.
Dupree was elected as Wyandotte County District Attorney in August of 2016 and was reelected in 2020.
But Kelley’s family is convinced that Billy Dupree’s uncle was the main reason he was allowed to plead no contest to involuntary manslaughter.
“They ripped off the scabs for nothing,” her mother, Kellie Blewett, told the Kansas City Star. “The system has failed.”
Not only was there DNA and cellphone evidence connecting Dupree to the murder, but his next-door neighbor testified during a September 2023 hearing that Dupree had knocked on his door on the morning of Dec. 18, 2014, asking for help to dump the girl’s body.
“He said he had an underage little girl over there, and he had to kill her, choke her out,” the neighbor testified, according to the Kansas City Star.
The neighbor further testified that Dupree told him he “did not want to go back to prison if someone had found out he had had sex” with yet another underage girl.
The neighbor said he peeked into Dupree’s apartment and saw a pair of feet sticking out of his bedroom.
“I got the hell out of there,” the neighbor said.
Kelley’s body was discovered in an abandoned garage in Kansas City, Missouri, on Dec. 21, 2014, wrapped in a blanket. The girl was only wearing underwear.
The Investigation
It took a few weeks for investigators to identify Kelley’s body, which then led them to search her cellphone records that showed she had made several calls to Dupree before she died.
Her final call was to 911, but it never went through. Her cellphone records also placed her within 0.1 miles of Dupree’s residence.
At some point in the investigation, DNA from Dupree’s semen was found on Kelley’s body, further tying him to the murder.
He was even brought in for questioning on Jan. 28, 2015, six weeks after her killing – but he was not arrested until eight years later on January 4, 2023.
By then, it had become obvious to Kelley’s family that something was amiss.
“Everything’s been known from day one — nothing happened,” Kelley’s uncle, Vinson Smith, told Fox 4 at the time.
“I’m sure we’re not the first family this has happened to, but that’s the biggest thing. OK, I guess we’re finally being heard or something has been heard.”
But nine months later, prosecutors offered Dupree the plea deal that reduced the charge of first-degree murder to involuntary manslaughter. Telling the family the case is “old, so you can’t guarantee” a conviction.
Dupree, 39, had already been incarcerated since November 2020 for robbery, drug possession and criminal restraint, according to the Kansas City Star. He had previously been imprisoned for child sex crimes, aggravated assault and criminal damage to property committed between 2003 and 2006.
The plea deal means Dupree could receive a sentence of 15 years instead of life in prison. The Kansas City Star also reports that the new sentence will run concurrently with the one he is currently serving, meaning he will only serve an additional four to five years. He will be sentenced on Nov. 22.
“I seen a lot of bleach bottles in his trash,” his neighbor further testified in September 2023 after telling jurors Dupree had asked him for help to move the body. “I knew he was trying to clean the sh_t up.”
