Jan 25, 2019 2 min read

The state Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence of Jordan Clemons, who was convicted in 2015 for killing 21-year-old Karissa Kunco and leaving her body in the woods of Mt. Pleasant Township three years earlier.

In an opinion Wednesday by Justice David Wecht, the appellate court found the record in the case supported the sentence against Clemons, who’s now 29.

“Following our comprehensive review of the record, we are convinced that the sentence imposed upon Clemons was not the product of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor,” the 53-page opinion on Clemons’ direct appeal to the appellate court reads. “Rather, that sentence resulted from the substantial evidence proving that Clemons deliberately and maliciously killed Kunco.”

Jurors returned the sentence in May 2015 following Clemons’ conviction in a trial presided over by Washington County Judge Gary Gilman. Evidence from the trial shows Kunco, who lived in Baldwin, met up with Clemons on the night of Jan. 11, 2012. He crashed her vehicle, which he’d been driving, into a tree on Gladden Road in Cecil the following morning.

Kunco’s body was found near Sabo Road later that morning. Her throat had been cut.

The court also undertook an independent review of evidence from the case to determine whether or not there was sufficient basis to convict Clemons of first-degree murder, finding the “record was more than sufficient to sustain Clemons’ first-degree murder conviction.”

Clemons is being held at the State Correctional Institution-Greene. Gov. Tom Wolf has declared a moratorium on executions in Pennsylvania, which last executed a person in 1999.