Sandra Kemp, a 21-year-old Black/African American female from Chester, Pennsylvania, was killed on the morning of October 28, 1980, inside a home at 1210 Kerlin Street in Chester. Online memorial records describe her as lost to gun violence that day, and a contemporaneous newspaper clipping preserved online reported that her death was part of a violent incident that also claimed the life of Hazel Marie Jackson, age 29, who was identified as the owner of the Kerlin Street home.
The
available online reporting says authorities determined the incident was a double homicide and suicide. Kemp was identified as living at 327 Taylor Terrace in Chester, while Jackson was connected to the Kerlin Street residence where the bodies were found. Early reporting apparently contained a mistake in Kemp’s name, listing her as “Sandra Camp,” but the article clarified that authorities corrected the victim’s name to Sandra Kemp.
The third person found dead was identified in the same reporting as John Lindsay Bailey Jr., age 40. He was described as someone who reportedly had been living at the Kerlin Street address since January. According to the online clipping, all three victims were found in the living room of the home and were pronounced dead at the scene at about 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. The medical examiner’s ruling, as reported, treated Kemp and Jackson as homicide victims and Bailey as the suicide victim, making him the apparent suspect in the killings based on the double-homicide/suicide determination.
No online source located provided details of an arrest, criminal charges, trial, conviction, or sentencing. Because the reported suspect died by suicide at the scene, the case does not appear from the available online information to have resulted in prosecution or punishment through the courts. The public record available online leaves many personal details and the immediate circumstances of the shooting unexplained, but it establishes that Sandra Kemp and Hazel Marie Jackson were killed in the same Chester residence, and that John Lindsay Bailey Jr. was identified as the suicide victim in the fatal incident.
