Entry Category: Law Enforcement - Starting with K

Joseph (Joe) Kemp was hanged at Evening Shade (Sharp County) on October 3, 1879, for fatally wounding a man ten years earlier at Oil Trough (Independence County). Joe Kemp was born in Wayne County, Tennessee, in October 1854, and he later moved to Arkansas, settling in Oil Trough bottoms in Independence County in 1868. There, he became the close companion of his cousin Jesse Dowdy. Dowdy had ongoing problems with neighbor Marion D. Hulsey because he was “in the habit of dogging Hulsey’s stock, catching his hogs and cutting their hamstring.” Hulsey, in turn, was seeking Dowdy’s arrest for harming his livestock. Dowdy determined to see Hulsey dead and enlisted Kemp’s assistance in killing him. On the evening of July …