Murder Victim’s Daughter and Faith Leaders Urge Kansas Governor to Commute Death Sentences

In a July 8, 2026 op-ed published in the Kansas Reflector, Celeste Dixon, a retired U.S. Navy reservist and National Park Service employee who lives in Pawnee County, Kansas, calls on Governor Laura Kelly to commute the sentences of the nine men on Kansas’ death row to life without parole. Writing from personal experience, Ms. Dixon notes that nearly 40 years ago, her mother, Marguerite, was murdered in Texas; almost 19 years ago, the individual who killed her mother was executed. Ms. Dixon says that execution did not “heal [her] pain” or deliver the “justice” she had been promised.

Ms. Dixon recounts that she was 22 and serving in the Navy when her mother was killed, and that prosecutors at the time told her family they “deserved” a death sentence. She writes that she initially accepted that framing but came to see capital punishment as something that “piles suffering and loss” on murder victims’ families rather than relieving it. Watching an execution, even in a dream she had a year or two after her mother’s murder,was “horrific,” and it forced her to confront what she describes as the demand that survivors “actively wish for another human being’s death.”

“Over time, however, I came to understand that the death penalty only piles suffering and loss upon the already unimaginable suffering and loss of murder. It neither heals that pain nor prevents future violence, but leaves yet another family in mourning.”

Celeste Dixon, whose mother was murdered nearly 40 years ago.

The op-ed also raises questions about arbitrariness and bias in capital sentencing. Ms. Dixon notes that her mother was killed in Harris County, Texas, historically one of the country’s most prolific death-sentencing counties,and questions whether prosecutors would have pursued a death sentence had the crime occurred in a neighboring, more rural county. She also reflects on the racial dynamics of her mother’s case, a white woman killed by a Black man, and asks whether the death penalty effectively ranks victims’ lives against one another, leaving families whose cases don’t result in a death sentence with what she calls a “lesser class of justice.”

Ms. Dixon opines that capital punishment serves no demonstrated public safety purpose while consuming resources that would otherwise fund trauma-informed services for crime survivors and violence prevention efforts. She has testified before the Kansas Legislature in favor of abolishing the state’s death penalty and argues that the sentences currently imposed on Kansas’ death row prisoners are the product of what she calls “a failed system.” Commutation, she suggests, would also “open the door for Kansas to take a clean look at whether” to keep capital punishment on the books, and she expresses hope that Gov. Kelly will act with what she calls “moral clarity.”

Days after the publication of Ms. Dixon’s op-ed, a group of more than 50 faith leaders delivered letters to Gov. Kelly’s office urging her to commute the death sentences of all the people on Kansas’ death row. “Our faith traditions teach that every human being possesses inherent worth and remains capable of change,” states the letter. “Even in the most difficult cases, mercy and accountability need not be in conflict. A sentence of life imprisonment without parole ensures public safety while preserving the possibility of redemption and affirming the value of human life.”

Several leaders spoke at an event outside of the Kansas Statehouse upon delivery of the letter. Topeka-area faith leader Reverend Eva K. Brown urged Gov. Kelly to use her “moral courage” and issue commutations. “Commuting the death sentence to imprisonment without parole is the only answer that stops the river of violence, that frees millions and millions of dollars for other programs that improve the quality of life for the people of Kansas,” said Rev. Brown. Donna Schneweis, chair of the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty, read a statement during the event surrounding the delivery of these letters: “As people of faith, we feel that Gov. Kelly can balance accountability with mercy. Commuting death sentences to life without parole, prisoners remain incarcerated for the rest of their lives while accomplishing legal finality in their cases and conserving public resources that could be used to prevent violence, serve crime survivors and their families.”

Just an hour before the event outside the statehouse, Gov. Kelly denied the clemency requests of both Jonathan and Reginald Carr. In her statement along with the denial, Gov. Kelly noted that she has “long supported the repeal of the death penalty, believing it an impractical, expensive burden on the state.” She noted, “however, the death penalty is current law in Kansas, and if ever there were a situation in which the death penalty is justified, it is that of the unspeakably heinous acts of torture committed by Reginald and Jonathan Carr.” In response to Gov. Kelly’s denial, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennet told local news that their “case is far from over,” and that they’ve only exhausted their first round of appeals. DA Bennet noted that “there’s nothing that a governor or anyone else can do to make this go faster right now” and that the remainder of the case “will take as long as it takes.” Reflecting on a case prosecuted around the same time the Carr brothers were convicted and sentenced to death, in which a sentence of 140 years was handed down, rather than death, DA Bennet said, “[c]heck my math, but I think it was 2006 the direct appeal was done and around 2009 the post-conviction was done and those families have not had to come back. I have not had to call them, they have not had to look at their caller ID and see it’s the DA’s office calling them back. And I wonder sometimes if they weren’t the lucky ones in this.” Gov. Kelly, in June 2026, denied the clemency application of John Robinson.

Kansas reinstated its death penalty in 1994 but has not carried out an execution since 1965.

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