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Hours before 13-year-old Esme Kenney was abducted, raped and strangled to death while out for a run in March 2009 she and her dad came home from the grocery store with a big bunch of yellow roses for her mom, Lisa Kenney.

Later that day Kenney allowed her daughter – for the first time – to go for a run by herself around a reservoir across the street from their Winton Hills home, with this admonition: "Come right back."

It was the last time Kenney would see her daughter.

Esme bumped into serial killer Anthony Kirkland on that run and he killed her. 

Kenney, via video testimony, told the story of the day her daughter disappeared for jurors now being asked to recommend Kirkland's sentence. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters is seeing the death penalty.

Shortly after Esme left for the run, Kenney was cleaning up a mess kitchen remodelers had left behind, when she had a premonition.

"I sat up, and thought, Esme is not back," Kenney said. "I don't know how much time passed. She should be back. I knew something was wrong... I just had that feeling."

Kenney, barefoot in yoga clothes, ran the same path Esme would have taken, crawled through thick brush looking for her daughter to no avail. She found a bag of clothes and a case of beer, that would turn out to be Kirkland's. At the time though, Kenney testified, it was an indication there had been somebody else on that path.

At first, Cincinnati police didn't take Kenney seriously, Kenney testified. Officers suggested that Esme was with friends or a boyfriend's house.

No, Kenney said.

She, her husband and neighbors launched an extensive search. Around 9 p.m., a police officer who lived nearby came on duty, She found Kirkland sitting on the path. He had Esme's watch and iPod and would later confess. Kenney knew none of this.

An Amber Alert was issued then canceled, she saw on the 11 p.m. news. Why? Kenney wondered. Did they find Esme? Was she hurt?

She said in the deposition that she and her husband called the police and got this response: "We'll have somebody call you."

"it took them several hours," Kenney said in her testimony. "A chaplain and a police officer came to our door very early (the next) morning and they told us Esme was dead."

At that, Kenney was asked to identify a picture of her daughter, She started crying,

"That's my daughter, Esme," she said.

Kirkland is accused of killing five women: Leona Douglas in 1987; Casonya Crawford, 14, in 2006; Mary Jo Newton, 45, in 2006; Kimya Rolison, 25, in 2006 and Esme, 13, in 2009.

After being arrested the day Esme's body was found, Kirkland confessed. A jury in 2010 convicted him and a judge, based on a recommendation from a jury, imposed a death sentence for the deaths off Esme and Casonya. Last year the Ohio Supreme Court overturned the sentence and a new jury has been convened to determine a sentence.

Defense lawyers are asking jurors to spare Kirkland's life, arguing he was physically and mentally abused as a child resulting in post-traumatic stress disorder. And they say he sought help at least eight times for mental health issues.

Kirkland's defense lawyers are seeking a life prison sentence without parole, which is the same sentence Kirkland is already serving for the deaths of Newton and Rolison. Kirkland killed Douglas when he was 18 years old and he served 16 years in prison before being released in 2003.


More: Serial killer's brain scans could played a role in death penalty decision


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