On the night of October 10, 1972, Benedict “Benny” Kemper, 15 years old, cut the telephone line to the Marion Merrigan family’s house that was situated west of Conception, sneaked into the basement and waited for the family to go to sleep. Once the family was asleep, Kemper went upstairs and went from bedroom to bedroom murdering four members: Marion, the father; Kathleen, the mother; William, his classmate and their son; and Helen Ann, their youngest daughter, using a .22 bolt-action rifle. The lone surviving family member, Sue Merrigan Dorrel, was a student at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville at the time. She is an aunt of former Northwest Missouri State University football coach Adam Dorrel. In 1973, Kemper was sentenced to four consecutive 45-year sentences for murder and an additional six years for an attempted jail escape.