Richard Keech

Richard Eugene Keech (October 27, 1919 – July 4, 2013) was an American veteran of World War II who was convicted of murdering his estranged son-in-law, Nicholas Candy, who was in a messy divorce and child custody dispute with Keech's daughter, Nancy.

World War II experience (excerpted)
Keech was born in 1919 in Los Angeles County. He fought in the Battle of Corregidor and survived 45 months captivity in Japanese POW camps after the American surrender at Corregidor. He was awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star Medal. On May 6, 1942, he was guarding the Malinta tunnel on Corregidor when an American officer walked out with a white flag of surrender. As a Japanese POW he to continued resist, using cigarettes as fuses on the gasoline dumps on the Japanese cargo ships. Keech was part of Keech's CO asked an officer directing traffic where he should go. He wound up in the 4th China Marines, stationed in Shanghai in 1939, a  1200 man deployment. Japanese troops in excess of 300,000 surrounded the city.

In November 1941, 4th China Marines left for Corregidor, Philippines. Shanghai fell a month later. Keech wound up as part of General MacArthur's honor guard. "General McArthur was reportedly so impressed that he decided he needed a Marine guard."

In the subsequent surrender, Keech fell in with 6000 men in the “92nd Garage”, an amphibian aircraft field with only one faucet for water. Keech survived because he thought ahead; he and his comrades filled up their two canteens every evening even though was a two-hour wait for the one faucet. The Japanese gave no warning and no time to fetch water when they moved the prisoners. Most men had no food or water. "We ... would help is much as we could, but eventually the sick soldiers had only the choice of jumping off a bridge in hopes of escaping or quicker death by bayonet." He spent the remainder of the war in Japanese POW camps, a period of about 45 months or nearly four years, including Nichols Field, where he left not once, but twice. The first term was for ten months. Lt. Sato, aka “The White Angel”, nephew of the Japanese Emperor, ran Nichols field. His camp held 900 prisoners of which 90 died each month of disease and hunger."

The first time Keech left Nichols Field, the "White Angel" had lined the prisoners up at a midnight and offered a chance to the prisoners to leave for the hospital. Most of the prisoners took it as a trick. Keech and three others stepped forward, gambling with their lives. In this case, they won. The "White Angel" sent them on. Unfortunately, an American trustee at the hospital sent Keech back to Nichols Field. At Nichols Field, the Japanese military put the dying soldiers right in with the dead near the crematorium, to save the effort of carrying the bodies. "I weighed 97 pounds when I went back to the hospital. I could not get interested in eating again. An American trustee doctor named Dr. Brown finally talked me into eating again", said Mr. Keech.

His final POW camp was Narumi POW Camp He was on a work detail only 9 miles from Nagoya when the first line of bombers arrived. He watched 85,000 Japanese civilians die, as compared to Nagasaki's 60,000. The Japanese destroyed all records relating to POW camps. After the war, the POW camps were only found through an intense aerial survey that took months. A scout plane stumbled across Keech's camp and dropped a container of K-rations. The doctor quickly confiscated all the rations because he felt a full K-ration might kill the prisoners in their current malnourished state. The container represented two months of food to the camp at their current level of consumption. "The pilot dropped a walkie-talkie with a note, 'I am sorry I could only provide a snack. I will return with lunch and dinner later'. Sure enough, another plane returned later and dumped K-rations, shoes and clothing", Keech told his family many years later.

Shooting
Keech was convicted of the murder of Nicholas Candy. Keech shot Candy once, then followed him, shooting him four more times, all in the back, on May 21, 1996. "It's all over", he said later to a neighbor who ran out at the sound. "He won't bother anyone anymore." Despite the support of various veterans groups and other supporters who insisted that Keech was a war hero suffering from PTSD, Keech was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison.

He served twelve years imprisonment in various California prisons until his release by the same judge who had sentenced him, despite the opposition of prosecutors, based on Keech's age (almost 90 years old) and health (reportedly suffering from dementia), on October 8, 2009.

Keech's wife Kay (née Kathryn Harlene Guessford; January 20, 1922 – February 11, 2010), predeceased him. They were married in Long Beach, California on June 11, 1949, and had four children.

Richard Keech died on July 4, 2013, aged 93, in Lakewood, California.