Madplume found guilty of rape, murder
Megan Strickland
Melvin Madplume
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POLSON — On Saturday, after a six-day trial, a jury unanimously found 30 year-old Melvin Madplume, Jr. of Ronan guilty of deliberate homicide and sexual assault without consent of his cousin Laurence Kenmille, 28, who died at Wild Horse Hot Springs on May 25, 2013.
Sentencing is set for March 28. Madplume faces a possible life sentence, with possibility of parole. A psychosexual evaluation was ordered that would determine his likelihood to re-offend.
During the trial, the prosecution painted Madplume as a predator who made unwanted sexual advances toward another male cousin at the same hot springs just days before Kenmille’s death. The previous victim said Madplume took him to the hot springs early in the morning where they were drinking. When cross-examined by the defense, the victim said Madplume never touched his genitals or directly asked him to have sex. Madplume’s intent was clear however, according to the victim.
“He wanted to rape me,” the man said.
Kenmille’s 16-year-old brother was with Madplume the day that Kenmille was found drowned in a plunge room, and he gave a chilling account of what happened.
Kenmille, Madplume and the brother traveled to Hot Springs to visit a family member May 25. The group downed two bottles of liquor and visited a house where they “did a line” of an undetermined drug. When the trio arrived at Wild Horse Hot Springs, Kenmille and Madplume went into a private plunge room with a hot tub.
Kenmille’s younger brother hung out with office staff and became violently ill a couple of times before he checked on the men to see if they were ready to leave.
Upon the first check, Kenmille was in the hot tub with Madplume. His head was down and he did not respond to his brother’s presence. Madplume insisted the men were okay, although his brother had not asked how the men were doing. The brother went back and mentioned to management that it seemed strange, but he was not overly alarmed.
The brother went outside to vomit again. He saw Madplume moving strangely inside the room through the window, as though the man might have been carrying something, but the brother couldn’t tell what it was. The brother returned to the room where management was, and told them, but they didn’t do anything about it.
When the brother went in to check again he became scared. Kenmille was unresponsive, with his eyes closed. Madplume again insisted that the men were okay, but the brother saw red blood in the pool around Kenmille. He told management, who came and removed Kenmille from the pool. Emergency services were called and Madplume got on the phone and told them that Kenmille had fallen and hit his head. The brother attempted to perform CPR because he thought he felt a pulse, although in hindsight that was likely just wishful thinking, he said. Kenmille showed no signs of life.
Management and Madplume tried to move Kenmille’s body to a car outside. Their rough treatment of Kenmille’s body, which was bleeding from the arm, angered the brother, who believed they should not move him until an ambulance came.
The brother, emotionally distraught, went back inside the hot springs, sat in the floor, and cried. As soon as he found out his brother was being transported to Plains via ambulance, the brother wanted to leave immediately and go to the hospital. He said he “had it out” with Madplume because the older man wasn’t ready to leave and kept walking back and forth to the hot tub room.
When Madplume and the brother finally headed to Plains, Madplume got on the phone and told relatives that Kenmille slipped and hit his head, but that the man would be okay. The car approached Plains, and passed the hospital. The brother told Madplume, who was driving, that they missed the hospital and needed to turn around but Madplume insisted it was just a little bit further up the road.
The brother became frightened as Madplume sped at speeds of up to 90 miles per hour along a road in a desolate wooded area. The brother worried his life was in danger.
“I told him I was going to flip the car,” the brother told the jury of his plan of escape. He contemplated grabbing the steering wheel, but the car passed a police vehicle that had someone pulled over.
“I thought it was my ticket out,” the brother said.
Madplume and the brother were eventually intercepted by the officer, who pulled them over for speeding near Thompson Falls.
Deputy state medical examiner Walter Kemp conducted a post-mortem examination of Kenmille’s body and determined injuries were not consistent with a slip and fall. He found trauma to Kenmille’s head, lacerations to the face, a gash in the arm and other injuries consistent with homicidal violence, and the possibility of sexual assault was also present.
Madplume’s defense attorneys questioned the accuracy of that determination and forced Kemp to admit that there was no DNA evidence found suggesting sexual intercourse occurred between Madplume and Kenmille. These facts did not change Kemp’s opinion of Kenmille’s cause of death, which he ruled was homicidal violence and drowning.
When the trial ran longer than expected, District Judge John Larson of Missoula asked the jury if they would prefer to continue with deliberations on Friday evening, Jan. 31, or continue Saturday. The jury lobbied for Saturday morning.
After an alternate was added to the jury because one juror had to leave, the three-man, nine-woman jury reconvened at 8:30 a.m. on Feb. 1 and deliberated for about two hours before returning a guilty verdict.
