Man faces murder charge for beating stepdaughter

EUGENE, Ore. – In 1991, Philip Kephart was convicted of beating his 6-year-old stepdaughter and sent to prison for 50 years.

Last year, Amber Moss died at age 23, after living in a nursing home 16 years and undergoing at least 16 surgeries. Surgeons removed part of her brain to relieve the pressure inside her skull caused by the beatings Kephart inflicted.

On Friday, Kephart, 44, was arraigned on an aggravated murder charge that a prosecutor pledged in 1991 would be filed upon Amber’s death.

Lane County District Attorney Doug Harcleroad said he agreed not to seek the death penalty as part of a plea deal at the time that left open the possibility of a murder charge.

Kephart is projected to be released in 2031, but his case is still undergoing appeals, Harcleroad said, leaving open a slim chance it might be thrown out or the sentence reduced.

Hence the murder charge, he said.

“From our viewpoint, he needs to spend the rest of his life in prison for what he did to Amber,” Harcleroad said. “The only way to do that is to get him a life sentence without possibility of parole.”

Court records detail a score of occasions spanning two years when Kephart beat Amber and a stepsister with rods, wooden paddles, and his fist and his feet, slamming them into walls and pouring Tabasco sauce in their eyes.

On March 22, 1991, after Kephart discovered that Amber had eaten some of his Easter candy, court records say he kicked her hard enough to launch her 30-pound body off the floor and then continued kicking her in the groin and legs.

The court records said that later he pushed Amber to the floor at least four times, causing her head to strike the floor each time, and when the girl lost consciousness, he and his then-wife, Lisa Kephart, took the child to a hospital.

Lisa Kephart was later charged with failing to protect the children. Her lawyer argued that she was a victim of Battered Woman’s Syndrome and she was put on probation.

Amber died June 29. She had regained much of her mental function, but was physically debilitated. “She felt pain. You could see it. She accepted it,” said her grandmother Barbara Moss. “She was tough and strong. To me, he was still torturing her through the 16 years.”