'Nothing more than a 2-bit killer'

WALLACE — The man who pleaded guilty to killing a family of four in Kellogg last summer will be sentenced Monday.

Following mediation, Majorjon Kaylor pleaded guilty to four counts of second-degree murder after he shot and killed his neighbors, Kenneth Guardipee, 65, Kenna Guardipee, 41, Devin Smith, 18, and Aiken Smith, 16, after a dispute at their Kellogg duplex.

Judge Barbara Duggan will sentence Kaylor on Monday at 1 p.m. Each charge carries a minimum 10-year prison sentence and a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Ahead of the sentencing, Shoshone County Prosecuting Attorney Benjamin Allen filed 12 victim impact statements from the victims’ family and friends. The statements expressed common themes of pain, sadness, anger and the hope that justice will be served.

Wardner Mayor Joe Guardipee, Kenneth Guardipee’s brother, described his disgust with Kaylor’s actions.

“This country is based on rules and laws, that’s how a society functions,” he wrote. “What you did that day was well beyond any sanity of a normal human. You decided to be judge and jury, you decided to play God. You said you were protecting your children. Let me ask you, who’s protecting them now? All you did is traumatize them. They will spend the rest of their lives knowing their father is nothing more than a 2-bit killer. What a man you are, not only did you destroy my family, but yours as well.”

Teresa Sauer, Kenna Guardipee’s maternal aunt, spoke of the pain she feels every day when she speaks with her sister Jeri — Kenna Guardipee’s mother — and how that pain quickly turns to anger when she thinks about the events of last June and how it could’ve been avoided.

“I have such mixed emotions about the person who so brutally took the lives of Kenna, Devin, Aiken and Kenny. Most days anger,” Sauer wrote. “I want him to feel the pain Jerry does every day, but without his babies actually being murdered. I think about his kiddos and how his actions will send them down a life path that they have no choice in taking. It’s going to be rough for them. They won’t grow up to be the adults they would’ve become had he not took the lives of Kenna, Devin, Aiken, and Kenny. Majorjon Kaylor is a weak person. Easily influenced and because of that so many lives have forever been changed in the worst way possible.”

Many of the victims' relatives said they want Kaylor to receive a sentence of life in prison. One family member wrote that the minimum 10-year sentences would be acceptable as long as Kaylor had to serve them consecutively.

In the days before the killings, Kaylor and his family had grown frustrated with their downstairs neighbors over what Kaylor perceived as a lack of accountability for Devin Smith’s alleged actions.

Kellogg police had responded to a report that Devin Smith allegedly exposed himself while standing in front of his bedroom window and looking out into the backyard where Kaylor’s daughters were playing. Two days before the killings, police had submitted to prosecutors a request for a misdemeanor indecent exposure charge.

The day of the murders, Kaylor reportedly armed himself in his truck after arriving home from work and walked around the Brown Street duplex where Kaylor and the victims lived.

Surveillance cameras captured Kaylor walking around the parking lot of Mountain Valley of Cascadia, where Kenna Guardipee worked, and then “ducking behind a trailer that was parked outside the residence while appearing to view the shared backyard space.”

He returned to his home and went into the shared backyard to help water the family’s plants. It was then that he reportedly began the argument with his neighbors that culminated in the killings.

According to court records, Kaylor shot Kenneth Guardipee and Kenna Guardipee first, followed by Aiken Smith and Devin Smith inside the residence.

Kaylor then exited the residence and placed the gun, holster and belt in his truck. His wife reportedly overheard him telling someone on the phone that he had just killed four people.

Police found the handgun and an empty magazine in the truck. Investigators said the empty magazine capacity and empty shell casings found at the scene indicate Kaylor would have had to change magazines to carry out the killings as he did.

Kaylor initially faced four charges of first-degree murder and one charge of burglary. In exchange for his guilty plea, the state dropped the burglary charge and reduced the other charges to second-degree murder. The state retains the right to pursue charges against others who may have been culpable in the killings.