Two Inland Empire convicted sex offenders whose parole cases became flashpoints in efforts to reform California’s Elderly Parole Program have died within weeks of each other, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Cody Woodson Klemp, 70, of Moreno Valley died July 9 and Charles William Mix, 71, of Riverside died June 19. Their cases helped fuel proposed legislation to exclude violent sex offenders from early parole eligibility.
Klemp was transferred to a medical facility from the California Institution for Men in Chino and pronounced dead at 11:55 a.m. Thursday, CDCR spokesperson Mary Xjimenez said. She said the San Bernardino County Coroner’s Office will determine his cause of death.
Klemp had served more than 32 years of a 170-year prison sentence for the repeated rape of his 14-year-old niece in his home in 1990. His parole case sparked a broader push to reform California’s Elderly Parole Program, drawing criticism from victims’ advocates, prosecutors and lawmakers who argued violent sex offenders should not be eligible for early release.
Although the California Board of Parole Hearings later rescinded Klemp’s parole grant, his case helped galvanize legislative efforts to narrow the program and exclude violent sex offenders from consideration.
Klemp was already a convicted rapist at the time of his 1994 conviction, having been found guilty of rape in 1976 and attempted rape in 1981. The latter assault landed Klemp in Patton State Hospital for three years as a mentally disordered sex offender. Klemp’s 1976 and 1981 crimes occurred in Long Beach, according to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office.
The judge in the case involving Klemp’s niece took his prior convictions into account when sentencing him to 170 years in prison in 1994. At the time, a probation officer who recommended the maximum sentence noted that Klemp had threatened to kill the victim for reporting the sexual assaults.
Mix was pronounced dead at 7:15 p.m. June 19 at California Medical Facility in Vacaville. The Solano County Coroner will determine his official cause of death, Xjimenez said.
Mix was convicted in 2004 for the June 2003 kidnapping, rape and molestation of the 5-year-old daughter of a roommate. He was sentenced to life in prison, with the possibility of parole, for lewd or lascivious acts with a minor under 14 years of age, kidnap for rape/oral copulation/sodomy, and aggravated sexual assault of aa child under 14.
At Mix’s Sept. 25, 2024, elderly parole hearing, the Board of Parole Hearings denied his request for early release, finding he remained a public safety risk. He would have been eligible for another parole hearing in 2031.
Klemp’s victim, now 50 and living in Orange County, said she received an email from the CDCR on Thursday, July 9. She clicked on the attachment and first noticed the words, in all capital letters at the top of the document, that read, “Notice of release — confidential.”
Her first thought was that Klemp, who has haunted her memories for more than 36 years, had again been granted parole and was up for release. She thought, “Not again. Not now. Can’t it wait?” It was her daughter’s 28th birthday on Thursday, and she didn’t want it to be tainted by upsetting news.
Then she got to the line that said, “The inmate identified below died on 7/9/2026.” Her feeling shifted from fear and anxiety to relief and disbelief. She said she rejoiced.
“It was the Lord’s justice, in the Lord’s time. I just kept shouting “dead, he’s dead!” she said. “But I’m also deeply sad that it took God’s justice to do what California justice never could do because of politics.”
In a telephone interview Friday, Claira Stansbury, the sister of Mix’s victim, who is now 29 and lives out of state, said, “We all feel a little lighter.”
“It just felt like a weight lifted off our shoulders of this lingering evil,” said Stansbury, who along with Klemp’s victim has been pivotal in the legislative push for elderly parole reforms.
She said she received a notice on May 14 that Mix had been transferred to the California Medical Facility and placed in hospice care, then subsequently received notice of his death.
Despite Mix’s death, Stansbury said she plans to continue fighting for elderly parole reforms.
“Now we can fight for others, and we’re no longer doing it out of fear of (Mix) getting out, we’re doing it because others need help,” Stansbury said.
As to the coincidence of Klemp and Mix dying within a month of each other, Stansbury said, “I’ve never been much of a religious person, but the fact that both of them are gone now, within weeks of each other, is definitely a higher power, and it definitely wasn’t California legislators.”