Kenny Kimes

.

Born Kennedy Kimes, Jr., the son of an alcoholic motel tycoon and Sante Kimes, who from childhood had a long history of shoplifting, petty theft, forgery, embezzlement, arson, and insurance fraud, Kimes was groomed for a life of crime by his mother when her son from an earlier marriage, Kent Walker, refused to continue to cooperate with her illegal schemes.

Throughout his childhood in Hawaii, Kimes often was in the care of his half-brother while his parents swindled their way across the United States, eventually amassing a $20 million fortune. His mother frequently lured young girls, usually illegal aliens from Mexico, from homeless shelters under the auspices of needing household help and forced them into servitude that included torture. The couple was finally charged with slavery. The husband received a suspended sentence and a brief stint in an alcohol rehab program, while his wife served three of a five year sentence in prison. During this time the older Walker and younger Kimes settled into a fairly normal life but immediately upon her return home, Sante disrupted their peaceful existence and began her intense and relentless manipulation of her son.

Kimes attended the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he presented himself as the well-groomed and expensively dressed scion of a wealthy family with high social and political connections (his father frequently impersonated an ambassador). While away at school his father died mysteriously, and his mother forbade relatives and friends from telling him the news until after graduation. Several accounts claim Sante victimized her son sexually from his teen years and onward, although his half-brother disputes this version of events. What he does verify is that the two were involved in an endless crime spree that included the murder of David Kazdin, a former business associate of the senior Kimes, whose name Sante had forged on a $280,000 mortgage. When he threatened to go to the authorities, Kimes killed him and disposed of the body.

The mother and son team were living in Florida and were lovers when they heard about a wealthy, widowed, 82-year-old Manhattan heiress who had converted her $7.7 million Upper East Side mansion into an upscale bed and breakfast. Kimes showed up at Irene Silverman's doorstep looking for a place to stay, claiming she had been recommended by a mutual friend, and immediately paid his $6,000 bill in full in cash. Within days of his arrival the woman, concerned about his comings and goings and his mysterious "assistant" (Sante), began keeping notes about his activities in which she expressed her suspicions. Kimes and his mother contacted Stan Patterson, an old friend and crime crony from Las Vegas, and asked for his help running a B&B. Unbeknownst to them, Patterson already was cooperating with the FBI, which was tracking them for a number of crimes, including the Kazdin murder in California. Patterson agreed to cooperate with the agency in exchange for immunity.

On July 5, 1998, while Silverman's staff was away for the Fourth of July holiday weekend, Kimes and his mother murdered Silverman. After disposing of the body, the pair met Patterson, and the FBI, unaware of their most recent crime, swarmed in and arrested them on a Utah warrant alleging they had passed a bad $14,000 check to purchase a Lincoln Town Car. It wasn't until that night, when photos of the two appeared on the news in connection with Silverman's disappearance, that they were implicated in her murder. Although the widow's body was never found, notebooks filled with copious details about the scheme to take control of her property were found in the Kimes' possession and, together with Silverman's own chronicles, played a major role in the prosecution's case against them.

In New York, Kimes was eventually convicted of 60 crimes and sentenced to 125 years in prison. He was then extradited to California to face murder charges in that state. In 2001, he grabbed Court TV reporter Maria Zone during a jailhouse interview at the Clinton Correctional Facility and held her hostage for more than four hours holding a pen to her neck, demanding that his mother not be extradited to California to face trial on charges of murdering Kazdin. In 2004, facing the prospect of California's death penalty, he agreed to testify against his mother in exchange for a life sentence without possibility of parole. During the trial in Los Angeles, he testified he dumped Silverman's body in a trash bin in Hoboken, New Jersey. He also confessed to killing a Bahraini banker in the Bahamas by first drugging him, then drowning him in a bathtub, and later disposing of the body in the ocean.

A 2001 made-for-TV movie, "Like Mother, Like Son: The Strange Story of Sante and Kenny Kimes", starred Mary Tyler Moore as Sante Kimes, Gabriel Olds as Kenny, and Jean Stapleton as Silverman. In 2006, another television movie, "A Little Thing Called Murder", starring Judy Davis and Jonathan Jackson, aired on Lifetime. Kimes maintains a webpage seeking penpals on WriteAPrisoner.com [ [http://www.writeaprisoner.com/TemplateDisplay.aspx?i=z-v80313 WriteAPrisoner.com - Prison Pen Pals ] ] .

References

"Son of a Grifter: The Twisted Tale of Sante and Kenny Kimes, the Most Notorious Con Artists in America", by Kent Walker with Mark Schone, published by William Morrow, 2001

External links

* [http://www.courttv.com/archive/onair/shows/mugshots/indepth/kimes/ Court TV coverage of Kenny Kimes murder trial]