Friday, August 08, 2008
Naked ski-ing
It still remains the most memorable and most bizarre news story of my teenage years. Today's Guardian has put Joyce McKinney back centre stage. Whatever happened to her? Now we know. Perhaps it would have been better if we had remained in blissful ignorance. Ian Cobain takes up the story:
Utter the name Joyce McKinney to Britons of a certain age, and you are inevitably rewarded with the briefest flash of incomprehension, followed by a gasp as their memories take them tumbling back to the dark days of early autumn, 1977.
It was a miserable time: there were clashes on the picket line at Grunwick, inflation was sprinting away at 13%, Elvis had just died and a band called Baccara were at Number One with Yes Sir, I Can Boogie. And then, as if to lift the spirits of a nation, along came the most unlikely, the most baffling, the most downright weird news story.
A Mormon missionary from Utah called Kirk Anderson, who was going door-to-door in Ewell, Surrey, was kidnapped at gunpoint by McKinney, a former cheerleader and beauty queen from North Carolina. With the help of a friend, Keith May, McKinney drugged Anderson with chloroform and drove him to a rented 17th century cottage near Okehampton, Devon. There the unfortunate young man was chained, spreadeagled, to a bed, with several pairs of mink-lined handcuffs, and over the next few days he was repeatedly required to have sex with McKinney, who later explained that she had been keen to bear his child.
Eventually the missionary wriggled free, dashed from the cottage and alerted police, who set up roadblocks around Okehampton, capturing both beauty queen and friend. The pair were charged with false imprisonment and possession of an imitation .38 revolver, and brought before Epsom magistrates.
McKinney explained at the commital proceedings that she had fallen head over heels for Anderson when they were at college together in Utah, adding: "I loved him so much that I would ski naked down Mount Everest in the nude with a carnation up my nose if he asked me to." She had hired a private detective, tracked Anderson down and came to Britain with May.
The paper says that McKinney and her accomplice were both bailed and fled to Canada disguised as mime artists. After crossing the border from Canada she travelled to Atlanta, Georgia, where she went into hiding, disguised as a nun, according to some accounts. Then she returned to the tiny town of Minneapolis on the North Carolina-Tennessee border, where her parents had been schoolteachers, and moved on to her late grandparents' wooden farmhouse.
In 1984 she was arrested after Anderson spotted her loitering near his place of work in Salt Lake City. When the police searched the boot of her car they found a length of rope and a pair of handcuffs, but charges against her were dropped after she once again jumped bail.
The Guardian concludes: Anderson himself married after returning to Utah, and found work as a travel agent in the small town of Orem. And by and large, McKinney has also led a blameless life over the past three decades. She could not be contacted for comment yesterday, but when a British reporter tracked her down and spoke to her nine years ago she said: "Now everybody understands, and they know what it means to have the paparazzi chasing around after you. I cried all night when Diana died. I may be just an ol' farm girl, but I've hit that wall with her. Everywhere I go, people will always remember me as a woman who did the unthinkable. Just try to imagine what that feels like."
In theory, however, McKinney remains a fugitive from British justice, and after breaking her cover to hail the success of the scientists in Soeul, could face extradition to stand trial back at Epsom.
Is this possible? We asked Scotland Yard. The young woman - clearly too young - who answered the call, listened patiently for a few minutes. "I'm sorry," she said finally. "I haven't a clue what you're talking about."
You could not make it up.
Utter the name Joyce McKinney to Britons of a certain age, and you are inevitably rewarded with the briefest flash of incomprehension, followed by a gasp as their memories take them tumbling back to the dark days of early autumn, 1977.
It was a miserable time: there were clashes on the picket line at Grunwick, inflation was sprinting away at 13%, Elvis had just died and a band called Baccara were at Number One with Yes Sir, I Can Boogie. And then, as if to lift the spirits of a nation, along came the most unlikely, the most baffling, the most downright weird news story.
A Mormon missionary from Utah called Kirk Anderson, who was going door-to-door in Ewell, Surrey, was kidnapped at gunpoint by McKinney, a former cheerleader and beauty queen from North Carolina. With the help of a friend, Keith May, McKinney drugged Anderson with chloroform and drove him to a rented 17th century cottage near Okehampton, Devon. There the unfortunate young man was chained, spreadeagled, to a bed, with several pairs of mink-lined handcuffs, and over the next few days he was repeatedly required to have sex with McKinney, who later explained that she had been keen to bear his child.
Eventually the missionary wriggled free, dashed from the cottage and alerted police, who set up roadblocks around Okehampton, capturing both beauty queen and friend. The pair were charged with false imprisonment and possession of an imitation .38 revolver, and brought before Epsom magistrates.
McKinney explained at the commital proceedings that she had fallen head over heels for Anderson when they were at college together in Utah, adding: "I loved him so much that I would ski naked down Mount Everest in the nude with a carnation up my nose if he asked me to." She had hired a private detective, tracked Anderson down and came to Britain with May.
The paper says that McKinney and her accomplice were both bailed and fled to Canada disguised as mime artists. After crossing the border from Canada she travelled to Atlanta, Georgia, where she went into hiding, disguised as a nun, according to some accounts. Then she returned to the tiny town of Minneapolis on the North Carolina-Tennessee border, where her parents had been schoolteachers, and moved on to her late grandparents' wooden farmhouse.
In 1984 she was arrested after Anderson spotted her loitering near his place of work in Salt Lake City. When the police searched the boot of her car they found a length of rope and a pair of handcuffs, but charges against her were dropped after she once again jumped bail.
The Guardian concludes: Anderson himself married after returning to Utah, and found work as a travel agent in the small town of Orem. And by and large, McKinney has also led a blameless life over the past three decades. She could not be contacted for comment yesterday, but when a British reporter tracked her down and spoke to her nine years ago she said: "Now everybody understands, and they know what it means to have the paparazzi chasing around after you. I cried all night when Diana died. I may be just an ol' farm girl, but I've hit that wall with her. Everywhere I go, people will always remember me as a woman who did the unthinkable. Just try to imagine what that feels like."
In theory, however, McKinney remains a fugitive from British justice, and after breaking her cover to hail the success of the scientists in Soeul, could face extradition to stand trial back at Epsom.
Is this possible? We asked Scotland Yard. The young woman - clearly too young - who answered the call, listened patiently for a few minutes. "I'm sorry," she said finally. "I haven't a clue what you're talking about."
You could not make it up.
Comments:
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Yes I remember havign annin dpeth discussion about this during an A level Chemistry lesson.
The main focus of the debate seemed to be on whether it was indeed possible for a man to, er, get excited enough to do the necessary under such duress.
The 17 year old male students didn't really have enough experience to make any informed comment (ah the days of innocence) but several offered to participate in an experiment to find out.
The female members of the class declined their generous offer.
(Is it any wonder I failed Chemistry).
The main focus of the debate seemed to be on whether it was indeed possible for a man to, er, get excited enough to do the necessary under such duress.
The 17 year old male students didn't really have enough experience to make any informed comment (ah the days of innocence) but several offered to participate in an experiment to find out.
The female members of the class declined their generous offer.
(Is it any wonder I failed Chemistry).
This reads as if you are saying that someone being repeatedly forced to have sex against their will is something you find funny. Perhaps you should clarify this.
# posted by 
: 4:45 PM
: 4:45 PM
You should re-read it then. The post is mostly just a regurgitation of the facts. My final comment refers to the reaction of the police. The whole story is just bizarre.
And is it the woman who recently had her pet cloned in Korea? Terence Blacker reported in "The Independent":
Some bright spark of a journalist, following up the story of a woman called Bernann McKinney who had her dead pit-bull terrier cloned in South Korea for $25,000, has noticed that there was something familiar about her face. Come to think of it, her surname rang a bell too.
Could it possibly be that Bernann McKinney was, in fact, Joyce McKinney, who, 31 years ago, was the star of the famous "Mormon Sex Slave case". For a while she was one of the most famous women around.
[...]
Could the Mormon-lover possibly be the pit-bull cloner? Here is a story that won't go away.
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Some bright spark of a journalist, following up the story of a woman called Bernann McKinney who had her dead pit-bull terrier cloned in South Korea for $25,000, has noticed that there was something familiar about her face. Come to think of it, her surname rang a bell too.
Could it possibly be that Bernann McKinney was, in fact, Joyce McKinney, who, 31 years ago, was the star of the famous "Mormon Sex Slave case". For a while she was one of the most famous women around.
[...]
Could the Mormon-lover possibly be the pit-bull cloner? Here is a story that won't go away.
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