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Tabloid (2010)
"Once upon a time,
there was a little princess, "the most beautiful little princess in all the land. "Her hair was long and blonde, "and her eyes were as brown as the dark waters of the river "which ran by her castle. "But the little princess was unhappy, "for she was lonely. "Someday she would find her kind, handsome prince, "and he would sweep her up on a big white horse, "and he would take her away and marry her, and they would live happily ever after." Hi, I'm Joyce McKinney, and that's from my pending book, A Very Special Love Story. First of all, were you surprised to be put in prison? I really didn't feel I'd done anything wrong. I still don't feel I did anything wrong. I would never do anything to hurt Kirk Anderson or slander him. In fact, in my book... my book is handled in a very tender, nice fashion. It's not a porno story like these crazy newspapers have tried to make it. It's a love story, you know? And, I mean, I would never do anything to hurt him or to cause him any harm at all. And the way that they threw me in prison and tried to act like I was some sort of criminal and present this image over was really what got to me. My life started out in a small town in North Carolina. I was one of these girls who was gonna meet, you know, an all-American guy and get married and have a little Leave It to Beaver house with a white picket fence and just have a great little life. Started dating very late in life. Didn't start dating till I was, like, 17. Was in an accelerated program for kids with high IQs. How high was your IQ? I hadn't been out in the world much till I went to Utah. You know, I hadn't been around much. But there were a lot of men attracted to you? Well, I guess so. I don't know. I'm not that vain that I would say... but I wasn't looking for just any guy. I wanted a special guy. I wanted a special guy. And he had to have certain qualities. There are plenty of guys out there, but I wanted a special guy. I met this professor, and he said, "Well, I've got these perfect guys for you, "and they're just your type, Joyce. "They don't smoke, and they don't drink, "and they're clean-cut, "and you're just going to love them. And why don't you come over to my house and meet them?" They were Mormons. They didn't tell me what Mormonism was all about. He didn't say, "We're a group that believes "that Jesus was a polygamist and was married to Mary Magdalene." He didn't say, "We believe that God lives on a star named Kolob." He didn't say, "We believe that black people were cursed with the mark of Cain." They made me think they were a church. They made me think that they were family-oriented. And so I was drawn to them, as a young 19-year-old teenager, like a moth to a flame. I was just so happy to go to this place where I thought that I would have my pick of just all-American friends, people, husband material, I guess. I had a Corvette, and I had a big old English sheepdog that loved to ride in the Corvette. And I had a good friend. Her name was Marilyn Clark. There wasn't anything Marilyn didn't do: Smoke, drink, have sex with Hells Angels. I mean, this was a wild child. We were exact opposites. She used to call me "Holier-Than-Thou McKinney" because I was so straight. We would cruise the pizza parlor, and we decided to cruise down by Frosty's ice cream parlor. And I noticed this really handsome guy driving alongside me also in a Corvette, white Corvette. And he kind of looks around at me like he's watching me. And I thought, "Whoa, he's cute." And I kept on driving, and Marilyn goes, "Hey, McKinn, he's following you." And I go, "He is?" So I let him chase me. He was quite aggressive. And he pulled in beside me and cleared his throat. Then he goes, "Like your car." I go, "Thanks. I like yours too." He goes, "I really like yours better." I go, "Want to drive it?" When I met my Kirk, it was like in the movies... When the girl comes down the stairs, and their eyes meet. When Juliet looks at Romeo, and it's... pkew! That's how it was. He had the most beautiful blue eyes and the sexiest smile, and he always had the cleanest skin. Kirk Anderson was a very big, rather flabby, or attractive-looking man in the accepted sense of the word who had a very shuffle-y kind of walk, the last person in the world that you'd think would be the object of this kind of strange sexual passion. He had known Joyce McKinney in Salt Lake City, and she had fallen in love with him. Fallen in love with him... become obsessed by him, because that's another thing about Joyce is obsession. I mean, she just obsesses about things. I don't know what the details of their relationship was in Salt Lake City, but they obviously had some kind of romance or love affair, because if one's to believe Joyce at all, he had promised her a family and children. He actually told me he loved me the first night I met him and asked me to marry him the second night, and then the next thing I know, we're naming our kids. And we were gonna name 'em all with Js and Ks: J for "Joyce" and Ks for "Kirk," Joshua, Jacob. You know, we had the names picked out. Kyle, Kirk. And I remember, he took me home to meet his Mormon mother, and she was this big, oh, huge woman, about 350 pounds in a tent dress, and she took one look at me with my little beauty queen figure, and her eyes went up, and her eyes went down, and she goes, "She doesn't look like a Mormon to me." From the time I was a little girl, I was in pageants. It gave me a chance to develop myself to be the best person I could be with my looks, with my talent, with my personality. The pageants gave me, as a small-town girl, the chance to perform. So Mom thought you were too sexy for him? I guess she thought I was too pretty or something. Kirk and I were just ready for the big wedding, and everything was happy. The only problem is, I was wanting to get married in the Christian church, and he was getting pressure from the other side, and so one day, he vanished into thin air. I don't mean he left me. I don't mean he abandoned me. I don't mean he left me for another woman. I mean he evaporated into thin air. He wasn't the kind of person to just run off like that. His things were still at my place, and, you know, it was just weird. I did what any American girl would do if her fianc vanished into thin air: I looked for him. I went to L.A., and I worked three jobs trying to save up enough money to pay a private investigator to find out what happened to him. The private investigator found him in England. The Mormons had him. All young men in the Church, from the time that we're young boys, we're indoctrinated to prepare to go on mission. We sing songs like I Hope They Call Me On A Mission. # I hope they call me on a mission # You leave as a boy. You come back as a man. For Kirk, when he reaches the age of 19, he doesn't get whisked away from Joyce. He's just fulfilling his religious spiritual responsibilities. Joyce knew where he'd gone and set up this plan with her strange, unexplained friend Keith May to come over to the U.K. I had a really good friend from Torrance, California. He was an architect, and his name was Keith Joseph May. Everybody called him "K.J." K.J. Was like my big brother, and he said to me, "I don't want you going over there to England by yourself." Said, "You don't know what they're gonna do to ya." All I knew is this powerful group had done something to the man I loved. We got two bodyguards to go with us. One was a big guy that was... what do you call... a body-builder guy. And the other was a pilot. I was interested in something a little bit more exciting than what I was doing. I saw an ad in the newspaper. They wanted a pilot to fly short trips in England, and it sounded kind of interesting to me. So I called the phone number, and a gentleman answered, and an appointment was made for the following week. I was expecting to go to an office or something like that, but it turned out to be an apartment building. I was taken in by a gentleman by the name of Keith. And after I was there for a few minutes, why, Joyce came out. Tell me about that first meeting. Well, I was favorably impressed. She had a totally see-through blouse on. I can even remember the color. It was a light brown, totally see-through blouse. No bra? - No bra, see-through blouse. She was very, very easy to talk to. At one point, she came over and sat down next to me. I was trying to perceive what type of relationship existed between Keith and her at that point. Perhaps maybe down the line, I might want to ask this girl out for dinner or something. Joyce had a trunk that she brought out, and in it were folders, pictures, tablets, letters from a private investigator in England. She then unraveled a story to me that was just unreal. Joyce had hired bodyguards, she told me, from Gold's Gym. She was gonna put 'em up while they were there in England, and they were going to liberate her fianc from this cult group. In the back of my mind, I was trying to figure out how she could have all this money to take all these people to England. She told me she was a model. I didn't realize models made that kind of money. We actually hired some guys to go with us from Los Angeles in case we were attacked or anything. I didn't know what was gonna happen. I didn't know what I was gonna be walking into. I didn't know if they would release him willingly or what. I didn't know if they would do something to hurt me. I didn't know. Joyce called me and wanted to know if I would fly her someplace in an airplane locally for dinner. That sounded pretty good. I thought it might possibly be an overnight trip or something, and I was more than up for that. But when Joyce showed up, much to my surprise, Keith was with her. I felt this was a time that I could try to make a determination on how real she was and her financial ability. So I did rent the most expensive airplane that was possible, single-engine, a Beechcraft A36 Bonanza. When you rent an airplane like that, you have to give 'em a credit card, and they lock in the approximate amount it was gonna be. Joyce didn't have a credit card. But she did bring out an envelope filled with hundred-dollar bills. That brought me a little bit closer to realizing maybe she has the money to do what she wants to do. So we flew down to San Diego. We had dinner, and we flew back. Didn't stay the night. No. No. Keith was with her, and so... that was three people there. That's not for me. I take it that you were attracted to Joyce. Yes. She was in her late 20s, had an outstanding figure, had a Southern accent, long blonde hair. Any heterosexual male would be attracted to Joyce. Prior to our departure from the United States to England, they wanted me to meet the bodyguard. His name was Gil. Gil would come to their place. I would come to their place, then we would go down to the beach. Then they told me the beach they were going to was a nude beach. Well, I've never been to a nude beach, so that really slowed me down a little bit. Joyce spread out a blanket and proceeded to take off all her clothes. Totally. Very quickly, three to four guys showed up around the blanket and started taking pictures. I don't know where they came from. Joyce protested, tried to stop them. She claimed that she was a model, and she didn't want photographs taken of her. After about 15 minutes, Joyce put on her clothes, and we left the beach. And so we met at Los Angeles International Airport. Keith May was there, Joyce McKinney, Gil Parker, and myself. First off, Gil Parker had a problem when he went through customs. They asked him what his occupation was, and he told 'em he was a bodyguard. And they said, "For who?" And they said, "For Joyce and Keith." Well, that put up a red flag, evidently, in customs, and they pulled him out. Well, that scared Gil right there. Then, on the second day, we were in a motel room together, and Joyce had a lot of baggage. I'd never seen anybody travel with so many bags. And they took out wireless microphone and listening devices. Surprised me. I wasn't sure what they were going to use it for. It was something you could probably just have carried through customs, but they had it inside of a portable radio. Well, when Gil seen this, that about did it for him. That was when he called me outside and said he wanted to go back the next day. The private investigator had told Joyce two or three different places where Kirk was at, and Keith was gonna go into some of these places where this cult group was supposed to be, ask questions, and it would be transmitted out to Joyce in the car... wirelessly. Keith May and I, we wanted to go out a little bit on our own, but Joyce was keeping us so busy, we couldn't, so one day, she... Keeping you so busy? Yeah, driving places, checking out places, walking places. She had this wig, this wig she called "Matilda." And she'd wear this strange wig when we'd go out driving sometime and sunglasses. And any time we'd go down near one of these churches where they were trying to find out if Kirk was gonna be at that church or if that was one he frequented, she'd have that wig on. We were across, in front of a building. Outcome two young men dressed in suits, a tie, and a white shirt. And she told me, "There is Kirk." Well, I was totally surprised. This was nobody being held captive. And that's when Joyce kind of leveled with me. She showed me a bottle of chloroform, and I'd already seen this phony gun they had. I was going to be no part of any of this, and I told her that. So she arrives with Keith May, lurks around, waits around outside the temple of whatever it was, Latter-Day Saints of something or other, waited for this huge, shuffling figure to come out with his short Mormon haircut and pointed a gun at him and said, "Get into the car." In the final analysis, the one way they were able to make contact with Kirk... Keith called him and told him he wanted to convert to the Mormon religion, and they thought they had a new convert. Now, I'm not sure this is the exact scenario, but at that point, Keith used the gun to get him out to the car. So you drive up in your rental car with K. J. I waited, and K.J. Went in, because they're not supposed to be in the room alone with girls. So K.J. Went in and said, "Joyce is in the car." And Kirk turned around, and he threw the keys to his companion and said, "I've got to go out in the car and get something. I'll be right back." So he goes out with K.J.? Yeah, and didn't come back, and his poor old dumb companion is sitting there staring like he's catching flies, looking out the window, waiting for him to come back. He got in the car, and he goes, "How long have you been in England?" Like a robot. He was almost speaking in a monotone voice, and he'd go, "They said you didn't love me anymore." It was like he had a personality alteration, Kirk Number 1 and Kirk Number 2. Kirk Number 1 was the man I fell in love with. Kirk Number 2 was Cult Kirk. According to all the reports at the time, he was driven 250 miles to a cottage in Devon. She had a suitcase full of all the equipment required, including, I gather, some Los Angeles Police Department Smith & Wesson handcuffs. And he was taken in and chained to... Joyce claims it was ropes, not chains, but chains sounds better. Anyway, he was allegedly chained to a bed, first by his ankle so that he could actually reach the toilet. The chain was long enough for him to get to the toilet. Subsequently, with the help of Keith May, was spread-eagled... spread-eagled... which is this wonderful bondage word... was spread-eagled to the bed, and Keith May discreetly left the room at this point, I think, closed the door behind him, and Joyce had sex with him. And she said to him she was going to go on having sex with him until she found she had missed a period and would then hopefully be pregnant by him. She wanted to be inseminated? Yes, I think that's the polite word for it. Kirk and I went to this cottage down in England. Well, I think they called it the Devon area down there. Real Franco Zeffirelli. You know, like Brother Sun, Sister Moon type shots. If you saw that film, that's what it looked like. Clare! You shouldn't have come, but I knew you would. I knew. I have to tell you, and I don't care if the whole world knows it. From now on, I'm not asking to be loved. I want to love! Okay, if you can get that vision set in your head, Mr. Filmmaker. How'd you find this place? Well, I was looking for someplace peaceful where he could normalize, someplace where he could come back to Kirk Number 1. I had a big fireplace, patchwork quilt, silk sheets... blue to match his eyes, with his initials on it... cinnamon oil back rub, 'cause he loved my back rubs, and all his favorite foods in the fridge. What were his favorite foods in the fridge? - Oh, I had chocolate cake and Southern-fried chicken. He loved my chicken. Mashed potatoes. I made everything that he wanted. I was like his little, you know, wifey almost. We were slow-dancing. He got turned on as we were dancing. I'll be blunt. He had an erection, okay? And we sat down on the bed, and he said, "Can you give me a back rub?" And I got the cinnamon oil, which I had warmed, and I was giving him a back rub. And he had these ugly garments on, and I said, "How am I supposed to give you a back rub with this Mormon thing on?" And I ripped the ugly things off, because they smelled, you know, and they had those occultic symbols, and I didn't want anything ugly there in our beautiful moment. You know, it was like a honeymoon cottage. And we burned 'em. We actually burned 'em. You ripped off his magic underwear and burned it? And I threw 'em in the fireplace where they belonged! Where they should put 'em all, as far as I'm concerned. There's folk stories galore, legends of the temple garment protecting people from harm. The hooks, the psychic hooks of the temple are so... pried in so deep that even people who don't go to church anymore still wear them, because in the back of their mind, like... "What if I don't wear them, and then Satan's got me?" Kirk was impotent. He was sexually impotent because of this brainwashing. He's not supposed to have sexual feelings. He's not supposed to have emotional feelings. He's not supposed to fall in love. And we were in love. He loved me, and I loved him. I knew there was only one way to get Kirk out of Mormonism, and that was to make love with him, because for a Mormon missionary to have a love affair is totally taboo. They can't be in a room alone with a girl without their companion with them to even shake hands. So if it took giving up my virginity in a romantic moonlit cottage, so be it. I just wanted him out of that cult. We started to make love, and all of a sudden, he jumps up on the bed like this, and he goes, "By the law of the holy prophet Joseph Smith, "I cannot not touch my bodies or the bodies of others "in an unnatural, experimental way! By the law of the holy prophet..." Hold a Book of Mormon firmly in hand. Sing a Mormon song. Sing a Mormon song. Because he's turned on, and he's not supposed to be. And I go, "Ha." I'd come across an ocean to find him, and the Mormons are in our bedroom? That moment, when his garments are coming off, that could have been a moment that triggered him, like, "Oh, my gosh." "Oh, my heck," as they say in Utah. "I'm doing something wrong." I went back in the kitchen, and I got myself a real cold glass of water. Does he still have the erection while he's chanting? Well, I came back... to be continued... I came back in there, and I'm thinking, "Am I doing something wrong?" He started to cry. He had ejaculated, I guess. He said, "Please don't tell 'em about the filthy place, what happened at the filthy place." And I said, "Honey, what's wrong?" He goes, "They'll know." I mean, every guy on the planet masturbates and has wet dreams. And I ask him, I said, "Honey, don't you have those dreams guys have or whatever they're called?" He goes, "Yeah, but I didn't tell 'em in the interview." I go, "What interview? They talk to you about this stuff?" He goes, "Yeah, once a week. "They take us in rooms by ourselves, and they say, 'M1, M2, M3? M1, M2, M3?"' I go, "What's that?" "Masturbation once, masturbation twice, "masturbation three times. "So many times, you're out. "You're Xed. You're home. "You're off your mission. You can't get married in the temple." I go, "Kirk, these people are controlling your sex drive. "They're controlling your mind. They're controlling your food. You can't have coffee, tea, or Pepsi-Cola." There was a Christian marriage manual, which I bought, which explained sex to young virgins. There was a section in there on sexual impotence. Im-po-tence. L- M-P-O-T-E-N-C-E. And it said sometimes if a guy was very repressed sexually, which poor Kirk was, Lord knows, that you could tie the person up, and they could say, "Ah, I'll let go." You know, "I can finally let go and make love." And so I went, and I read that section really quick, speed-read it. And I come back and I said, "Honey, we're going to try some of these exercises." And so we did. We made love, actually, for three days. We sort of, like, didn't get out of bed. It was the honeymoon, was what it was for me. I wanted us to have a good sex life. I wanted to be a good wife to Kirk, and I wanted to give him lots of babies in my tummy. I didn't look at sex as a bad thing with him. I looked at it as a melting of two souls, because when he kissed me, it was like we melted into one person. It was like I didn't know where I stopped and he began. We were lying there, holding hands, and his little missionary glasses were kind of askew. And he goes, "Guess we're married in God's eyes." I go, "Yup, we are." He says, "Guess we better make it official." He said, "Let's go into London, and let's get married." We took the rental car, and we went into town, to London, and we saw Trafalgar Square. They had, like, pigeons. We fed the pigeons. And so I said, "Oh, Kirk. "We've got this cool cafe we want to take you to. It's called the Hard Rock Cafe." And there were cops running around everywhere. What do they call 'em, bobbies or whatever? British cops. If Kirk felt kidnapped at any time, he could have said, "Hey, this little pint-sized girl here has me kidnapped. Can you please help me, 'occifer'?" But he didn't. Kirk says, "Well, I'm gonna go over across the street and get a newspaper." So he went over, by himself, got a newspaper, came back to the table, slammed that newspaper down on the table. He's white as a ghost. And we said, "What's wrong?" It was so shocking. It sounded like Scotland Yard was after us or something. And I'm sitting there with my "kidnap victim" eating a burger with a hundred people in a crowded tourist restaurant. Kirk says, "Well, maybe if I call 'em and let them know I'm alive and okay." He says, "Oh, they're gonna ask me about sex. "Oh, they're gonna ask me about sex. What am I gonna say? They're gonna ask me about sex." I says, "Can't you just tell them?" "Oh, no, I can't! Can't tell 'em we had sex! Oh, they'll excommunicate me. Oh, my mother will be so mad." We called his mother. We called my dad. We called from the phone booth at Trafalgar Square. Kirk said to my dad, "Mr. McKinney, I love your daughter, and I'm gonna marry her." And my dad said, "Welcome to the family, son." When we called his mother, I could hear her screeching across the Atlantic. "Oh, you've ruined your eternal progression! "Don't you know what you've done? "How could you get involved with that girl? You've not had sex with her, have you?" The mission president was, "Yadda, yadda, yadda. Oh, you've been kidnapped," and da, da, da. And Kirk could hardly get a word in edgewise. He'd say, "But I'm really okay, President Eyre." "When the news media... Kirk hung up, and he goes, "You know, they've got Scotland Yard and the FBI. "How about if I just go back in, and you guys stay here, "so they can't do nothing like arrest you guys or anything, and I go back in and show 'em I'm okay." And I'll never forget that day. It was a real Kodak moment. Victoria Station in those days had a beautiful old-fashioned train that pulled out with one of those... And the last thing I remember of Kirk Number 1 is, he got on the train, and he mouthed the words, "I love you." And I go, "I love you too, baby." If Kirk went away with Joyce willingly... and had sex with her... the guilt that would come over him so strongly after the fact could be overwhelming. K.J. And I turned and walked away, and he goes, "Don't worry. "He'll be okay. He loves you. You got the man you love. What you worried about?" I says, "I don't know, K.J. Some nagging feeling. I'm worried." So we went back to the cottage, and we packed everything up. I remember I had my wedding dress, a pretty white dress I was gonna use for our wedding. Put flowers in my hair. Also, our wedding bands with our names engraved inside. It said, "Joyce and Kirk. He lift thee, and thee lift me, and we will ascend together." Even after we grew old and died, we would rise into the heavens together as man and wife. This bizarre story began here last Wednesday. Kirk Anderson, a young Mormon missionary was talking outside to a man with a Canadian accent. He then disappeared. But early today, he phoned police and told them he was kidnapped. A blanket had been placed over his head. He'd been driven to a house where he'd been blindfolded and his legs shackled. When I got back to my apartment in Long Beach, the landlady called me in and said the Long Beach Homicide Department had been there, and they wanted me to come down to the police station. And that really freaked me out. Why the Homicide Department, I don't know. I told them everything. Then we went down, had a cup of coffee. Then they asked me to come back and tell 'em again, the same story. They had tape recorded the first time I said it, and they wanted to make sure that when I told it a second time, it was exactly the same story, which it was. I told 'em the truth. They got kind of a big kick out of it, considering they hadn't found him yet, about the whole story. The Manacled Mormon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what it boiled down to. I was a Mormon missionary in Exeter, okay? This is in Devon. And I was at a church member's house, and they were a younger couple. And they sort of sat down and told us the whole story of Joyce McKinney and the Manacled Mormon. It reminds me of those cultures that have stories of the vagina dentata, the women with the toothed vagina. They become cautionary tales about sexual impropriety, the dangerous powers of women, women that can seduce a young missionary who are on God's errand. Young men, once they receive what's called the Melchizedek priesthood, they are endowed with power from on high. They go through... we go through... I went through an elaborate "endowment" through the Mormon Temples where we received sacred underwear and sacred knowledge of keys to heaven. You reenact the Garden of Eden scenario, and there's an actor that performs Lucifer. And he says in a menacing tone, "Those of you who don't live up "to the covenants that you make "on the altar of the temple this day will be in my power." And one of the covenants that you make is the law of chastity, that you will only have sexual relationships with he or she to whom you are legally and lawfully wedded. "Manacled Mormon Sex Slave" wrecks that, doesn't it? Completely wrecks that. If Kirk Anderson was a willing Manacled Mormon, he will have violated his temple covenants, violated the law of chastity. What he risks is excommunication from the church, and greater than that, unless he repents, he won't be able to, ultimately, become a god and have his own planet. That is Mormon theology. That's what they're working towards. I got this weird phone call. I had an answering service. It said, "It's been really crazy here, "but I finally got 'em off my back. "I still love you. "Call me. Urgent. Epsom 25724. Urgent." So I called the number, and some Mormon answered. "Who is this? What do ya want?" Very suspicious voice. And I said, "I want to talk to Kirk... I mean Elder Anderson." So I said, "This is Sister... Helmsley calling regarding the baptism for my daughter Millie." Millie was my sheepdog, and I knew Kirk would know that. And I said, "Honey, where do you want to meet?" He says, "About 2:00." I said, "Don't say where it is over the phone." He goes, "Okay." I was worried about an extension phone. It went further than that. It was a phone tap. On my way to meet him, I remember me and K.J. Were going along the motorway, and I'm singing, "I'm getting married in the morning!" And I'm so happy. I'm so... I was just like a young bride on her honeymoon. I was just so full of so much love for him. These cop cars ran us off the road. They just literally edged us off the road. And then when they threw us up against the police car and said, "You're under arrest for false imprisonment and carrying away Kirk Anderson," I couldn't believe it. It was just, like, shock. The law was required to take seriously an act involving a woman with a gun, pointing it at a priest. Forcing him... although this was a sort of fantasy... forcing him into a car and spread-eagling him to a bed and having sex with him. I mean, there are so many crimes, possible crimes, involved in all of that, and yet someone... everyone suspected there wasn't really a crime here at all. Scenario number one is Kirk's story: Fake gun, chloroform, kidnapped, tied up, forced to have sex. The second version is Joyce's story. They were gonna be married. They were gonna have children. He needed to escape from the Mormon Church. She goes to rescue him. They rush away and have this magical, wonderful night... weekend together. And then they get him. They brainwash him, and all of a sudden, he's claiming rape. The third scenario is something in between. There was a consensual aspect to his getaway with her. But then somewhere along the line, he had second thoughts. And he wanted it to stop, and it didn't. Do you think a woman can rape a man? No, I think that's like putting a marshmallow in a parking meter. I don't... a guy either wants to have sex, or he doesn't. He has an erection, or he doesn't. She spent about three months in Holloway Prison, the famous women's prison in London. There was a little sliding door that they would slide open with just a little slit of light. And they would slide it open maybe once a day and say, "Are you ready to sign a confession?" I kept screaming, "Please get Kirk! Please get Kirk!" I beat my fists bloody on this cold, steel prison door screaming, "Please, somebody get Kirk!" There was a picture of her in all the papers looking out of the back of a police van. She had scrawled on a piece of paper, which she was holding up to press, "Kirk was cooperative all along." When I went to the prison library, I got a Bible, and in the back of the Bible, there was two white pages of blank paper, almost like God put it there. I wrote two letters on those two blank pages out of my Bible: One to my parents, and one to the press. I put them up inside... I hate to sound gross, but I put one in my vagina and one in my rectum. I got out in the prison van, in the Black Mama, and I pushed 'em out. I grunted them out, and I popped them out the window. And this man saw them, and I go, "Pick it up. Pick it up." And he goes like... "Pick it up. Mail it. Mail it." You know, I was trying to motion to him, 'cause I knew he couldn't hear me inside the prison van, to mail it at the post office. And he goes... "Please, please, please mail it." And so he mailed it, and of course, the next time I go back for my bail hearing, the whole planet was there. I asked my lawyer. I said, "Look, if you can't talk, would you let me? "'Cause I can sure talk. Let me tell people what happened." So I got up there, and I had 'em laughing. I had 'em crying. I had 'em throwing spitballs at the Mormons, you know? Thank God for all those years of drama school. Thank you! Everyone was just mesmerized by her performance. I mean, there was no sense of fear or shame or anything. She just took on the court with great confidence, and she said, "I loved him so much, "I would have skied down Mount Everest nude with a carnation up my nose for the love of that man." There was standing room only. There were little old ladies with their shopping carts ogling for places to stand! The banners outside... "Free Joyce! Free Joyce!" These judges with their white wigs sitting there, you know, unable to comprehend any of this. And there was nothing in the statute books which would deal with it. They're so prim and proper, you know. They wear these little powdered wigs, which look like dumb little hats, and they sit up and down and wiggle on their heads. One of the questions they ask him was, "Did you ask for a back rub?" And he said, "Yes." And they said, "Was it cinnamon oil that she rubbed on your back?" And he goes, "Yes," like he had remembered, "Well, that was nice." They ask him, "Were you willing or unwilling?" And he did that like really fast and looked at the head Mormon right on the front row. He jerked his head really fast like, "What am I supposed to say?" And the head Mormon went like, "You say what we told you to say," like that. And he goes, "I was unwilling! I was unwilling." "Were you unwilling all seven times?" "Well, I wasn't as unwilling the third time as I was the first." I wanted him to be strong and say, "Yes, I love her, "and I'm gonna tell the truth right now, and let's get rid of this." But he was so scared. You know, you can tell a lie long enough till you believe it. For 55 minutes, Ms. McKinney poured out her statement to an occasionally confused magistrate. At one point, he stopped her and said, "I'm lost." And Ms. McKinney, speaking in a North Carolina drawl, put the whole case in this way: Referring to the young Mormon, Kirk Anderson, she said, "He put me in prison to save himself from excommunication and family disgrace." This was a phony kidnap according to Ms. McKinney. Referring to the episode down in the Devon cottage, she said, "We had three days of fun, food, and sex." By this time, the British Isles was on fire with the Joyce McKinney story. That was all that was being talked about in the pubs and taverns and restaurants. "Where were you when you read the Joyce McKinney story?" You know. I mean, it had kinky sex. It had religion. It had a beauty queen, kidnap at gunpoint, chains, being spread-eagled. It had Mormon missionaries. And there was something in that story for everyone. It was a perfect tabloid story. I mean, I could never understand the public's fascination with my love life. I'm not a movie star. I'm just a person, a human being, that was caught in an extraordinary circumstance. The Daily Express and the Mirror were locked in almost deadly combat over the Joyce McKinney story. And then it all kind of went away until she was released on bail. And then there was a kind of burst of stuff again. I was let out on bail to await the upcoming trial to clear my name. Somebody sent a limousine to pick me up at the prison, and here I exit the prison, and I mean, I've got lice powder in my hair. I'm supposed to be this ex-beauty queen, and all the cameras are there, and, you know, I look like... That was my first taste of the press. And when I got back to the bed-and-breakfast, I started to very quietly get out of the limousine. I'm thinking, "I wonder who sent this car, you know, at the prison to pick me up?" And I was going to go in and hug my mom and dad and say, "I'm home!" All of a sudden, the sky lit up with flashbulbs. Suddenly night became day. I was suddenly a celebrity. I didn't ask to be a celebrity. I didn't want to be a celebrity. But it was like a wave. It was like a "phenomen-imum." So what have these last few months been like for you? Well, I've been very busy. It's been amazing, the way the public has responded to my case. I got close to 1,000 letters from the British public. The rest of the time that I'm not answering letters or something of this nature, I'm working on my book. What kind of a book is that? Well, this is my life story, and it's the story of how I met Kirk, and the name of it is A Very Special Love Story. I had said something like I loved Kirk so much, I'd have skied naked down Mount Everest with a carnation in my nose. When I went into the bed-and-breakfast, there were pink carnations all over the room! There were pink carnations in the closet, in the sink, on the floor, on the bed. Sacks of mail from all over the world. People wanted me to autograph their baby's bellies, their elbows, their cigarette packs! I got marriage proposals. I got maps with directions to guys' houses saying, "Please come and kidnap and rape me anytime, honey!" It kind of got a life of its own. I remember, I was at a party. It was an after-party for Saturday Night Fever, and Johnny Travolta was there. And the Bee Gees came over and asked me to dance, and, you know... Keith Moon... he was the drummer for The Who... spied me, and he told one of the reporters, "I want to meet the girl." He was with his girlfriend. I mean, there was nothing between me and Keith, but he came over, and he says, "Joycie girl, I'm gonna give you a big old smooch." And he just kissed me! And that was just getting started. Peter McKay, my editor, said to me, "Why don't you hire a Rolls-Royce "and take Joyce to the premiere of The Stud and upstage the show business element?" Was there a chance that you could actually do this? Could you upstage Joan Collins with Joyce McKinney? Well, we did. She stepped out of this Rolls-Royce, and all the press went mad. I mean, it was as if... I don't know... Marilyn Monroe got out or the queen. I mean, certainly more excitement than when Joan Collins got out of her limousine. She returned home at midnight like Cinderella. Presumably, Keith May had been packing their bags, because they disappeared a day later. The police had opposed bail, believing that the couple would leave the country if it were granted. Since their disappearance was discovered on Thursday, the police have kept a watch on all air and seaports, but they were last seen by neighbors on Wednesday evening. I never fled. Don't use the word "fled." I resent the word "fled." I left. - They went to the airport as deaf-mutes, I gather. Quite clever, really. I went, and I got the birth certificates of two dead people. I didn't figure they'd mind. And I got me a travel visa. I put on a granny wig, and I made me a fat suit. You know what a fat suit is, like in Norbit. I said, "Keith, we're going home." So I dye his hair coal black, and I made him a little handlebar moustache and darkened his skin, like Pedro Gonzalez. And I found out there was a troop of deaf actors going to the States via Canada. Well, let me tell ya, I put some little signs on us, and it said, "I am deaf, but I can lip-read. Please enunciate your words slowly and speak clearly." I remember the stewardess said, "Get these dummies on the plane!" The other one said, "Shh, They'll hear you!" And she goes, "No, they won't! They're stone deaf!" We got to Canada, and it's at night, and they stop us in immigration. I had 13 suitcases full of news clips. In those suitcases are hundreds of pictures of me, magazine covers and all this stuff. They're gonna look at me and say, "Oh, oh, oh, oh!" They go, "13 suitcases? You immigrating?" And I go... And she goes, "Oh, you're deaf! Okay! We cannot get our interpreter at night!" And she's talking louder and louder. She gives me a pencil, "I tired. May I go now, please?" Lady goes, "Eh, go on." Ten days later, I was in my office in the Daily Express building. The telephone rang one evening about 6:00. And I picked it up, and it was Joyce. She said that she wanted to sell her story to the Daily Express for 40,000. We arranged there and then for me to fly out to Atlanta and wait in the Atlanta airport Hilton hotel. I went to the door, and there outside were these two Indians... like Indians from Calcutta. They should have been arrested for bad acting far more than abducting Mormon priests. She was having, really, the time of her life. There was no sense of anxiety. She was just enjoying it. And giving us all this nonsense, which was a totally sanitized version of the truth. And we were falling for it, of course, getting it all onto these little tape recorders, and thinking, "God, hasn't the Express got a great story here!" Joyce brought in this suitcase, took about three of us to get it in the room. I daresay she just put her finger on the button. The thing exploded. And these disguises and wigs and... not bondage gear, I hasten to add. At least, I didn't see any. I expected the FBI to come crashing in through the windows at any minute, 'cause as far as I knew, I mean, we were aiding and abetting fugitives. It wasn't clear, really, what Keith May's motive was except that he adored Joyce. And Joyce kind of did, from time to time, treat him as if he was in some kind of mistress-slave fantasy. Like, "Down, slave," she would say to him. "Down, slave! Down, slave!" But she would say it humorously, joking. But it did occur to us at the time that this is all the language of the world of bondage. I speak as if I'm an expert, but I mean... I assume that you are. But it's all this kind of master-mistress power thing, domination thing that seems to run through this whole story. It seems to be a theme. Keith had probably an obsession for Joyce just like Joyce had an obsession for Kirk. The fact that he was just able to be around her and helping her where he could satisfied his emotions. There are tabloids in England that are filth. At the top of the list would be the Daily Mirror. The Daily Mirror had... meantime... had their reporters in Los Angeles digging up all this stuff about her activities as a... I don't know... not a call girl, but as a... well, I suppose she was. I mean, she was being paid for sexual services. But this was all long before her escapades in the U.K. This was earlier Joyce McKinney history. They had a tip. I think it was from a police officer in London to one of our London reporters that was covering the story, who said that it might be worth looking up an address that we know she had in Los Angeles and a boyfriend called Steve Moskowitz. Joyce had been in touch with him from England saying, "Destroy any pictures. If any journalists turn up, do not talk to anybody." Steve was very uncooperative when I first met him. Once he told me that he was still madly in love with her, I said, "Look, Steve, if you want to be at her side "for the trial at the Old Bailey, "we will pay a first-class air ticket for you and put you up in a hotel in London so you can be with her." The next morning, I'm in the hotel at Santa Monica. the phone goes. Steve. "I'm downstairs." He produced six strips of black-and-white contacts. There was nothing really that bad on them. She was sitting on a horse. They were glamour pictures, as such. I said, "Well, look, Steve, "this doesn't take us very much further, "but I will hang on to them. We need more." I said, "By the way, the editor in London wants me to take a picture of you." He said, "Can you make it look as if I've not posed for it?" I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, I've got Joyce's car here, "and I've got Millie. "I often take the dog out, put him in the car, take the dog away for a walk." He didn't want Joyce to know he was cooperating. So he's betraying her. He knows he's betraying her. I don't think he realized how much he was giving us. It was only when he said to me, "She placed these ads in the Hollywood Free Press, in Freep. " He took us to one of their offices, which had back numbers of some of the ads that she'd posted in there, and it read: "Gorgeous former Miss USA contestant desires work. "Beauty, brains and talent. The best gal in the Freep. "38-24-36. "Slim, sweet, Southern blonde. "How would you like her to leisurely bathe you, "lovingly blow dry/style your hair, "and then give you a delicious nude massage "on her fur-covered waterbed? "Your fantasy is her specialty. "S&M. B&D. "Escort service. "Nude wrestling. Modeling. "Erotic phone calls. "Dirty panties or pictures. Mail your fantasy or specialty to Joey." I love this bit. "P.S., Joey says, 'I love shy boys, dirty old men, and sugar daddies."' I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I could not believe that that was Joyce advertising those services. But that was only the beginning, because once we had all of that, we then had to start thinking, "Who's got pictures of all this?" It was only when he named that photographer. He said, "I've never photographed Joyce McKinney. I have no idea who she is." And I said, "Well, according to a friend of mine "and a friend of hers, she always came on modeling assignments with her dog." "Ah." He dug out some magazines. Soon as I saw it, I said, "That's her." I took that away, and I thought, "Job well done." We were getting somewhere. We went back to Steve's apartment, and he brought up a phone bill. Every itemized phone call Joyce had made from the apartment in the last three, four months. Right. Away we went with the phone bill. Frank Power and I spent three hours hitting every one of those numbers on there. Nobody had heard of Joyce McKinney. No idea who she was. The dog was the link. Always the dog. It was only when Steve told me that she took the dog with her that the photographer could put a face to an alias. You learn, when you're famous, who your friends are. When the payrollees come out, the checkbook journalists. People that are real jealous or maybe didn't like you or need money, it's, "Yeah? What do ya wanna know about her? How much you pay me?" I had a false friend, and his name was Steve, and he was a creep. He had the key to the outside of my apartment so he could go in and walk my dog. He broke in a steamer trunk. I had huge pictures of me in there from a modeling portfolio. He sold those to The Sun and the Daily Mirror. Both were in contests to see who could do the worst Joyce McKinney story. When those Daily Mirror reporters showed up on his doorstep, they turned him and bragged about it. They sent him and his prostitute crony to Mexico so that they wouldn't be prosecuted for breaking and entering my apartment. We were worried about Steve, that somebody was gonna get to him. So we kept Steve out of the way of all our opposition in Mexico for about ten days until we finished with the story. He didn't realize that it was to keep him out of the way. I mean, he could've made a lot of money by telling his side of the story. All he got from us was a promise to be at the Old Bailey when Joyce goes to trial. We were coming up with more material than you could believe, unpublishable material, bondage pictures, her wrestling with Thai girls, mud wrestling, nudes. The service that were offered were oral sex, massage, bondage. Laura would have the full intercourse if they paid enough money. Joyce would do the bondage and anything else they needed, including oral sex, but that was it. I said to him, "Well, what happens if this ever got out of control?" And he said, "Oh, we had that fixed." I won't try to get his accent. He said, "I bugged the dog's collar." I said, "You did what?" He said, "I put a bug in the collar of the dog." I said, "What, the dog went with her on these sexual encounters?" "Oh, yeah, always." He said, "And if it got out of hand, "I'd be sitting outside with a couple of other guys, and we would go in." So is he sitting in a coffee shop with headphones? He was sitting in the car. Steve was very much in love with Joyce. We asked him if he'd ever had sex with her, and he said, "Shoot, man, nobody's ever had sex with Joyce." That was the quote from him. Nobody? "Nobody." That was the quote. When Mike Malloy, who was the editor of the Mirror at that time, asked me how we were getting on, I said, "It's interesting, Mike. You'll be pleased to see what we've got." "Do you have a picture of her in a swimsuit?" I said, "Oh, yes. We've got that." I mean, worms crawl out of the woodwork when you become famous, worms, cockroaches! Mike called me to say, "I better let you know that tomorrow we're gonna run, for a week, with 'The Real McKinney' story." And that was the front page, "The Real McKinney." Their front page was going to be Joyce, naked, but lying on her stomach. And ours was going to be these pictures of her as a nun. One paper projecting her as an innocent, sweet-natured woman, a God-fearing, religious woman, who was a victim of cruel circumstances. And the other, the Daily Mirror, projected her as a kind of manipulating, sex-crazed, part-time hooker. Somewhere in between, maybe, is the truth. - The Express came, and they actually let me tape-record what I said, and they printed it word-for-word. And that same week, the Mirror came out with the story. They had painted a totally different picture of me. If I was well-educated, they made me stupid. If I was a virgin in real life, they made me a slut. We did the fantasy that Joyce wanted promoted to the millions of English readers. Yeah, you became her tool, her slave. Oh, totally. I became her slave, yes. We were all her slaves. The Daily Express did buy the story, and it was only Joyce's story, what she wanted to say about the kidnapping, what she did or did not do with Kirk. She wasn't gonna tell a story about her hooker assignments. She can't say it never happened because there it is in black-and-white. It was Joyce. Well, her claim is, of course, that those pictures were doctored. You don't doctor negatives. We had the negative, print, and the magazine. Get out of that, Joyce. The Sun put my head on another person's naked body. And she was flat-chested as a board. I mean, the girl was flat in her front. As you see, I'm not flat in my front. So it was clear that this woman's breasts... Were not me. Those are fried eggs! The Sun admitted it was a fake picture. They came out and said, "This is a composite picture." But the Daily Mirror didn't. The Daily Mirror tried to make it look like I was a whore. On the only occasion when I did meet her a bit later, she said, in her accent, you know, "I don't pose nude." Of course, sitting on the editor's desk was over 1,000 pictures and magazines and negatives of her that we already had. She never knew that, of course. I never took a picture, which is really unusual for me. The only thing I ever wanted to do was photograph Joyce with no clothes on. And I ended up picking up hundreds of other people who did it. Bit strange. Do you still have the photographs? Unfortunately, only the pictures that were published in the Mirror at the time. The file, which was between 800 and 1,000 pictures, were all locked up in a safe. But unfortunately, the Mirror Group changed ownership, and along with a lot of other things, all that dossier went missing. We were in the hotel room, and Joyce was constantly calling her friend in North London saying, "Have you seen the papers yet? Have you seen the papers yet?" She'd gotten the newspapers, the early editions of the newspapers, and had them laid out in front of her and was on the telephone saying, "And the Mirror says this, and the Mirror says that. "And there's a photograph of you here with no clothes on. "And there's another photograph of you here standing on a man in a bedroom." And this is when Joyce freaked out. She was so appalled and enraged and distressed about all the stuff that the Mirror had been printing about her, 'cause she had no idea this was gonna happen at all. She just went crazy, went absolutely crazy. Brian realized that he had to stop this conversation and that she mustn't learn any more, 'cause we didn't know what she was going to do. So he didn't even bother to disconnect the telephone in a civilized way. He just grabbed the wires and pulled them out of the wall. He didn't unplug them; He just pull... and bits of plaster came out, I remember, with it. This is a very unusual kind of behavior, no? Wouldn't you just hang the phone up? Well, Joyce McKinney had it in both hands screwed into her ear. I mean, she was really scary, really scary. She appeared to kind of fly across the room, as far as I remember it, and clung on to the curtains, which partly came away on the rail. She was completely hysterical. Then she went for the balcony. I dived after her and sort of grabbed her by the ankles. I didn't know whether she was going to jump off, 'cause if she had done, I think there were probably tourists on deck chairs underneath. She would've probably taken them out too. So it would have been very embarrassing, to say the least. I looked down, and I could see all the reporters milling around outside trying to get their shot, trying to get their shot. You know, even as far up as I was, they were trying to get their shot. And I thought, "All I have to do is just climb up on this rail "and just splatter, and I will be dead. "I'll be in heaven. There will be no more tabloid reporters ever to ruin my life." She went a bit up the wall. She tried to climb up and jump off the balcony. "I want to meet my Maker!" K.J. Came running in the motel room, and he's just, "Don't let 'em win! "If you die, the truth dies with you, "and nobody will ever know what really happened. Nobody will know how much you loved him." She was screaming. She was hysterical. She was completely out of control. We got her to a hospital. We were thinking in terms of a pill of some kind, but this nurse appeared with a large syringe and just stuck it in her. And we wheeled her out in this wheelchair that was provided, unconscious, and got her back to the hotel. Her father, this gentle man, came in with his wife and tried to put his arms around Joyce. And she just sunk her teeth into his forearm. And there was an awful kind of tussle. And he managed to get himself free, and there was blood trickling down his arm. He'd been attacked by a vampire. Joyce then fled the whole lot of us in her nightie. And we kind of followed her and chased her down. And there was this freeway that went past the back of the hotel with huge trucks and cars whizzing past in both directions. I remember seeing her run across this freeway, miraculously being missed by all these vehicles and kind of disappearing somewhere into the distance. I know. Exactly. Because would you believe McKinney is back? Joyce McKinney, the "sex in chains" girl, arrested. She kept us all entertained in 1977. She used to phone me up every day, two or three times, for months, saying, "Lawks, have mercy! I'll kill myself... what the Daily Mirror said about me." And seven years later, she'll still pursuing this unfortunate Mormon. Can you believe it? Oh, dear. You saw him in 1984? Yeah. Yeah, I was at the airport, and his... overweight Mormon wife saw me. And I guess she was disturbed I was using the public airport. She went and called the police and said, "Oh, McKinney's here. Go get her." What was his job at the airport? - I hate to say this, but he was a doo-doo dipper. A doo-doo dipper? Yeah. What is a doo-doo dipper? - That's someone who takes the doo-doo off the back of the plane. They married him off to this big, overweight woman, and they told her to start having kids as quick as possible so that he would get over me. That fact that I could have given him children, I guess, was bypassed. I was kind of glad she was not too good-looking. I mean, If she had been really great-looking, I would have probably felt really awful, you know? Cried my eyes out, but it wasn't any competition, if you know what I mean. The only thing she had that I didn't have was 100 extra pounds, and she was a Mormon. She was found lurking outside his office. I think she was arrested for stalking him or something. Do you still love him? I'll die loving him. I never got married because of him. I'm the incurable romantic, you know? The idea of marrying somebody that I didn't love and having to sleep with him and have his kids and live a humdrum, blas life with half a love... I would rather have a short few weeks with someone who was the star in the crown than to spend my life with someone and be miserable. Love is not a changing thing. It doesn't... it's a steadfast and eternal thing. It's like an eternal flame. It doesn't just stop because of circumstances or situations. It goes on, even past death. It's a very bleak future you paint for yourself. What is gonna happen to you? Well, first of all, I want to write my book and make sure that the truth comes out, because, regardless of what you've heard, I haven't sold my life story to anyone, to any newspapers. The only newspaper I have talked to has been the Express, who did the article about my adventures in America, and that's it. And I want my story to be told. Are you really prepared to condemn yourself, 'cause that's what it is, to a very solitary life? Yes. Today's date is September 25, 1986. September 25, 1986. It is the interior of the McKinneys' house, the office. This is the office where the McKinney daughter is currently working on a book. Could you work at this computer with the Benfield coon dogs barking outside your window? My father is trying to take a nap. Outside, both Benfield hounds are barking. This shot is done through the screen. This shot made on August 8, 1986, shows absolutely nothing around. This shot shows absolutely nothing in the picture. This shot made on August 8, 1986, shows absolutely nothing in the picture. This shot made on August 8, 1986, shows absolutely no other animals or anything in the picture to agitate the barking Benfield hound. This is the same dog, of course, that's been barking in the other pictures. I finally got what's called agoraphobia. It's when you can't go out of the house. We had a big old farmhouse with a river on one side and woods on the other. And we thought that was, like, a natural barrier to paparazzi. But they would just put on fisherman boots and just wade right through that river. I remember one time a woman came on our property, ignored the "no trespassing" signs, and she was just gawking in the window, like, trying to get up to see what Joyce McKinney looked like. It went on like that for years. I could barely get out to go feed the horses. So finally, I got me this big old guard dog. His name was Tough Guy. He was a huge dog. He weighed about 150 pounds. Solid muscle. Pit bull mastiff bulldog. Jaws like a alligator. And I just put him right out in the front yard like, "Come on, boys. Come on." One day, he got bee-stung. These two women that worked at the pharmacy who didn't like me decided that it'd just be a hoot to add a zero onto that Prednisone prescription for Joyce McKinney's guard dog. Wouldn't that be funny? Probably drive him nutty, wouldn't it? Well, it drove him more than nutty. The capillaries in his brain exploded. But not before he attacked me. He didn't know who I was. He amputated... I can't raise this arm up. But he amputated my left arm. He tore off three fingers on this hand. He ripped my intestines out of my stomach wall. He shredded my knee from my right kneecap to my ankle. I was bleeding to death. I was dying. A few months before this, I had found a little dog by the side of the road going through garbage cans. I named him Booger. And Booger was a little pit bull. I hit the brakes, and I backed up, and I got out, and I said, "Could you use a friend? "I could use a friend too. Okay, I'm a softie. Get in the car." So he went... He had a little five-beat musical bark, Booger did. Booger, Booger, Booger. I had taken him home with me, not realizing that he was gonna be famous someday or that he would save my life or change the lives... my life and the lives of so many people. The night that this big mastiff attacked me, the guard dog, I got next door to where Booger was. I said, "Help me, Booger," and Booger shot out, and he jumped on that other dog and pulled it off of me. It was a fight to the death, and I thought, "Poor little Booger, he's gonna give himself in a Christlike love for me." When I came home from the hospital, he sat on the bed beside me, and we healed together, and we formed a bond, a friendship. Booger was a very special dog. Not only was he a licensed service dog, but one day he just got up and unlocked the door, and then he started dialing 911 with his paw. He had a big button phone. And I'd say, "Booger, help! Dial 911." He'd go, whomp! "Booger, I need a towel. Go get me a towel out of the dryer, buddy." He'd go in there into the dryer and get me a towel. "Hey, Booger, get me a pop out of the refrigerator." And he'd go get me one, and he'd so gently carry it so he wouldn't burst it with his teeth and drop it in my lap. He got me through that tough time. For ten years, he was my helper. My beloved old friend Booger passed away in my arms of cancer in April of 2006. I tried everything in the world to save him. I took him to every veterinary hospital I could. I said, "You can't die, buddy. "You're all I have. We're a package deal. You can't die." That was the last command I gave him, "You can't die." And he looked at me as if he didn't want to disappoint me. And those eyes, with age-old wisdom, those dark brown eyes looked at me like, "Don't worry. I'll see you again. This is not the end for us." I just wanted to go to heaven, and I thought God would just have Booger there on a cloud for me or something. And I'd had such a sad life, you know, with all the tabloid mess. And I thought, "I just want the hurt to stop. And I can't do without him." Then I heard about cloning. You know, I thought, "Well, I'll just give it a stab." I contacted Dr. Byeong Chun Lee and asked him if it was possible. I wrote him a letter in Korean, translated it, and then tracked down his phone number. And he goes, "I can clone your dog." I said, "Are you sure? I mean, is it possible I could have my old boy back?" He goes, "I can." Do you ever feel like God? What their plan was is to take a little piece of tissue from Booger's tummy, put it in liquid nitrogen for its safe trip back to Seoul, Korea. They flew back with the help of Homeland Security. Homeland Security guarding these little cells. Guarding Booger. Well, to me, it was Spirit Booger. That's what we called it. It was like an orb of light moved along the fuselage of the plane. And people were saying, "What is that?" But I knew. I knew it was old Spirit Booger. I closed my eyes, and I said a silent prayer, and I said, "Oh, Heavenly Father, please take good care of him." And it was like he spoke to my heart, and said, "Don't worry. "He's with me, and he's fine. "And you, you are going to be fine too, "because I've got Booger 1, "but I'm sending you back Booger 2 and a little something extra." - I get this long-distance phone call. It's Dr. Hong. "Miss Brenann, what is best news I can bring to you?" And I said, "We're pregnant? We're pregnant!" He said, "We are." On August the 5th, I flew to Seoul, Korea. Well, I found out what the little something extra was that Heavenly Father had promised me. There were five. Five? Five cloned puppies, all exactly like Booger, five mini Boogers lying there like little black jelly rolls with half the world press crowding around. They just looked like little tiny mini Boogers. It was the strangest feeling. The weirdest thing is, I was sitting in a hotel in Seoul, Korea, and one of them got up and opened the door, and he was four months old. And I just went... I thought, "How'd he know that? I didn't train them to do that." You know, they have those little refrigerators with little wooden doors, like a cabinet, in hotels. And he just reached right up, got that silver knob, and jerked it open with his teeth just like old Booger used to do. And then, when one of them got the leash and went over to the door and dropped it like, "Walk me, now," like Booger did, it blew me away. I said, "These are his clones." It was $25,000, if I can remember. Well, the original price was, I believe, $150,000. Was it? God. She must like her dogs. I don't know. Some girl. It was in all the papers. "Dog cloning girl turns out to be the Joyce McKinney," because she pretended it wasn't her to start with. She called herself Brenann McKinney. Something like Brenann, was it? Berman McKinney, or something like that. I forget what name she used. I knew right away it was Joyce. Why? Well, I think there was a photograph. And she hadn't changed that much. I thought if I used my middle name that I would just be left alone by the press, because I don't see any connection at all between cloned puppies and a 32-year-old sex-in-chains story. I'm sorry, but I don't see the connection. But you should have seen the way Associated Press... those people slandered me so bad. In fact, if there's an attorney listening to this that wants a good libel suit, I've got one. "I'll sue anybody," she said, "who says I'm that Joyce McKinney. I'm not that Joyce McKinney." But she had to admit that she was. I was afraid to have a love affair of any kind after Kirk. I was afraid to kiss a guy. So I chose just to be celibate and... as Bridget Bardot once said, "I gave my youth to men, and my old age I give to dogs that I trust." Dogs and children love me. They love Joyce McKinney, because they sense in me an innocence, you know? They sense in me a gentleness. And they don't read tabloid papers. They love me for me. She's not an evil person. I mean, she's just a bit crazy, eccentric, self-obsessed, and self-involved and manipulative and barking mad, probably, basically, but... "Barking mad." Yeah. I wish we had that expression over here. You can have it. You can tell yourself a million times, "God knows the truth." And it would be nice if all you had to deal with every day was God. But you don't. You have to deal with people. I didn't plan on any of the tabloids destroying my life or the Mormons or the press or the wire services. That was not in my plans. I really didn't have much choice other than to make some kind of move in my life. I had promised God I was gonna write the book. Finally. No matter how much it hurt me. But someone broke into my pickup truck. I had an entire cab full of materials. I had court cases, court records. I had all the interview witnesses. I had all the exhibits. I had the original modeling portfolio which matched the head that was put on the naked body. My whole life is in those three suitcases. And this was an old pickup. They pried the wing open with an orange screwdriver, and they took coat hangers, pulled the door open, took absolutely everything documenting the story I've just told you, took everything, with the exception of one little yellow laundry basket which had somehow wedged under the seat. At least I had something to show that this nightmare ordeal happened to what was once a normal, all-American kid. "After her miraculous escape to America, "Joyce retreats into seclusion to write a book "about her love story. "She vows never to marry, "knowing fully that she could never love "another man other than Kirk, "for she will grow old alone. "The love that once spanned an entire continent and ocean still exists." "Time changes, but the scene is still the same. "Joyce is now a lonely old woman. "Like Narcissus, she is pining to death, dying of a broken heart." That's the conclusion of my book, but the love has never ended. |
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