Episode 518: Sharon Kinne- La Pistolera Pt.1

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. What's the answer, and what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Hey Weirdos, I'm Alayna and I'm Ash.

And this is morbid.

Morbid. I had just like, stretched one of those good, strong, deep stretches when I said that, that's why it came out a little crackly. That's okay, I was yawning while you said, Hey, weirdos.

So it all worked out. It's early, it's early, it's wedding week, I'm tired.

It's just all of that, we're working, we're working, we are. I'm really trying to learn how to twerk.

I was just going to say, we are not twerking, you can twerk if you wanted to, you can twerk if you want to. You can leave your girlfriend behind, you can give it a try.

No, Ash is on a quest I am, and I'm not going to interfere in that quest. I'm just going to be on the sideline and I'm going to cheer her on. Thank you.

Moral support. The TikTok girlies say that you just lean forward and shift the weight between your heels. But I look like a duck when I do that. So. But I was doing it the other day in my mirror and I think I'm getting somewhere. Oh, I think I can't show you quite yet.

I'm really perfecting the strategy, but I think I figured something out good. I mean, I shall wait with bated breath. I'm glad that's me on my twerk journey.

Thanks for hearing me out. Brought to you by Twerk Journey Ass.

We're silly goofy today we are, you know, it's. It's a crazy week because Ash is going to be a, you know, married lady at the end of it. Whoa, so that's fun.

That's cuckoo nuts, bananas. And then we just go back to, yeah, and then we just go back to regular life, well, for like, a minute. But then I leave again, yeah, but like first Thanksgiving, I wasn't going to leave.

For that, I fucking love your Thanksgiving and last year I got the neurovirus on Thanksgiving. So I was I couldn't cook and then I tried to take over Thanksgiving and nobody wanted me to. Cause I've I've really put my stamp on Thanksgiving.

No, it's if I can't cook it, apparently it can't happen. I mean, pretty much actually, was the answer that I was given. But this year I the worst part was last year was I had all the stuff ready to go.

And I, I was ready, cause I always have it like all laid out. I have some things cooked the night before, like at least prepared the night before. And I woke up in the morning and started dying and got full blown neurovirus, literally the morning of thing, like, woke up at 4am and that was that, yeah.

So nobody, so you know, everybody had store bought Thanksgiving that year. uh, last Thanksgiving was the most depressing Thanksgiving ever. Cause last year was depressing, Last year was so depressing. Drew's dad had Covid last year.

So we couldn't even go to, like his parents, for Thanksgiving, so we literally just like sat at home. And that was like the worst year anyways. Like we had a lot going on, people were making our lives miserable, not you guys.

Trust me, not ever. You guys, the people who did it know who they are. And, uh, we're not going to have that this year.

No cause. This year, we said, Behold, my field of fucks for it is barren. I said, Dave's yanks, and you will not ruin it, Dave's yanks.

Dave's yanks You don't know what that means, but I do. But yeah, it was a rough. it was rough actually. My youngest this year literally asked me last night. She said, Um, can you promise not to get the tummy bug this Thanksgiving?

And I was like, you're like, let's not talk about it, I. That was not my intention last year, I did not ask for that, I did not manifest it. But you should take, you should start taking airborne.

I'm going to, I'm going to do everything, I'm like, cause now I'm scared, I like the, I like the. This is not sponsored, but the Elderberry, uh, Elderberry airbornes, first of all, they taste delicious.

And second of all, elderberry, Elderberry is like just one more punch to the flu and cold season. All right, you heard it here first, okay, elderberry or elderberry?

If you're from Boston, I know every time I say it, I'm like, someone's going to correct me. But that's just like elderberry. if you nasty respect your elderberries, okay?

Oh gosh, I'm in such a silly mood, but I have to tell you a pretty rough tale. Awesome. I do have a two-pada for ya, a two-pada kid.

Two-pada Uh, we're going to be talking about Sharon Kinney today also known as L.a. Pistolera, very familiar that name. Yeah, I actually like.

I'd heard her name before, but I did not know the details of this case. I think that's where I am. I've heard the name. I don't know anything about what you're about to tell me. Well, I kind of love that because this is a wild tale from start to finish.

Part one is pretty like, fast paced, like we're going to get through a lot, and then I will tell you. Part two is a little bit trial heavy in the beginning. But I have to make it that way, just like it makes sense for the setup. But once we get through the trial stuff in part two, shit goes down, like, So just know that, like, bear with me through that in part two, yeah.

And I know some of you like, like, really like going through the trial part, too, so you know, you'll love that. It's some people's cup of tea, it's other people's not cup of tea. personally, it's actually not my favorite tea, it's the trial part.

Yeah, it's like I would drink it, but I wouldn't. you would drink it. It wouldn't be my first choice, yeah.

I feel you, you know what I mean? Yeah, let's let's get into it. We're going to talk about Sharon Kinney.

Let's go. But before she was Sharon Kinney, she was born Sharon Elizabeth Hall on November 30th, 1939, in Independence, Missouri, Missouri, Missouri. Her father was Eugene, and her mother was Doris Hall.

Eugene was a steel worker, and Doris was a homemaker when she was young. Her father, actually, Sharon's father, hurt himself on the job and became unemployed due to that injury that he got. So once he was out of work, he started drinking heavily and he really paid no attention to his kids. So dark from the start, I was going to say, So, we're killing it already.

Yeah, and we're not really going uphill at all. Because Sharon's mother, Doris, was equally distant, especially when it came to her daughter, and as a result, Sharon started to develop a very creative imagination. I think, out of loneliness. M.M. That makes sense.

You know? And a former school friend told reporters she'd take us on explorations down through a sewer on the way home from school. She'd talk about finding money and jewels that were hidden there. We didn't even see the filth or know it was there until we got home and our mother started howling, Oh.

She was like, just join me in the sewers, but I kind of loved that she was such an adventurous, like, let's go find hidden jewels. Yeah, I love that.

That was me as a kid, that was a cool thing about her. In the beginning, I was always making that shit up. Oh, no.

Yeah, you can like that about child sharing, that's the thing. I don't know anything about this case, so I didn't know if Sharon was. I don't know what's going on. She's the perp.

But either way, that was me. As a kid, I used to want to do weird shit like that. And you feel bad for kid Sharon.

Like, her parents were basically just like, fuck off, yeah, it's true now. By the time she reached high school, Sharon's creativity had taken a more serious, guarded tone. Oh, okay.

Another former friend said I think Sharon was always strange and alone. Oh, that's sad, and as a teenager, I know it is as a teenager. Her complexion was described as quote mottled and sallow, sometimes pimply, which made her the target of a lot of bullying and shitty comments from people at school.

Oh, that sucks. And then, when she was 14, the family actually moved briefly to Washington due to rumors that Sharon had secretly married an unnamed man. Who, quote, died when his truck plunged over a cliff in Idaho. What the wild thing is? There's not evidence to indicate whether these rumors are true or not. But when Sharon did eventually marry her question mark first or second husband James Kinney, she did list herself as a widow on the marriage license.

What? Yeah, that's just like, so bizarre, it just came out of nowhere. Wow.

And then when you learn about like a secret man who plunged over a cliff in a truck, like, What? Well, when you learn about like, what Sharon is all about, huh? Maybe that did happen, I don't know.

Damn wild, that is wild. Widowed or not, the Halls ended up moving back to independence about a year later, when Sharon was 15, and she resumed her increasingly solitary life.

In the summer of 1956, she met 22-year-old James Kinney at a Mormon church function, and even though she was six years younger than his 22-year-old self. Oh, James was. Do the math on that. Yeah, James was instantly attracted to the 16-year-old.

Unlike Sharon, who was smart, savvy and emotionally mature, James was shy. He was deeply self-conscious, and he was a student who was home on break from Brigham Young University. It makes sense that he was, you know, emotionally immature and like, not, you know, because I mean, she's 16, exactly like, what are you going to have to connect on if you're not emotionally immature now? Sharon noticed James was staring at her all night, but he didn't make any move to come over and talk to her. So she actually took the initiative and approached him, instinctively, sensing that his attraction to her kind of gave her the upper hand in the situation.

Yeah, now to James, a shy Mormon boy on campus, surrounded by, you know, Chaste, proper Mormon girls. Sharon's boldness was very exciting, and also her unfamiliar, sarcastic, biting wit kept him off balance the entire time they talked, which was even more exciting to him. In my opinion. Also still wrong, because, you know, she's 16 years old and he's 22. Yeah, it's not. This is not a cute moment. No, it's not.

But Sharon knew that she had the upper hand, like I said, so she made it seem like she wasn't super interested. But she did end up giving James her phone number before abruptly walking away. Now, in all reality, James, or someone like him, offered a potential escape from this small town life that she'd been dreaming of. Since her family came back to Missouri the year before, she wanted out of here. Sounds like she's bored, she's lonely, yeah.

She's neglected. So exactly, yeah. Author James C.

Hayes wrote. Sharon maintained ambitious dreams She wanted to find a prince who'd spirit her off to anywhere that wasn't Independence, Missouri. She wanted to be a woman of glamour and wealth. Now, James Kinney may have not may not have been a prince exactly. But Sharon saw that she could use his, for lack of a better term, naivete, to her advantage. And while she figured she might have been able to do better than him, she definitely could have done worse. Wow.

What a dream, ambition, yeah. So James did not wait long to call Sharon, and despite the considerable age difference, they did start dating very quickly and quickly, they became inseparable.

I'm uncomfortable, me as well. I also feel like it doesn't excuse this behavior. But I feel like this was so much more common in, like, the 50s. Oh yeah, you know what I mean?

It definitely was like, Yeah, there's no excuse for it at all, but you're right, like this was a much more common thing. Yeah, that was just kind of like, not side-eyed. No, it really wasn't.

That's the thing and it's so strange to look at now it really is, because it's again. I always think we're in the year 2000 here. So I'm like, you know, like 50 years ago and that's a long time, but I'm like, No, it was a lot longer than 50 years ago. Now. So like, that's a long time ago. And it makes sense now that we're like, ooh, like, what the fuck, like, what the fuck?

We're like that about a lot of things, yeah. But the more infatuated James grew with Sharon, the more people around him became suspicious or uncomfortable with her. There was something off about her, okay?

For example, just after just a few weeks. James father, Haggard Kinney, had become so uneasy around Sharon that he actually voiced his concerns to his son. And he said he was worried about the way she, quote, played James like a marionette. Ooh, he was like, I think she's got the upper hand here and like, Sure, that could be fine, but she's playing you. Yeah, that's the thing. It's like, you want to have some balance here.

Yeah, that's the thing. Nobody should be the all-powerful being in your relationship, right? And James, he loved and respected his father immensely, like they talked about a lot, they were close, but he did not agree.

He simply could not see what others saw in Sharon and dismissed their concerns without even a second thought. Oh, I've seen so many people like this. Love blind.

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like, at my locker and she came up to me and she was like, stuttering, super bad. I'm like, stop f***ing around. She's like, I can't.

A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast, like doubling and tripling. And it's all these girls with a diagnosis. The state tried to keep on the down-low. Everybody thought I was holding something back.

Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, no, it's hysteria, it's all in your head, it's not physical.

Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem, or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here, something's not right.

Leroy was the new dateline, and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. Hysterical Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.

She struck him with her motor vehicle, she had been under the influence, and then she left him there. In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask.

Was it a crime of passion? If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling. This was clearly an intentional act. And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia or a corrupt police cover-up?

If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover-up to prevent one of their own from going down. Everyone had an opinion and after the 10-week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision to end in a mistrial. It's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is. Law and Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.

You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus. join Wondery Plus in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

So when the summer came to an end and James headed back to college in Utah, Sharon got really, really anxious about the fact that she might be losing her ticket out of independence. She might not have been in love with James. I personally don't really think she was, and I don't really think he was in love with her at that point. I think they were maybe getting there.

Yeah, but she did know that he was her best chance to get out of small town life. It's co-dependence, it's co-dependence, exactly. And she was very, very worried that with him heading back to school, some other girl might take that away from her.

So, playing into his religious sense of moral responsibility, Sharon sent him a letter at school in September saying Quote The sins of summer have produced a child in my womb. Shut the fuck up, but don't worry, I don't expect you to sacrifice your education and return to independence. I'll handle the situation.

That is so dark to do and so manipulative, that's unbelievably manipulative. And just like the way she phrased it, the sins of summer.

The sins of summer have produced a child in my womb. I gotta go. I gotta go. The sins of Summer had not produced a child in her womb. She's lying.

In case anybody else out there was like, Wait, is she pregnant? No, she's not, she's not, she's not pregnant. I don't even know this story, and she is not.

There's nothing about me that thought she was telling the truth. No, no, but she knows what she's doing because he's deeply religious. So her saying she's essentially saying, I'll take care of this situation, you know?

And he's deeply religious, and obviously that would trigger something in him. Precisely, Wow, yeah.

Wow, and she's like, 16 at this point, I was just gonna say, Isn't she 16? That is high level manipulation.

Sharon Sharon operates at a higher level. I'm not saying it's a better level, but she operates at a higher level. It's a higher level of depravity it is.

Exactly that was a beautiful sentence. Thank you. I like when you say depravity, I like depravity.

Yeah, that's good now, James. He didn't like depravity, but he was a little shocked and not really sure what he should do. Like, he's not a kid, but for all intents and purposes, he kind of is well. And it sounds like, you know, he was emotionally very immature. So it's like, this is a lot.

And to me, it sounds like he lived a very sheltered life. But I'm also like, you guys obviously committed some sins over the summer. I mean, it's like, so you can't have that, you can't be that connected to those thoughts, that you have, those boundaries that you have. It seems like they might be a little fake.

Seems like it, or it seems like Sharon was like, Listen, we're fucking doing this, yeah, but it's like, dude, it takes two to tango if you will. But so he wasn't sure what to do.

So he showed the letter to a female friend and she was like, you know, she might be lying to you to trap you into a relationship. She was me, she was like, nothing about that is real, she was like, poetic, but.

Yeah, like, wow, but garbage, garbage. And James was like, No, Sharon would not lie to me, and I don't think she would lie about this.

I don't think she's capable of that. She would, and she absolutely would. And having been raised in a strict Mormon family, he just couldn't believe that a woman would lie to him, especially about something like pregnancy. But it's like, you guys fucked before you were married.

You're not super connected to these ideals, obviously, that's the thing. Like the cherry picking here is really annoying. It's just like, Okay, well, you can't be that upset about it because you guys fucked, so I don't know.

It's one of those things though, where, like, I know, they are super connected to those ideals like this. Seems very cherry picked what you're gonna like, be bothered by, but it is.

It very much is, it's just kind of funny. I'm like, okay. But he came to the conclusion that the only thing he could do was return to independence and make Sharon an honest woman. Marry her, yeah.

I mean, yeah, Mormons pick that part, why not? yeah?

So, in early October of 1956, James took a leave of absence from Brigham Young University. Packed up the few belongings, he had headed back to Missouri, intending upon doing the right thing. On October 17th, James, his father and Sharon went to the Jackson County Courthouse to apply for a marriage license. Now, having secured her future with James, Sharon's attitude underwent a noticeable change, according to author James Hayes, who wrote the Sharon Kinney Story quote. She no longer shared complicity in the pregnancy, but blamed the child on him alone. She angrily reminded him that his lust interrupted her college and hinted at having been through this before with another man.

What Sharon has been around, baby? And she's just got so, like, I'm just like the high again. The high level of manipulation here is just like, really sinister. Because she is a 16-year-old woman running around like she has seen some shit, been through some shit, and it kind of sounds like she had been through some shit.

That's the thing, and it's like, and I know I'm like, I was like, getting on James here for, like, cherry picking what he was going to follow in his religious and moral beliefs here. Yeah, which I stand by, that's very cherry picked.

Because, like, you were having sex with an underage girl. So like, there's your first moral cherry picking, first whammy, and two, you are fucking before marriage, that's your second moral cherry picking.

Double Whammy. I also believe he is clearly being like high level manipulated here, which is like a wild part. So there's like a lot of things going on here that I'm just like, this is all wrong. Oh, it's wild all of it.

It only gets wilder. Damn, so she's saying like that, she's gone through this before, she's upset with him now, that he's back when it seems like that's exactly what she wanted. And as she's filling out her portion of the paperwork, she starts mumbling all these kinds of shitty things. About his father, Haggard, who is right there, literally standing right next to her.

What? And she's openly berating James for allowing his family's beliefs about virginity and religious purity to rob her of the traditional church wedding that she thought she was entitled to. What? But it's like, isn't this what you wanted? But now you're upset because this is what she wanted, but it's not her version.

She doesn't know what she wants. I think she wanted him to marry her, but I think she wanted it to be this big fucking bash in a church. Yeah, she wanted all the attention there.

But it's like, you're in a fucking pickle right now, you're 16, you're pregnant by this Mormon guy. He's going to keep this hush-hush. He's not going to give you this big, huge wedding that you think you're entitled to.

Damn, and we're going to pretend like you got pregnant after this courthouse ceremony, and it's like, she's not pregnant and she's not pregnant. So this is all just a lie.

So it's like, the lie is keeping you from most of this, the lie that you made up. What the fuck? She's reaping, what she's sown, and she doesn't like it, but she thought she was sewing exactly this.

Damn, it's wild. This is just like so much, there's so many layers of, just like, wrongness here, but just wait.

You know, those like potatoes that people make, where there's just like 60 billion layers of crispy potatoes? That's the story, but not as scrumptious. This is a not delicious version of that. It's like, they've, like,....

Ratatouille No. Like, they've gone bad at this point. What did the cheese do yesterday? It's coagulated, coagulated.

Ooh, yes, this is the coagulated version of those potatoes. Every layer is just yuckier, moldy even, you know.

Because, you know, the cheese goes on the potatoes, but it's bad after a while. Yeah, this is just because, like, the manipulation is wild. But it's by a 16-year-old. So it's like, the power dynamic here is so weird. Because it's like she's a younger young lady, she's six years younger than him.

Who is much younger than him? Where they shouldn't even be in a relationship to begin with, but not mentally. So, like, that's the problem there, like the first problem. And then it's like, but then the manipulation is coming from the person who shouldn't have the power in that scenario.

Like, very strange. It's a weird power dynamic. I'm very upset by all of this. You will continue to get so upset. I think it's all fucked up personally.

But the next day, the marriage license was approved and the two were married in a small ceremony held in the Kinney home. Oh okay, not the big wedding that Sharon had hoped for. No. Now, believing he'd done the right thing, James packed himself and his new wife into the car, and the newly married couple returned to Utah.

Of course, they did. Where he was like, I'm going to continue my studies because I have my future. Yeah, now and now. He was more determined than ever to quote, unquote, make something of himself and support his new family. Well, because now again, like, he's got this strange set of ideals.

So it's like, now he's, he's being pulled in several different directions, and he's probably feeling like, okay, now. I really got to finish this because I'm going to be the provider of this child that doesn't exist exactly, yeah, now. When they arrived in Provo, James and Sharon moved in with James's friend temporarily while he worked to find a place of their own. But unfortunately, any hope that they that James had of Sharon settling down now that they were married was immediately dashed once they settled in Utah.

Shocked from the moment they arrived, Sharon complained about absolutely everything, from their temporary accommodation, which was pretty cramped. To the fact that he never had time to take her anywhere. Because he was studying just everything and her constant negativity and cruel comments made it impossible for him to focus on his study. Because they were always fighting. Yeah, it's just this is abusive.

Exactly, and in late December, after just two months in Utah, they ended up moving back to independence. Which is exactly where she wanted to get away from. I know, and the second she got away from it, she sabotaged it, that's the thing.

It's like, That's what I mean. She doesn't know what she wants, I don't think she does, She does not, She thinks she knows what she wants.

She doesn't, that's the thing. She wants power, she wants control, but it sounds like she wants chaos as well.

So it's like, I don't know, I think she's somebody that thrives in chaos without recognizing it. Now, back in Missouri, James and Sharon moved into a small house next door to his parents, which his father owned. So, like, allowed them, like, gave them a home to live in. And Sharon is constantly talking about how much she fucking hates this man.

Oh man. She also hated living next door to the in-laws. She looked down on them. She constantly mocked them for their conservative ways and their deep-held religious beliefs. Which is like, What the fuck is it to you, man?

When it's like, also, this is the person that you chose to trap, that's the thing. It's like, this is the family you married into. We know what you were getting into. This is the beliefs they held.

They weren't hiding them. No, like, that's the thing now. While James's father had already realized what kind of person Sharon was. And that's exactly why she didn't like him, I was gonna say, that's why she didn't like him.

From the jump, yeah. But his mother refused to believe that any kind of young woman could be so cruel in calculating. Believe it, girl. According to Hayes, James's Mom Quote believed in storybook relationships and thought that a mother and her son's wife should be close.

She sounds like a very sweet woman. I was gonna say, I mean, yeah, that sounds delightful, and that is absolutely like the ideal. Well, and Sharon's mom barely ever made time for her in her childhood, yeah.

And once they came back to independence, James and Sharon, the mom Sharon's mom still wasn't involved, but James's mom went out of her way to be kind to Sharon. She offered to pay their bills when they fell behind, she would take Sharon on shopping trips, she'd take her out to lunch.

She sounds like, that's like your ideal mother-in-law, are you kidding me? Like she's acting like a mom? Being like a mother figure to you? And when you're not necessarily the nicest person to her husband or her son.

I was just going to say, you've been a shit-tastic person to her son and her husband, but she's trying. You're mocking their, like religious beliefs, you're mocking everything about them, and she's still being kind to you.

I mean, that's the that's the way that people you know are supposed to be. But Sharon, she was like, Fuck you, fuck y'all. Now, not long after they resettled in independence, Sharon started filling her days. Spending what little money James was making at the time, which quickly turned out to not be enough to satisfy her spending habits. So as a result, she set out to find her own job to subsidize her constant need to spend money. Now, even though she was very skilled at nearly every job she tried, she worked in a print shop.

She was a babysitter at one point, she was a legal secretary, a hotel receptionist, and she was great at all of those things. But every time she started a new job, she just got bored easily, and the second she got bored, she quit.

And like, spent zero time at these jobs. So she's just she has no staying power for something like. She's not going to stick it out, even if she's good at it, it's just mundane to her, if she's bored, it's not going to happen.

Exactly, even if it's a good thing, even if it is. And when she was working and making money. She also insisted that the money she made should not be considered family income. Instead, she thought of the money that she made as hers to use as she pleased.

And even with her own income, she continued to spend money recklessly, usually charging things to James's account instead of her own. This is dysfunctional, it's the definition of dysfunctional. I mean, you do what you want with your bank accounts in your own homes, like that's your business.

This is dysfunctional, this is not well bitch, because everybody is not happy with this arrangement because it started out on a lie, yeah.

You're not pregnant, I mean, isn't she still claiming to be pregnant? Mm-hmm. And we're like, that's going to come when there's no actual pregnancy or child.

Yeah, that's no. She takes care of it, you're going to have to fess up. No, she doesn't.

No, okay, so well, actually, we're there, okay, guys.

And just quickly trigger warning for, like, mention of pregnancy loss. Oh, one afternoon. Several months after they settled back in independence. I think she realized, like, I'm not pregnant, I'm not going to start showing anytime soon, so I got to do something about this. She decided she was tired of the pregnancy ruse since it had served its original purpose of getting James to marry her.

So she was like, Nah, I'm done with this. So James came home that evening and he, this is so sad. He found her in a panicked state, and she told him that shortly after he left work. That morning, her body quote began to reject the baby, so she's claiming she suffered a miscarriage, which is....

Fuck this bitch, I can't even, yeah, fuck this bitch, honestly so. James was confused, and Sharon used the opportunity to gain even more sympathy from him by making it seem like his high security job at the Bendix Corporation had put too many barriers in place for her to reach him, and that's why she hadn't told him sooner.

So she's literally manipulating him by saying that it's basically like your fault that you didn't know about this. She's saying. I've had a. I'm like, I'm suffering a miscarriage since you left for work this morning. The reason you don't know is because I couldn't reach you, so this is your fault. That's so fucking sinister if you are able to fake a miscarriage and like, carry on that.

Lie to the father quote, unquote. Something is deeply, deeply wrong with you, like, that's fuck you is what I'd say on another level, if you're faking a miscarriage, fuck you.

Fuck you, yeah, into oblivion, yeah, that's fucked up. In January 1957, not long after ending the pregnancy scam, if you will, Sharon learned that she was pregnant for realsies. This time. And in the fall, she did give birth to the couple's first child, a daughter which they named. I think it's either Dana or Dana.

Dana Two Ns I would say Dana, Dana was my first instinct. Okay, cute name now. From the outside, Sharon seemed to be a devoted mother, constantly doting on her daughter, really living up to every responsibility of domestic life.

She actually even started going to church with the family, and for a second, it seemed like she was embracing the Mormon lifestyle. But, like her attempts to hold down a job, she quickly got bored with the life of a homemaker and just went back to spending excessively. She's gotta stick to something, girl, she's something.

She sticks to scheming. Well, there you go, she's steady scheming, she's steady scheming now. By 1959, she'd given birth to another child, a boy, which they named Troy. And the family moved into a newly purchased home in a subdivision. And the new baby and the new house seemed to occupy Sharon's attention for a little bit, which made her, at least temporarily, less abusive towards her husband.

Oh nice, that's great, yeah. But the baby in the house also gave her a reason to spend more money. And in response, James actually took a slightly higher paying second shift at the Bendix Corporation. Which left Sharon alone with the children in the evenings and put more emotional distance between her and James. With James working in the evenings and the children having gone to bed, Sharon found herself with way more free time than she'd had in years. So she said, I'm gonna look up my old high school boyfriend John Baldese, now. Unlike her life with James, which was filled with constant arguments, emotional distance, you name it, her relationship with John was exciting. Because it was the forbidden fruit, if you will.

Because it was not this one, that's why. And she reveled in the thrill of infidelity, sneaking around behind her husband's back to meet John at cheap motels in the back seat of his car girl. And where James had become increasingly immune to her domineering personality and manipulations, John was easy to manipulate and control because this was new, and that made her feel powerful now. Even though Sharon eventually grew tired of John, too, and only turned to him. When she couldn't find another man to entertain her for the night. He was falling for it.

Now, by 1960, life in the Kinney House had deteriorated to a near breaking point. It seemed to James that Sharon was never home, which was mostly fine by him. Except that she wasn't really living up to her end of the domestic bargain. Yeah, that he's working and she's not doing anything. Remember, this is a time where a man worked during the day and came home to a hot meal and his children were fed and blah, blah, blah. So he could no longer expect a hot meal when he came home, and instead, she was just leaving him out frozen meals.

And that was not the only thing that she was absent in. Yeah, she was absent from the children. Yeah, they were being neglected on a regular basis.

Their basic needs were more often met by babysitters than their own mother. Yeah, it's like, I'm sorry. If you're going out to, like, fuck other men and leaving your children to be neglected like that sucks. Exactly like, that's not cool, yeah.

And that's the thing. James was being like, Okay, you're not with the children, I'm not getting hot meals. Where the fuck are you? So he caught on pretty quickly to the fact that she was cheating on him, but he had no idea to the extent which he was right.

And as a deeply, deeply religious person, he knew that divorce would have been discouraged by everybody in his community, and he was right. Whenever he brought the subject up to his parents, his mom would typically encourage him to work out their problems for the children's sake. That's never the way to go, man, no.

It's never better. I understand that, like, that was just the way it was back then. Well, I know it's like a religious thing it still is now, yeah.

A religious thing that, like, you don't get divorced, you just suck it up and have a horrible marriage for your children. Well, and people always say, like, for the sake of the children, the children are not going to thrive in an abusive household. No, they see everything. Kids know when you're arguing and when you're not, you know, like loving each other and not having a respectful discourse.

And if anything, it's better to look at them and say, sometimes these things don't work out. Yeah, and your father and I respect each other enough to not continue with this. Yeah, just never, for the sake of the children. Never really works out.

Yeah, not that I've seen it well, and it didn't here. yeah, it didn't at all.

Now, as the weeks went on, staying with Sharon seemed more and more impossible to James. And finally, in mid-march, he actually did bring up divorce to Sharon. And she agreed that their marriage had reached its end, but her terms for a divorce were I knew this was going to come. Outrageous and unacceptable.

She would have bankrupt. Yeah, I was going to say there was no way. She was just going to be like, let's amicably divorce, No, and honestly, her idea of, like, the terms of this divorce are so disturbing to me at least.

According to Hayes, she was willing to go along with the divorce, but only if James gave her the house, dana and $1,000 in cash. Fuck Troy, am I right? I was just going to say, only one of your kids, like, she wants the girl. I would like this one.

She wants her daughter, James can have the boy. Oh, I hate this, how fucked up is that? I hate this a lot.

Yeah, that's really fucked up. Oh yeah, you love Dana so much, you're leaving her in babysitter's care all the time, too. And James was like, Uh, splitting the children up is out of the question, but they're siblings like, you're just going to split them.

That's so crazy, like this isn't the parent trap girlfriend. And so he was like, No, that's out of the question. And with the idea of divorce seemingly being moved away from, his parents were relieved. In fact, after giving it some thought, Sharon herself even decided that she didn't love the idea of divorce because she wasn't going to win.

Oh, guys, come on, everybody involved here, except for James. I'm like, get out of here, this poor man, honestly, this poor man.

Yeah, at this point it's like, Geez, like he's giving it his best shot, here he is absolutely, and the thing was so sharon at this. They talk about the divorce for a little bit. But then she's realizing he's not going to agree to her terms, and then she realizes that her terms aren't even really good enough for her.

It would get her out of marriage, but $1,000 was not enough to live on for very long, and it definitely would not sustain her lifestyle. And the salary that she was working for temporary jobs really gave her little pay, so it wasn't going to be a win for her. But there was another way that Sharon could get out of the marriage, and it almost guaranteed that she would get everything she wanted and more.

Oh, no.

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On Saturday afternoon, March 19, 1960, the Jackson County Sheriff's Department received a frantic call from Sharon Kinney, saying that her husband had a heart attack and she needed help right away. Now. When sheriff's deputies arrived at the Kinney home, however, they found a very strange scene James Kinney was lying on the couple's bed. His target pillow, excuse me, his target pistol on a pillow next to him, pointing toward the large hole in the back of his head. I feel like that's not a heart attack.

No, it's very unclear why. She says. Heart attack. Yeah, I don't know if she thought they were going to come faster. Yeah, I think they would still come pretty fast if you said he was shot.

Yeah, I don't know, strange. I don't know if maybe she didn't want something recorded on the 911 call. Yeah, maybe not.

I don't know, but at the time that they got there, he was still alive, but unfortunately he would die a short time later on the way to the hospital. So it was not instant, which is really awful. Now this is so fucked.

Sharon told the officers that he'd gone into the bedroom a short time earlier to take a nap. And then a short time later, while she was in the bathroom, getting ready to go to church. Oh, of course, like a good woman, yeah. She heard their two-year-old daughter, Dana, ask loudly, How does this thing work, daddy?

How does it work? And then she said she heard the shot ring out. I'm sorry she's blaming this on her two-year-old daughter. She is blaming this on her two-year-old daughter.

And not only that, she's gonna get away with it, shut the fuck up. She's gonna get away with blaming it on her two-year-old daughter for a little while at least.

I'm without words, without words now. James had always had a fascination with guns, and he would take them apart to clean them. But Sharon said that he was also forgetful and careless with them, According to her, he would sometimes leave them lying around the house.

Oh, that's fucked up. It is on the kitchen table, next to the television, where the children could easily reach them. And the officers did note that his gun belt and ammunition were lying next to the bed, which did seem to support Sharon's claim. But then her statement was also confirmed by James's parents.

He was an irresponsible gun owner. Oh, that's fucked up, and that's just the truth of it. But still, the death did seem suspicious. Accidental shootings did happen, but not typically with a two-year-old.

Yeah, and investigators wondered why James would have laid down to take a nap with a loaded pistol lying next to his head. Yeah, like, you can be an irresponsible gun owner, but I don't think it goes to that extent. That's pretty far.

No, and you can't be like, I'm saying, there are irresponsible gun owners now. Unfortunately, there wasn't much evidence to prove or disprove Sharon's claims. Yeah, the .22-caliber pistol was taken from the scene, but it was covered in so much gun oil that it was impossible to get any fingerprints off of it. Which is interesting.

Then, the lab technician also didn't bother to test either Sharon or Dana's hands for gunshot residue. What the fuck? No idea why, or, excuse me, I do know why.

They believed at that time this particular lab technician believed that those tests were unreliable. Why wouldn't you just do it anyway? Couldn't tell you? I feel like it's better just to do it. And also, how is that unreliable?

You either have gunshot residue on your hands or you don't. And it's like, it's better to do it and then argue about it later than to not do it. And be like, Well, I guess we'll never know well. And if you do, test their hands and Sharon has it on her hands, boom, there you go, yeah, what?

Wow. But the only other test that they did was to determine the pull necessary to fire the gun, which was smart. Now. Knowing that the pistol required a 3.25-pound pull. They returned to the Kinney House with a similar disabled pistol to find out whether Dana actually had the strength to pull the trigger. And they did find out that she did, she was able to.

In fact, not only did she possess the strength to pull the trigger, but she also knew how to release the safety catch on the gun. Why the fuck did she know that? A two-year-old? Why did this two-year-old girl know how to release a safety on a pistol? I do not know.

I'm just trying to think of my kids at two and I'm like, what is going on here? This is wild. You would think of a two-year-old, and you don't want to think of a two-year-old with a gun. But when you do, you would think that they'd be waving it around. That's the thing. This is just so strange.

It is, this is very strange, it really is, and I don't know if it's a thing. Where Sharon taught her how to do it so that she could shoot her father, Oh my god.

Or if maybe she just saw her dad shoot the pistol all the time and like, that's why. Yeah, I honestly have no idea. I don't believe that Dana shot her father.

Seems highly unlikely to me. I believe that Sharon did, yeah, or that if Dana somehow did shoot her father, it was because Sharon made it happen. You know, she was set up.

But in their statement to the press, Sergeant Herman Davis of the Kansas City Police told reporters. The quote. The bullet had entered from the rear and lodged just under the skin, between the nose and the right eye. Now, Davis continued that this was consistent with the position of the gun, which was, quote, lying flat on the pillow when it discharged, leaving a crease where it cut. The cloth and powder. Burns were on the pillowcase. So, the press were also made aware of the working theory that two-year-old Dana had accidentally shot her father while he was asleep. And they did stress that their tests confirmed James could not have fired the shot himself. Yeah.

And the investigators actually never bothered to ask Dana whether she'd fired the gun or not, or any other questions about the incident. I'm sorry, what they just felt like. The evidence supported that Sharon what Sharon had told them, there was no evidence to the contrary, and they were ready to rule the death an accident.

No one ever said to this two-year-old who they claim walked into a room and was like, Daddy, how does this thing work, daddy? And then pulled the trigger, took the safety off and pulled the trigger. No one was like, you know, we should ask this prodigy if she actually did that, like, we just ask her.

Kids will tell you shit, oh yeah, kids will tell you everything like any. I'm sure any preschool or kindergarten teacher knows they know everything about what happens in your house, Your kid's going to tell them everything.

A hundred percent. Have you ever seen that meme where it's like, my mommy has two boyfriends? Yeah, it's like, literally, like, and it's like me, like, Yeah, it's like, why wouldn't you ask that child, like, Did you fire this gun in your parents room? Like, there's a way to ask where you're not? Like scaring her, making her feel like she did something.

They should have brought some kind of expert in. Yeah, bring a psychiatrist in, like a child psychologist. That can ask in a proper way a hundred percent to get the proper answer. Like a real no, a shoddy police work.

It's also you couple that with the fact that Sharon called and said he had a heart attack. And it's like, why the fuck wouldn't, she have said? And an accident happened. I couldn't find anything to say that. They really ever questioned that. This is so bizarre.

It is what the fuck maybe she was having an affair with somebody on the police force. I don't know what the hell is going on.

She was having lots of affairs, she was. Yeah, that's complete speculation, by the way, but with the autopsy complete and the cause of death listed as accidental.

Officially, Sharon was free to collect on the various life insurance policies that had been taken out in the years before James's death, including from the Veterans Administration, life insurance and homeowner's insurance. And with James dead, the balance on the mortgage for the house was wiped out and transferred to Sharon. She received roughly $29,000, which today would be like receiving $300,000, thank God, so she cashed in on this.

Now, if it weren't for her reckless impulsivity, Sharon Kenney might have never become a suspect in her husband's death. But she was arrogant and narcissistic, and constantly looking for something or someone to validate her and prop up her self-esteem. Which is what led her to Walter Jones. Now, after cashing out on all those insurance policies, she wasted absolutely no time spending the money. And actually, long before James's death, she'd been pestering him to buy her a Ford Thunderbird. She really wanted a thunderbird, and he refused because he was like one. We have two children.

Like, yeah, that's not necessarily a family car and two, those are fucking expensive and we don't have the money. But now, with James out of the way and her pockets flush with cash, Sharon went down to the Rudy Fick Ford dealership on April 18th, 1960. And she was helped by one, Walter Jones. Uh-oh, now. Walter was said to be a handsome guy with a big, friendly personality.

He had all the charm and persuasiveness necessary to succeed in car sales, I was gonna say, car sales, he is. In fact, at the time, Sharon only intended to get the air conditioner in James's old nash fixed. But Walter quickly and easily talked her into trading in the old car, her husband, her dead husband's car, for the one that she had dreamed about, her new car.

Yep, and soon she was making regular visits to the dealership. If you catch my drift, if you know what I mean, it's like Globe Motors and the Sopranos. Now. It turned out while Walter may have been a good car salesman, he wasn't really a great person.

At the time he began his affair with Sharon, he was married married to his high school sweetheart, Patricia. Everybody chill the fuck out. No, they can't, you're all too much.

The most they had gotten him and Patricia, they had gotten married right out of high school. Just before Walter enlisted in the Marines, and they relocated to California. Now, after he was discharged, they moved back to Missouri, but by then their marriage was doomed. In fact, Walter's affairs began almost immediately after they married and continued up until he met Sharon in the spring of 1960. And Patricia, excuse me. Her choice to stay with her husband was only because of their two children and her desire to work things out for their sake.

And that is, I mean, that's still a thing. I respect it and it's like we were saying, like, it never works out, it really doesn't. I haven't seen many things work out when that's the motivation.

No, but you can also understand people's motivation for thinking that's going to be a good thing. So I want to make sure you guys know, like, we know why people do it. It just there's a lot of evidence to prove that it doesn't work. And again, of course, there's an exception to every rule.

Of course, it could work out, and this was a different time and that was much more the thing back then. Yeah, divorce was looked down upon. Now it's usually more to do with, like morality things, and like religious things.

Right? But that was like the norm, yeah, like back then, it wasn't just like religious people, no, it was just like, let's not get divorced, societal.

Societal, exactly now. Walter's marriage was, of course, always a source of frustration for Sharon. Not because she was in love with him, but because as long as he was married, she wouldn't have total control over him. So, now determined to break up the marriage, Sharon relied on a strategy that had worked for her in the past. And in mid-may, she told Walter that she was pregnant with his child and demanded that he end his marriage. She's the worst.

She's not pregnant, by the way. Yeah, she's the worst she is, and she'll only get worse. Fuck Sharon. So the news came as a surprise to Walter, but he was hardly ready to give in to those demands.

He was already cheating on his wife and two children. You think he's going to marry you and do the right thing, exactly, he's like, please. By that time, his infidelity was actually not really that much of a secret to his wife. Which had led to several arguments between him and Patricia, who, by then had threatened to leave him and take the children multiple times, which like, Go girl.

And faced with the possibility of losing his wife and kids, he actually started to reconsider his relationship with Sharon. She was controlling, manipulative, she could be cruel. And now he'd actually begun to resent how dependent he'd become on her for attention and the money that she occasionally provided with all those life insurance payouts. And to add to all of that, during the week of May 27th, while Sharon had been away on vacation, he spent more time at home than he ever had while he was dating Sharon. And realized how much he actually missed his wife when Sharon, like, when she was gone, and he actually went to spend time with his wife.

What a guy he was like. Wow, I actually miss you, like, I remember why I married you, romance, can you fucking imagine?

What an asshole. So, given that he decided that when Sharon returned in a few days, he would end the relationship and really begin working on repairing his marriage. Okay, but unfortunately, he would never get that chance. Uh-oh.

On the evening of May 27th, 1960, John Boldes I'm sure you remember that name, Sharon's high school boyfriend and, you know? Side piece called the Jackson County Sheriff's Department to report that he and his lady had taken a drive out to the Lover's Lane area, just off of Phelps Road, a little outside of Independence, and they'd made a horrible discovery at first, Boldes told investigators the couple had thought the woman, who was illuminated by their headlights, had just fallen asleep in the wooded area. But after getting out to investigate, they had found four bullet holes in her head, stomach and both shoulders. Oh my God, he was calling to report that he had found a body.

Now, when investigators arrived on the scene, they found very little evidence to work with the woman, who would later be identified as Walter's wife, Patricia Jones. What the fuck? ....Had been shot four times, and at least one of those shots had been fired close enough to leave powder burns on her skirt. Oh my God.

Now, there was a surprising lack of blood at the scene, which led investigators to strongly consider whether she'd been shot elsewhere and dumped in the woods. And her clothes seemed to be disarranged, but they hadn't been removed. Okay, and there wasn't any other evidence of a sexual assault. she had not been sexually assaulted.

It appeared to investigators that Patricia had been killed elsewhere and dumped in the woods and the scene had been staged. Yeah, but as far as a motive, they were lost now. The next morning, Walter was brought into the sheriff's office for questioning. And he explained that he hadn't seen his wife the previous morning. And actually, he had filed a missing persons report when she failed to return home the night before.

He even offered to take a polygraph test to prove his innocence. Damn now. The case took a surprising turn when investigators learned that Boldiz's girlfriend was none other than Sharon Kinney. Holy shit, ....the woman whose husband was killed just two months earlier.

What the fuck? Sharon's explanation for the death of her husband seemed a bit suspicious at the time. Yeah, it did, but without any evidence to suggest anything otherwise, investigators had no choice but to accept her statement.

But now, her proximity to two murders in a two-month span raised those earlier suspicions a bit higher. And to add to those suspicions. In his statement to the sheriff, Walter admitted he'd been having an affair with one, Sharon Kinney, ...for a little more than a month. And also mentioned that one of his wife's friends had seen Patricia and Sharon together the day before. Uh, excuse me, the day before Patricia went missing, what the fuck she was spotted with Sharon?

Sharon Not by, just like a random eyewitness by one of Patricia's friends. Sinister, This woman is sinister as fuck, truly.

So, according to Walter's statement, he and Patricia had actually argued on the morning of Thursday, May 26th, and then they went their separate ways. She went to her job, she worked at the IRS and he went to drop the children off with the babysitter before heading to work himself. And when he got home later that evening, he expected to find her, but she was nowhere to be found. So he starts calling all her friends and co-workers. One of which was the woman who said she had seen Patricia and Sharon together. And then another friend told Walter that she'd asked to be dropped off at an unusual location where, quote they had seen Mrs Jones enter a 1957 or 1958 dodge, driven by a young woman.

Huh, so? Upon hearing this, Walter said he called Sharon, who said that she had indeed spoken to Patricia that afternoon and told her that Walter was having an affair with her sister. So that's a little bit confusing. So Sharon contacts Patricia and says, I know your husband, he's having an affair with my sister. And I want to tell you about it because I think you deserve to know. And that's how she gets her into a car with her.

Sharon sucks big time now. Walter's Statement and polygraph, polygraph, polygraph, my grandma.

That's an insider. This polygraph examination didn't rule him out entirely, but it did go a long way toward removing him from the suspect list. Sharon, on the other hand, did little to get herself off of that suspect list, and pretty much everything to get herself onto it. Yeah, that's not shocking. Walter had agreed to that polygraph exam and he actually signed a written statement to his whereabouts.

Sharon made a verbal statement, but she refused to sign anything and refused to take a polygraph examination. In her verbal statement, she claimed she had only gone quote on about 12 dates with Walter, which, like, that's a lot. He's still married with kids. My friend, and, like, your relationship has only been going on for 12 dates, two months.

Yeah, like, that's a lot of dates. She said that she called Patricia Jones and met with her that Thursday afternoon to break off the relationship with Walter. But it's like, No, you didn't, no, you didn't. You said that he's having an affair with your sister.

I was like, What the hell you were setting her up? Yeah, exactly. The officer who took her statement recalled Sharon saying, I'm very fond of Walt and I didn't want anything to happen to him and his family. So she said she called Patricia and told her.

There was something she needed to tell her about her husband, but that she needed to do it in person. So you're fond of Walt, you don't want anything to happen to him or his family. But you're going to tell his wife that you guys have been having an affair, you're going to blow up his entire family by saying that you, uh, your sister and him have been having an affair now. Sharon's story was that she had borrowed her father's car that afternoon. Ah, dodge, perhaps.

So that Walt wouldn't recognize her car when she dropped his wife off at home, and that she picked up Patricia at the location where she was last seen by her co-worker. So that was Sharon, Honey, you did it, you're admitting it already, like, you're not getting out of this, I hope.

Please tell me. Once they were in Sharon's car, she told Patricia that Walter had been having an affair with her sister and she wanted her to know. Because she felt it was inappropriate and needed to come to an end. Shut the fuck up, Sharon, shut up, Sharon. Now. After they'd spoken, Sharon said, You know, it was awful.

I can't believe I had to tell her that, yeah. And then I dropped her about a block away from the Jones house, which why would you drop her off a block away? You're in a car that he doesn't recognize.

That's the whole reason you had that car, exactly. But, she said she then looked in the rearview mirror and quote saw Mrs Jones talking to a man in a two-tone green 1957 Ford.

So she got out of the car and immediately this other guy's like, Here I am. Absolutely that makes total sense, yeah. According to Sharon, it came as a total shock to, coincidentally, happen upon Patricia's body, where she and Bodees were out at the Lover's lane that evening.

Yeah, isn't that wild that you talk to the wife of the man that you've been having an affair with? That day? You dropped her off and then, oh my God, you just stumbled upon her dead body. Later that day. You happen to be the one who discovers it. Whoa.

Buy a lottery ticket, Sharon, buy several now. As far as she knew, she said that Patricia was quote upset but not mad after she informed her of the affair. So she couldn't imagine what could have happened to lead to her death. No, of course you can't, because nothing else happened.

You killed her no way, there's that now. Also, you went to a lover's lane with your boyfriend.

She's in her.

Grow the fuck up, she's in her early twenties, still, grow the fuck up.

Honestly, well, you have two children. What are you doing? Shut the fuck up, it's wild.

We went to a lover's lane, like, shut the fuck up. Dave makes like little notes sometimes, and he was like, I know it may seem weird that they're in a lover's lane. But please remember that she is in her early twenties, because it's also just crazy to be like she is in her early twenties. And all of this has happened in her life, yes.

In your head, you're like, Jesus Christ, you're 35.

What are you doing in a lover's lane? Like, grow up, but she's young still, she's done a lot.

Yeah. The autopsy determined that Patricia's cause of death was the gunshot wound in her head. And they placed the time of death around 8 or 9 p..m. on May 27th, just a few hours before the body was discovered. But unfortunately, the three bullets that they retrieved from the shoulders and the head were so badly damaged that they couldn't be used for a match to the weapon.

And the fourth bullet had entered Patricia's stomach and exited out of her back, and then presumably got lodged somewhere where she'd been killed. So, with no other leads. Detectives went back to the woods where the body was discovered, and started searching with metal detectors. Hoping to find that fourth bullet now, a team of investigators spent all day searching the woods for that fourth bullet that passed through Patricia's stomach. But they had no luck finding it or any other additional evidence. Yeah, because I don't think it happened out there, it gets a little hairy.

Okay, and you'll see where in part two. But in the meantime, Walter and John Baldese were both brought in for additional questioning, and they both were given a polygraph examination, which they passed. It was then that Walter admitted when he learned that Sharon had been with his wife the night she went missing. He did not call her, like he had said originally, he actually went to her house and confronted her in person.

Oh, damn, Walter, yeah, it gets worse, according to Walter. When Patricia's friend said that she saw her with Sharon, he went to Sharon and, after putting a knife to her throat, demanded that she help search for his wife.

These poor children, I know, involved in this kind of shit, you just hope that they weren't around for seeing any of this, like, hopefully, they were with her.

The babysitter that's raising them, exactly. And James Kinney's parents were still very involved in their lives. But within an hour of that incident, Sharon and Baldese discovered Patricia's body in the woods. How convenient.

I love that Walter shows up, puts a knife to your throat, tells you to go, you better find my wife. And you're like, Cool, he leaves, and you're like, Hey, John, you want to go to a lover's lane and just hang out? And John's like, Yeah, sure, sure.

And he's like, absolutely, and then you just stumble upon it. You're like, Wow, good luck for me, fortunately. And it's like, clearly she led you to a certain area in this. very clearly she did.

We all know that, we all know that. So she clearly led you to the location where she knew your headlights were going to, of course, like, illuminate Patricia.

So you could go, Oh my god, yeah. That way, she could, like, rid herself of the issue of Walter being like, find my wife right, and also be like, Oh, she's gone.

That's crazy. I saw her get into a car with some random ass, man, wow. Now. The good thing investigation wise, was that each new revelation seemed to lead to some other piece of critical information about the case. Because when Baldese was asked about Walter's story, he admitted that he and Sharon had indeed gone out to the woods, not for intimacy, but to look for Patricia.

I was going to say, Yeah, so that's how that explains that. And that wasn't all, he told investigators. According to him, a couple weeks before Patricia's murder, Sharon had Quote talked him into going to the sheriff's office to try to get James Kinney's pistol back. But obviously they refused that request.

What the fuck? But it's like, Okay, is that the same police department like investigating this death? Because would you not have that? On note that some random man was like, I need James Kinney's pistol back. Are the police? Okay here? No.

The answer is no, no, the answer is not. Well, bitch, they're not well.

Because, like, what, you're not even asking? The fact that they didn't even talk to that two-year-old to be like, Hey, let's see what she says about whether she shot her dad or not. Yep, like, just give it a shot, not doing that, and then, like this, they're like, Oh, yeah.

How crazy. We don't have that on file. It's like, what the fuck like? This lady's obviously got a lot of shit going on around her, maybe like, keep an eye when she asked for her pistol back.

You would think that was involved in a murder. Or when her like lover comes in and asks for it, like, come on, it's like, maybe make note of that.

But while the detectives continued questioning Walter and Valdez, a team of investigators switched their attention. From the wooded area where Patricia's body was located to an abandoned farm building across the street. And on the morning of May 30th, investigators searching the barn found two blanks with bullet holes and powder burns, leading them to suspect that Patricia may have been taken to the barn and killed before being dumped in the woods. Oh, that's fucked up. And they believed that could account for the chunk of time where she was missing. Between when she was last seen by co-workers and when she was discovered in the woods. That was a theory.

Now, the search of the barn didn't give much in terms of new evidence, but as investigators were starting to feel like they were losing momentum. A co-worker of Sharon's, from the photo processing plant that she was currently working at, came forward to police with what he thought was vital evidence, according to this co-worker. A few weeks before Patricia's body was discovered, Sharon had pressured him into buying a high-standard 22-caliber pistol for her. How does she convince people to do these things? She has a way with men, she's manipulative.

She's got a way with men, some women just do now. When detectives confronted her with this information, Sharon Quote explained she wanted the weapon for protection on her trip to Washington that she'd taken with Baldiz just days before the murder, and claimed she left the gun with family in Washington.

Okay, now? Although their physical evidence was weak, the circumstantial evidence against Sharon Kinney at this point was substantial. She'd been having an affair with the victim's husband. She was the last person to be seen with Patricia Jones, she was the one to find the body in an out-of-the-way location.

Yeah, she had to go and find it. She had gone out of her way to obtain a gun and then lost, said Gun. Yeah, she was refusing to make any sworn statement or submit a polygraph exam. And on top of that, her husband had died under similarly mysterious circumstances just two months earlier. After which, she collected on insurance policies that not only gave her a clear title to the house, but also solved any financial problems.

It may not have been a slam-dunk case, but she definitely looked guilty. This is wild, and it's also so weird that we chose cases this week that had to do with insurance payouts right in the nick of time before financial ruin. That is weird, like that's the exact thing with the OC case.

That is very strange, very weird. But on the evening of May 31st, just hours after Patricia Jones's funeral, deputies from the Jackson County Sheriff's Department served a warrant at Sharon's home. And she was taken into custody and charged with the murder of Patricia Jones. Get her.

And that's where we're gonna wrap. For part one, yeah, I'm so sorry, but in part two, there is a lot to cover. Like I said, part two is going to be a little bit trial heavy and you'll see why.

But once we get through the trial part of it, which, like, if you're like me and that's not necessarily your thing. We're gonna get through it together and it's gonna be worth it. Because then we go into a whole slew of other wild shit, damn, I don't know how this can get more wild, but here I am, you know what? I was saying, the same thing as I was writing this, and then I was just like, it got more wild, it got more wild.

It got crazy. Yeah, yeah, wow. So we hope you keep listening, and we hope you keep it weird.

But not so weird that you try to stage your husband's murder like your two-year-old did it. Because that's just really fucked up and weird, that's so fucked up, that's so wild, I can't get over that, just wait.

Blaming it on her two-year-old? Just wait, it's wild.

It's wild.