RedHanded - FROM THE VAULT - Joyce McKinney: Mormon Sex in Chains

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

Kirk Anderson was abducted from an LDS meeting house in Surrey by his ex-partner – and ex-beauty queen – Joyce McKinney. He said he was taken to a small rural cottage, tied to a bed, and sexually assaulted for three days. According to McKinney, everything was above board – Kirk just liked things kinky. But the British tabloids only cared about one thing: the wisecracking Southern belle Joyce McKinney made for great headlines. All the papers needed was a picture of her naked, to sell the story of the century. And they'd do anything to get it.Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramXVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed. I'm not sure I've ever been more desperate for something to be over than this one.

I've spent so much time inside this woman's brain that it's just It's not a good place to be No, I don't want to go to there anymore Let's see Let's go through it one last time and then let's run away from her So even though neither of us pulled it off lots of people meet their life partner at university

I remember it happening all around me For God's sake, God damn it Who are these people? What am I doing wrong? So many of my friends. So many of my friends. Anyway, Brigham Young University, lots and lots and lots of people meet their life partners

and a vast majority of those people are Mormon. Non-Mormons are allowed to attend BYU, but education is more expensive for heathens. They actually have different fee structures for whether you're a Mormon or whether you are not. That's like, why? Why would you go there? Well, maybe you're trying to find a Mormon husband. Maybe.

That's exactly what recent convert to Mormonism Joyce McKinney was doing in Utah. She very much converts to Mormonism because she wants to find a man. Interesting. Is that what you get to? You're just like, I've tried everything else. Christ, I hope not. I'm going to go for the Morms. I think I'd rather be a Scientologist. At least they have parties. Anyway, Joyce had got to the point where she was like, you know what, maybe Mormons, I'll give that a go. So she moved to the epicentre of the Mormon faith, Brigham Young University, also studying for a doctorate in theatre. Joyce, despite her beauty queen appearance, is no dummy. Joyce is known as Joy to many people, but we're not going to do that

because it's really confusing. She doesn't like being called Joyce either, so let's stick with that. Joyce has never, ever ever ever in her life had a problem landing any dicks. She's not chasing after men they are chasing after her most of the time. But she still ends up looking for a Mormon man. Yeah I mean there's a lot of stuff that's not completely straight down the line with Joyce there's a lot of stuff going on in that head of hers and a lot of people have a lot of really nasty things to say about Joyce. But everyone agrees that in her day, she was mega babe, super hot, real looker. And Joyce,

more than anyone, agrees with this beauty rhetoric. She will not shut up about it. But despite her Miss Wyoming looks, back in the 70s, Joyce was having a really hard time finding a decent man. She looks extremely 70s, Joyce was having a really hard time finding a decent man. She looks extremely 70s, I think is the way to describe, like nowadays, I don't think you'd look twice at her, but she's very 70s,

very like, there's a really famous picture of Farrah Fawcett and she's got this massive hair, blonde and like fucking super rock hard nipples and every teenage boy had it on their poster. That's what Joyce looks like. Got it, got it. So yeah, despite all this, she was having a difficult time meeting a nice man.

Until she met family-orientated, God-fearing husband material in the shape of Kirk Anderson. Kirk was just 21, six years younger than then 27-year-old Joyce. But she didn't care. The pair were both students at BYU and they got talking because they both drove Corvettes. So they've got that in common but a beauty queen Kirk was not. He was close to 300 pounds with a shuffly walk and according to the Daily Express he was not attractive by any means. We're not casting any aspersions on levels of attractiveness, whatever. That's not really

our place to say. What's important is that the narrative in the press was that he was the opposite of Joyce. Sure, sure, sure, sure.

But Joyce didn't care. To her, Kirk Anderson was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. She loved his hair, his eyes,

and especially the smell of his skin. Pack it in, Joyce. There's literally so many interviews where she's like, I just love to smell his skin. Have a day off.. Pack it in, Joyce. There's literally so many interviews which are like, I just love to smell his skin.

Have a day off. Wind your neck in, Joyce. But for Joyce, it was love at first sight. And if you believe her side of the story, it was a mutual obsession from Kirk's side. Joyce claims that the day that they met, Kirk told her that he loved her. And on their second date, they were already talking about marriage and children. Red flags. For Mormons, I think that's pretty normal.

They plan to name all of their little Mormon bundles of joy with J and K names, like she thinks she's a Kardashian or something. Also, Joyce says, that is the story she tells of their first meeting. Now, the story you're about to hear today is a story of belief. And we're not talking about all that batshit stuff that Mormons believe, but rather whose story you believe. We talk a little bit about some batshit Mormon stuff, but if you want a deep dive into batshit Mormon stuff, go and listen to all of our other Mormon episodes. So what happens over the next few years depends entirely on whether

you believe Joyce McKinney or Kirk Anderson. As usual, we have some pretty strong feelings, but we'll let you make up your own minds. Now, with that in mind, let's get forward to the 15th of September 1977, where Joyce and her associate, Keith May, more on him later, were in a car in Epsom, Surrey, waiting outside a Mormon church. Is there in the UK? They go all over. I see. Interesting. The British press plays such an enormous part in this.

Oh, yes. That I really don't think it would have happened in America the way it played out here. So Keith had assumed one of his many fake names, Bob Balser, and had rung the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to tell them that he was keen to convert. Fantastic, the Mormon missionaries of Surrey thought. Usually they had to positively harass people into converting to Mormonism. This was easy. Too easy. Kirk Anderson met who he thought was a prospective convert outside the Mormon church in Epsom, and then Kirk Anderson was bundled into the car with Keith and Joyce and disappeared.

Scotland Yard released the following statement. We are very alarmed about Mr Anderson's fate. We're treating it as a case of abduction, and every step is being taken to find out what has happened to him. Most of the details of Kirk Anderson's vanishing had been passed on to authorities by Kirk Anderson's roommate, Kimball Smith, who was also a Mormon. The pair were on a mission together.

Yeah, if you know anything about Mormon missions, you are paired up, you have a little best buddy, best friend. Stop you wanking. Stop you wanking, to watch you sleep and to stop you wanking, exactly. So Smith and Kirk Anderson had been living in the UK for 20 months. First, they were sent to East Grinstead, presumably to enter into hand-to-hand combat with the Scientologists and then to Surrey.

East Grinstead, if you remember our Scientology episodes, is the epicentre of Scientology in the UK. It's where L. Ron Hubbard bought that big mansion off the Maharaja. So according to Kimball Smith, Kirk Anderson had been in a bit of a hurry to leave Utah behind and get on with his mission. He actually turned down a posting in California, wanting to go further afield to get further away from his ex-girlfriend. None other than Joyce Miss Wyoming McKinney. The British press could not believe their luck.

This is the late 70s, remember? It's the peak of the gutter press. British tabloids may have a terrible reputation now, but believe me, it was a lot worse in 1977. And what's more, the Express and the Mirror were locked in a deadly battle for circulation domination. Selling papers mattered a lot more than printing the truth. And this story was a tabloid wet dream. Like, a beauty queen and a Mormon and a kidnapping and sex and filth and religion,

like, you just can't get better than that. It's perfect. And it's also, they're American and they're here in the UK. Like, it's too good. And a big part of it, actually, when we get onto some hearings and stuff later on, a big part of why the British people were so obsessed with it is that Americans are a lot franker than British people. So when people were getting up in the stand in the magistrate's court and telling their story, British people couldn't believe how open they were being. Because we would just be like, no, everything's fine.

I'm fine, thanks, how are you? Kirk Anderson's disappearance dominated the news and predictably the news of the world, now defunct, ran with hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Kirk Anderson returned to the Mormon church just a few days later on his own and that meant that Joyce was still out there, but no one knew where she was. And nobody could figure out the mystery man with her either, this Keith character. The press were waiting with bated breath for Joyce and Keith to reappear.

But for the moment, all they had was Kirk Anderson's story. So let's find out what that was. Kirk Anderson had indeed met Joyce McKinney while at BYU, and they dated each other for a while. Then things got a bit too much for Kirk and he went away on a mission, which for all Mormon men is a very formative time. He was not whisked away by his family or his church to keep him away from the love of his life because they didn't like her for not being Mormon enough. No, he was fulfilling his spiritual

duty for which he had been preparing for his whole life. Mormon men go away on mission for two years, usually to foreign countries. The whole point of the mission is to spread the gospel far and wide. I was reading about this and I came across a website which is linked in the show notes. It's obviously a Mormon website explaining why they go on mission. And the example they use is, imagine if you had the cure for cancer, you would tell everyone. And that's the urgency with which Mormons go on mission. Yes. So it's a wholly unselfish thing. It's to go and it's to save souls, right? It's to tell everybody about the word of whatever the fuck they're talking about. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it can be totally selfless.

Oh no, I'm saying from their perspective. I mean, that's what they are in the same way that Jehovah's Witnesses are like, convert so I can get into heaven. Thank you. Yes. So this mission time that Mormon men have to do is seen as a transformative experience, a coming of age journey. So that is how Kirk Anderson ended up in Epsom Surrey becoming a man. When Keith May met Kirk Anderson in the car park outside of his Mormon church,

Keith May held Kirk at gunpoint, with what was later revealed to be an imitation gun purchased by Joyce at a souvenir shop. Keith then hurried Kirk Anderson over to a car where inside sat his ex-girlfriend, Joyce McKinney, wearing big dark sunglasses and a dark brown wig that she called Matilda. Kirk was bundled into the back of the car with a blanket over his head and then the three drove off. Kirk lay down on the back seat and was not allowed to look from under the blanket for hours. The car drove west and finally stopped

when they got to a cottage in Devon that Joyce had rented. When they arrived, all three went into the cottage, where over the next three days, Joyce tied Kirk Anderson to the bed with leather straps and padlocks and raped him. He later said in magistrate's court, she proceeded to have intercourse. I didn't want it to happen. I was very upset. Joyce told Kirk that she would keep him tied up until she got pregnant. This is Kirk's story, remember? Because yes, this is how Kirk's Mormon representatives tell the story. A slightly different version of events were revealed at the case's magistrate's hearing a few weeks later.

But before we get there, let's clear something up. There are a lot of question marks casting big curly shadows all over this case. But there is one that we will not be tolerating here at Red Handed. If you ask Joyce McKinney whether a man can be raped, she often says, of course not. That's like putting a marshmallow in a parking meter. Vom, I hate it. She's so vile. And that is such a despicable thing to say.

We are not Joyce McKinney stans here at Red Handed Podcast. I think there are a lot of things in this case that, I mean, nobody knows the truth of, but there are a lot of things that are overblown. There are a lot of things in this case that, I mean, nobody knows the truth of, but there are a lot of things that are overblown. There are a lot of things that are underplayed. But a fan of Joyce McKinney, we are not. No, and one thing we will not be saying, because it would be incorrect to do so, is that men cannot be raped. Refer to our Alison Botha episode, which actually, did it just go out last week? Probably. And in there we make, you know, as clear an explanation as we can

of how sexual arousal and consent are not the same thing. Arousal is a reflex, not a choice. Arousal is something that is out of our control and an erection is not consent. Is it possible that Kirk Anderson was lying about being raped by Joyce McKinney? Did he go to the cottage of his own free will? We're going to try and find out. And I say try because another thing that we have to clear up before we go on is that when it comes to this case, we cannot rely on the press, even less than usual,

because things were being reported that were just not true. And if you don't believe us, go and watch the documentary about this case. It's quite literally called tabloid. You cannot overstate the role the press had in this. And in the documentary, there are loads of journalists interviewed, and one of them really stands out. He is describing how Kirk was restrained in the cottage, and he says, it was either with ropes or chains, but chains sounds better than ropes. So that's what we ran with. We printed that. And I think we have to be incredibly careful with the storytelling when it's coming out of the tabloids because they do quite literally make things up. I'm not saying that makes Joyce completely innocent. I think we just need to be

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This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. So after Kirk Anderson left and went back to Epsom, Joyce and Keith May vacated the Devonshire cottage. So when Surrey Police showed up, they were nowhere to be found. What the authorities did find in the cottage were handcuffs and foot manacles. We don't know how heavy duty these were, but we do know that DCI John Bissett told reporters on the scene,

quote, I've never been lucky enough to have anything like that happen to me. And this is another problem with this case. It's the late 70s in the UK. This machismo culture runs all the way through this case. Keith is portrayed as this pathetic like oh we all want

that to happen to us like loads of people writing like what's he complaining about exactly loads of people were writing letters to joe speaking oh please tie me up and rape me like do you know what i mean so that's a problem as well which is why this is such a minefield that nobody seems to have any sympathy for keith at all so you have to be careful with that side of things as well, because the press are printing things that aren't true. But also there is this time-specific attitude towards men, which doesn't go in Keith's favour either. Yeah.

So despite their blinkered view on what had happened, it didn't take the police long to catch up with Joyce and Keith. They were both arrested on charges of kidnapping, forcible abduction, assault, unlawful imprisonment and the possession of imitation revolvers. They were kept in custody on remand until their first hearing at the Magistrates' Court on 29 September. On her way to the Magistrates' Court, Joyce McKinney already had the press eating out of the palm of her hand. As she rode in the police van, she wrote a note to the press on the pages of her Bible and she held it up to the van's window so it could be photographed.

She is nothing if not dramatic. She had scrawled, please tell the truth, my reputation is at stake, on the book of Job. And never one to do things by halves, she had also written on the gospel according to Mark, he had sex with me for four days please get the truth to the public he made it look like a kidnapping ask christians to pray for me the magistrate's court had the job of deciding if the case of the manacled mormon as it was called in the press would make it to a trial at the old bailey another reason why this case is so complicated and why you're so reliant on the press, even though they're so unreliable, is that an actual proper trial never happens. So as you've

probably guessed, once given her chance to speak in the magistrate's court, Joyce McKinney had quite a different story to tell. Oh yeah. According to her, Kirk Anderson had been brainwashed by the Mormons. He had promised her marriage and babies, but his mum didn't like Joyce because she was too beautiful and not Mormon-looking enough. Honestly, in the tabloid documentary, Joyce is in it all the way through, by the way, because she loves to control a narrative. She talks a lot about how much Kirk Anderson's mum weighs

and how the only reason that she didn't like her was because she was too beautiful and thin and gorgeous. So basically, Joyce is now saying that the church had essentially kidnapped Kirk. That's exactly what she's saying. They had taken him away. But like we said earlier, the missions that Mormon men go on is something all of them do. And it will do at a very specific time in their life. I'm not arguing that it would be beyond the Mormon church to do something like that,

especially if, you know, a young Mormon had got someone pregnant. Or I don't think it is beyond them to send them to the other side of the world because they can do mission in Philadelphia, you know. I don't think it is beyond the Mormon church. God knows they've done much worse. Is it what happened here? Shrug. Now, there is no doubt that the pair, so Kirk and Joyce, had had a consensual sexual relationship in Utah when they had met. But Joyce told a story of unrequited love, of her husband

being taken away from her, and that she was this sort of downcast capulet doing whatever she could to get her love back. On the so-called abduction, Joyce told the court that once Kirk was in the car and recognised her, he went with them completely willingly. And once the three of them arrived in Devon, she cooked Kirk his favourite meal and she even gave him a back rub. Now Kirk did not deny the food or the PDA. He told the court he thought nothing of it, as his mum gave him back rubs all the time. So yeah, I don't know. Keep her eyebrows where they are. Yeah. And it was also confirmed in court

that Kirk was freely wandering around the cottage for a vast majority of the three days that he was there. And this isn't a he said she said situation. He's like yes that's true. And it was also confirmed in the magistrate's court that nothing sexual happened until the third night. Joyce claimed that she tied Kirk up on the bed and burnt his magic Mormon underpants because she

wanted him to be able to fully let go and not be concerned with the guilt being heaped upon him by the Mormon church for having any kind of sexual relations before he was married. Do I think that McKinney is telling the whole truth? Absolutely not. Do I think she is pathologically deluded and a bit dangerous? Certainly. Do I think that Kirk must have been terrified when Keith brandished a fake gun at him? Undeniably. But would the guilt that Kirk Anderson would have been feeling for breaking his covenant with God by having sex with Joyce have been crushing? 100%. Before Mormon men go on their mission, they are endowed with special powers

and sacred knowledge of the keys to heaven. In a part of the ceremony that happens in the temple, the young Mormons have to reenact the Garden of Eden situation, complete with an actor playing Lucifer. And Lucifer tells these young Mormons, those of you who don't live up to the covenant that you make on the altar of the temple this day will be in my power. So if Kirk Anderson was a willing, manacled Mormon,

he would have violated his temple covenants. He would be in the hands of the devil, which means that he could be excommunicated from the church and therefore he would never become a god and have his own planet in the afterlife. And that is quite a lot of pressure. Now we'll never know what happened in that cottage over those three days. Neither party, so Joyce or Kirk, will ever shift their story. And the reality is probably somewhere in between. We think that the most likely scenario is that Kirk Anderson was at some stage consenting and then withdrew his consent at some point. Which he is completely entitled to do. Yes. He was not restrained the whole time he was there. He admitted to throwing Joyce

across the bed when he became frustrated with her. And no one is saying that women can't be abusive. No one is also saying that people can't be restrained by things other than physical ropes and chains. We know that of course they can. But does that kind of control take hold over three days? Well, maybe it does. My problem with the argument of, well, he could do whatever he wanted. He was wandering around. He had all of his meals cooked for him, blah, blah, blah. I think it is important to say that this is not a misery situation. He could quite freely have left before he did. But my argument with everything was completely fine and it was just this consensual honeymoon that Joyce McKinney says it was if that's true

why the fuck is Keith there that's what I can't figure out that's what I can't swear in my head I wish I had the answer but I just don't and like we also don't know if Kirk realizes that Keith is brandishing fake guns at him and at what point he realises that. So if there is another man there brandishing a weapon around, maybe he isn't as free to walk out of the front door as some people would like to say that he is. Keith isn't there all the time though. He leaves them alone for like 24 hours and then comes back. So yes, lots of questions.

The next thing we know for sure is that Keith, Joyce and Kirk all went to London together. Joyce claimed that that was so they could get married and it was Kirk's idea. Kirk claimed that he only said he would marry her so he could get back to Epsom and the church. All three of them, so Kirk and Joyce, the betrothed apparently, and then random Keith, all had lunch together at the Hard Rock Cafe in central London and then Kirk Anderson got on the train back to Epsom alone. Joyce and Keith watched his train leave the station. Kirk

made his way back to Mormonville and the media frenzy began. Although, again, we have to remember that Keith himself barely spoke to the press. All of the information about his side of the story comes from representatives from the Church of the Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am not saying, like, oh, well, he didn't even speak to the press.

What I'm saying is that Mormons do lie. And they have a motive for making it seem horrific because it's better for Kirk if he was abducted. It's better for him if he didn't go willingly. And there's an ex-Mormon in the tabloid documentary who talks about the sort of like vagina dentata of it all. And this woman like sweeping this young boy away under her wing and it's all her fault blah blah blah which I think in reality as we said nothing in this case is black and white I think he probably was consenting for bits of it I don't know which bits and then he withdraws his consent anyway Joyce insists that to this day everything was consensual and that Kirk had kinky tendencies because of his strict Mormon upbringing and all she wanted to do was please him.

Something else she brings up in court is that she received a message via an answering service whilst Kirk was back in Epsom in which he said to her, I still love you, call me urgent. And because that's an answering service, that's on paper, that's written down. The answering service was tapped and it was that message that led to the arrest of Keith and Joyce. So it could have been sincere, but it's more likely that it was a trap. In the magistrate's court, Joyce continued to lay it on thick. She told the room that Kirk had called her parents from London and told them that he was going to marry her. And then she gave her most famous quote.

I loved Kirk so much, I would have skied down Everest nude with a carnation up my nose. Yep. And that quote lit the UK on absolute fire. They couldn't believe it. No, the Mirror and the Express, locked in a deadly Fleet Street rivalry, knew that if they could get a picture of Joyce McKinney naked with a carnation up her nose, they would sell more papers than their editors had ever seen before in their lives. They were gagging for it, and so was the public. Joyce, on the other hand, was maintaining her good Christian girl image and complaining about all the lesbians in Holloway that wouldn't leave her alone. Keith was being held in Brixton, well away from any lesbians, but still doing literally

anything that Joyce told him to. And he, Mystery Keith, was nowhere near the first. It will probably come as no surprise to hear that Joyce McKinney was causing trouble in Mormonville before she ever met Kirk Anderson. As we told you earlier, Joyce was not born into Mormonism. She was introduced to it by a former professor of hers, and that introduction led to her conversion and then eventually her doctorate at Brigham Young University. Whilst she attended BYU, Joyce lived in the famed Riviera

building, which is a complex of apartments near BYU owned by none other than the most famous Mormons of all time, the Osmonds. And the Osmonds didn't just own the Riviera, quite a few of them lived in it, including most famously Wayne Osmond. And it was Wayne Osmond who McKinney had a bit of a run-in with, or should we say that Wayne had a run-in with Joyce. The Osmond's PR team have always been characteristically tight-lipped about what exactly happened. So yet again, we don't have every detail. But we know that Wayne and Joyce knew each other. And according to the Osmonds, Joyce, quote, overstepped the privileges of a fan who was shown friendship.

Yeah, I think we can safely assume that she gets quite obsessive and possessive about Wayne Osmond. Yes, yes, that is what I'm getting from that. Now, we also know that when Wayne Osmond announced his engagement in 1974, Joyce McKinney had a breakdown so severe that she was hospitalised. That's not good. No. So it would seem that the only men that Joyce McKinney ever loved were Wayne Osmond and Kirk Anderson. After Kirk left for the UK, according to Joyce, she did what any star-crossed lover would. She looked for him. She was sure his family had sent him away from her

because she was not Mormon enough and too pretty and beautiful, etc. And she realised fairly quickly that Kirk must have been sent overseas. And if she was going to track him down, she would need a private investigator. And for that, she would need money. Many things have changed since the late 70s,

but one thing that hasn't is that a PhD in theatre will not make you private investigator money. So Joyce took herself off to LA to work hard and get some cash together to track down Kirk Anderson. The PI she hired had the completely not fake name of Mr Mann. Can you make it up? No.

Mr Mann, private investigator. Yeah, excellent. This is my assistant lady woman. So Joyce told PI Mann that Kirk Anderson had got her pregnant and that the church had shaved his head and sent him away as a punishment. And this is the stage of our story where we get to answer the question, who the fuck is Keith May? Mystery Keith.

Mystery Keith. He is such a silent witness to this whole thing. Yeah. So one thing that we will learn about Joyce is that she loved putting ads in the paper. And that is how she found Mystery Keith. She put an ad out requesting for a private pilot to fly her and her husband around on their honeymoon. Keith, a budding pilot, answered the ad and the pair struck up a friendship, presumably after he found out that her honeymoon flight plan was totally made up why would you stick around after that i mean it's this whole case is just

like uh the coming together of so many odd people like joyce is a fantasist in many ways oh yeah in all the ways there are to be a fantasy. She's absolutely bananas. There's no way around it. No. And I think that Keith is probably just another man who meets her and is like, she's fucking nuts, but she's hot. Maybe if I stick around long enough, I might get something. I think that is Keith's long game. Yeah. It doesn't work, but that's his plan.

No. And Joyce, probably because of her looks and because of her eccentricities, let's say, probably of the sexual kind, but not with Keith, did seem to have an uncanny ability to get men to do anything for her. Keith was not the only one. More of her victims will crop up later in the story. But for now, let's stick with Mystery Keith. He, like basically everyone, never really understood Joyce's obsession with Kirk Anderson.

He even told her give it up i like you give me a chance to which joyce replied with a sigh why does everyone fall in love with me oh my god she's insufferable i hate her i cannot stand her i honestly she drives me up the wall oh she's so annoying and this. I'm like, are you dangerous or are you just really fucking annoying? Or both. Or both. Even still, Keith agreed, despite being friend-zoned, to accompany Joyce on her journey to the UK to find Kirk.

But they decided that they couldn't just go the two of them. They needed backup. So they hired two bodyguards with envelopes full of cash. Neither of these men made it as far as Epsom. They both lost interest in the project. The first claimed to have seen a bottle of chloroform and the other saw the imitation handguns and they both decided that they wanted no part

in whatever was about to happen. Important to note, though, that is not court testimony. That is essentially hearsay. So we don't know. But we know what was about to come next. It was Joyce and the ever-faithful Keith heading to Epsom and abducting Kirk Anderson. spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding

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So now that we're all caught up, let's head back to court proceedings. At her bail hearing in December 1977, the whole world and their mum was there. And Joyce gave a stirring performance. And she repeated that both she and Kirk were terrified of the Mormons, and that Kirk was only saying the things he was saying, and putting her in prison or trying to, because he didn't want to get excommunicated. And Kirk Anderson confirmed that he was not as unwilling to have intercourse with Joyce the third or fourth time as he had been the first. And this is what I'm talking about with this like machismo culture thing. I mean obviously it's the late 70s basically everyone in the courtroom is a man with any sort of power and

they're like yeah but like you were up for it though you were up for it though weren't you and it doesn't matter how up for it he was in second third fourth time if he didn't want to do it it doesn't matter what happens either side of the time he's talking about, you know? I'm still not sure if I believe him, but, like, that's kind of irrelevant. Yeah. But he also added that he had only promised to marry Joyce so that he could get back to Epsom.

He made no attempt to escape despite not being restrained, apart from on one occasion on the third night. It's, again, just all very confusing. It's all, he says this, she says this. Not saying that none of this could have happened, but did it happen, is the question. So bail was set for £2,500 for both Joyce and her assistant assailant, Mystery Keith, under the following conditions. They must live with Joyce's parents, who had come over to support their daughter, and they all lived in a boarding house in Holloway together, and must be inside between 9pm and 9am.

There was also to be absolutely no communication between them and Kirk Anderson. Joyce's parents paid the money straight away. But let's face it, if they hadn't, the mirror would have stumped up the cash. No one was getting a naked carnation picture of Joyce was stuck inside Holloway prison. And the mirror weren't the only ones sniffing around. The sun made it known that they were willing to pay £70,000 for the infamous carnation picture. As a result, Joyce and Keith started showing up at newspaper offices at lunchtime, expecting to be taken out for very expensive lunches, which they were for a good while. Neither of the odd couple drank, and Joyce brought her own salad dressing with her absolutely everywhere she went and poured it all over everything, even on an extremely expensive filet mignon steak, which the editor of the Express described as nothing short of barbaric, which it is. And a barbarian she may

have been, but Joyce was also a celebrity. When she was on the beauty pageant circuit back in the States, she made no secret of the fact that she wanted to be famous. And now, thanks to the British tabloids, her dream had come true. The press dined out on Joyce for weeks. They sent her to celebrity parties, snapped pictures of her dancing with the Bee Gees and kissing Keith Moon of The Who. And she was even set up to upstage Joan Collins at the premiere of The Stud. It's literally the editors of these gutter press tabloid newspapers being like, oh my god, but wouldn't it be hilarious if we send her to this premiere and Joan Collins is fucked off because she's being upstaged by Joyce McKinney? Like,

it's all completely puppeted by the press. They're like making her into a person that they can continue to milk. Absolutely. So during this time, Joyce and her press bankrollers were utterly gleeful. There was even a girl group in the Midlands who called themselves the Joyce McKinney Experience. I can't overstate how famous she was. But her fame and her celebrity parties and pissing off Joan Collins were not going to last forever. The day after the stud premier Joyce McKinney

and the ever-faithful Keith May packed their bags and vanished. No one saw this coming and I mean that sincerely. Everyone thought that Joyce was too concerned with clearing her name to skip bail and the entire country. Everyone was wrong. Here's how she managed it. It's quite something. Both her and Keith stole the birth certificates of two dead people and used them to obtain travel visas to Canada. Joyce wore a fat suit and a wig. Keith dyed his hair and wore a fake moustache. They flew to Shannon in Ireland, which at the time was considered a domestic flight and had very little security. Then they flew from Shannon to Toronto, all the while pretending that they were both deaf and mute. It's so farcical, it's like unbelievable. Later on, an air steward claimed that she knew that they were faking it

because they were reacting to sound. But it's quite easy to say after the fact, isn't it? Like so many things in this story, we'll just never, ever know if it's true. I can 100% see that. I can 100% see the air steward coming down the galleyway or whatever it's called and being like, drinks, and then them just looking up and being like, yes, please. Or like nodding or something. But whatever that particular air steward thought keith and joyce

were allowed to leave toronto airport with very little trouble because even if you think they're pretending to do that unless she knew who they were they are um not going to be stopped they even managed to get all of their piles of suitcases out of the airport too like they're literally stopped off the plane because they have all of these suitcases, which by the way are full of newspaper clippings of Joyce, wigs and like disguises. And they're stopped there because they're like, you can't bring all of these. And she just looks at them and she has this badge that she's made herself being like, I'm deaf and mute. And then the interpreter isn't there that late at night, basically.

So they just let her go. Brilliant. So they're in Torontoonto now and from there they crossed the border into the united states joyce mckinney had made it home and scotland yard interestingly never even tried to extradite her which i think is very much singing from the same hymn sheet of this like male dominated like oh like it's not that much of a big deal like men can't be assaulted like whatever i also think that joyce mckinney's attractiveness plays a totally role in this

because we actually still see this today and i have talked about this before on the show but when you have young girls who have been victims of grooming by say a teacher a male teacher everybody is horrified everybody is disgusted rightly so that man will do time in prison for what he's done. When you see it the other way around, so when you see female teachers engaging in sexually abusive relationships with minor boys that are in their care, immediately the prison sentences are much less. Everybody's outrage is much less.

And the prison sentences fall in correlation, in direct correlation to the attractiveness of that female teacher. And it goes from sympathy and horror and disgust to good... Yeah, lucky him. Yeah, exactly. What I wouldn't have given at his age, you know? Precisely. And that is still a very real phenomenon that we see today. So the 70s, I'm not surprised.

So yeah, Scotland Yard never even tried to extradite her, and the case of Joyce McKinney and the manacled Mormon never made it to trial. And that is why so much of this case remains as nothing more than just hearsay. The Express ran the headline, quote, Not so dumb blonde Joyce McKinney

flees the country in purple sunspecks, a red wig and a pom-pom hat. A priceless gem, an incalculable loss to anybody. They mean to us because we can't keep sending her to all of these parties. Yes, yeah. She's gotten out of the grasp of our paparazzis. Exactly. And now the plan to get the carnation picture that everyone was so desperate for

is totally fucked because she's left the country. But don't worry, the story is far from over. Joyce has so much more to give because she still left the country. But don't worry, the story is far from over. Joyce has so much more to give because she still wants her money. So once she was safe on home turf, she called the Express and offered them her exclusive story for the princely sum of £40,000. In the 70s. Yeah.

Well, she could have had £70,000 from the sun if she hadn't skipped, but she did. And keen to stick it to the mirror, the Express leapt at the chance and they sent out two of their top dogs to meet Joyce in a Hilton Airport hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. Joyce, characteristically dramatic, told the Express that she would arrive under the cover of darkness and in a disguise. No one is trying to arrest you in the US, Joyce.

But she kept her word. Joyce and ever-faithful Keith turned up to the Hilton, dressed as an Alibaba tribute act in full blackface. There are photographs, go and find them. It's like jaw-dropping. A disguise it may have been, discreet it was not. And I think the Express, I know I just said that no one's trying to arrest Joyce in the States, but the Express were worried that the FBI were going to show up because they were technically harbouring fugitives in this hotel room. Anyway, nothing happens. And also we know now that Scotland Yard did nothing about it, but they wouldn't have known for sure. Joyce and Keith took over an hour to scrub off their grease paint disguise in the hotel bathroom. And then they told the Express what can only be described as an extremely sanitised version of the truth. Joyce made sure to bang on about how she would never get a fair trial because the Mormons hated her and now so did the British. She had nowhere to turn.

And then she agreed to a photo shoot in which both her and Keith were dressed as nuns. This is her idea. This isn't the Express coming up with this. Anyway, the nun photo shoot was executed the next day and then Joyce and Keith ran off into the sunset with their suitcase full of cash. With no one any the wiser to the actual nature of their relationship, it seemed as if such was his obsession with Joyce,

just being near her was enough for Keith. And one of the journalists in the documentary has such a good quote, he's like, cut Joyce Keith blood. Yeah. So although it would later be revealed that the pair did canoodle occasionally i'm guessing joyce knew just how much to give keith to keep him on board apparently they never had sex though in joyce's words they did everything but and that i do believe because that's as a domination tactic isn't it they did bits yeah bits and pieces

so the express thought that they had shat all over the mirror for good. They're literally like popping the champagne. They're like, we've done it. We've got the exclusive Joyce McKinney. We've got the nun pictures. Yeah, it's over. For some reason. But they were wrong.

Because whilst the Express were taking demure pictures of Sister Joyce and Sister Keith, the Mirror Men were on a story all of their own. They had been tipped off that the naked pictures of Joyce McKinney may already exist in California. It's like some sort of fucking holy grail situation. They're like, oh my god, maybe it already exists. After all, how else could she have earned the envelopes of cash that she had used to hire bodyguards and private planes? The tip led the mirror to another one of Joyce's devoted disciples, a Steve Moskowitz. When the mirror tracked him down, he was living in an apartment that was leased under one of Joyce's many aliases, looking after her dog, Millie. She leaves him in an apartment leased.

Like, she's paying for this apartment and he's looking after it for her. And also she's just like, oh, and can you keep my dog? I'm going to Britain to run after this man. Bye. Steve had met Joyce at a film club eight months previously and quickly fallen in love with her. When he was asked if the two of them had ever slept together, he replied, shoot, man, no one had sex with Joyce. Perhaps like Keith, he too was in the everything but club. Yeah. Steve refused to give the mirror anything on Joyce McKinney

until they offered to fly him first class to the UK so that he could be by her side at the trial. Because, right, they don't know yet that the trial's never going to happen. And that was all he needed. He handed over negatives of Joyce dressed as a pilot, a cowboy, a high priestess, a country girl, and finally, Eve the temptress, totally naked, save for a long wig. Steve said that these pictures came from Joyce's modelling portfolios. He added that he had been approached by other publications like The Sun,

but he couldn't understand why everyone was so desperate to dig up these photos from him when all they needed to do was, quote, follow up the advertisements. Steve didn't know it, but Steve was about to blow this wide open. In the time that Joyce had been living in LA raising funds to track down Kirk Anderson, she did her favourite thing. She put ads in the newspaper. This time, Joyce was the one offering the service. Back then, the LA Free Press had an entire sex services supplement called The

Freep. And inside The Freep were countless ads offering the BDSM, massage and bathing services of a state beauty queen with a PhD in theatre, ready to fulfil any fantasy. And this lady's name was Joey. Joey even had the same measurements that Joyce McKinney told everyone about and was so proud of, 38, 24, 36. And these ads noted, this is a direct quote, upper income clientele preferred, PS. Joey says, and she's written it in this like southern accent, so instead of I, the letter, she's written A-H.

Hello, shower boys. That's what she's doing, the letter, she's written A-H. A-L-L-S-H-A-B, boys. That's what she's doing it. Dirty old men and sugar daddies. Sugar S-U-G-A-H. Brilliant. So Joyce McKinney, the Bible clutcher, was a sex worker. There was no doubt about it. The Mirror had all the naked pictures of Joyce that they could possibly wish for.

That she published in the free press. Yes, yes. So they had ones of her mud wrestling, ones of her engaging in bondage, ones of her with a tiger, crotch shots, literally everything. If you can think of it, there is a picture of Joyce McKinney doing it. Yeah. So Steve confirmed the story. He told them that Joyce had six answering services

to keep up with all of the calls from her shy boys, dirty old men and sugar daddies. When Joyce's clients wanted penetrative sex, she refused and enlisted the services of her friend Laura, who pretended to be a Russian exchange student. Laura told the Mirror that Joyce would perform oral sex on her clients, but left everything else to Laura, and the pair would make $500 to $600 a week, even on the Sabbath.

The Mirror men couldn't believe their luck, and all this just as Joyce's side of the story was being run in the express with her dressed as a nun. And the Mirror, to counter this, ran the real Joyce McKinney. Tigers, crotch shots, bondage and all. When Joyce heard the news that these photographs of her had been found by the mirror and they were being printed, she quite literally flew into a rage. She bit her father's arm until it bled and she had to be sedated in hospital. And

it's the express that take her to hospital. This happens in the express offices. Meanwhile, the mirror's offices in Fleet Street erupted with champagne and choruses of joy to the world. The editor of the express, probably with his head hanging, walked into a Fleet Street favourite pub to raucous jeers from the mirror. He shouted, I surrender, as he entered the bar and he bought everyone in the pub a drink. So the mirror had firmly won the McKinney wars. And what's really interesting is the book called Joyce McKinney and the Case of the Manacled Mormon, the foreword is like, this is a period piece. This is what it was like in Fleet Street. And I think it's quite a, it's just quite an interesting angle because I don't think the role of the press can be overstated at all.

So the Mirror had won, the Express conceded, they all got pissed together and that was the end of it. Joyce was never taken to trial and the whole thing fizzled out. As for Kirk Anderson, he's back in Utah now and still doesn't take press calls. The doggedly loyal Keith died of kidney failure in 2004 and Steve Moskowitz has vanished entirely. Joyce herself sidled back into the press in 1984,

after she was caught lurking outside Salt Lake City Airport, where Kirk Anderson worked at the time. She was charged with harassment and lying to police, but she never showed up to her trial, and the case was dismissed. Joyce did become briefly involved with the Right to Life movement and popped up outside abortion clinics, but that hobby didn't last long. She can't help herself.

Like, she needs it. Like, I've never come across someone who so desperately needs people to be talking about her. And we've given her what she wants, unfortunately. Joyce lives in a house near the Kentucky border now with a small menagerie of animals and there's all sorts of stories of like she has horses and one of the horse's legs go missing and then she's convincing a teenage boy to break into someone else's house like there's

just a lot of really weird stuff going on but she claims that she no longer has anything to do with men and she quotes Bridget Bardot and the famous quote is I gave my beauty and my youth to men I'm going to give my wisdom and experience to animals. Okay Joyce. Oh my god. But when it comes to animals she did a little bit more than give them wisdom or experience. Joyce had a favourite dog called Booger and when Booger died Joyce couldn't imagine a life without him, so she rang Dr. Jin Han Hong in South Korea, and she gave him $150,000. And then Dr. Hong used a tissue sample from Booger the First and cloned five baby boogers, who Joyce named Booger Hong, Booger Burger, Booger Ra, Booger Mac, and Booger Park. Is that five? Anyway, she gives them Korean surnames is what I'm getting at.

And Joyce lives with her cloned dogs and she's still working on her book about Kirk Anderson, which she has called a very special love story. I mean, all the stuff with Kirk, all the stuff with Booger really shows you a woman who doesn't like to be left. No, she can't. She doesn't know how. There are lots of things that we can't agree on with this story. There's a lot of hearsay. It doesn't help that it never goes to trial, etc., etc., etc., etc. But I think we can all agree that everything you just heard is absolutely not a love story.

No, whatever Joyce McKinney would have you believe. So there you go. Joyce McKinney. Absolutely Coco Bananas. I can't even... She just keeps coming. She keeps coming with it. She can't stop.

No. No, she cannot. And she will not. But we're going to stop now. We're going to stop talking about Joyce McKinney. We're going to stop thinking about her. Hopefully you enjoyed that episode. And go get your tickets.

Yes, absolutely. For the North American tour, if you have not yet done so. We cannot wait to see you all on the road and um I don't know we'll see you then be good

bye He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today, I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment,

charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is The Rise and Fall of Diddy. Listen to The Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now,

exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding

Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.