“I’ve shot men before and managed to get out of it.”: Sharon Kinne, Serial Killer - 1964

FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 2): Kansas City – At the age of 20, Mrs. Sharon Kinne has been tried and acquitted in the killing of her lover’s wife; convicted and retried twice in the death of her husband and she awaits sentence on yet another murder charge in Mexico City.

The sentence on that charge in the shooting death of Francisco Paredes Ordonez on September 18, 1964 – is due to be handed down any day. A Mexican judge, Alfonso Zamora Reyes of the 11th Penal Court, has made a recommendation but the sentence must be approved by two other judges.

Mrs. Kinne became a widow on March 19, 1960. Her husband, James, was shot to death as he napped in their home. Investigators first wrote it off as an accidental shooting triggered by the couple’s 2-year-old daughter.

On May 28, 1960, the body of Patricia Jones was found – shot four times – in a weed-grown lover’s lane near an abandoned farm house southeast of Kansas City.

Mrs. Kinne, then 21, was charged with killing her. Walter Jones, the dead woman’s husband, testified he had dated Mrs. Kinne after her husband died and that Mrs. Kinne had told him she was pregnant with his child. A daughter, her third child, was born to Mrs. Kinne later.

The man who found Mrs. Jones’ body was John Boldizs. His date, that night was Sharon Kinne. Friends of Mrs. Jones testified that they last saw her climbing into Mrs. Kinne’s car.

A jury acquitted Mrs. Kinne.

On January 11, 1962, a circuit court jury convicted her of killing James Kinne. The state produced witnesses who testified the Kinnes’ daughter could not have pulled the trigger.

A year later the Missouri Supreme court reversed the murder conviction and remanded the case to the Jackson County Circuit Court. The Supreme Court said it found legal substance in an appeal based on contentions that the trial court erred in not permitting Mrs. Kinne the correct number of pre-emptory challenges and that it also erred in instruction given to the jury On March 25, 1964, Mrs.

Kinne’s second murder trial ended in a mistrial. Circuit Judge Paul Carver terminated the trial after it was reported to him that a juror in the case once had been a client of a law partner of Lawrence Gepford, the county prosecutor was handling the case.

The third time she was tried for Kinne’s death, Mrs. Kinne took the stand for the first time. She told that Danna, the daughter, had been trying to get attention – first from her, then her husband.

“Then I heard Danna in the bedroom. She was saying ‘Show me this, Daddy, show me this,’ just as she had done several times before with several toys, and I heard a shot. I guess it was a shot.” Mrs. Kinne said.

“I went into the bedroom and Danna was standing there and James was lying there and I saw the blood and I thought he was dead. I picked Danna up and put her on the couch and called James’ father.”

A defense attorney, James Patrick Quinn, said:

“Tell this jury: Did you shoot your husband?”

“No, no, I didn’t . . . no.”

“No.”

She denied offering Boldizs $1,000 to kill her husband, as had been testified. She denied that she became pregnant less that a month after Kinne’s death, saying it was Kinne’s child. And she denied that she profited because he carried $29,000 in life insurance.

The jury had the case nearly 24 hours, then came back and said it was hopelessly deadlocked. That was July 4, 1964.

A fourth trial was set for October 26, 1964. Claude Bradshaw, a bondsman, posted $25,000 for her release pending the trial. On the night of September 18, 1964, Francisco Paredes Ordonez was shot to death in a Mexico City motel room.

She was charged with homicide. Mrs. Kinne said she had met Samuel Francis Puglise of Chicago in Kansas City two months earlier, fell in love with him and went to Mexico City to be married.

They quarreled and Mrs. Kinne left and later met Paredes in a bar. Paredes invited her to his motel room because she was feeling ill, Mrs. Kinne said. She said Paredes then made advances.

“When I pushed him away, he hit me and then put his knee on my stomach. He hit me again several times. He covered my mouth so I couldn’t scream, but I managed to throw him off and onto the floor. It gave me lime to pull my gun from my purse. I fired – I don’t know how many times, one or two times,” Gepford, the Jackson County prosecutor, said a few days later the gun Mrs. Kinne used was the one used to kill Mrs. Jones four years earlier. The weapon had not been found before.

In Kansas City, on November 9, 1964, Mrs. Kinne’s $25,000 bond was ordered forfeited, despite bondsman Bradshaw’s plea that he elected to return Mrs. Kinne later that week. She was not released.

Bonding companies made several attempts to have the forfeiture halted, finally posted a $30,000 supersedeas bond, guaranteeing payment of the $25,000 if the Missouri Supreme Court eventually rules against the firm.

Mrs. Kinne’s case was heard in closed court in Mexico City in the early part of this year. In May it was reported that Judge Reyes was drafting his recommendation.

Since then there had been reports that she would get a 10-year sentence and that she would receive probation and be deported. That would mean returning to Kansas City and at a  fourth trial in the James Kinne death.

In an interview, she called her prison in Mexico City “a low class YWCA where everybody could move around and do what she liked.”

Then she said: “It’s a really funny place. If  you’ve got the money you can I have your own furniture, television, whatever you went. If you’ve got money this is a pretty good place. They’ll sell you everything except the key to the front door.

“But it’s so boring and time drags so There’s nothing to do all day. Nobody pays any attention to you. You just wait.”

[“The Sharon Kinne Story - Kansas City Woman Awaits Outcome of Mexican Trial,” syndicated (AP), The Joplin Globe (Mo.), Oct. 4, 1965, p. 2A]

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A U.S. embassy representative who visited her in the Mexican prison said she appeared extremely cool. He told reporters that she shrugged repeatedly and told him: “I've shot men before and managed to get out of it.”

[Source: “Is Sharon Kinne still alive?” Crime Scene KC, July 16, 2010]

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FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 2): Mexico City –  An intensive nationwide search was under way today for Sharon Kinne, 29-year-old Missouri woman who escaped from the women’s prison in Mexico City Sunday night.

Dozens of police and secret service agents concentrated their search in the northern states. Authorities believed Mrs. Kinne was headed for the American border.

Maj. Rafael secret service Rocha Cordero, chief, said the woman may be armed. He said she might use various aliases, including Elizabeth Sharon Kinne, Jannette Puglishe and Sharon Elizabeth Kinne.

Mrs. Kinne had served five years of a 13-year sentence for the 1964 murder of a tourist guide in a Mexico City hotel.

She is also wanted in Kansas City on a charge of murdering her husband James on March 19, 1960.

Police said the woman probably made her escape by bribing some of the prison guards. The Independence, Mo., woman was charged with homicide after tourist guide Francisco Paredes Ordones was shot to death in a Mexico City hotel room Sept. 18, 1964. She claimed she was defending herself against his advances.

She has been tried three times for the death of her husband, who was shot as he was taking a nap in their home. On Jan. 11, 1952, a circuit court convicted her of the slaying, but a year later the Missouri Supreme Court reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial.

On March 25, 1964, a mistrial was declared in her second trial, and the third trial ended in a hung jury on July 4, 1964. A fourth trial was set for Oct. 26 of the same year, and Mrs. Kinne was released on $25,000 hail. The court ordered her bond forfeited on Nov. 9, 1964, and she is still wanted for retrial.

[“Intensive Hunt For Escaped Murderess,” syndicate (AP), Great Bend Daily Tribune (Ka.), Dec. 9, 1969, p. 1]

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CHRONOLOGY

1956 – Oct 18, 1956,Sharon hall marries James Kinne.

1960 – on Mar. 19, 1960, she kills husband James A. Kinne, 25; says 2 ½ year old daughter probably shot him accidentally; she is accused of having tried to hire a killer for $1,000; husband’s life was insured for $29,000 (other reports state $6,000 payment on $3,000 double indemnity for accidental death).
1960 – May 12, 1960, Marvin T. Mayo purchases second hand .22 pistol for SK.

1960 – May 26, 1960, SK kills pregnant wife of boyfriend, Mrs. Patricia Jones, 4 shots.

1961 – trial for Jones murder, Independence, Mo., acquitted on Jun. 22, 1961.

1961 – Sep. 1961, trial for husband’s murder.

1962 – Jan. 8 ("11"), 1962, trial begins (murder of James Kinne).

1962 – Jan. 11, 1962, convicted of husband’s murder.

1962 – Apr. 13, 1962, sentenced to life.

1963 – March 11, 1963; Missouri Supreme Court overturns Jan. 11, 1962 conviction; SK released from jail on $25,000 bail.

1964 – Mar. 23; new trial begins.

1964 – Mar. 25, 1964, a mistrial was declared in her second trial.

1964 – Jun. 30; new trial begins.

1964 – July 4, 1964, the third trial ended in a hung jury; a fourth trial scheduled for Oct. 26, 1964, released on $25,000 bail.

1964 – Sep. 12 1964, Sharon Kinne, on the lam after jumping bail, leaves with Pugilese for Mexico.

1964 – Sep. 14 1964, couple enters Mexico from Laredo, Texas.

1964 – Sep. 18, 1964; kills Francisco Paredes Ordonez  in motel La Vada, Mexico City, with High Standard .22 target pistol.

1964 – Nov. 9, 1964, bond forfeited, and she is still wanted for retrial.

1965 – Oct. 18, 1965, SK convicted in Mexico; sentenced to 10 years.

1966 – May 16, 1966, on review, sentence increased to 13 years.

1969 – Dec. 7, 1969, escape from Federal Women’s Penitentiary; never found.

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For links to other cases of woman who murdered 2 or more husbands (or paramours), see Black Widow Serial Killers.

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