The Bizarre Life of Manacled Mormon Mastermind Joyce McKinney

In 1977, former beauty queen Joyce McKinney made headlines when she kidnapped Mormon missionary

Kirk Anderson and turned him into her sex slave. As you might imagine, the so-called case of the manacled Mormon made headlines all over

the world. While kidnapping a missionary is certainly one of the crazier things Joyce McKinney ever

did, she has made headlines for other behavior. So today, we're going to take a look at the bizarre life of manacled Mormon mastermind

Joyce McKinney. A romance between a beauty queen and a Mormon missionary

sounds like the plot of a movie. But in reality, it all started in a fairly ordinary way

Joyce McKinney first met Kirk Anderson in the mid-1970s when they were both students at Brigham Young University in Utah

She was studying for her doctorate in drama and had recently converted to the Mormon religion

He was an undergraduate and just 19 years old while she was 25

They became romantically involved and reportedly had a romantic liaison at least once

McKinney later claimed this encounter led to a pregnancy and a miscarriage

Anderson, who was conflicted about the whole thing, went to his church to express how he

violated his religious beliefs about waiting until marriage before having sex. Subsequently, he decided to leave the country and didn't tell McKinney where he was headed

This is where things start getting weirder, because in what most people would agree is

a minor violation of privacy. McKinney proceeded to hire a private detective to track Anderson down

When she found out he was in England on his Mormon mission, she followed him there with a friend

named Keith May. McKinney confronted Anderson on the steps of a Mormon church. Holding what appeared

to be a real gun, she marched him to her car where she and May used chloroform to knock Anderson out

They then drove to a rented countryside home in England. There, she reportedly handcuffed

Anderson to a bed with mink-lined handcuffs. Where do you get mink-lined handcuffs? That's the real

mystery. McKinney left Anderson tied to the bed for several days. During that period, she had

intercourse with him several times, and later she claimed that he agreed to marry her, which she

seemed to believe was a decision he made on his own, instead of as a prisoner held at gunpoint

After three days, however, Anderson was able to free himself and flee. Mink handcuffs must not be

that secure. From there, he went straight to the police. After talking with Anderson British authorities arrested McKinney for kidnapping him but in a twist that might seem somewhat shocking to our more modern sensibilities

she did not face harsher charges. In fact, under British law at the time, there was no such thing as a sexual crime charge

where the victim was a man. When McKinney was out on bail awaiting her trial

the young woman embraced the British tabloids who, in turn, embraced her right back

There was a worldwide news frenzy, and the media nicknamed her Madam Mayhem

Instead of facing justice for the crime she committed, she actually made a significant amount of money selling her story to the tabloids

She appeared on the covers of the Daily Express and the Daily Mirror at the exact same time

each with similar stories. The Daily Express reportedly paid her £40,000 in cash for her tale

the equivalent of roughly £225,000 or $310,000 in today's amounts. After McKinney spent three months in London's Holloway Prison

the courts released her on bail due to her declining mental health. Mental health issues, who'd have guessed

Once at a prison, though, her mental health problems apparently cleared up real fast

and she cashed in on as much of the publicity of the investigation as she could

Then she and her accomplice, Keith May, fled England. They landed in Canada, where they used false passports

to enter the country before returning to the United States. In a twist that sounds like it comes from a comedy movie

the pair attempted to hide their identities by disguising themselves as nuns

US authorities were not fooled, though, and arrested them for falsifying passports

However, by that point, British authorities had decided not to file extradition charges on McKinney

McKinney told tabloids that her preparation for the kidnapping included reading books on deprogramming people

into leaving cults. She believed she could use her body to help de-brainwash Kirk, who she took to calling Cult Kirk

That's certainly a novel approach. McKinney believed the Mormon church was a cult

that had convinced her true love, Anderson, to shirk her and run away to England

However, whether she legitimately believed these things or was merely trying to make her crime seem more sympathetic

is anyone's guess. McKinney believed in addition to saving Anderson from a cult

she was fixing what she alleged to be his repressive desires. She told the courts their acts were consensual

and claimed he was grinning like a monkey. She went on to explain to the courts

how she didn even derive any pleasure from their encounter as she was too busy trying to satisfy him She claimed the bondage was part of a cure she was using to fix his problems Anderson for his part adamantly maintained

that everything was non-consensual. Despite the fact that McKinney later denounced the Mormon

religion, she was reportedly dedicated to it for a time and had converted while staying with a Mormon family

during college. Whether it was her newfound religion or her flair for the theatrical

McKinney reportedly became obsessed with the then-popular Osmond family, which included the famous Donnie and Marie

Before McKinney met Anderson, she even allegedly had a relationship with one of the Osmond brothers

Wayne, whom she wanted to marry. Under the pretense of rescuing Anderson, whom she alleged was her fiancé

McKinney recruited some men to help get Anderson out of the cult. Via a newspaper ad, she hired two bodyguards to come with her and Keith May over to England

Those men were Gil Parker, a bodybuilder, and Jackson Shaw, a pilot

When the four were at a hotel on the day of the abduction, Parker reportedly saw McKinney

and May pull out a gun, chloroform, and microphones and listening devices

Realizing the circumstances were a little different than what they had been led to believe

Parker and Shaw declined to participate and took off. After news of the manacled Mormon story made headlines

McKinney became an overnight sensation. The press invited her to movie premieres and parties with rock stars

such as the Rolling Stones and the Bee Gees. She even claimed to have attended a movie premiere with Joan Collins

where the famous actress was annoyed at all the attention the young instant celebrity received from the media

Prior to her arrests, McKinney participated in beauty pageants. In 1973, she was selected to be Miss Wyoming

and competed in the Miss USA pageant. Several tabloids dredged up old newspapers and magazines

with ads McKinney, alleging she worked as a high-class call girl. McKinney, however, disputed this characterization

The former glamour model maintained the photographs were not pornographic and claimed tabloid filmmakers

stole nude pictures from her home. Who doesn't have nude glamour shots of themselves at home

You'd think that after getting away with such crimes, McKinney would leave well enough alone

But she didn't. In 1984, Utah police arrested her for stalking Anderson

He reported her sitting in a car outside of his place of employment. In her car, authorities found a notebook full of information

about Anderson day activities and movements The trunk of her car contained handcuffs and chains Reports do not say if those handcuffs were mink She told police that she just wanted to talk to Anderson and see how he was doing you know with handcuffs and chains Anderson taken aback told authorities he thought

that chapter was over, and he never expected Joyce McKinney to reappear in his life in any shape or

form. In 2008, McKinney was in the news once again. This time, it was for dog cloning. Under

the name Burnin McKinney, she reportedly ordered a South Korean laboratory to clone her beloved

deceased pit bull, Booger. The purchase cost her $50,000, which was a reduced price because she

promised to garner publicity for the cloning lab. Her transaction and involvement aided in starting

the world's first ever commercial dog cloning company. In 2011, noted filmmaker Errol Morris

made a documentary about the McKinney case. Titled Tabloid, it covered McKinney's instant rise to fame

thanks to the British and American magazines and newspapers who covered the sensational story in vivid detail

Five years later, McKinney attempted to sue Morris, claiming the filmmaker told her the documentary

would clear her name, and instead it painted her as a prostitute and crazy person

The accused offered to settle the case for $65,000, but McKinney refused

claiming they had made millions off of her and she wanted some of those profits

According to Morris, the courts dismissed the suit due to McKinney's history of being overly litigious

In 1978, Daily Mirror journalist and historian Anthony Delano released Joyce McKinney in the case of the Manacled Mormon

a true crime book documenting McKinney's story. McKinney claimed to be working on her own memoir titled

A Very Special Love Story. She even mentioned it in several of the newspapers

when the scandal first broke. She later accused the documentary filmmakers of tabloid

of stealing the manuscript. To date, she has not completed the memoir

In July of 2019, Los Angeles police arrested McKinney in connection with a hit-and-run incident

that took the life of a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor named Gennady Belotsky

The incident was captured on a surveillance camera, and McKinney, who was by this time homeless and living in her vehicle with three dogs, was identified by residents of the neighborhood in which the crime occurred

McKinney faced several charges for her actions, including vehicular manslaughter, and if convicted, she could face up to 11 years in prison

However, in February of 2020, a judge ruled she was not competent to stand trial