The woman who paid US$50,000 to clone her beloved pit bull could be the same woman accused of kidnapping a Mormon and sexually assaulting him using fur-lined handcuffs back in the 1970s.
Bernann McKinney attracted worldwide interest when she turned up in Seoul this week cuddling five black puppies cloned from her dead dog, Booger.
In a Southern drawl, she described her Booger as an angel rented out to her by God.
"He knew I was going to have rough times so he sent Booger down to help me out," she said. "And He knew I'd be lost without him, so He sent me five more mini-Boogers."
Members of the British press, people in North Carolina and other former acquaintances quickly recognized the blonde woman's smiling face. Bernann McKinney bears a striking resemblance to Joyce McKinney, who in the late 1970s faced charges of abduction and unlawful imprisonment for allegedly abducting Kirk Anderson, a 21-year-old Mormon missionary, and holding him captive for three days in a Devon cottage.
Joyce McKinney, originally from North Carolina, was accused of shackling the young man to a bed with fur-lined handcuffs and ripping off his blue silk pajamas.
"I couldn't move," Mr. Anderson said in court.
A former boyfriend, he reportedly moved overseas to escape Joyce McKinney's advances.
"She grabbed the top of my pajamas and tore them from my body until I was naked.
"I didn't wish it to happen. I was extremely depressed and upset after being forced to have sex."
Mr. Anderson eventually escaped. So did Joyce McKinney. After spending three months in jail and being released on bail, she and a male accomplice fled Britain a week before their trial.
Press reports at the time said the pair posed as deaf-mute actors in Shannon, Ireland, and boarded an Air Canada flight bound for Toronto using false passports. Authorities said they then took a bus to Cleveland, Ohio, where Scotland Yard lost their trail.
Reached this week in Seoul, Bernann McKinney flatly denied she is Joyce McKinney.
"That's garbage, that's rot," she told the London Times.
"If that is what you want to talk about then I don't want to talk to you. If you print that rot I will sue you."
Responding to the Daily Mail, she said, "Are you going to ask me about my dogs, or not? Because that's all I'm prepared to talk to you about."
In 1979, Joyce McKinney was discovered living back in Avery County, N.C., where she was born. The British government announced it would not seek her extradition because it would be "very expensive" and "wouldn't be in the public interest," a spokesman said.
Joyce McKinney, then in her 20s, is still famous for proclaiming during one court appearance she loved Mr. Anderson so much she would "ski naked down Mount Everest with a carnation up my nose if he asked me to."
She denied the sexual assault, saying he was a willing partner.
"Kirk is so afraid his church is going to excommunicate him, he just made all that up," she said at the time.
In court, her lawyer noted the physical disparity between the diminutive Joyce McKinney and Mr. Anderson, declaring, "Methinks the Mormon doth protest too much ... you have seen the size of Mr. Anderson and you have seen the size of my client."
There are many similarities in the histories of the alleged kidnapper and the dog cloner.
This week, as news of the cloned puppies spread around the world, Bernann McKinney was described as a former beauty queen and screenwriter who sold her house in California to pay for Booger's cloning.
The pit bull, which died of cancer, apparently saved her from a mauling by a larger dog, and would pull her around in a wheelchair as she recovered. She claimed to be turning 58 this week.
Joyce McKinney was crowned Miss Wyoming-USA in the early 1970s. The Daily Mail reported that by the late 1990s, she was still in North Carolina, living with a pit bull named Hamburger and relying on a wheelchair. She would be approximately 58 or 59 years old today.
In 1984, Joyce McKinney was charged with disturbing the peace and giving false information to police after turning up near Mr. Anderson's workplace in Salt Lake City.
The man told police he feared being abducted again. At the time, Joyce McKinney argued she was gathering information for a screenplay about their previous encounter.
The voters' list in Avery County, N.C., includes the name Joyce Bernann McKinney. Records show the woman last voted in 2002.
Locals immediately noticed a resemblance between the woman on the news posing with her puppies and their county's famous former resident. They believe Joyce McKinney moved away several years ago.
Trent Harris, a Utah filmmaker who made a film about Joyce McKinney in the late 1970s, immediately noticed the resemblance between his former subject and the woman posing with puppies in his local newspaper.
"It certainly looks like her," Mr. Harris said.
"It certainly would match her personality. She would do something like spend US$50,000 to clone a pet.... All I can say is her last name's McKinney and the picture really looks like her.
"When you get to know Joyce, you understand why they name hurricanes after women," he added.
"She is a force of nature. If she makes up her mind to do something, she does it - obviously."
National Post
mvallis@nationalpost.com
