Sante & Kenny Kimes: The Mother and son duo

In the late 1990s, Sante and Kenny Kimes were known as Mommy and Clyde, and they were involved in a string of crimes across the United States, beginning with stealing, forgery, scams, and eventually ending in murder because they wanted money.

Sante Kimes was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on July 24, 1934. She was born Sandra Singers and was one of four children born to her mother, Mary Van Horn a Dutch migrant, and her father, Prama Mahendra Singers, an east Indian who immigrated to the United States.

Sante grew up feeling ashamed of her background; she was poor, often suffering, and she claimed to have experienced racism. Allegedly. Sante claimed that her mother worked as a prostitute in Los Angeles, where her father left his wife on the side of the road after moving the family there. Sante claimed that her only method of surviving was by stealing food from grocery stores.

When Sante was 13 years old, an LA theater owner adopted her. Given how difficult to manage her daughter was her mother was pleased with the outcome. Sante’s adoptive parents were in the Army, her adoptive family resided in Nevada, and she was steadily moving up the social ladder. Ruth was the only friend Sante had, and she was regarded as being tough and domineering. After Ruth and Sante graduated from high school in 1952, they relocated to Santa Barbara, California, to enroll in college and pursue journalism as their major.

She starts her illicit activities at this point, starting with forgery. She used a man named Bruce, the name of her friend Ruth’s future father-in-law. One day Bruce started receiving strange invoices, and Sante went to the neighborhood retail stores and charged thousands of dollars to his name for anything she wanted, including cosmetics, apparel, jewelry, and perfume.

She got married to Lee on May 9, 1956, when she was 21 years old. Sante filed for divorce three months after Lee became a teacher since he could not lead her to the top of the financial ladder as she had hoped. As we all know, teachers don’t make a lot of money and that was not going to work for Sante.

Sante was described as a stunning woman, but she was also a parasite; when she discovered the kind of men she was looking for, she would grab onto them, take advantage of them, and then dump them. A few months later, she reconciled with Edward Kent, her second high school love, and on November 9, 1957, they were married.

They had different financial priorities, and Sante would spend $13,000 one Christmas, which Ed could not afford. To sound more French and exotic, Sante changed her name from Sandra to Sandy, then to Santi, and eventually to Sante. Her first child, Kent Walker, was born in 1962. After Kent was born, Sante continued to have extramarital affairs because she needed a way to pay for her expensive lifestyle and started engaging in insurance fraud.

Kent, her son, recalled that one of his first recollections was arriving home and seeing firefighters at his house since the house had burned to the ground and that was the third or fourth occasion. Ed Walker eventually went insane because Sante was destroying all the houses he had worked so hard to buy with the money he had earned. And Sante was just burning them down for insurance money. Sante’s numerous fires earned her the nickname “Dragon Lady” from the police.

To avoid being suspected of being involved in the fires, the family moved to Sacramento. Sante would commit insurance fraud and then start stealing. Her son Kent claimed that she was constantly stealing. She had been arrested three times in five days in 1966. When the police showed up at her house, they found numerous credit cards being used under a variety of fake names. She was accused of grand theft on 17 counts, but since a man in her life had arranged for her to get an excellent attorney, all she had to do was pay a fine.

Kent revealed that Sante was still having extramarital affairs with other men and that when his parents were arguing one day, Sante threw a knife at Ed that got lodged in his arm. When Ed entered his home, Sante would be with a different man, letting him know that she was having extramarital affairs. In 1969, the divorce was finalized.

One day, Sante was with her son Kent, and she went into the clothes shop while he waited on the hood of the car. She abruptly exits the store, urging her son to get in the car, alleging that a woman was following her.

Sante started to follow her plan when the woman grabbed her arm and accused her of shoplifting. She clenched her fist and punched her son, breaking his lip, and then yelled to the police that this woman had assaulted her child. She was arrested for hitting her son since they did not believe her.

Sante was divorced, broke, and on a quest to marry a rich man because she was still motivated to advance in society. Kent continued by saying that his mother frequently advised him to marry for money to avoid going broke. Sante was aware that her attractiveness would help her get the person and things she desired. Sante thought she resembled the famous actress Elizabeth Taylor.

She first met a millionaire Ken Kimes, 52, in 1971. Property developer Ken Kimes constructed numerous motels throughout the United States. He was 16 years older than Sante. At the time, Ken Kimes was worth 22 million dollars; by 2023, he would be worth 668 million.

She discovered a few facts about Ken before putting her plan into action. For instance, she learned that white is Ken’s favorite color, so she would wear white around him; gardenias were his preferred flower, so she would wear a perfume that smelled much like gardenias. Even though his friend warned him to stay away from Sante, Ken was so enamored with her that he did not care.

They were allowed access to a White House reception where they were photographed with President Gerald Ford thanks to Sante’s random assignment of Ken to the role of an ambassador. Additionally, they would go to three more embassy receptions.

Additionally, they would go to three more embassy receptions. Sante had trouble when Ken decided against getting married. She only gets his money by doing that. She referred to Ken’s children from a previous relationship as “the creeps,” and she reasoned that if he wasn’t going to marry her and I could have all of his money, why not have a kid?

On March 24, 1975, Kenneth Karam Kimes was born. Kenneth was raised by Sante to be isolated; she would have teachers come to the house to keep him from going and socializing with people his age. Kenneth didn’t have any friends since he was constantly surrounded by his mother; all he knew was his mother, and they were attached at the hip.

Kent, his older brother, characterized him as the “golden child.” On April 5, 1981, Ken and Sante married in Clark County, Nevada. Kenneth was 10 years old when the FBI raided the couple’s Las Vegas home on July 12, 1985, because Sante had been trafficking Mexican girls across borders and treating them as slaves.

If they would not obey Sante’s instructions, she would report them as undocumented immigrants to authorities. The women said that Sante would physically abuse them and once struck one of them with an iron. Ken Kimes was arrested and charged with enslavement on 15 counts. He agreed to attend AA meetings in exchange for a three-year prison sentence suspension.

Sante was sentenced to five years in prison. There’s an article called “My mother taught me to kill,” which tells the narrative of Kenny Kimes’ childhood and so on. He believes he slipped into a state of peace after his mother was sent to prison. And the fact that his mother was a peace deprivation. That is, there was no peace when she was present.

He also alleges that when Sante was in prison, his father was always talking about leaving her, but when she was released, all of that conversation vanished.

Kenneth was starting school for the first time and experiencing life as a child at the time. Sante was released from prison after three years in December 1989, and life returned to normal. Sante’s normal.

Sante began to exert even more control on Kenneth, and she expelled him from school once more. When Kenny was 16, he ran away from home, and Kent was sent to find him. At this moment in his life, Kenny was filled with hatred and anger. Kent stated that when Kenny returned home, he stayed, and he still wonders what would have happened if he had let his brother Kenny go.

They owned a mansion in Nassau, Bahamas, and while it appeared from the outside that they had everything, Ken Kimes was now 77 years old and slightly stressed out by Sante. Ken Kimes died on March 28, 1994, from an aneurysm. Sante now has a new problem: she does not want his children from his former marriage to find that he is no longer alive because they will inherit his wealth.

In 1994, Kenny was 19 years old and a college student. He had been working on his maturity, so he decided to impress his father by dressing up in a suit. As he walks off the plane, he is greeted by his mother. And she informs him that his father passed away two months ago.

She kept his death a secret, refused a proper autopsy, and cremated him the next day. Sante pretended Ken was still alive by attempting to access his accounts using his credit cards.

Nonetheless, concerns arose when Syed Bilal Ahmed, a 55-year-old bank executive at Ken’s offshore account, grew concerned when Ken’s bank account began to request a huge number of money transfers. Syed goes to the Bahamas to investigate, and Sante sees him as a problem that she must solve.

Kenny and Sante go out to dinner with bank investor Syed on September 4, 1996. They bring him back to the house for coffee after dinner and put a date rape drug in the coffee. He was drugged and drowned in the bathtub. Kenny threw the body into the ocean, and Syed was never discovered.

They fled the Bahamas for a mobile home in Florida before embarking on a cross-country shoplifting spree. On May 19, 1997, Sante was arrested, and Kenny assaulted the police officer.

Kenny, now 22, got arrested for the first time and immediately called his brother. Kent stated that he was happy to learn that his brother was in jail and that he hoped it made Kenny realize that if he continued to commit crimes, he would end up back in prison.

Kenny was considered a first-time offender by the courts, which meant that it was unlikely to happen again, so he was released, proving to Kenny that he could do whatever he wanted and get away with it. Sante didn’t have any money. Sante and Kenney moved in with her oldest son, Kent. Kent mentioned that when they stayed with him, Kenny and Sante were on a team against Kent.

They promptly left and went on to their next plan. In 1992, Sante and Ken transferred the deed to their Las Vegas home to a friend named David Kazdin because they could no longer afford it. David was from New York and was 63 years old.

While Ken was still alive, he persuaded a notary to forge David’s signature on a loan application for $280,000, with the house he signed as collateral. After getting a letter from his bank stating that he had a new mortgage, David uncovered the counterfeit. The house then burned down, and the insurance company refused to cover it because they suspected arson. As a result, David threatened to expose Ken.

Sante, being Sante, had only one option when faced with a challenge or someone in her path: murder them. Kenny and a friend flew to Los Angeles, where David lived in Grenada Hills, on March 13, 1998. When Kenny came to the door, David invited him in and offered him coffee. David turns around to go make coffee, Kenny pulls out his gun and shoots him in the back of the neck, killing him.

Kenny and a friend carried David’s body into the back of David’s car and dumped it in an alley dumpster. Kenny then sends flowers to Sante, as though they are celebrating something. Two weeks after David’s death, Sante planned to buy a car with a forged check. When the dealership found the forgery, they immediately notified the police, and warrants were issued for Sante and Kenny.

They decide to travel to New York City after two murders and several frauds. They were planning their next con. Sante was seeking a place to live when she met Irene Silverman, an 82-year-old socialite. Irene owned a $7.7 million Manhattan house that she transformed into rental apartments. Sante wants what Irene has and creates the identity of Manny Guerin.

Kenny takes control of the situation, indicating that he would pay her the $6,000 for the apartment right away if she did not ask any questions. He then plants a bug in her apartment, allowing him and Sante to overhear her talk. Since she could see the shadow on Kenny’s feet under the door and knew he was continually watching her through the peephole, Irene had an odd feeling about him.

Sante obtains a copy of the deed and forges Irene’s signature on it to complete the deed transfer. You may be asking how Sante obtained a copy of the deed. She disguised herself as Irene and persuaded the clerk that she wanted a copy of the deed. They determined that forging Irene’s signature was not enough. Sante and Kenny moved into the apartment in June 1998, and Irene was reported missing on July 5, 1998.

On July 5, 1998, Kenny encourages Irene to come over to where Sante tased Irene in the back, forcing her to fall to the ground, and Kenny strangles her with his bare hands. Kenny then put Irene’s body in a duffle bag and drove about 20 minutes to Hoboken, New Jersey, where she was thrown in a garbage can.

When Kenny arrived, he found Sante cleaning the crime scene with rubbing alcohol, and they decided that now that Irene was gone, it was time to celebrate. They drove to Trump Tower in Midtown to eat at the Trump Cafe, where they sipped coffee and ate pastries.

Kenny went on to say that his mother was proud of him for killing Irene, telling him, “You did good, Kenny,” and that the hands that had just been around Irene’s neck were now around a cup of coffee. It only took a few hours for everyone to realize Irene was missing. A retired NYPD officer received a call informing him that Irene was missing and that the staff knew she would not leave on her own because she had trouble walking and would not leave alone.

Investigators go to the apartments to find out more about Kenny, whose name appears in Irene’s journal. She wrote about Kenny’s actions and mentioned that he looked like he should be in jail. Across the country, the LAPD and FBI were looking into the bad check used to buy the car, and they suspected them of murdering David Kazdin in California. Investigators discover that Stanley Patterson sold a gun to Kenny that was used in David Kazdin’s murder.

In order to avoid arrest, Stanley volunteered to help authorities apprehend Sante and Kenney. They phone Stanley and say,

Stanley says,

Stanley told the FBI he was going to New York on July 5th. They subsequently turned that information over to New York detectives. They then organized a task force to find Sante and Kenny. Stanley and the Kimes meet on 6th Avenue at the New York Hilton. To alert the cops that it was time to arrest them, Stanley had to tip his hat. Sante and Kenny came 6 hours later after dumping Irene’s body and enjoying tea and crumpets at the Trump Tower.

Sante throws down her purse and claims it is not hers as they are arrested, and Kenny pees his pants. Sante’s purse included seven passports, five checkbooks, and Irene’s cheques. On Kenny, they discovered a counterfeit Social Security card in Irene’s name. Employees recognized Kenny in a photo lineup and secured an arrest warrant for his apartment.

When they look around, they realize that the shower curtain is missing, as well as multiple wigs, date rape drugs, and papers filled with Irene’s signature, as if they were practicing her signature. They discovered a to-do list and wrote duct tape and garbage bags on it. They discovered another bag with the forged deed to the townhouse.

In December 1998, Kenny and Sante were facing 84 charges, including murder, despite the fact that Irene’s body had never been found. Sante believed that this was her last chance to shine in court, and she continued to blame the authorities and allege that her own lawyers had framed them.

She compared their prosecution to the Salem witch trials, and she accused the prosecutors of “murdering the Constitution.” Sante was found guilty and sentenced to 120 years in prison, while Kenny was sentenced to 125 years. They had discovered evidence linking them to the murder of David Kazdin and were about to be extradited to California, where they may face the death penalty if convicted.

Kenny is offered a plea bargain in exchange for confessing to the murders of Syed Bilal Ahmed and David Kazdin and testifying against his mother, ensuring that none of them receive the death penalty.

Both were sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole and the judge called Sante

Sante died on May 19, 2014, while serving her sentence at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in New York, at the age of 79.

Kenny Kimes is now incarcerated at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in California. While in prison, Kenny connected with Traci Foust, a writer, and they exchanged letters about his story.

They spent the following two years communicating the most intimate aspects of their lives through letters, phone calls, and visits. Kenny also admitted to falling in love with Traci. Traci died on January 13, 2018, as a result of complications from the flu and pneumonia. He states,

He also states that,