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May 9, 2001 - Art Bell
02:51:13
Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Kent Walker- Son of a Grifter
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Welcome to Art Bell, somewhere in time.
Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from May 9th, 2001.
From the high desert in the great American Southwest, I bid you all good evening and or good morning wherever you may be across this great land of ours, stretching from commercially the island of Guam, the rock in the Pacific, eastward to the Caribbean and the U.S.
Virgin Islands, south into South America, north all the way to the pole, and worldwide on the Internet, this is Coast to Coast AM.
Coast-to-coast-to-coast-to-coast AM.
Great to be here.
Well, it was a big day, wasn't it?
It was the day of the Greer Disclosure News Conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and it began in an interesting way.
The Disclosure News Conference was carried on the web, and Many, many who tried to see it live on the web were disappointed.
Here's one.
John writes, Art, it was impossible to connect to Connect Live this morning for the Disclosure Project webcast using the high bandwidth connection.
I could hear 20 or 30 seconds at a time using low bandwidth before getting disconnected.
Well, This person wrote to ConnectLive.com's technical support address and received the following reply.
If you are having trouble connecting, do not fear.
It will be archived in its entirety for the next six months.
The archive will be placed online this afternoon.
There have been a number of sophisticated attempts to jam the signal.
That's what Connect Live said.
There have been a number of sophisticated attempts to jam the signal.
However, we have very successfully managed to get around those attempts and thousands of people have watched the live broadcast.
Please keep trying.
Now, who would try to jam the live broadcast?
Who would do a thing like that?
I mean, really.
Who would do something like that?
And so I received many, many, many emails of that sort with the message from Connect that somebody had been jamming them.
Odd.
Very odd indeed.
Well, the American press, you see, takes a little time to get going.
It was a very well presented news conference, indeed.
Now, I haven't had time to see it all on the web myself, yet.
But, tonight we have it for you on my website.
If you will go, we've got the link.
Which do, in fact, let me instruct you now, those of you who have not yet seen the news conference.
On the top says, Greer Disclosure Project Video.
And, kaboom, over there you go.
View Part 1.
View Part 2.
Pick your modem speed.
It's all there for you right now under What's New on my website at www.artbell.com.
So you can see it.
Now, as I just said a moment ago, the American press is a little slow.
They take a little time getting cranked up.
Early this morning on headline news, they were running a banner about it at the bottom of the news and that ran all morning.
About the Disclosure News Conference.
Then, Inside Politics did a piece this afternoon on CNN, regular.
And then tonight, on CNN Headline, I note that every single half hour, they're running the story.
And they're not laughing.
I think that, for the most part, For the most part, it's been pretty good coverage.
In fact, right now, it's the top news story, at least within the hour, it has been the top news story at ABCnews.com.
And I think we've got a link to that, too.
Let me see.
Well, I don't see it.
I'm sure on our links page, you will find a link to it.
ABCnews.com, top story right now.
Heather Wright saw a multi-minute news spot on CNN.
6.30 p.m.
Mountain Time for the Disclosure Conference.
Dr. Greer spoke, as did other UFO observers.
Here's somebody who says, King 5 in Seattle did strong coverage of the UFO conference today.
It was so shocking to have them showing their promo for it this afternoon.
Boeing's move to Chicago was first, big locally of course, and then they went to the review of the UFO conference and it was quite positive.
Or this on Fox National News, we just got disclosure coverage at 7.11 p.m.
Eastern Daylight Time, in a Fox News segment, brief but no laughing.
Showed part of the interview with one of the sergeants, film clip of discs, but the interview clip had him saying there were machines and beings.
Now get this.
Pentagon said that some of these people, quote, probably shouldn't be talking, end quote.
According to the report.
And said there was nothing to all of this UFO story stuff.
Well, If there is nothing to UFO stories, why would the Pentagon care if people talked about it?
Interesting.
And then I've got the full abcnews.com story, so it looks like Dr. Greer is having some pretty good degree of luck, I would say, in getting this out.
Now, I did not observe any major network coverage, ABC, NBC, CBS.
Did you?
I could be wrong about that.
Maybe somebody got it, but I didn't see anything on the majors.
Nevertheless, this is a process underway.
And you are seeing the first stories carried pretty well on quite a bit of the major media.
It's just one little jump for mankind from there to one, you know, ABC, NBC, CBS.
One small step for the networks, but one great leap for mankind.
Come on, networks, get it on!
So, that was the coverage story today on Dr. Greer's, I would say, a pretty large success.
And remember, it's a process, and there will be other briefings and discussions going on in Washington over the next few days that Dr. Greer will be spearheading.
He'll be meeting with the... You see, what we really need are congressional hearings on this.
Do I think we'll get them?
Probably not.
That's just my pessimistic guess, but would I love to see them?
Oh, yes.
Oh, my, yes.
Wouldn't that be something?
All right, there's more.
Stay right where you are.
There's this big bulge building in Oregon.
Actually, a series of big bulges.
Really, one nine to twelve miles across and about four inches high.
The ground is bulging in Oregon.
And what do you think that might mean?
It might mean there's magma Magma.
Moving around.
Anyway, we'll get to the story here in a moment.
Also, we had a listener, thank God for the listeners, who flew an airplane in an interesting area and took an even more interesting picture.
We're going to be seeking your help in telling us what it is we've got here.
Now we take you back to the night of May 9th, 2001 So, what's going on in Oregon?
Well, rumbling, I suppose, underground.
Listen to this, Associated Press.
A significant bulge in the Earth's crust.
has developed over the past four years near volcanoes in central Oregon, but it's not clear whether it could mean a volcanic eruption anytime soon, say geologists.
The bulge, and you don't like to think of the ground bulging, do you?
The bulge, nine to twelve miles across and about four inches high, was detected by satellite radar, according to Willie Scott, a USGS scientist at the agency's Volcano Lab in Vancouver.
Because it's a volcanic area and there's been a long history of volcanic activity in that part of Cascades, it's possible it might be magma or molten rock moving deep underground, said Scott.
The bulge is located near the Three Sisters, a trio of volcanoes at the center of the Cascade Range in Oregon.
The last major eruption in the Pacific Northwest occurred, of course, in May of 1980 when Mount St.
Helens blew up.
The uplift in central Oregon is too broad and low to be noticed from the ground.
So in other words, if you're walking along, you don't go, whoa, a bulge!
It's got to be seen from satellite, but you don't want to think of the ground as bulging.
Bulging is bad.
Bulging is like when you blow up a balloon, right?
Except that here we're dealing with Well, apparently rock, and dirt, and gazillions of pounds of pressure, and possibly molten magma pushing up and causing the bulge, so... You live in that area, I would be mindful of bolting ground.
Kind of weird that you can't see it, but you really wouldn't notice a few inches of bulge, would you?
I don't like these kinds of earth movement stories.
I've never liked them.
I've had a nightmare about the ground opening up and swallowing me.
Hey, maybe that's what will happen to Pahrump.
Swallowed up!
I'm getting a lot of stories about mold.
We began getting calls from Texas the other night about some mold.
Black Mold.
And by God, now I'm getting stories about black mold from all over the place.
I mean everywhere.
Here's one.
Mold has proven deadly, but bleach repairs destroy environment for growth.
The slimy black mold found in three Oakland County homes in the last month is a bona fide public health hazard that has cropped up in more than 20 other states, besides Michigan, And caused numerous infant deaths.
All it takes to stop it is a cup of bleach and some home repair.
It grows in areas that are constantly wet.
Leaking roofs, leaky plumbing, sewer backups, frequently overflowing washing machines can create environments for the mold.
But, pray tell, isn't this new?
I mean, have any of the rest of you for your life, in your life, dealt with stories of black mold?
Now, they're presenting this in a very straightforward way, but, excuse me, I've been around for a while, and I haven't heard of black mold before.
Well, I've heard of, like, refrigerator mold.
I mean, behind your refrigerator, around the coils and all that, there would get to be mold, right?
I had a caller the other night who said he had mold like that INSIDE his refrigerator.
That's really bad.
But... I've been around for a while, and I haven't heard about black mold killing people.
Have you?
Maybe I've just missed it all these years, but all of a sudden, there's black mold everywhere.
And frankly, I don't remember it from any time previous.
Might be, but...
I've been around reporting on these kind of stories for a long time and I haven't had black mold stories.
Have you?
Or is it just me?
And now my website.
You must go to my website artbell.com.
The second item down under what's new.
Huh.
What the hell have we found?
We've got some photographs for you and Let me read you what the person who emailed me with these photos said.
He said, Art, I was tooling around this weekend in my Super Cub, and I found this site west of Delta, Utah.
It has what looks like ground radials in all directions, and a very healthy-looking power line dead-ending to it, but no sign of buried pipeline or anything else in the vicinity.
73 is another ham.
Ham friend.
And he got some pretty damn good photographs of what appears to be in the desert, partially at least covered by snow, a facility, we'll call it, out in the middle of absolutely nowhere.
You can see the building.
Then you can see what appear to be ground radials Leaving from this building in most directions, you can see a road.
I think it's a road.
And here is this facility out in the middle of absolutely nowhere.
Now, the interesting thing is that these radials, you will notice, are melting the snow.
Wherever they go, the snow does not.
It is, in fact, the snow that made the radials visible.
So, I would ask that, though, you know, there may be a good explanation for this.
It's not a radio station.
I would assume, and I shouldn't really assume, that the radials are getting hot, because they are obviously melting the snow wherever they go.
Now, for the radials to be getting hot, That'd have to be a lot of RF, radio frequency.
Oh, lots and lots and lots of it would take to cause that.
So we've got a mystery installation for you tonight.
There may be a, um, some sort of explanation that will make sense once one of you looks at this, but I would like to know what Frank Oblomquist found Wouldn't you?
So anybody knowing what this might be, by all means, email me at artbellatminespring.com.
It's a genuine mystery, as is tonight the location of our newest cat.
You know, we've got a new, we've got a new cat, I think.
He is Yeti.
Named him Yeti, and he's a little guy and he's very emaciated, very, very skinny, about one inch thick.
Well, Yeti has been out and about all day, but Yeti tonight, hissing at my other cats I might add, and backing them off too, I mean this little featherweight is backing off my heavyweights.
And now all of a sudden tonight, Yeti is missing.
We spent The better part of an hour, looking for Little Yeti.
Yeti has found a hiding place, and we know them all, because we have three cats, and they've all used them, and we know every place to look in Yeti has found a new one.
Nobody's opened the door, nobody's gone outside, so we know for sure that Little Yeti remains in the building somewhere.
But I have looked behind every piece of equipment, under everything possible, everywhere!
We know all the cat hiding places.
Yeti has found a new one.
And apparently, he decided to go to sleep.
Rather than confront my cats.
Now, my three other cats, of course, are giving him the evil eye, avoiding him, the hiss, and he probably feels a little overwhelmed.
So, Yeti has gone and found a place that is like, sort of almost out of this time and place.
I mean, impossible.
We've looked everywhere.
Where has Yeti gone?
Is Little Yeti living up to his name?
And, uh, pulling a Disappearing act?
I don't know.
We'll see if he churns up.
Hunger is bound to bring him out eventually.
Anyway, that's the State of Affairs to this hour.
Open lines are next.
This is Coast to Coast AM.
You're listening to Art Bell's Somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring a replay of Coast to Coast AM from May 9th, 2001.
Thank you for watching.
FUCK!
Without a home.
Not without a star.
Free.
Only want to be free.
We haven't closed.
Hang on to a dream.
On the boats and on the planes Be coming to America
Never looking back again Be coming to America
Home I see you every morning
Outside the restaurants Your music plays
So don't you look For love
Home Drowning days, drowning nights
Where would I be without my woman?
Drowning days, drowning nights Why would I be good at my woman?
Lonely days, lonely nights, where would I be without my woman?
Lonely days, lonely nights Where would I be without my woman?
Lonely days, lonely nights You're listening to Art Bell's Somewhere in Time
on Premier Radio Networks Tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM from May 9, 2001.
Can you imagine growing up in a family with a mother and a brother who were eventually headed for the big house forever, essentially forever.
I'm going to be interviewing a very interesting man named Kent Walker at the top of the hour who wrote a book called Son of a Grifter.
Son of a Grifter.
The mother-son team convicted of murdering and kidnapping a New York millionaires were each slapped with sentences of more than 100 years.
That would be the man's brother that I'm going to interview and his mom.
Sante Kimes, 65, was sentenced to 120 years and 8 months behind bars, while her 25-year-old son, Kenneth, received 125 years and 4 months.
The two grifters were convicted last month, at the time of this writing, May 9th, of killing 82-year-old Irene Silverman in a plot to take her $10 million townhouse Kenneth Kimes was convicted on 60 counts while his mother found guilty on 58 charges now.
That's this man's family in jail forever.
He grew up in a complete life of crime with grifters.
Did you ever see the movie The Grifters?
You know what grifters are?
The short con, the long con?
Remember the sting?
Well, sort of in that venue, I suppose.
Uh, except for real.
Can you imagine?
Can you imagine what it would be like living in a family like that?
Where crime would be the way you lived?
Crime is the way you live?
I can't imagine that, but we're going to talk about it with a man who's just written the book.
Ken Walker.
Okay, open lines now.
We still have not located Little Yeti.
He really has pulled a disappearing act.
It's literally impossible.
I wonder where he could possibly have gone.
I'm telling you, it's like he disappeared.
Alright, open lines.
First time caller line, you are on the air.
Hello.
Hey, Art.
How you doing tonight?
I'm doing okay, sir.
Where are you?
My name is Matt.
I'm in St.
Pete, Florida.
I'm a cab driver down here.
Okay.
Do you want to talk about the weather or the ghost I've got in my cab?
You have a ghost in your cab?
Yeah.
In your cab?
Yeah.
I guess it's a he.
I'll be driving down the road.
You know, like, when you're in a car, you can feel when somebody's knees are in your back.
Oh, sure.
If you're sitting in the driver's seat and they put their knees up there, you can feel it, yeah.
Yeah.
This happens to me three or four times a week.
So this ghost knees you?
Well, apparently it's a fairly large ghost.
But I'll be driving down the road and all of a sudden I feel these knees in my back and I'm like, oh, hi, you're back.
You know, I think I'd get a new cab.
Had you thought of that?
No, I mean a cab is a real small place and to have a ghost in a cab with you is just like this town isn't big enough for you and me, buddy.
I'd be out of there.
Why not get a new cab and sic this on somebody you don't like?
I like the cab.
I've gotten used to it.
I'm guessing, I'm going out on a limb here, I think it might be my dad because the other night I felt the knees on my back again.
I got the real strong, the odor of real strong Folgers coffee.
And that was what my dad used to drink.
He was big on Folgers, huh?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, if you think it's your dad, then I guess you wouldn't want to get another cab.
No.
One thing, as far as the weather and stuff, I just read your book about the global superstorm.
I read through it a couple of times last week.
Is there like a website I can go to where we can track the Atlantic temperatures?
Yeah, that's right.
What we need is a buoy, we talked about there in the beginning, that we really don't have.
No, I don't know of any, and I will certainly look into it for you.
I had another scientist the other night who was talking about exactly that, and echoed what we wrote.
Watch for the change, said he, in the Atlantic currents, and watch for a sudden, rapid, disastrous cooling in Europe.
I don't know a website to send you to immediately, but that's how it would begin, if it does.
Very interesting stuff, and we are obviously in the middle of a large change right now.
All kinds of change.
The quickening is actually upon us right now.
Here's an interesting little story for you from CNN.
The headline is, Atmosphere Losing Ability to Clean Itself.
Hmm.
A compound that naturally rids the air of pollutants has become increasingly scarce in the global atmosphere in the past decade, according to a new scientific report.
The beneficial cleanser destroys many artificial contaminants in the air such as carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide.
It also eats up many gases involved in ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect.
So where's the little guy gone?
Levels of the chemical The hydroxyl radical known as O-H, the dominant oxidizing compound in the lower atmosphere, dropped considerably more in the northern hemisphere than the southern one, researchers said.
The overall negative acceleration in the global O-H trend is dominated by changes in the northern hemisphere and suggests rather a cause for major O-H variations.
The amount of O-H in the less developed south On average, between 14 and 35 percent higher than the North concluded the scientists.
It fell about 10 to 24 percent between 1979 and 2000.
Very interesting!
Very, very, very interesting and concerning that that agent which has been keeping our atmosphere clean is beginning to apparently lose the battle Or, uh, the battle to, uh, propagate itself, as it naturally would, resulting, no doubt, eventually, in what?
The atmosphere losing the ability to clean itself.
You know, it sounds like one of these futuristic movies, where everybody's riding around on motorcycles, and zombies are walking in the street, and some people have on gas masks, And the future is in sealed buildings and underground because the entire atmosphere is ruined.
But that could never happen, huh?
You found, you found Yeti?
Excuse me?
In?
Did you say in the sofa?
In the sofa.
How could he have been, how could he get in the sofa?
So you mean he was under it?
Yeah.
Right?
The only way that I knew he was in there was the other cats found him.
I see.
All right.
Well, Yeti has been located inside a sofa.
That's a new one.
Inside the sofa.
Good.
Anyway, he's there.
Wildcard Line, you're on the air.
Hello.
I just wanted to mention something about last night's subject.
You talked to a real nice man, Neil Slade.
He's real smart.
Oh, yes.
And you're real brilliant yourself.
And I want to say that, just to put something out there, you know, humoring my philosophy for just one second, or is it or not, brainwaves themselves are electromagnetic force, and I'm not so sure that a Big Bang Theory was a theory, because The mind is, of course, well, I don't want to get religious, but the mind is connected with some great some being.
Maybe.
Well, yeah, maybe.
Hey, listen, you check out the current issue of Newsweek.
I've got a man, you know, the God part of the brain guy is coming on the air again, who a lot of people love to hate.
But I have this feeling that he's dead right, that we are wired, that our brains are literally wired for Worship?
Religion?
Well, I'm not talking about that.
I'm just saying that, you know, we're intelligent beings, is what I mean.
And that, you know, the Big Bang Theory may not have been a theory, because, you know, itself, when your brain waves impulse, those impulses are like a Big Bang itself.
It's really what I wanted to mention, is basically what I want to say, because... I'm not exactly following you, that our brain waves, which, yes, you're right, they're electromagnetic, certainly.
No question about it, but how does that equate to the Big Bang?
I'm saying that can it?
What I'm saying is just a humor of somebody's question.
Can it tie in somehow?
Well, to humor you, I guess I would say that the Big Bang certainly could be held accountable for our brainwaves, because without it we wouldn't be here, right?
So that's the only immediate connection I see.
So I'll say that to humor you.
Yes, the Big Bang would be connected to our brainwaves in the sense that it began everything.
If I understand the conventional Big Bang theory correctly, BOOM!
And then all this stuff begins moving outward where there was nothing before there is suddenly something.
That's a contemplation of the Big Bang and something from nothing or something All that is right now and all that you can see in the skies with all the suns and the planets and the quasars and all the things that are up there.
So mystical and magical and amazing to consider.
All of that came from nothing.
Something smaller than a quark in size.
Virtually undetectable.
And all of this came from that.
Well, when you begin contemplating that, Then you begin thinking about God.
Why?
Because there's no other answer.
There is simply no other answer.
I mean, there are theories, but there's certainly no other answers.
It's where most of the best theoretical physicists say, well, you know, we don't know.
What happened a second before the Big Bang?
We don't know.
And they're being honest.
We don't know.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Hello.
Hello, Art.
Hi.
It's Kathy from Woodbridge, New Jersey.
Yes, Kathy.
And I was in the supermarket, and I looked at that Newsweek, and I saw it.
I immediately said two things.
I said, wow, Matthew Albert, the God part of the brain.
Yeah, the God part of the brain, you bet.
Ask Matthew if he feels he got any credit from that, because I didn't see his name mentioned once.
Well, I'm giving him a lot of credit.
Oh, me too.
I can't wait till he comes on.
I've got another article here, too, entitled, Scientists Find Biological Reality Behind Religious Experience.
And again, it goes to work and points out a part of the brain where they find activity occurring when you're thinking about things religious.
So, here we are.
Well, of all the things for me to be calling you, I never thought I'd be calling you about mold, but... Can I ask you a question?
Yeah?
I watch TV, and I watch The Sopranos.
Uh-huh.
Is it really like that back there in New Jersey?
Well, like the Sopranos?
Only if you live in that part of Newark, you know.
I don't know about it.
Only if you talk to Curtis Flewa.
You know, Curtis was in jail a couple weeks ago, and I was dying to call you and tell you about it.
I heard he got put in the slammer for protesting in front of an embassy or something?
Yeah, but it was a good thing.
He was doing a good job.
We can't put him down on that.
But back to the old... Did WABC bail him out?
Yeah, Ron Cooby did.
Partner in crime, yeah.
Well, you've got to bail out your buddies.
Black mold was growing in the back of our tub surround, and in the back of where we had pipes that had previously leaked, and we were not quick enough to restore the area, and so the black mold grew.
and grew and grew and I kept getting this repetitious respiratory illness over and over and over and finally I just said to the doctor would you please do the right test and see if this is because I read something see if this is from mold and sure enough last year it was and I've been fine and we took the wall out and it was black and it was wet and it was oozy and we had it analyzed and it was full of bacterium and we had to wear special things over our face there you go Um, 46 in August.
You paused there.
Oh, I had to think because it's August 54.
Alright.
Do you remember from your childhood black mold that killed people?
Do you remember that?
I don't.
I don't.
I mean, they're writing about it like, oh yeah, black mold.
I mean, come on, this is new.
Could they be afraid that they could be sued if they own buildings that contain this from faulty plumbing?
You know, ooh, I don't think that, do you?
Thanks, Kath.
Okay, Art.
Bye-bye.
Take care.
I think black mold is new.
By the way, I forgot my break, but not entirely.
Finally here it is.
Now we take you back to the night of May 9th, 2001 on Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
On May 9th, 2001, Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
My mom told me, like I'm sure your mom did, you don't steal.
And if you get caught stealing, like I did, you get marched back to the grocery store when you're real young with whatever you stole.
And you're forced to give it back to the storekeeper and then feel shame and apologize.
And you have this lesson that you learned.
And that's, I think, how it happens for a lot of kids.
But their moms, at least, tell them, DO NOT STEAL!
What if you had a mom that was teaching you how to steal?
Can you imagine what that would be like?
I mean, you have the exact opposite.
Instead of the moral, ethical lessons that most parents give, they gave the exact opposite.
And they were teaching you how to be a criminal.
That's incredible, and that's what my guest is going to be talking about.
First time caller on the line, you're on the air.
Hello.
Oh, hello?
Yes, hello.
This is Tim in San Francisco.
Well, this is Art in Pahrump.
Oh, hello.
I was calling about the video that you were talking about last night of the brain fireman in Indonesia.
Oh, the incredible video, yes.
Yes, it is incredible.
I wanted to point out two points of evidence, one of which bears for the case and one against it.
Okay.
Yes.
uh... first the one against it because i think it's important to know the clip
that was on your on your fight yes had some addition that were not in the original footage that i thought and of
the dish and support the tax
that was on the screen Okay.
Such as Brain Fireman, etc.
I saw the whole documentary of their trip to Borneo.
Yes.
Which was really anthropological in one section.
Yes, but the video nevertheless was representative of actually what happened.
Yes, except for amygdala.
The word amygdala region was not in the original.
Well, that's right.
My guest added that because that's what he talks about.
What he was noting was that that horrible needle that was screwed into the brain Which I still, I'm never going to get used to that concept, was screwed in at the point that my guest was talking about.
So he added the little caption that said that.
Right, but I don't think that was in the original documentary.
I just explained to you that it wasn't.
It wasn't.
I mean, I doubt that needle was anywhere near his amygdala.
Oh, it certainly appeared to be.
If you listen to the description of my guest of where it is and looked where the needle went, But I saw the original documentary, and it did not come across that way at all in terms of how they were talking about it.
Well, I know.
I'm sure they didn't mention that.
But again, my guest is pointing out accurately, if you'll go back and look at the video, and Put your fingers where my guest said to put them, and imagine the center of that point.
You'll find that's exactly where the needle is going in in the video.
Yeah, but it'd have to be awfully deep to reach the amygdala.
I mean, that would have been... Well, the guy was screwing it in!
Didn't you see the video?
Oh, yeah, he was going... It was a wild video, don't get me wrong.
Okay, the other thing I want to say, though, was there's no way that that could have been a fraud.
And I was going over in my mind, Can this be a fraud?
No, it was not a fraud.
It couldn't be.
It was not a fraud.
The filmmakers would have had to be in on it, and the filmmakers weren't even concerned about the paranormal.
They were there for something totally different.
No, that's right.
No, it wasn't a fraud.
No, not at all.
They just came across this guy.
They were as astonished as anyone else.
That was a side thing in their documentary.
I know.
People should go see it.
Yeah.
I appreciate the call, sir.
Thank you.
Yes, it is the most amazing video you've ever seen.
But the part about the screwing in of the needle into the brain, um... That's a nightmare.
It's my worst nightmare.
That and the ground opening up.
I'm Art Bell.
You're listening to Art Bell, somewhere in time, on Premier Radio Networks.
Tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM from May 9th, 2001.
She's coming in twelve bloody flights, the moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide her toward salvation.
I stopped an old man along the way, hoping to find some old forgotten words or ancient melodies.
I stopped for worldwide humiliation.
I stopped for the world to see, I stopped for the world to hear.
Premier Radio Networks presents Art Bell's Somewhere in Time.
Tonight's program originally aired May 9th, 2001.
Good morning, everybody.
Most of you morning, and I don't know, some afternoon, some evening.
We're all over the place.
I'm Art Bell, and coming up, something a little different.
When I was a child, and I'm sure that when you were a child, your mothers and fathers inculcated into you that you shouldn't steal, right?
You shouldn't steal, you shouldn't get into fights.
I mean, all the normal things, right?
That kids are taught.
Well, what if your family was different?
What if your family instead was teaching you virtually how to become a criminal instead of how to become a good child?
How to steal, how to hurt, how to even kill.
What if that was your family?
Can you imagine that?
Many of you will know the story because of the movie or because of the book that is just coming out nationwide, big hit nationwide.
It's called Son of a Grifter.
Do you know what a grifter is?
Do you have any idea what a grifter is?
A grifter is another way of saying con artist, I think.
And you may have seen a movie called The Grifters, which Was a pretty interesting movie, actually.
Not altogether, perhaps.
It was so long ago, but it seems modeled in some ways after Son of a Grifter.
My guest coming up is Kent Walker, and he was the other brother, I guess would be a way to put it.
I read a thing from Court TV earlier.
Court TV.
The mother-son team, convicted of murdering and kidnapping a New York millionaire, We're each slapped with sentences of more than a hundred years at serious time.
Sante Cime, 65, sentenced to 120 years and eight months behind bars, while her 25-year-old son Kenneth, that would be Kent's brother, received 125 years and four months.
The two grifters were convicted last month of killing 82-year-old Irene Silverman in a plot to take her $10 million townhouse, essentially I guess, assuming her identity.
Kenneth Kimes was convicted on 60 counts, while his mother was found guilty of 58 charges.
Well, this is the end of the story, really, not the beginning of the story, the beginning of the story, and how we got to that point where Kent's brother and his mom essentially have gone to jail for life plus, in 100, 125 years, that's a That's really a long time.
So, coming up is Kent Walker, and he's going to tell us what happened.
This really should be a very, very interesting story.
Now we take you back to the night of May 9th, 2001, on Art Bell's Somewhere in Time.
Now we take you back to the night of May 9th, 2001, on Art Bell's Somewhere in Time.
Actually, this is kind of interesting, because we were talking for a moment before the interview that's about to begin with Kent Walker, and Kent, of course, spent quite a bit of his life in Las Vegas, and so when we finally talked tonight, after even setting up the interview, Kent kind of realized he knew me anyway by virtue of the fact that he'd listen to me on the radio a lot of times.
Is that right, Kent?
Yeah, loud and clear.
Kent would come to me on a lot of drives between L.A.
and Las Vegas.
So when did it finally occur to you, oh, that's who he is?
The voice.
The minute I start searching for the dial in my car, the light's broken on the radio.
So I got to search pretty hard, so the voice is very distinctive.
I feel like I know you.
Wonderful!
Okay, well that'll make the interview maybe all the easier.
This is really some book that you've written here, son of a grifter.
Big national release, huh?
We got a lot of attention.
I'm very grateful for that.
You know, when you write something like this, you have no idea how it's going to be received.
And you're talking to a guy who avoided the press for a living for a long time.
And that's not so easy, is it?
No.
Las Vegas, I'll tell you what, it was incredible.
We had 55 different agencies from around the world jump into my business in the course of two days.
It's a life changer.
It's definitely a life changer.
I saw the movie The Grifters.
In The Grifters, they described... I don't know if you ever saw that movie.
I did.
I had to get it after all this happened.
Okay.
Well, they described the short con and the long con.
Right.
And I guess your family ultimately was involved in what would have to be called a long con.
Well, yeah, what happened in the 90s was definitely the long con.
Mom always tried for the long con, but she rarely succeeded.
All the news reports when all this started saying what a great grifter she was and just how great she was at everything, but the problem was that she failed at everything she did.
She could never be satisfied.
And she was always her own worst enemy and destroyed everything she accomplished.
Tell me what you remember about growing up.
I mean, I started out the show talking about, I mean, almost everybody's mom and dad in America, you know, tell them you don't steal and you're taught lessons about stealing and doing things that are against the law when you're young, whether or not it really takes fully or not.
In some cases, most cases, I guess it does.
But I can't imagine living in a home Where the exact opposite was true.
So what do you remember about growing up?
I remember the tension was always there.
And I've obviously been asked this question a lot.
The best way I can describe it is all I knew.
I'm a father, and I have an eight-year-old son.
He's not learning what I learned when I was a kid, thank God.
But I'll tell him, hey, you know what?
You've got to take out the trash now.
And just that way, just like you tell your kid to wash the car or mow the yard, My orders were, can't come on, we're going to go shopping.
Shopping meant we went shoplifting and then I went and distracted the attention for the clerks so I'm off to stuff her purse with a roast or lipstick, whatever it may be at the time.
And that was just, was that sort of, that was just normal?
I mean, that was your job and so did you think of it as, did you understand what you were doing at the time?
I always felt the tension, but it's also all that I knew.
I knew things were different at my house.
I knew when most kids went home and they did their homework and watched the TV and stuff, I went home and the maids were there, which was different already.
The maids were there, so you were living a pretty significant lifestyle.
Well, one thing I was interested in was my mother.
There really wasn't a lot of money around until she met my stepfather.
They got married in the early 70s.
But even if we lived in an apartment, there was a mate, as long as I can remember.
I never remember any time with my mother where there wasn't a mate of some sort in the house.
No kidding?
Yeah, it was pretty strange.
So she found the money somewhere?
Well, she didn't pay the mate.
In fact... Excuse me?
Yeah, she would not pay the mate.
In fact, she is the only person I'm aware of in the last century that was convicted on slavery charges in Las Vegas in the mid-80s.
Slavery?
Yes, she was convicted for several counts.
The legal term is involuntary servitude.
She had illegal aliens from Mexico, Central America, Peru, wherever, and she would entice
them to come work for the family.
There wasn't an agreement up front that there would be room and board.
Some of the men she claimed that she would pay them, but that never would happen.
you would actually enslave these poor women.
Wow.
She did federal time for that.
She served four years for that.
Where were you born?
I was born in Sacramento, California.
As far as what my birth certificate says.
I have very little... Documents don't mean a whole lot to me in my life.
Do you suspect you might not have been born in Sacramento?
It's a strange statement.
Rings of conspiracy theory and all that stuff, but anyone who's going to read this book is going to understand that statement pretty loud and clear.
In fact, my mother's birth certificate is, you know, it's been a question for years and years.
I finally got a copy of the official certificate from the state of Oklahoma, and this is a certified copy that if you call up, they'll send you the copy.
And I tell you what, you put that birth certificate next to a copy of One of her letters that she would have written in the seventies, and the writing is just so similar.
It's just incredible.
You mean like she wrote her own birth certificate?
Yeah, exactly.
And it makes sense because... Well, what's your mom's background?
In other words, what did you know of your mom's background as you were growing up?
She said she was born in Oklahoma.
Well, it changed periodically.
The first story I got was from my aunt and my father.
She said that she was born in Pennsylvania and was the offspring of well-to-do parents who really just didn't know how to handle her because she was just a wild child.
During the sentencing program or part of the slavery trial, when she met Ken Kyes, my stepfather, he was from Oklahoma.
Doing the research for the books, it makes a lot of sense that it would really help her get in the door if she was from Oklahoma also.
And so I don't know.
So she might have had a motivation then to have a birth certificate modified to be from Oklahoma.
Exactly.
But as far as where she comes from it changed because also then during the slavery trial went to the sentencing phase.
In that time frame, it was very chic to reduce your sentence by claiming to be sexually abused when you were a child.
Okay, slow up.
Where were you living when this slavery thing came about?
This was in Las Vegas.
I had made the break from her.
I was a helicopter pilot in the United States Army, and she literally reached in and grabbed me out of the army against my will.
It wasn't my choice to help them fight the Mays case, because attached with the criminal case... She grabbed you out of the army?
Right.
What did she do?
Claim some kind of exceptional duress or whatever?
Well, what had happened, I was two days away from an exercise in Canada to support National Guard mission.
Right.
And I got a call from my little brother in tears saying that mom and dad had just been arrested.
And so I flew out to California from Kentucky, picked him up, made her back in time to catch the mission.
Then I went up on my mission in Canada, and then I was called into the Major's tent.
He says, well, you have to go home on emergency leave because your father's had a heart attack.
And I talked him out of it.
I said, sir, I don't think that's what happened.
And then I got called in the next morning, and I was ordered to go.
And my mother had just called the right people and my chain of command to make sure I would be in Las Vegas to help her out.
Wow!
Yeah, and it ended my career.
So there had been no heart attack?
No, there had not been a heart attack.
Which is a story in itself.
They cultivated so many doctors and so many letterheads that they delayed many of their civil and criminal trials with all these elements.
So your mom was really good at what she did?
She was good on the short term.
Like I said, she really never ended up with anything to show for her efforts.
Well, in the movie The Grifters, the short con was something as simple as... Switching the 10 for a 20.
Yeah, switching the 10 for a 20, that kind of thing.
Really small time stuff, or maybe even you could certainly equate that with shoplifting, for example.
Sure, sure.
Short con stuff.
And a lot of people live their whole lives doing that, and that's how they live their lives, and they never go to the long con.
In fact, the majority of them never go to the long con.
Thank God.
Thank God indeed.
So, your earliest memories, really even your earliest memories, were of your mom being a grifter, of doing this, all this sort of thing.
I guess probably not just the maids.
In my earliest memories, there was always the stealing.
But she was also doing the bigger cons also.
I mean, every house that we lived in, I don't think she ever paid for.
I remember one house where she got someone actually build it for her on a spec situation and it looked like the Las Vegas Hilton out front.
Beautiful landscaping.
After about six months it came and yanked a cactus out of the front yard finally.
Cars, every car she drove was stolen.
Did you say stolen?
Yeah, in fact we illustrated in the book what she would do.
She'd go up and she'd put on the show.
She's a dead ringer for Elizabeth Taylor these days, so she looked rich.
She knew the talk.
We'd walk onto a car lot, she'd pick out a car she liked and we'd take her for a test
drive.
Then she'd start dropping the names of people that she knew and fit the part.
And finally she'd just wear the salesman down, where he'd just, let's get back to the lot.
And then so she let the guy out and says, why don't you go in there and get the paperwork?
I just want to make sure I can parallel park this car and I'll write you a check.
And so the guy would be pretty excited and exhausted.
And then she'd take the car and park it in our driveway.
And it was that easy.
And then when the police would come, she'd be able to talk to police and say, hey, this is a civil case because They gave me the keys.
I was going to come back tomorrow, the next day, to fill out the paperwork.
They said, you can have the car.
So the police couldn't even get the car from her.
So she was going to do what she did that way.
So she would be able to keep that car until this thing would wind its way through some sort of civil court?
Sometimes a week, sometimes a month, sometimes longer.
Wow.
When did you as a child begin to develop a sense of...
I mean, did you go to school?
I went to 22 different schools before I was in sixth grade.
I went to a lot of different schools.
I was fortunate.
When I was very young, a very nice lady kind of took me under her wings.
She was kind of a godmother for me, in fact.
And she lived next door to us and mom was always looking for the babysitters because sometimes it was not convenient to have a six-year-old son in Newtow.
And I kind of got a look at what normal life was like.
And it sounds strange.
Most kids want to stay up all night and get in trouble and stuff.
It felt kind of neat having a bedtime and not having to worry about the cops knocking on the door.
Right.
So that was probably the first glimpse I had.
So that's when you began to realize...
That what you were doing was not normal.
Right.
Or at least that there was something else.
Right.
Knowing that this is maybe something better than what I'm involved with now.
But still, my mom is still a lover.
I still do.
She's my mom.
When I was about 12 years old, right before my brother was born, I got in trouble.
I stole a surfboard and I got caught.
I didn't even know how to surf.
How did your mom react to your getting caught at something?
She was furious at me for getting caught.
She actually went down to the house where I took the surfboard.
It was in a guy's garage.
She was mad at me.
She told me that I should have gone in the back way and stuff like that so I wouldn't have gotten caught.
So I wouldn't have been seen.
So she wasn't angry that I stole the surfboard.
She was angry that I got caught.
She tried to play my legal defense for me and I thought for sure that I was going to end up in juvenile hall forever.
That was kind of a defining moment for me.
I said, you know what?
I don't want to do that.
That started kind of the transition phase of my life where I started standing up against her and a lot of the battles that we had began.
So you had battles?
all four and twenty twenty five years old
what about your what about your brother it did it
Obviously, he didn't take the same path you did.
He took the path with his mom with no resistance.
What's the story on your brother?
What do you think is the story on your brother?
Kenny's case is so complicated and varied.
He was born with two extraordinary parents with extraordinary circumstances.
He was tutored at a young age.
He was much more controlled than I was.
He was actually sheltered from a lot of things that I was exposed to at a young age.
We illustrate a little deal in the book when I was walking out of a convenience store in Las Vegas.
I picked up a pack of cigarettes and a couple of groceries from the house and he wanted this thing of silly putty.
So I put it in my pocket with every intention of paying for it at the counter.
I walked out of the front door and I reached my pocket and there was this thing of silly putty.
And he looks at me and he screams at me, you stole the silly putty!
He was in tears because he thought I was going to steal this for him.
And he was about 10 or 11 years old at this time.
And I was 13 years his senior, so I was 24.
And I felt such joy that moment that he was actually upset that I was doing something like this.
I went back and paid for it.
But it just really brought a lot of joy to my life because it confirmed the fact that That he had been sheltered from the bad stuff that I never was, at that point.
But, in the end... In the end?
You know, in the end, he was right there with your mom, if he was properly convicted, right?
He was properly convicted.
There's no doubt about that.
Alright.
And there's also, he's actually got his standing murder charges for another murderer in California now.
Alright, hold on.
Hold on right there.
Kent Walker is my guest.
He's written a book called Son of a Grifter.
We've got a link to be able to get the book.
This is one hot book nationally.
We'll be right back.
You're listening to Art Bell's Somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring a replay of Coast to Coast AM from May 9th, 2001.
This is a test.
Ah...
So long.
bell somewhere in time.
Tonight featuring a replay of Coast to Coast AM from May 9th, 2001.
My guest is Kent Walker, who just wrote a book called Son of a Grifter, the twisted tale of Sante and Kenny Kimes, the most notorious con artists in America.
A memoir by the other son.
The book is just breaking nationally.
It's a big one.
And I believe there either was or will be a movie as well.
About this incredible, incredible family.
But we've got the other son with us here tonight.
We'll be right back.
You're listening to Art Bell, somewhere in time, on Premier Radio Networks.
Tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM from May 9th, 2001.
Once again, here's Kent Walker.
Kent, how did you get the last name of Walker?
Shouldn't you technically be Kent?
Times.
So, I am a product of Shante's, my mother's, second marriage.
Kenny's my half-brother from his millionaire stepfather, Kent.
Any idea at all how your mom, obviously before you were born, got to be the way she she is
that's a question that is uh...
it haunted me for years and it's obviously one of the most prevalent
questions we have now uh... and it's the answer is elusive
uh... there's very few facts that we can find on her
you know her very early years uh... once she's about eight years old it's pretty easy to
track her but all the stories are different
I would think during the course of the trial, and it was a big one, that the attorneys for her really would have done some digging.
Did anything come up there?
Well, I'm not sure the attorneys did that.
Oh?
Yeah, I'm not sure.
I mean, God bless them.
They had the hardest clients in the world, but I'm not sure my mother and brother got the best representation in the world either.
I mean, they put them on 16 minutes before the trial even went on.
And talking to a lot of other attorneys is just something you really don't do.
Where are they incarcerated now?
My brother's been extradited to California for murder charges for David Kazin.
And my mother is still in New York fighting the extradition.
I am told that she probably will be extradited to California, but it might take as long as six months.
Six months.
So then, again, you don't really know too many pieces about How this happened to you, how she became the way she was.
Maybe she was brought up in a family like you were.
Well, no, because she was adopted when she was, I think, eight years old.
Eight or thirteen.
Okay, but Grifter... The stories before that, all the stories I believe to be true said that she was just a wild child.
But don't Grifters have to be trained?
I mean, after all... You know, some people are naturals.
All of these cons, do you think it just sprang from her mind, or was there some...
Elmer, somebody helping her.
The one thing about my mother, she was incredibly intelligent.
She was as sharp as a tack.
Dominic Gentile, a friend of mine who represented her in the Mays trial, would attest to that.
Every attorney would.
Just how incredibly intelligent she was.
And if something she wanted, she'd do her homework.
She could probably, if she decided to be an attorney today, she could pass the bar in a year.
She'd find a way to learn what she had to learn.
If she wanted to find out about the radio business, she'd have you on the phone picking your brain.
She'd be good at it in six months.
She had a tenacity that was unlike any person I've ever met.
I've been in the direct sales business for 15 years.
I've met some pretty good sales people.
You can take 10 of the best I've ever met and they do not have the charisma or the ability to manipulate people as she had.
She had a lot of analysts look at her in the course of the trials and stuff.
The only thing I ever heard that came close to explaining her behavior They showed me a bar graph and one is your age chronologically and one is your age emotionally.
And hers kind of leveled off at the age of 15.
But then her IQ and intelligence level was extremely high.
So you took someone who was very beautiful, someone who was very intelligent, but emotionally not prepared to handle those deals.
That's kind of the only explanation I can have.
The sad part about it is I've not had any behavioral therapist tell me any reason for I've come to the realization it's just what she is.
But a really good con person requires some training, unless it's all OJT.
She was definitely an inventor.
I mean, how many people would go out and try to steal a mansion like this?
That was the motive for the murder in New York.
I think it's one of the things that also helped to get away with so much for so long is that no one ever saw crimes like this before.
People don't do this.
You know, it wasn't like the... You know, you're right about that.
I was alluding to my own background earlier.
I had, boy, I'll tell you, I had very strict parents.
My mom was a marine drill instructor.
Oh, wow.
My dad was a retired colonel in the Marine Corps.
I was born on Camp Lejeune.
I, too, moved around a whole lot when I was young, but it was in the military service.
And, you know, as a dependent.
I had two Marines for parents.
That's called really strict.
So I came from totally the other side of the road here.
I think maybe I'll find someone who I'm better off than.
I'm not sure.
That would be tough.
So this is all unimaginable to me.
And it's unimaginable that she could do all this without help.
That she didn't have some sort of mentor into the finer I have nothing to show that at all.
It's a good observation on your part.
It's a very good question.
My partner in the book is Mark Shoney, a great writer and a very experienced investigative reporter.
One of the main goals for the book is to make sure it was honest and be the truth.
So we dig deep.
We dug deep and we talked to a lot of people and we looked at a lot of records and stuff.
And actually, there was really nothing that we could find to support that at all.
You started the book by saying, I make my living as a vacuum cleaner salesman.
You said you sold vacuums out here in Pahrump, Nevada.
I love Pahrump.
We made some money out there.
Thank you, Pahrump.
We got a lot of dust out here.
Anyway, you go on to say, I've met a lot of good liars in my day.
None of them are as good as my mother.
Some little tick would normally give a liar away.
That's right.
Most people who lie, they give it away in some way or another.
So your mom must have been a good poker player, I guess, huh?
Oh, the best.
We mentioned in the book, not too far down, that she had several aliases.
I remember one instance in Newport Beach, California.
We went to some kind of social gathering.
I'm not even sure what it was for.
There were about 15, 20 people.
Wow.
Wow.
Holy smokes.
under each of them a different alias.
Now, most people would run away from a situation like that.
She walked in that room and confronted every one of those people differently, remembering
each alias she used with each one of those people.
She was that sharp.
Wow.
Holy smokes.
It was hard for me not to admire that intelligence.
Did she ever work in a regular job that you remember?
There was some stuff that she did long before I was born.
She made a couple of attempts, a little bit of reporting, a little bit of creative writing,
which is ironic at this point.
But in my memory, no.
There's always been nice houses before the millionaire and everything, but never a visible means of income.
How long in your childhood?
Did you go along with this without coming to your breakaway point?
At what age did you begin to really break away?
Twelve, thirteen years old when I got caught for stealing a surfboard, number one.
That scared the tar out of me.
How much stealing had you helped her do before that?
Oh, I tell you, I'm ashamed to admit how much.
Probably.
When I was a kid she taught me one of the lessons I learned from her as a kid.
I wanted to buy a pair of walkie-talkies at a grocery store that was there in Palm Springs.
So she gave me a quarter and said, go get all the newspapers out of that.
So I put the quarter in and opened it up and got all the newspapers out.
And she said, you're a cute kid.
You can sell those fast.
And I sold every one of the newspapers and made the money for the walkie-talkies.
She taught me that at six years old.
You're kidding.
Don't do it.
They'll catch you.
It's not a good thing to do.
No copycats here, please.
So she was training you.
Yeah, she was, and like the question you asked me when I made my break, that surfboard incident was a pretty big deal.
When I got to be 13, I was always ahead of my years, and I started standing up to her.
That was kind of a time where she kind of resented me more, too, because she thought that I would be what Kenny becomes, a protégé in her deal.
I didn't want nothing to do with it.
So you weren't the protégé?
Yeah, I was the goody-goody, the saintly one.
Were you aware at 13 or more how serious some of the crimes were?
Well, the crimes at that point were pretty serious.
Stealing cars, insurance fraud, arsons, things of this nature.
Arson?
Oh yeah.
We tried to count the amount of arsons that we were able to attribute to her and we lost count at 12.
Twelve?
Twelve, yeah.
The arsons for what?
Insurance purpose or anger or what?
Insurance purpose.
For one, these are all her own homes.
Homes that she owned or leased.
Ah.
And also, for the amount of civil cases that she got herself in, it was a great way to stall off the court seeing that she had a fire and that all the records were burned up in the fire so they had to postpone the case.
So...
And I suppose there was always the hope of an insurance check before everybody caught up to her.
The only two fires I know of that she didn't get a check on was the last two.
We had a house in Las Vegas that burned.
In fact, that is very much implicated in the murder trial they're facing in Los Angeles.
And also, we had a beautiful home in Hawaii, right on the beach.
The second time it burned, it burned to the ground.
Don't fire departments normally come and investigate fires looking for arson and that sort of thing?
Yes, they do.
Those are the only two instances I know of where they didn't collect.
The second fire in Hawaii is also another missing person, which is a story in itself.
Do you offhand know how she managed to start the fires?
Ultimately, we're not detected.
Do you have any idea?
Well, I remember as a young boy, I was in one.
I was walking out.
We were in the car.
She asked me to go upstairs and get a manila folder for her.
I ran up the stairs and got it.
And as I was walking out the front door, the house exploded.
I was thrown out in the front of the yard.
She wasn't very good at what she did.
I don't think she meant to blow the house up.
I think she meant it to burn.
But yeah, it's been going on forever.
Holy smokes, Kent.
A lot of smoke, yeah.
I mean, just the whole thing.
It's such a blow away for me.
You say in here that she had no problem Fooling lie detectors.
Oh, she would not have a problem.
She would not have a problem.
She must have been really good.
I mean, after all, they take your pulse right, your breathing, they determine if you're sweating, they make all kinds of measurements to determine if you're lying.
You mentioned before a good poker player?
Oh, yes.
I'm convinced that the best poker player in the world probably going to fool a lie detector test.
Yeah, but you know, lie detector technicians tell you, uh-uh, you can't beat it.
You might be a good poker player and you might not flinch and you might not show any outward signs at all.
I mean, be really good at that.
But controlling the inside ones, they say, oh no, can't do it.
Well, my mother's a walking contradiction.
She was that good.
Yes.
It sounds almost like someone you're in awe of again, but anyone who ever met her was in awe of her intelligence, her charisma.
In order to fully understand it, you'd have to be subjected to it.
I think the book did a pretty good job of illustrating that, but there's no way to truly comprehend it until you were subjected to it.
Well, what about the dynamics between you and your brother?
How did that go, other than the one incident you told me about?
There must have begun to be a very big difference between the two of you.
I mean, I'm with Mom and you're not, kind of deal.
Well, Kenny, what happened, Kenny?
It's a sad situation.
He's facing the death penalty out there.
I mean, I've been assured by his attorneys that the California authorities will face, will ask for the death penalty.
And I want to do everything I can to prevent that from happening.
That was actually the motivation for the book.
There's circumstances here.
You don't think he deserves the death penalty?
Kenny's guilty of what he's charged with.
And he's serving a life term.
And I believe that's a just deal.
Before all this happened, recently with the arrest and everything, and I found out how severe the crimes were, I probably would have been the guy pretty easy to talk to to do the death penalty.
I thought, yeah, the eye for the eye type deal.
But there's obviously something mitigating here.
There are circumstances here with Kenny that would not serve justice.
That would be vindictive.
And the kid never had a chance.
Another thing I realize now about the death penalty is that there's a lot more victims involved than that.
I don't care who you are, how bad you are, someone loves you.
And having to deal with someone you love being executed, where's the justice in that?
And I've got three children who love these people.
My kids haven't done nothing wrong and I'm not sure how to explain that one to them.
Well, you know, we could spend the rest of the night arguing the death penalty.
No argument.
That's just my opinion.
That's all.
I hear you.
What I'm interested in is the dynamics between the two of you.
There had to come a time, or many times even, when your brother was with your mom all the way and you weren't.
And how do they view that?
I mean, did they view you as Towards the end of the relationship, I'm not trying to defend Kenny, but what Kenny saw in me was a guy who went to work every day and had a mortgage to make.
This is after his father had died.
This is when he and his mom became the team, for lack of a better word.
I was trying to pull him out of her thrall.
I saw what was coming.
I did not expect the severity of it.
But I knew he was going to end up in jail.
It was going to be some kind of scam, some kind of arson deal where he was going to be
in jail for a long time.
And it was a big conflict with my mother also.
I tried to pull him out of it.
It was a war and I finally lost.
Did your mom know you were working on him?
Oh yeah.
It was the source of some of our biggest arguments.
The book would go through that.
You know, with Kenny, this is something that happened from 10 years old to 23 years old.
It didn't happen overnight.
And there's a lot of influences.
His father was a very paranoid man, unfortunately, mostly because of my mother.
He drank heavily and had his clutches on him in his most formative years.
So you have a man teaching this young guy, 10 to 13 years old, that the rest of the population are vultures out to get you, not to trust anybody.
And then when mom gets out of jail for the slavery case, He was very rebellious.
How did they make the slavery case, by the way?
I can see a lot of resolutions for that that would be short of slavery.
That's really serious.
How did they actually make that case, Hunter?
Well, you know, at the time, I was kind of wrestling with that myself, because if it was me going to trial for something like that, it would probably be assault charges or something like that, or labor charges.
But there was also a $30 million lawsuit filed against my stepfather, who was very wealthy at the same time.
There was a test, and I'm not sure exactly what the tests are for the trial, but this case met the test because they proved that their freedom was actually taken away from them by physical and emotional barriers.
How did your mom, did she actually physically restrain these maids?
We had locks on the inside of our doors.
Locks on the inside?
Right.
If a maid wanted to get out of the house, they could have, but they were emotionally
afraid of also.
It's ironic, the two big convictions she's gotten so far in her life have been of her
own making.
In the maid's case, she had written instructions to the tutors and to the maids saying things
like, if you leave this house, the authorities will pick you up and put you in jail for the
rest of your life.
She used mental intimidation for that in her own writing.
And in the Irene Silverman case, where she was convicted of murder without a body or
any physical evidence.
The evidence that convicted her and got her a life sentence was 14 notebooks of her own hand, describing how to plan and plot the stealing of the mansion and committing the murder.
Why would she commit all this to paper?
You know, that's one of the things I had a hard time with.
You know, here I said how intelligent she was.
Yes.
But she still did this.
It was an obsession with her.
Did you know that the long con on Silverman was coming?
No, I did not see that one coming.
My mother and brother and I broke it off about a year before this happened.
no time left so one of those obsessions that she had
just as unexplainable did you know
that the long con on silverman was coming no i did not see that one coming my my mother and brother
and i broke it off but a year before this happened they were actually living
in my house and mom had switched from using the mexican people as maids
to using She'd go down to St.
Vincent's Reche Tree in Las Vegas and get people who were down on their luck to live with us and bring them into our house when they were living with us.
And I said, you know, we can't do this the way you're treating these people.
We're going to get sued.
It's a horrible thing to do.
It turned out to be a horrible argument.
I saw that I lost the battle for Kenny.
That's where we broke it off.
I didn't know about the Silverman or Kazim murders until I found out in the newspaper.
Okay, Kent.
Hold on.
Son of a Grifter is the book.
My guest, Kent Walker, who wrote it with Mark Schone, S-H-O-N-E.
The Twisted Tale of Sante and Kenny Kimes, the most notorious con artists in America.
A memoir by the other son.
I'm Art Bell.
You're listening to Art Bell's Somewhere in Time on Premier Radio Networks.
Tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM, from May 9th, 2001.
Music Music
Music You're listening to ArcBell, somewhere in time, on Premier Radio Networks.
Tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM, from May 9th, 2001.
My guest is Kent Walker.
He wrote a book about his brother and his mother.
And you probably know the story.
If you don't and you're listening you will know the story so I suggest you stay right where you are
Now we take you back to the night of May 9th 2001 on art Bell somewhere in time
I Hope you enjoyed!
You You
you you
Back now to my guest, Kent Walker.
Just an astounding story.
Something that most of us just simply can't relate to because...
We weren't raised that way.
Somehow, he luckily escaped, but his brother didn't.
And it's just an astounding story.
Now, you know, most of us, the only way we can relate to what you're talking about for real tonight is the movies.
Right.
You know, you see it in the movies.
That's it.
Otherwise, we have No way to relate to what you're even talking about, and the real thing must be something else.
Yeah, I can't think of any movie I've seen that comes close to this.
Now, CBS has done a movie that's going to be airing on the 20th.
Oh, it'll air on the 20th?
Yes.
Okay, I saw the trailers for it, and I wasn't sure if I had missed it yet.
Good, I haven't.
What's it called?
Mother Like Son, I believe, and then The True Story of the Kimeses.
And it's got Mary Tyler Moore playing my mother.
And Gene Stapleton plays Irene Silverman.
And with a cast like that, you're not going to go wrong.
Like mother, like son.
I believe that's it, right?
There was a couple of titles.
And who plays your mother?
Mary Tyler Moore.
Mary?
Yeah.
Pure?
I think they're going to change the name.
Girl Next Door, Tyler Moore?
Yeah, different theme for this movie, I think, though.
I guess she wants to change her profile, huh?
I think she carried it off.
Maybe actually, in a lot of ways, she's the perfect person for it, because exactly of that image, huh?
Exactly, exactly.
Maybe that's quite brilliant casting.
Does that work for you, in terms of casting your mother, you know, an innocent, beautiful woman, and the last thing you would ever expect from her?
It fits.
It definitely fits, without a doubt.
Probably one of mom's biggest gifts for being able to give away so much for so long was that she held the image that no one would think, hey, this person couldn't do that.
Look at the image.
So it fits real well.
Do you think that the final long con that she engaged in to literally take over this socialites There was no physical evidence whatsoever.
place she lived in uh...
every aspect of her life and uh... she was convicted for killing her as you pointed
out even without a body and i i'd be interested to know
how how that can occur without a body i guess it can with sufficient amount of
evidence but usually there was no physical evidence whatsoever that's one
of the things that made this case so interesting in new york there's no body no physical evidence whatsoever
The conviction was done completely on circumstantial evidence.
Do you have any thoughts on where the body might be?
Um, you know, a strange thing did happen.
My brother held a hostage when he was transferred to his prison in New York back in October.
Oh?
A Court TV reporter by the name of Maria Zone was interviewing him for a documentary for Court TV.
And he grabbed her?
He grabbed her and held a paper pen to her throat for four hours and twenty minutes.
Oh my God.
And it was a strange thing because what had happened, I made a decision when I read that first newspaper article back in 1998 that I was not going to grace New York.
I did not want to do with the press.
I did not want to do with anything there.
But I was worried about Kenny.
I read then that he was put in solitary confinement.
For eight years is what his term is.
But I also saw that my mother was put in solitary confinement.
I guess the phone rang at her prison also and they found a shank, which is a pen that's fashioned as a weapon.
Right.
So I think she's the oldest person in New York history to carry a shank.
It's 65 years old.
65?
Yeah.
And so I went and visited Kenny.
He more or less confessed to the crimes.
We go into great detail about that in the book.
In your visits to him in jail?
Yes.
What he wanted to do was try to make himself a deal to serve easier time.
By turning on your mom?
Yes, by turning on my mom and giving them information that they wanted.
So I called some lawyer friends of mine.
Got the ball rolling for him.
And then in November, it made the press again that Kenny confessed to where he put Irene Silverman's body and stuff.
And it didn't make sense to me because he's given away all of his bargaining chips to serve the easier time.
What did he say he did with the body?
He said exactly, well, according to news reports now, when I visited him in January this year, he told me that he never said anything to the press or to the authorities.
But according to what the authorities' news releases were in November, was that exactly what they thought, that he took the body to New Jersey and dumped it in a construction site.
So that one, I don't know.
I don't know if he confessed or not to that, to the authorities.
Do you think that he was telling you the truth, or lying to you?
My brother's my mother's son also, and he's a very good liar.
But I really think he was telling me the truth this time.
I really do.
A construction site?
Yeah.
The only reason why is because this case had received so much attention in the media.
I mean, Dateline did two pieces on it.
They were on Larry King Live after the conviction.
I mean, it received a lot of attention.
And it made the press for two days, and it was done.
And it just seems to me that if something that profound happened to this case, that New York would have taken notice and said, OK, where's the body?
Let's go find it.
Absolutely.
Particularly if he essentially told them where to look.
And they never did.
I read one report, and I don't know how accurate this is, that the New York authorities were turned down by a judge to let Kenny go show him where the body was at.
I still question that one also.
That wouldn't make sense at all, would it?
Once again, I don't like conspiracy theories, but just read the papers.
It makes you wonder.
I was starting to say that everything you described about your early life All the stolen stuff, the essentially stolen houses, the arson, all the rest of it, the maids, you know, it seemed like your mom wanted this lifestyle all her life and she got it essentially by by grifting and stealing and doing everything you can do and she sort of lived the life that she finally went after in this long con
Where she assumed a woman's identity.
I have lots of questions about that, but it just seems to me that this final act for which she's in prison for the rest of her life or worse now, along with your brother, was a final attempt to reach this life that she'd been trying to have all the way up until that point.
Does that make sense?
It does in a way, but You have to realize, my stepfather was worth about $20 million when they got married.
So she had that lifestyle for 20 years of her life.
I don't think that the situation with the Irene Silverman murder was the end.
I think that was a means to the end.
I think they had something else planned where they needed the money for it.
Do you have any idea what that was?
I don't.
I have some theories and some ideas before that to qualify this.
They had a house in Las Vegas, Nevada, and David Kazin's murder is related to this because his name was on the deed.
He didn't know it, and they'd taken out a loan for $280,000, I believe, on the home in David Kazin's name, and cash the check, and that's the motive for David Kazin's murder.
Then they went to New York and pulled this deal off, and in 1996, They were in the Bahamas a lot, and there's a lot of banks down there where a lot of money goes to.
That's right, yes.
And, um, I think that, uh, there's some surprises still left in the Bahamas.
I think that, I have no, I have no proof on this or anything like that, but from what I've learned and the research for the book and doing the media for the book, that there's some very interesting things going to be found out in the Bahamas.
Okay, well they always say follow the money.
Uh, is, in this whole affair, is there a whole lot of money Missing?
Well, as far as my stepfather's fortune, no.
But as far as what happened in the Bahamas, I mean, there's a bank collapse and some very interesting facts.
The FBI wanted to help the Bahamian officials in 1996 track Mom down and Kenny down because of the missing banker, which is another deal that they're accused of at this point, and they refused.
You know, I don't like to spend in speculation, but it's pretty hard to ignore sometimes.
What has this done to you, long-term?
What has this done to you?
As far as... Your life, your life.
Writing the book has been a pretty incredible experience.
My wife and I were just talking about it tonight, in fact.
God bless her.
If it weren't for her, I might be sharing a cell with my brother.
It's opened up a lot of wounds.
When you research your past like this, you realize just how bad things were.
When you're in the middle of it, you don't really realize it.
I know.
But I want to be okay.
I wrote a book about my own life, and mine is nothing compared to yours.
And it was really, really painful to write.
And I think most people, if they actually take the time to sit down And start writing about everything they've done in their life, or the high points or the low points or whatever.
It's quite an experience.
But for somebody like yourself, holy smokes.
Yeah, I agree.
It must have been really rough.
And you had a co-author.
I was fortunate I had a co-author because this poor guy, he deserves a medal.
I think you probably get a license for psychiatry at this point.
If your mother is extradited to California, what does she face?
The same thing as Kenny, the death penalty.
The death penalty.
Right.
You began to talk about why you thought your brother shouldn't be subjected to the death penalty.
What about your mom?
You know, I want to come to mom's defense because it's just what's been inbred to me for the last 38 years.
The way she is, I know she don't need defending.
She'll find a way to stall the system.
She's 66, 67 now.
By the time that sentence can even be carried out, she's lived an unnatural life already.
I don't think she'll make it that long.
Kenny's a different story.
Here's a man in his mid-twenties.
So your mom will not be McVeigh and say, execute me.
We'll fight every legal battle until the end.
My mother, I mean, this is a woman who escaped custody in Las Vegas when she was in her fifties.
Those guards got their hands full.
You mean escaped from jail?
Escaped from jail in Las Vegas.
She was in custody awaiting trial for the involuntary servitude case.
And she escaped jail.
How?
How?
I fill up an hour of your show.
It's in the book.
It was a scam.
It was actually a scam.
She scammed the medical part of the jail, and the guard, and she was free for three to four days.
And I was instrumental, and I think I was at least, in her being apprehended.
In what way?
I mean, if we get something here you don't want to talk about.
Oh, that's in the book.
But we made it pretty clear.
My father and I, or my stepfather and I, had pulled into our driveway.
And we've been trailed by the feds for months and so having a tail was no big deal.
I get used to that.
I suppose they trailed you thinking you would lead them to your brother or your mom or both.
Well, this is for the slavery trial.
This is 1986.
Why would they bother tailing you?
Well, because I was with my stepfather, and he was also a defendant in the case.
I was named an unindicted co-conspirator for the case, so they just, we had their attention.
I wasn't even there when the crimes were being committed.
Right.
But anyway, we got cuffed.
We got Yankelecourt cuffed, and we had no idea what was going on.
They said that Chante Clowns had escaped.
And what had happened is that she had, She's done her homework and exhibited every type of ailment she possibly could to get her put into the hospital.
Once she got in the hospital, I don't know where she got the money from, probably from my stepfather now, bribed the guard to take the cuffs off, open the door and let her walk free.
She was the top news story for the next couple of nights.
Um, she just walked right out of there.
Well, she ran out of there.
Knowing your mother, I'm surprised she was even caught.
Um, it was a fluke.
Actually, the Irene Silverman deal, there was a fluke they got caught for that.
They weren't picked up for a murder charge.
They had bought a car from Utah with a check they thought was good that bounced.
That's what started this whole thing.
If it weren't for one mistake that she made, which was bouncing a check for a car that she bought, There's a real good chance they would have got away with it.
But, that's another thing I want to ask about.
How can you possibly kill somebody, take their identity, begin to use their money and credit and home and everything?
How can you get away with that?
I mean, how?
Did she look enough like this woman to get away with it?
No, actually what happened is...
Everything needed to get possession of the mansion was taken care of before the actual disappearance of Iris Silverman.
Right.
I don't think Mom was going to go in there and try to take her identity.
She has been called a master of disguise by the FBI and several other law enforcement agencies.
So you didn't think she really was just going to begin living the life of this woman?
No, I don't see that.
Well, my crystal ball tells me that they had a bank ready to give them a sizable loan for this mansion, and they were going to take the money and run and go do something bigger in the Bahamas.
That's what- And so you think they were- That's speculation also.
I guess then you believe they were banking money in the Bahamas for something even bigger?
Yes.
That's my belief at this point from what I found out so far.
This is so incredible!
It gets better.
It's- So you're- So anyway, again, If she is extradited, no doubt eventually, to California, she'll face the... She'll face the death penalty.
And like I said, I don't want her to be executed, and I've explained the reasons why before.
But once again, the way she has been able to manipulate the legal system thus far... She'll make it.
She'll die a natural cause before that happens.
You obviously still love your brother and your mom.
You know, I have no apologies to make for that.
You know, we talk about all the bad stuff here.
Yeah, I don't think anybody would expect apologies for it, no matter what happens.
The thing is, having everything I've said I've said, she was a very fun mom to have.
I had birthday parties that would be the envies of any kid.
We share a story in the book where when I was 10 years old, I got beat up by a 13-year-old.
And at that age, that's a couple of weight classes.
And I come home, mom sees me, bloodied up and crying, and I told her what happened.
I take her to the boys' house, and long story short, she picked up a hose and beat the hell out of his father.
What?
She picked up... A hose?
A hose.
The hose was by the front door.
She picked up the end of the hose and beat the crap out of this guy.
Because he said, well, boys will be boys.
But that kid never picked on me again after that.
You feel pretty safe in that type of protection.
There's good stuff also.
Even as an adult, you know, in researching for Son of the Grifter, people who were in Shantae's life were friends.
You couldn't help but to walk away with the feeling that they didn't so much feel the loss of the true victims, they felt the loss of Shantae from their lives.
It was kind of spooky.
You said your mom looked like Elizabeth Taylor, huh?
I'll tell you how much.
It was the late 70s.
Mom and I were sitting in a... Well, I'll tell you what.
We're at the bottom of the hour.
Let's pick up on this when we return.
Look like Elizabeth Taylor.
This is some story, isn't it?
Son of a Grifter is the book and we'll talk about how you can get it coming up.
Bookstores nationwide, of course.
You're listening to Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring a replay of Coast to Coast AM from May 9th, 2001.
She lets me down every time, can't make her mine.
She's no one's lover tonight, with me she'll be so inviting.
I want her all for myself.
Oh, temptation has, broken through my mind.
Oh, temptation has, you've got to love me.
You've got to love me.
She doesn't give you time for questions, as she locks up your eyes.
And you follow to your sense of which direction, completely disappears.
By the blue tiled walls, near the market stalls, there's a hidden door she leads you to.
These days, she says, I feel my life just like a river running through the air of the cat.
I'm just a river running through the air of the cat.
Tonight's program originally aired May 9, 2001.
This is some story to listen to.
Can you imagine, can you even, in your wildest imagination, think about growing up in a family like Kent did?
I'll tell you, I've always been a sucker for sax.
Big time.
We'll get back to Kent Walker, son of a grifter, his book in a moment.
Now we take you back to the night of May 9th, 2001 on Art Bell's Somewhere in Time.
Thanks for watching!
Kind of look like Elizabeth Taylor.
Well, there are women who have the power and the power to completely, utterly transform anybody in their presence into anything they want.
Now, most women don't use that power.
And I've heard it said that God help men if most women ever learn the power they really have, if they wish to use it in the manner that Santee apparently did.
Is that fair, Kent?
God help them.
You're right.
That's a very good description.
She had a power over men that was just legendary.
Every man that was in her life that I ever met was enthralled.
And so I want to tell you about just how much she does resemble Elizabeth Taylor.
In the late 70s, we were in Hollywood at a bar called the Cock and Bull.
I think it's gone now.
And two people came up to her and asked her for her autograph, thinking that she was Elizabeth Taylor.
Really?
Within 20 minutes, people from the street were rushing the bar.
I mean, there was a scene.
The manager had to grab us, get security, and take us out the back door because people thought this was Elizabeth Titt.
All right.
Here comes a big one that maybe you probably don't have an answer for.
I mean, your mom was really basically already rich.
Right?
Well, it depends on what point in life you're talking about.
Or she had been rich.
She had been rich.
If we're talking about the 90s after my stepfather had passed away, she was rich.
If my retirement is half as good as what she had, I'd be set.
I'd be a pretty happy guy.
Right, exactly.
So she considered herself poor.
She, she did, she had this, uh, there was never enough.
The one thing that was constant with my mother is that she'd never be satisfied.
Never be satisfied.
Whether it be relationships, whether it be money, whether it be alcohol, anything.
Uh, you mentioned that she wrote down, um, things, that that was one of her, uh, uh, one of her big downfalls, that she took notes.
That's what got her convicted.
Uh, right.
A Los Angeles Fast Laster says, uh, Art, I'm a psychologist, and I know that obsessive note-taking is, in fact, an obsessive-compulsive disorder, that they can't, uh, people who do this, can't help it.
Yeah, well, I've got letters that Mama sent me since she's been incarcerated, and he'd taken, you know, the same paper that my kids take to school to do their homework on.
And she fills all the lines, but then she fills all the margins, and then in between the margins.
She just can't put enough in there.
And that's what it's like having a phone conversation with her.
She takes up all the oxygen in the room.
Now that she's really doing a hard time, and maybe even facing the death penalty, what's her psychological state?
She'll never quit.
She will never give up, ever.
Her last breath will be that this is a huge conspiracy against her, that she was victimized by a corrupt system.
After they got convicted, I'm not sure if they were sentenced yet or not, but they were actually on Larry King Live for an hour.
That's how strong she can be.
She got herself from Rikers Island in New York Jail on the Larry King Live show for an hour, a full hour.
This is the middle of an election year.
I don't know.
I'd turn on the TV and there she was.
That's classic Chante.
Proclaiming her innocence, saying how New York had framed her, and just was absolutely incredible.
Again, how did she get convicted minus the evidence of a body or any other hard evidence?
How did that occur?
It was all circumstantial evidence, but it was pretty convincing circumstantial evidence.
There was 14 notebooks that were introduced to the jury, and things like get I.S., which would mean Irene Silverman's social security number.
Talk about getting stun guns, handcuffs, duffel bags, things of this nature.
The way that they infiltrated her life was suspicious.
my brother had given her six thousand dollars cash to rent an apartment in her beautiful mansion
under an alias uh... his behavior
before she disappeared like there was a camera in the in the entryway
there's no videotape hooked up to it but he didn't know that he would hide his face when he walked by that
very suspicious behavior a lot of witnesses worked for that it was a
no circumstantial evidence uh...
so yes people can be convicted of murder indeed on circumstantial evidence but
it's got to be really overwhelming apparently in this case with the notes
It was overwhelming enough, huh?
The jury found it overwhelming, and I'll be honest with you, I remember it was a pretty scary time in my life, and, you know, July 8th, 1998, I had no doubt in my mind that they were guilty, but I also thought they might get away with it.
It was a pretty scary time.
You thought they might get away with it.
In other words, they might win.
I'm still surprised they got the conviction sometimes.
For every arrest my mother's ever had, countless crimes.
How many might that be?
Her arrest?
Her rap sheet is as long as my arm and your leg.
It goes back to the fifties.
Credit card fraud.
I don't think she ever got convicted of arson, but she's been arrested so many times.
She got arrested on my birthday one time.
Countless times I've been arrested, but it rarely would lead to anything serious because of money.
My stepfather's money.
I mean, I'm sorry, but justice for people's money is different than people without it.
And even the convictions would not even lead to too much.
The only time there were ever serious consequences was for the Mays case and the Irene Silverman murder at this point.
And she's gotten away with so much for so long, I thought they had a better than even chance of getting away with it.
What do you think they would have done had they gotten away with it?
Once again, all they can do is spin on speculation.
I think there's a story in the Bahamas.
I think there's something to do with the banks down there or something.
I don't know why, but just when we're researching the book and what I've learned since we've been doing the media for the book, I got a feeling they were going for something bigger.
I really do.
And so there's probably a bunch of money down there in some sort of account.
If there is, I'm not looking.
I don't know.
They didn't get to finish the crime, thank God.
Well, unfortunately, Iron Silverman is missing and dead, but they didn't get the money from the mansion.
They needed some big money for something.
I don't know what it is, but I think they're going after big money.
Your brother, in detail, described to you what he did with Silverman's body.
He did not describe it in detail.
We describe it in the book.
The way I put it to him, on the plane out to New York, I talked to him.
I had a plan to do whatever I could to help him the best.
I still love my mother, but my brother, I viewed him as a victim in this situation and I wanted to do whatever I could to improve his life.
You grew up with him, so sure.
Yeah, and I'm partly responsible for where he's at because he had a bad example and the big brother stuck around also.
He told me that every day during the trial, people, the authorities would say, tell us where hiring settlement's at, and we'll make Los Angeles go away.
And I asked him, are you ready to do that?
And he nodded yes.
That was a confession.
So all of that's off the table and forgotten now, right?
I'm not sure what you mean.
Well, in other words, Whether he would point out now where the body is or not, nobody even cares or wants to know, according to what, if I've heard you correctly.
With the media?
I'm not sure, according to Kenny, he did not tell the authorities that information.
Now, the media says that he did, so I'm not sure what to make of that.
You must have been interviewed by the FBI, I would imagine.
That's an interesting story also.
On the first two days, when this first made the national media, I had over 50 news agencies from around the world just jump on us.
They attacked my home, my business.
I don't mean attack, but it felt like an attack.
I understand.
Three days after that, two police officers with Las Vegas Metro came to my office and They started questioning me.
They asked me why would these two people in New York question me so much, or call my number so much.
They were calling like every five minutes trying to get me to go out there to help them.
They didn't know who I was.
When I said I'm Shontay Kimes' son, one of the guys who dropped his penny was so shocked.
And there was a picture of my mother right over his shoulder.
And that really scared me.
They came in saying that they were there on behalf of the NYPD, LAPD, FBI, CIA, IRS.
I mean, every acronym I've ever heard of.
And here I just had every news agency I've ever heard of and then some in my face.
And here's the representative of all the law enforcement and they didn't know who I was.
So it was pretty scary stuff.
How long have you been married?
I've been married for 17 years.
17 years.
So your wife knew, probably always knew, this moment could come.
Well, I learned at a young age.
To hide things, to keep it inside.
When I was younger, when I told people things that were going on, they thought I was a troubled young man.
Once again, I love my mother.
I have fun with her and my family.
We had a lot of good times.
I sheltered my wife from the bad stuff.
When the media framped on us and the severity of this situation hit us, You know, it was hard for her.
She didn't know all this stuff.
And she was angry with me for knowing that they were guilty.
And she was more angry with me because the only proof I had was all the stuff I never told her before.
So, my wife deserves a medal.
And if it weren't for her, I would be... I mean, she saved my life, without a doubt.
So then, to some degree, she was surprised.
Oh, she was very surprised, yes.
Boy, that's really something to drop on anybody.
I tell you, like I said, I get a lot of regrets and what my wife and kids have been through is one of the biggest without a doubt.
How has your family done with this?
Your children, your wife, obviously you just said your wife has done fabulously and she has.
She stood by me.
My family stood by me.
It's hurt us.
Yes.
Your mom is now older.
Yes.
The looks you talked about that she had earlier fade as they do with all of us.
It's not something that most grandchildren or nephews or nieces have to deal with, but
we'll get through it.
They're good kids.
I've got a beautiful wife who I love and I want to get them through this.
Your mom is now older.
The looks you talked about that she had earlier fade as they do with all of us.
Right.
Although I will say at 60 she didn't look 60.
She was a sexy 60 year old.
I understand.
Nevertheless, she's getting older.
Yes.
And I'm sure you don't think that at any point She's going to want, do you think she's going to extend her excessive compulsive disorder to want to write her own story and maybe tell everybody how she got to be the way she was?
Or as you said, will she at the very last moment say it was all a conspiracy and all a lie?
Will she ever tell her story?
I wish she would.
I'd be the first person to buy that book.
I bet you would.
It's not going to happen.
The Chante Cousins of today is not the same person that I grew up with.
I think she has put herself in a little spot that she believes everything she's saying now.
I think she honestly believes that she's a victim of a conspiracy.
I think she believes that Irene Feldman is still alive.
Um, in a way it's sad.
I really believe she has lost her mind, but she's still intelligent.
Kent, are you 100% sure in your own mind that Silverman is dead?
That your mother did kill Silverman with your brother?
Yes, I'm absolutely sure.
You're absolutely sure?
I have no doubt.
I had no doubt in 1998, and after my visit with my brother, it just removed any glimmer of a doubt there was.
I wish I could say yes, I could doubt that.
And then, in believing that, how many others do you believe she's killed?
Three.
I believe three.
I believe, well, David Kazin.
I have no doubt about that.
I wish I could say I had a doubt, but I don't.
I know they did it.
I know them too well.
The Bahamian banker, who has disappeared.
I have no doubt about that.
And then, um, there's a lawyer who was, uh, missing since the early nineties, who, uh, was responsible for the second time the Hawaii house burned down.
Um, I didn't even know his name at the time, but, um, you know, that was one another time to try to turn her into the authorities.
And, uh, I have no doubt that she was responsible for that also.
Huh.
Do you know how those murders were committed?
I don't.
I know that Kazan was shot in the back of the neck, and his body was found in a dumpster.
That was just from the research for the book, but the other three, there's no bodies to find out what happened.
Did you have a sense, even after you had left, that your mother was capable of not just, you know, the short con, but murder?
Did you ever think that?
Well, yeah.
I did at times, but then I found a way to forgive her.
I went to the authorities when I was in high school.
I was in what I thought was a protective custody, and I gave them everything.
I gave them the arsons.
There were no murders at the time, but the maids were there, the arsons, the fur coats that she'd stolen, insurance scams.
I gave them everything.
For three days or two days, I spilled everything on her, and nothing happened.
And then in the early 80s, She tried to get me to put a guy away.
I went and warned him instead.
I called the police on that.
Nothing happened.
And you try to make excuses for people that you love.
And then the good times.
The bad times is probably one day out of 30.
The other 29 days were awesome.
We had a great time.
Things were not normal.
They were actually over the top.
But it was a fun place to be.
Costly casinos, living like a millionaire.
So, Las Vegas provided the kind of atmosphere that was just right for your mom.
You know, we lived in some great places.
We lived in Newport Beach, the Bahamas, Hawaii, but Las Vegas was made for mom.
She was in her glory in Las Vegas.
Well, everybody's looking for the fast buck in Las Vegas, so there's lots of marks.
She liked the marks.
Wasn't just that, it was the attention.
She loved attention.
Most con artists don't want attention.
She loved attention.
She wore all white.
She wore a fake diamond on her hand the size of a grape.
If that was real, she would have to have security guards around her.
That would be the Elizabeth Taylor image.
That's what it was.
She loved to be the center of attention.
In Las Vegas, she got a little bit of flash and flashed a couple bucks.
life is not too hard to do.
Very well.
You know, you're talking to a guy who did everything he could to avoid the press three years ago.
And I was nervous about this.
But it is being very well received.
The reviews have all been awesome.
They think it's well written.
They're surprised by the content.
I've heard terms like haunting and surprising and stuff like that.
Of course.
That surprises you, huh?
Well, I'm very happy with the way the book is being received.
No, I mean that people say it's haunting and that it's horrific and all the rest of it kind of surprises you?
I'm not comfortable with it, but I'm glad that we could give them a piece of literature that they've spent a few bucks on.
When did the book hit the stores?
The 24th of last month.
So it's brand new then?
It's brand new.
It's doing pretty well.
We're proud of it.
We're very proud of it.
I want to ask you right here, we're at sort of a juncture point, and I would love for you to be able to take some calls from the audience.
I'd love to do it.
Would you?
You really want to stay around?
I'll be fine.
All right, done deal.
Kent Walker is my guest.
His book is Son of a Grifter.
You can go to my website.
We've got a link.
You can get it on Amazon.com with their incredible discount, of course.
The twisted tale of Santa and Kenny Kimes, the most notorious con artists in America.
A memoir by The Other Son.
You're listening to Art Bell, somewhere in time, on Premier Radio Networks.
Tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM, from May 9th, 2001.
There's only half of what I am.
It's all clear to me now.
My heart is on fire.
My soul's like a wheel that's turning.
I'm Dr. Daniel.
You're as cold as ice.
You're willing to sacrifice our love You never take advice
you Someday you'll pay the price, I know.
I've seen it before, it happens all the time You're lonely, good Lord, you leave the world behind
You're begging for gold, you're throwing away A fortunate feeling, but sometimes you'll pay
You're as cold as ice You're willing to sacrifice our love
You won't have the ice But someday you'll pay the price, I know
I've seen it before, it happens all the time You're lonely, good Lord, you leave the world behind
You're begging for gold, you're throwing away A fortunate feeling, but sometimes you'll pay
You'd have to be cold as ice.
Cold as... Sante.
And that's really cold to do the things that have been done.
My guest is Kent Walker.
from may ninth two thousand one you'd have to be cold as ice
coldness saunders
and and that's really to do things that have been done
my guest is uh... can't walker and he's the other brother
sunday and canada kenny kimes are uh...
in jail for life in may face the death penalty the both of them uh...
We're talking with a brother.
It's an amazing thing to go through.
If you have any questions for Kent, we're going to open the lines now and allow you to ask whatever you would like.
And there probably are no really stupid questions In this category, because most of us simply have no life that Kent led early, and that his brother and mom led up and still, in a way, lead, though they're not actively out committing crimes.
Within the prison system, I'm sure that... Actually, that's a pretty good question, which I'll ask in a moment, but there are There are various levels of hierarchy in a prison, and I would imagine that already Ahsante has made her way through many of those levels, to be sure.
so at any rate if you have any questions of the opportunity to
ask them is coming up now
you're listening to work well somewhere in time on premier radio networks
Tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM from May 9th, 2001.
Now again, back to Kent Walker.
Ken, you're back on the air again, and that's one thing I want to touch on before we go to the phones, and that is, in prisons, there is indeed a hierarchy.
There's a real pecking order that goes on in prisons.
Given your mother's history, I would think that she's already well established in that pecking order, or is she still in solitary?
They're both in solitary.
Well, Mom is in solitary still for another month or two.
kenny he's probably a star at the jill is that
in los angeles maximum security uh... pretty much a lockdown all the time stuff so it
really doesn't have the contact with the inmates to be able to pull it off
uh... whether it was interesting though after the conviction
uh... made the papers in new york that uh... bob had been uh... caught
uh... trying to uh...
conspire with other inmates to given escape attempt going so what she's in the general population of crucial global
poor stuff and and you think she'd have a uh... at least an even
chance even in maximum security of escaping
We'll see you next time.
Well, I think that now, with her history being revealed and so much going on with the media, I'm sure that any authorities that have her in custody would take the proper precautions.
I would hope so, at least.
God, what you have lived through.
Alright, let's let a few people ask questions.
Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Kent Walker and Art Bell.
Good morning.
I'm a Canadian from Newcastle, Ontario.
Yes, sir.
Yes, and I just, I listen to you almost every night here.
Yes, sir.
While I'm making donuts.
Now, my question is, it being Mother's Day, and the severity of his mother's crime, has he ever thought about possibly getting somebody to talk, maybe she's possessed?
Or something like that, that maybe there's a devil inside of her that's causing her to do all these things in the past?
Yeah, I suppose all kinds of things would go through your mind.
It's an interesting question.
We cover this in the book.
In Son of a Grifter, Donna Gentile is an attorney that represented her during the Mayes trial.
He's a very formidable attorney.
He's an awesome wordsmith.
He was ranked in the top ten in Town and Country magazine for criminal attorneys.
And I asked him to help me out when this first started.
Before he would represent me, I had to answer one question from him.
The question was, does your mother worship the devil?
This is a guy who represents some pretty shady characters.
Then I also spoke with another attorney who represented him before by the name of Howard Weitzman.
He's the one who got DeLorean off the cocaine charges way back when.
And I asked him, he represented my father during the Mays trial, and I asked him, have you ever met anyone as diabolical or evil as my mother?
And he thought for a minute, and he said Charles Manson, and he was part of that deal.
The last attorney I spoke with was Oscar Goodman, and who is now the mayor of Las Vegas.
Indeed.
And known as the model attorney, I mean that's what everyone calls him.
And Dominick was in a conversation with Oscar.
That was Oscar's earlier incarnation.
And said, Dominic says to Oscar that Shantae Kimes is the most evil woman I've ever met.
And Oscar says that's what I admired the most about her.
I mean, so there's three very powerful attorneys who've seen more than anyone's ever going to see.
And they made the press reports like floppy pieces.
And I don't believe that she's possessed.
I just think that She was just out of control and she was selfish in a way.
So you don't believe in an external evil influencing a specific person, virtually possessing them, that sort of thing, you think?
I believe that people who are possessed allow themselves to be possessed.
My mother's strength, for lack of a better word, is definitely internal.
I mean, evil spirits and all that, I've heard a lot of talk about that.
I don't know.
I don't know.
It would be a pretty exhausting process to be able to keep that inside you for 40, 50 years, I would think.
Boy, I'll say.
All right.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Kent Walker.
Good morning.
Hi, Art.
This is Eric calling from Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Yes, sir.
Well, excellent show.
It has a very spooky and surreal quality to it.
It's quite amazing.
I wanted to ask your guest, based on everything he's said, I'm very convinced that his mother fits into one of two categories.
I'm not a doctor, so there's a little bit of Greek there for me.
I can tell you this, though.
Psychiatrist ever described his mother as being either a sociopath or a psychopath.
Having been subjected to a PCL-R test or evaluation.
A psychopathic checklist revised.
I'm not a doctor so there's a little bit of Greek there for me.
I can tell you this though.
She was examined by many doctors.
Many doctors.
The problem is this.
My mother would sit down and figure out, okay, what symptoms should I show to help lessen my sentence.
She could fool the best of them.
Like I said, I've spoken with a lot of behavioral therapists.
I've talked to people who would know.
I've not found an answer that I feel comfortable with yet, and none of the answers they can give, they would always say, well, you know, with your mother, she is so unique that it's almost impossible to tell because you can't tell if she's lying or not.
So it's one of those questions that I wish I could give you an answer to, but as far as I'm concerned, it's just what she is at this point.
Well, you know, it's interesting.
On this program, we've dealt with the question of evil, you know, whether there really is an external evil or not, whether it really is inside.
Singly, the person involved, and there's no external influence at all.
We've had that discussion a million times, and I've used, as an example of what I thought was pure evil, Manson.
You know, I've seen interviews with Manson.
Yeah, the intensity is definitely there.
In jail, and it's just all over him.
I mean, you can't look at the fellow without seeing it.
It's just, it's all over him.
But it's a little different, but still the same, you say, with your mom.
Well, the difference with mom is that she, you know, you look at Manson and you feel that he has the same experience as you do.
And I don't like to judge people, but I feel that's the same thing looking at pictures of him.
My mother came across, initially at least, as angelic almost.
People loved her.
She had charisma.
She was fun to be with.
I don't care what kind of mood you were in.
If she wanted you to be in a good mood, you'd be euphoric instantaneously.
If you wanted to feel fear, she could do that to you.
She can crawl inside you and just manipulate your emotions in a way she wanted to.
Now, if that's an evil trait, then she's evil.
If that's a good trait, then she's good.
It depends on what the end result is.
Well, we know in this case.
Evil.
You know, usually television over-dramatizes everything, and it sounds like In this movie, whatever they do, CBS does with a movie like Mother Like Son, whatever they do with this movie, they're not going to be able to overdo it, are they?
They're not going to be able to overdo it, and the CBS movie did a great job, I think, of capturing some of the emphasis of it.
Have you seen it?
Yeah, I saw a little bit of it, and Mary Tyler Moore did a great job.
Gene Stapleton, I mean, I think there's going to be some awards for this movie.
It's going to be a big deal.
Well, I know you're very much in demand right now.
There's two totally different stories, whereas CBS dealt mainly with the Irene Silberman
murder and a little bit of the past, whereas the book is going to cover in depth a course
of 36 years.
So you haven't heard the last of Shante Kimes, hopefully.
Well I know you're very much in demand right now.
You're doing a zillion interviews, aren't you?
Yeah, I'm having more fun on this one though.
This one's been kind of fun.
Thanks.
Well, we can take it... Radio's a little easier, and being able to be on the phone instead of in a stupid television studio where everything is so scripted and tight... Big difference.
Big difference.
I don't miss the makeup a bit.
Yeah, that's right.
No makeup.
And there's just something too damn structured about television.
I don't like it.
So there is a difference.
West of the Rockies, you're on there with Kent Walker.
Hello.
Hello, this is Rick out in Honolulu.
Yes, Rick.
Hi, I have a question for Kent.
Kent, do you recall a time frame for your mother's presence in Hawaii in the early 70s?
Yes.
I went to high school in Hawaii.
In fact, we cover that in the book deeply.
Well, yeah, I think I'm a customer for your book here.
I'm glad to see that it's published and you've done a wonderful thing in bringing out this amazing story.
That's very kind of you to say.
Thank you.
There were a series of incidents that I had with a woman that I believe may have been your mother in some apartments along the Alawai Canal, and it involved a bunch of women That my friends and I would see her with, that she seemed to have control over.
It was a situation where they were the maids.
They were maids in an apartment complex.
I've always wondered if it was your mother.
I became aware of the story after the arson incident out here in Hawaii.
Yeah, I know that there was a situation, and it's been a long time since I've lived in Hawaii, but Wailaiki Ridge.
My father would inspect a couple of houses up there, and Mom had camped a couple of mazes up there, and I believe that was part of the slavery case in Las Vegas.
I'm not sure.
Did you ever have any interaction with these maids?
What you're telling me kind of rings a bell, but I've been hearing so much.
I'm not going to admit to anything unless I know absolutely for sure, and I can't say
that.
All right.
Well, hey, good luck to you, Kent.
Thank you, Rick.
It's an amazing story.
I know it's going to be with you a long, long time, no matter what happens, and I wish you
the best of luck.
I appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
Take care.
Did you ever have any interaction with these maids?
Were you at all aware of how they were being manipulated?
Well, when I was a kid, they were like big sisters.
I mean, it's kind of interesting.
We illustrated in Son of a Griffer also how that even escalated.
In Palm Springs, you know, when I was a young grade schooler, they'd go home for the weekends.
Mom would even go find them boyfriends and stuff.
I mean, they would have dinner with us.
We were like big sisters.
Once my stepfather came into the picture, my mother became more controlling and it became That's when I started wearing uniforms and working longer
hours.
It probably wasn't quite as severe as what it escalated to.
Once I moved to Hawaii, I used to steal money out of my stepdad's pockets on several occasions
and send them back to the mainland because they were so unhappy.
Then once I went into the military, where all the charges for the involuntary service
that took place, they talked about being burned with irons and hot water borne.
Torture?
Basically, in a controlling fashion.
At first, when the Maids case first hit the media and when it first transpired, I didn't
want to believe it because I had the memories of what things were like when I was in the
I just thought it was, you know, because of the Silver case, you know, trying to get all the money.
But, you know, researching the book now in retrospect, yeah, stuff all did happen.
Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Kent Walker.
Hello.
Hello.
Yes, sir.
Hi.
Yes, I'll go ahead and say this and I'll hang up and try to listen and maybe he could go through the bottom of the hour to explain something because I do identify.
It's not at that level.
I hope not.
Hello?
We're here, go ahead.
Okay, yes, it's not at that level.
They don't have the money, but I've come from a very dysfunctional family.
I'm in my early 40s, was the middle of 7.
Three older ones gone, thank God, wherever they are.
Three younger ones in their 30s today.
This sociopathic manipulation is terrifying, and I identify two of them.
One is in prison now, who I've broken off with.
One has been through prison in 1992 when I saw him.
I'm absolutely convinced he attempted to get me into a dark back room and was going to kill me to get the military insurance money.
And one other younger one, not so much trouble, but Sociopathic manipulation, name changes, just things like you were saying about your mother.
What steps should I take to protect myself from these three terrorists, younger terrorists, so that never again I have to deal with authorities or whatever, just so I can protect myself so the rest of my life I can be in peace?
I hope you find that peace.
Do you have any suggestions?
One of the main motivations for this book, we have three rules.
One, be honest and truthful.
Two, no one else can hurt or be victimized.
Three, hopefully provide a beacon of hope for people out there who are in something like this.
If you love them, it's a tough deal.
I can't even waste time to attempt to do that.
It's too dangerous.
Well, then get out.
This book is going to address people who are involved in situations where they're loving people who are unlovable.
The only advice I can give you is do the right thing, and when you've got the strength to run, run like hell and don't look back.
When you get out of it, it's not necessarily going to be better.
It's going to be damage control.
But in your situation, I think maybe you should find some help and address it and get out of that situation if you have that much fear.
When your brother and your mother eventually are out of isolation, will you go see them?
I spoke with my brother this morning.
Since he's been extradited to California, his security is much lighter.
And I talk with him often.
I made the commitment to visit him at least once a month.
I'm the only person in the world who cares for him at this point besides my family, and he's going to have that.
And so what does he say to you when you talk to him?
What does he say to you now?
I think he's starting to get it.
He's starting to realize what his big brother went through for him.
He's starting to realize the mistakes he's made.
I think there's a little bit of shame.
I'm not sure if there's regret yet or remorse, but I think it's coming.
It's going to take a while.
The best way to put it, and I don't mean to oversimplify it, but the best way to put it is I think he's finally getting it.
He's finally got it.
Beginning to?
Yeah.
If there's no regret or remorse yet, then he doesn't really have it yet, but you're saying you're starting to see signs?
The door's open.
The door's open, huh?
Yeah.
I wonder if the public would...
I agree with you that your brother deserves some kind of break because he was brought up into this.
He was born into this exactly the way you were.
But you know, the public would argue two ways.
They would say, sure, we feel sorry for him because he was virtually trained into this by his own mother.
But then again, the argument would be made, so were you.
Exactly.
Well, you know, on that argument, it's an answer I don't like.
We didn't write this book to paint me out as any kind of hero or anything like that.
Kenny had... No, it's just a fact.
I mean... Kenny had one misfortune, that he had an older brother that was still there.
And, you know, I was a bad example in that respect.
All right, hold on there for just a moment.
We're at the bottom of the hour, and this, too, seems to fit like a glove.
I'm thinking about if the glove fits.
I'm Art Bell.
And we're talking with Kent Walker, who has written Son of a Grifter.
It's in bookstores.
It's about to be a movie.
It's everywhere.
Stay right there.
You're listening to Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring a replay of Coast to Coast AM from May 9th, 2001.
I travel the world and the seven seas.
Everybody's looking for something.
Some of them want to use you.
Some of them want to get used by you Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?
I travel the world Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?
I travel the world and the seven seas Everybody's looking for something
Some of them want to use you Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you Some of them want to be abused
Sweet dreams are made of this Who am I to disagree?
I travel the world and the seven seas Everybody's looking for something
You're listening to Art Bell's Somewhere in Time on Premier Radio Networks.
Tonight, an encore presentation of Costa Costa M from May 9th, 2001.
I brought this song back as bumper music because I listened to the words and I thought,
Oh boy, does this ever fit?
You know, for every Sunday Times out there, there's got to be a million people that are ready marks.
And I mean literally, one to a million.
And maybe those odds are a little bit Low, actually, when you think about it.
Anyway, more in a moment.
Now we take you back to the night of May 9th, 2001 on Art Bell's Somewhere in Time.
Alright, once again back to Kent Walker.
Kent, have you begun to see your book in bookstores yet?
Yeah.
In fact, it was kind of fun in New York when we did the first publicity tour.
It was kind of a neat feeling to see your book in the window on Fifth Avenue.
It was a heck of a sense of accomplishment, to be honest with you.
Yeah, and as you pointed out earlier, I'm sure writing this was horrible.
I mean, to go back and to relive all this.
Yeah, it's a joke I tell my friends.
If I had known I was going to write a book on my life, I would have taken better notes.
You have to dig in pretty deep.
Mark and I have a lot of drive-bys of my past.
I'll tell you one interesting experience.
In Palm Springs, we had a house, I think it was on Twin Palms, and this house was a lot of events.
I saw my mother throw a knife at my father and it actually stuck in his arm.
And I walked, the house was vacant, and I guess I grifted and probably broke a law, but I walked into the house, the doors were all open, I was in complete disarray, tatters, I was about ready to be torn down.
And I had to deal with the emotions that came.
I didn't have the memories yet, and I think it was the closest thing to an apparition I'll ever see in my life because I felt every one of the fears and every one of the sadnesses, but I didn't have the memory to equate it to for a few minutes.
and it kind of shook me up, kind of shook me up a little bit.
All right, let's go back to these calls.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Kent Walker.
Hello.
Hello.
Hi.
Thank God you're back.
That's all I have to say.
I'm so grateful.
By the way, I'm from Gainesville, Florida, and my name is Susanna.
What I called to talk about was the fact that there's an extended member of my family I was close in age too, except he was a male and I was related to the wife.
He was a sociopath and what you're describing is very similar to his circumstance and the way he behaved, except it never went quite so far because his wife was very strong, had been grounded and steeped in morality and religion and knew where to call a halt.
Everyone loved this man.
There was no one who didn't love him, including me.
He had a tremendous sense of fun.
Business associates enjoyed his company, wanted to be with him.
Bosses, co-workers, everybody.
Relatives loved him.
She was looked at as the bad guy more than he was.
She was the one that wanted to pour water on the fun, but fun for him always got out of hand.
And he didn't have a feeling or an idea of no conscience.
Where is it wrong?
Why is it wrong?
Oh, it's so much fun.
What's wrong in that?
Or it's an end to a means, or it serves a good purpose.
There was always a justification that was stronger than any sense of guilt.
It wasn't there.
And I can really relate to the 90 days of the month you speak of.
When things were really happy and mom was the greatest mom in the world and birthday parties.
Yes, I see this man.
He could make parties wonderful for his wife and on the 31st day come home with some outlandish scheme he had that would tear her up trying to squash it and make sure it didn't happen.
And he was also very good with doctors.
He was capable of convincing doctors that he did have things he didn't.
Maybe he's my mother's brother.
They sound pretty close alike.
Because of his wife, he just never got into the crime end of it.
Has any psychiatrist taken a look at this as a situation where he could be the classic sociopath?
They fool even the psychiatrist into believing they're healthy and well.
Well, that's my mother.
The only way that a psychiatrist would even be able to look at her was if it was something to serve her purpose.
And it was to shorten her sentence so she would get in the books and find out what they're looking for and exhibit those symptoms.
I don't see how anyone could get a true diagnosis on a personality like that.
How do you reconcile, in your own mind, your own brother and your mom facing a possible death sentence and still loving them?
Everybody understands, no matter what your parents have done, that does not change the blood connection.
It doesn't change your mother is your mother, your brother is your brother.
That's how it is.
That's how it is.
And you don't stop loving them.
I've had a couple friends tell me, you know, why can't you just let this go?
Just turn your back on it.
And all the things that I'm proud of about myself doesn't let that happen.
And I have no apologies to make for loving them.
As far as dealing with the death sentence, I've been pretty clear with Kenny.
The book's going to illustrate the 20 years of his life where there are circumstances here that deserve some attention.
He is guilty of the things that he's accused of and justice does need to be served.
Once again, as I said before, before the circumstance, I was the eye for the eye guy.
I believed in the death penalty.
I didn't believe that there were types of circumstances that could lead people to this.
But having to look at my own history and my brother's history, I had to change.
I'm not looking for sympathy on his behalf, maybe a little understanding.
I don't think anybody that I have met, including myself, would have been immune.
What did you see in your brother that's different from what you saw in your mom?
You're right, I did survive it.
But does that mean that the guy on death row who was a little bit weaker than the guy who
made the right choices deserves to die?
I don't know.
I don't know what the answer to that one is.
What did you see in your brother that's different from what you saw in your mom?
Honestly, a bigger intensity.
Now, after what I just said, I'm not going to be hypocritical.
Kenny brought more danger with him.
The way he grew up, he was also put in that state of being infallible.
Everyone else was vultures after him and just marks and stuff.
He was above everybody else.
But he was also very intense.
I think he brought more danger.
I think he made my mother more dangerous.
He also had more ideas.
I think the violence escalated because of him.
It just started when he was about 10 years old.
So then your mom didn't really orchestrate all of it, did she?
I wrestle with that.
I look at my mother's history, and the crimes have always escalated.
But they escalated much quicker when Mom and Kenny got hooked up.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Kent Walker.
Good morning.
Hello?
Whoops, I didn't push the button.
There we go.
Where's the Rockies?
Now you're on there.
Yes, Art?
Yes, where are you?
Yes, Carson City, Nevada.
Kid Walker should recognize that community.
Very, very well.
You went to high school there at least one year?
My freshman year.
Your mother graduated in 1952?
Yes.
Your father graduated in 1953?
Yes.
Still lives here?
Yes.
Good man.
Yes, I sensed your love for him.
Very much so.
I'm very proud to be his son.
Art mentioned early on in the show about a mentor and influence on your mother.
I do a lot of writing here.
I work with the Reno Gazette-Journal.
I've also worked with John Doe.
He's a private investigator in L.A.
And I worked with Alice McQuillan with the New York Daily News.
Yeah, in fact, she just interviewed me about a week ago.
I saw her on Court TV.
I had a woman call me out of the blue who gave me a name of a man, now deceased, Who was a con man and a kidnapper in this community.
And she... Do the wild thing at 775-727-1295.
...in Carson City.
And once in Sacramento, probably after she married your father on... You know his name?
Yes, I do.
His name was Joe... Oh, sorry.
Please don't.
I'm sorry.
That was a mistake.
You knew carefully here.
Okay.
Well, he is deceased, but at some point, I would like to talk to you about this, because Art is right.
There was At least one mentor who taught her the con game.
And this was before you were born.
I know you were born on September 27, 1962 in Sacramento.
But I believe she met him even before she married Ed, possibly before she married Lee Powers, her first husband.
Wow.
Well, I'd be very interested to talk to you.
Contact HarperCollins, and they know how to get a hold of me, and I'll give you a call.
That'll be fine.
I know the reporter from the Reno Gazette-Journal has talked to the publicity person there we are trying to get in touch with
you so it is your right caller uh... and or i am or we both are
it just doesn't make sense that somebody
enters is all by themselves is there's got to be somebody back there somewhere well i'd believe there is an
and i have a woman who
acclaims and i've talked to a personally
that uh...
she saw them together She knows the background.
I've talked to... You have my attention.
I'll tell you that.
You definitely have my attention.
Get a hold of him.
I'm not hard to find.
I understand.
We're going to check it.
No question, she has a predisposition.
I understand her psychological profile, but she has had a mentor, and you need to know more about that.
Alright.
I'd like to find out.
Thank you for the call.
Yeah, thank you very much for the call indeed.
Maybe there's more to learn.
And that's a good question.
So people who want to contact you then, I would say at this point, I really haven't addressed that question yet.
So I would say at this point, HarperCollins.com, maybe I'll get a website or something like that if people want to contact me.
I will tomorrow.
I will tomorrow.
I'll figure something out.
I will reserve that one right now, I think.
email now be very careful about that general over the river or right now i think
Okay, I would too.
You'll get email until the cows come home.
I understand on that one.
I do.
First time caller line, you're on the air with Kent Walker.
Hello.
Good morning, Art.
This is Stan.
I'm calling from Memphis, WREC.
Yes, sir.
Hey, first of all, hearty thanks to all the truck drivers that you keep awake out here.
We don't have to listen to boring, crying your beer music all night long.
You're welcome.
That was for you, Art.
Thank you, thank you.
I think I met your guest mother in Salt Lake City in the early nineties.
I worked for a major trucking company as a fleet manager dispatcher and she came to Salt Lake City under the pretenses of she wanted to buy this trucking company.
They basically whined her and dined her for a day and a half until they pulled a credit report and then they escorted her out of town basically.
I guess the ironic part of this whole story was they had the Utah State Police looking for her at the time, and she wound up hitching a ride to Las Vegas with one of the trucking company's drivers that she had been visiting.
What year was this, sir?
uh... of round i want to play early nineties maybe eighty nine early nineties
uh...
uh... i don't want to dispute what you're saying is that it's a two reason
why doesn't make sense uh...
Number one, my stepfather was alive.
He was a multimillionaire.
And number two, it would be impossible to pull a credit report on my mother at that time, because she had not even had a social security number yet.
Wow.
Yeah, so the only reason why I doubt this is the same person.
All right.
Let's see.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Kent Walker.
Hello.
Hi, it's Mark from Omaha.
Hi, Mark.
Hi.
I was wondering, Kent, on your travels with you and your mother and family, did you run into any other scam artists?
A couple, actually.
That's a very good question.
A couple.
Here's what happened.
My mother had gone through every decent attorney in the Las Vegas area, and pretty soon she ended up with attorneys who, their desk was the kitchen table in their houses.
And a couple of those attorneys got her for not a lot of money, but they scammed her a couple of times.
So even she got scammed a couple of times?
Yeah, yeah, she did.
And she was infuriated, boy.
You want to see an apparition of Chante Cimes getting caught or getting scammed, that wasn't a pretty sight.
She got pretty upset about it.
Yeah, I'm told, actually, the easiest people to scam are scammers.
Now that your mother might have been the top.
My experience tells me different, to be honest with you.
Really?
Yeah, she had a good insight of people.
I don't doubt the statement under normal circumstances, but the history that I lived is not normal, and I didn't see that.
Yeah, not even close.
How you've turned out the way you have is amazing enough.
Oh, thank you.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Kent Walker, hello.
Hello, West of the Rockies, you're on the air, yes.
Hi there.
Yes, I'm Dixie Lee from Grass Valley.
From where?
Grass Valley.
Oh, Grass Valley, okay.
Yes.
I'm facing somewhat of a similar situation, Kent, in that my mother and my brother have violently assaulted many, many, many people.
Yeah, me too.
The last assault, I'm disabled, and the last assault, my mother put me in the hospital, and my brother and my mother put my in-service worker in the hospital, which wasn't bad enough as it is, but I cannot, and I just happened to be taking pictures, and I took pictures of them assaulting my in-service worker.
My brother is the size of The WWF guys, he's a kickboxing state champion of California and Nevada.
He got kicked out for being too aggressive.
My question for you is, because I'm going to be really pursuing this thing in the courts Our courts in my little county won't do this.
I'm going to the Attorney General.
We don't have a lot of time here, ma'am.
How do you handle the emotional end of this, when you know you're so right, but what you're doing is so wrong?
Just one day at a time.
You know, you love them, and it's tough.
You still do the right thing.
I'm not sure my situation is exactly like yours, but I do feel what you're going through.
Bad people are bad people.
You want to go through guilt.
You want to go through regrets.
I know what I'm doing is right.
Just hold on to that.
Bad is bad and good is good.
If you know what you're doing is right, just realize that the only reward you might get is knowing the right thing to do.
That's about all I can tell you.
I really appreciate that.
God bless you and I hope things work out for you.
They will and thank you very, very much.
East of the Rockies, without a lot of time, you're on the air with Kent Walker.
Hello.
Hi, this is Mike calling from Coney, South Carolina.
Yes, sir.
Okay, Mr. Walker, definitely sounding like an interesting story over here this morning, and I'll definitely need to purchase this book.
Just, if you could, just elaborate a little bit on what you mean by the significance of the check that you said that bounced in order, that I guess is sort of the domino effect, or eventually led to their conviction.
Yeah, it's actually, there's a story.
When they got arrested, they were arrested for a bad check charge out of Utah.
They bought a Lincoln Town car from a dealership there, and then the FBI were looking at them for that, and then there was also the LAPD was looking at them for the murder of David Kasdan.
When they were arrested in New York, they were in custody for two days before they linked them up with the Silverman disappearance, even though they had Mrs. Silverman's passports, or charge plates, or identification.
And here they were in the biggest city in the United States.
They were under investigation for real estate problems, arsons, and stuff like that, and knowing an NYPD, thought to ask if this Irene Silverman was missing her for stuff.
The way they got caught was on the warrant from Utah, and one of the investigators, who was either fed or LAPD, happened to see the mug shot that they put on two days after they were arrested on the local news stations.
called up the n y p d the next day says we got the guy you're looking for his
right here he's been in custody for the last two days was an absolute fluke that
they got caught in the first place and if they hadn't been caught
uh... if they don't know if they haven't tripped up that way
uh... yeah it might still be going on
there are bigger and grander scale and again you have no idea you you believe they were
working towards something really really big but you don't know what that
was Yeah, because of... Your brothers never told you?
I've not heard anything from Mom or Kenny at all in that respect, but some friends who, or people I have befriended with the media of the book, who've been part of this investigation on the media side since 1996, told me some things.
I don't know how to thank you enough for being here.
Your book, Son of a Grifter, is going to sell like crazy.
no proof, no, just the opinion of Kent Walker.
Well Kent, I don't know how to thank you enough for being here.
Your book, Son of a Grifter, is going to sell like crazy.
I think most of my audience will be watching the CBS movie coming up on the 20th, and to
get an even better idea of what's going on.
But the best ideas come tonight from you of what went on.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for the opportunity.
Thank you to all the callers.
This was a great question.
I'm going to be thinking about the interview tonight for a very, very long time.
The book is Son of a Grifter.
It's by Kent Walker and Mark Schoening, or S-C-H-O-N-E.
If you'll check the link on my website, you can go to Amazon and get it there, and I highly recommend it.
So that you can understand what otherwise is totally not understandable.
From the high desert, I'm Art Bell.
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