Sharon Kinne

Case record: Sharon Kinne

Other details

Sharon Kinne was known in Mexico as La Pistolera. She was an American murderer.

Background

Sharon Elizabeth Hall was born on November 30, 1939, in Independence, Missouri.

When she was in junior high, Doris and Eugene Hall moved the family to Washington, but by the time Sharon was fifteen they had returned to Missouri, where Sharon attended William Chrisman High School.

Sixteen-year-old Sharon met twenty-two-year-old college student James Kinne at a church function in the summer of 1956, and the couple dated regularly until Kinne returned to Brigham Young University in the fall. Sharon wrote a letter to Kinne informing him that she was pregnant by him. Kinne took leave from his college and returned to Independence, where he married Sharon on October 18, 1956. The marriage license identified sixteen-year-old Sharon as being eighteen and a widow. Sharon later refused to address that assertion, though she had told people at the time that she had been married when she lived in Washington, to a man who later died in a car accident.

The couple held a second, more formal wedding the next year in the Salt Lake Temple, after Sharon completed the process of converting to Mormonism. They returned to Provo, Utah, where Kinne had been attending college, but at the end of the fall semester, Kinne again put his studies on hold. They returned to Independence, where both took jobs: Sharon babysitting and tending shops, and James as an electrical engineer at Bendix Aviation.

Sharon claimed to have miscarried the child that had brought about their marriage. In the fall of 1957, she gave birth to a girl they named Danna. The couple lived first in a rented home next to his parents and then in a ranch-style house they built at 17009 E. 26th Terrace in Independence.

By the time the couple had a second child, Troy, Sharon was carrying on a regular affair with a friend from her high school days, John Boldizs. By early 1960, James Kinne was contemplating divorce, partially because of Sharon’s spendthrift habits and partially because he strongly suspected she was being unfaithful. He spoke to his parents about the possibility of divorce on March 18, 1960, telling them that Sharon had agreed to give him a divorce if he allowed her to keep the house and the couple’s daughter and paid her $1,000. The elder Kinnes urged James to stay in his marriage. Sharon was also thinking about ways out of the marriage; according to John Boldizs, she offered him $1,000 to kill her husband or find someone who would.

The offence

1960 deaths: James Kinne

According to Sharon Kinne, at around 5:30 p.m. on the evening of March 19, 1960, she heard a gunshot from the direction of the bedroom in which her husband was sleeping. She entered the room and found two-and-a-half-year-old Danna on the bed next to James. Danna was holding one of James’s guns, a .22 caliber Hi-Standard semi-automatic target pistol, and James was bleeding from an apparent gunshot wound in the back of his head.

Kinne called the police. James was dead by the time the ambulance carrying him arrived at the hospital.

Police were unable to recover fingerprints from the well-oiled grip of the pistol, and a paraffin test for gunshot residue was not performed on Danna or Sharon Kinne. Multiple people, including family and neighbors, told police that James had often allowed Danna to play with his guns. In a test by investigating officers, Danna proved able to pull the trigger on a gun matching the one that had killed James. Investigators ruled the case an accidental homicide.

The pistol that killed James Kinne was taken into police custody and never returned to the widow, despite her efforts to reclaim it. She later had a male friend secretly buy her a .22 caliber automatic pistol. When the friend told her that he had registered the gun in her name, she requested that he re-register it under a name other than hers. With the investigation into James’s death closed, James was buried and Sharon collected on his life insurance policies valued at about $29,000.

1960 deaths: Patricia Jones

Patricia Jones was born Patricia Clements, one of six children born to Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Clements of St. Joseph, Missouri. After graduating from a local high school, she married Walter T. Jones, Jr., her high school sweetheart. Walter Jones enlisted in the Marine Corps shortly after their marriage, and the couple relocated to the west coast while Jones served. After his discharge, they returned to the midwest and settled in Independence with their two children.

By 1960, almost five years into the marriage, Patricia was working as a file clerk for the Internal Revenue Service, while her husband sold cars.

Walter Jones reportedly had a wandering eye. On April 18, he met Sharon Kinne when she bought a Ford Thunderbird from his dealership using some of the insurance payout from her husband’s death, and the two began an affair shortly thereafter. Kinne viewed Walter as a prospect for a second husband, but Walter was uninterested in leaving his wife despite the rockiness of their relationship.

When Walter declined to go on a trip to Washington with her in May, Kinne went with her brother instead. Although the couple reunited on May 25 shortly after Kinne returned to Missouri, the relationship quickly ended when Kinne told Walter she was pregnant and he was the father. Walter ended the affair rather than agreeing to divorce his wife.

According to Kinne’s later testimony, on the afternoon of May 26 she contacted Patricia Jones at Walter Jones’s office and told her that Walter Jones was having an affair with Kinne’s sister. Kinne then met with Patricia Jones that evening to discuss the matter further before dropping Patricia off near the Jones house. Patricia never made it to her house that evening, according to her husband.

Walter Jones filed a missing persons report with police the next day and began calling people he thought might have seen Patricia. He got a lead when he spoke to friends of Patricia’s who carpooled to work with her. The friends told Jones that Patricia reported receiving a phone call that day from an unnamed woman who wanted to meet. Patricia asked the carpool driver to drop her off at a street corner in Independence, which the driver did. The carpool occupants had seen a woman waiting for Jones in another car at the shop but did not recognize her. They provided a description of the unknown woman to Walter.

Walter called Sharon Kinne and asked if she had seen or spoken to his wife. Kinne allowed that she had seen Patricia that day to tell her about Walter’s affair. According to Kinne, she last saw Patricia where she dropped her off near the Jones house, speaking to an unknown man in a green 1957 Ford. Based on Kinne’s admission over the phone, Walter met with her late Friday evening and insisted she give him more details about where Patricia was. Walter later admitted to holding a key to Patricia’s throat threateningly. After leaving Jones, Kinne called John Boldizs and asked him to help search for Patricia Jones.

Shortly before midnight, and within hours of Kinne’s conversation with Walter Jones, Kinne and Boldizs found the body of a woman in a secluded area approximately one mile outside of Independence. Boldizs said he had suggested searching the area where they encountered the body, a spot they had gone to on dates before.

The body was dressed in a black sweater and yellow skirt and was identified as the missing Patricia Jones. Jones had been hit with four shots from a .22 caliber pistol. The fatal wound was a shot to Jones’s head entering near her mouth on an upward trajectory. She also had one through-and-through bullet wound to her abdomen and two penetrating gunshot wounds to her shoulders on a downward trajectory through her body. Powder burns on the hemline of her skirt, which had been raised to her waist, indicated the gun had been fired from close range at least once. Initial reports placed Jones’s time of death at approximately 9 p.m. on May 27. She was buried on May 31.

1964 death: Francisco Paredes Ordoñez

On the night of September 18, 1964, Kinne left the hotel Hotel Gin without Francis Pugliese. She encountered Francisco Parades Ordoñez, a Mexican-born American citizen, at a bar and accompanied him back to his room in Hotel La Vada.

Kinne’s account said Ordoñez made sexual advances toward her, and she was forced to fire her gun at him to protect herself. She later maintained she had intended only to frighten him, but her bullets struck him in the chest and killed him.

A hotel employee, Enrique Martinez Rueda, entered the room after hearing gunfire. Kinne fired again and hit Rueda in the shoulder. Wounded, Rueda fled the room, locked Kinne inside, and called the police.

Police rejected Kinne’s self-defense story and theorized she had intended robbery, choosing Ordoñez as her victim. When Ordoñez resisted orders to give her his money, police believed she shot him.

Investigation

Investigators immediately began questioning Sharon Kinne, James Boldizs, and Walter Jones. All three were questioned on May 28. Walter Jones and Boldizs gave written statements admitting to dating Kinne and both agreed to lie detector tests. Kinne gave an oral statement but declined to sign a written one or take a lie detector test. Kinne was questioned again on the morning of May 30, and Boldizs on May 31.

The scheduled polygraphs for the two men were performed on June 1, and both men were deemed to have been truthful in their statements. Kinne’s brother Eugene was also questioned on May 31 but declined to answer questions.

Repeated attempts were made to find the bullet that had passed through Jones’s body and the murder weapon, including sifting dirt at the crime scene for bullets and deployment of a troop of Boy Scouts to search for a gun. A .22 caliber rifle slug was eventually found buried in the ground where Jones’s body had been found, providing evidence that at least some wounds had been sustained at the place her body was found. Though investigators dragged the bottom of nearby bodies of water, the gun that had shot Jones could not be found.

Buildings near where Jones’s body had been located were searched for blood and gunshot evidence, based on a theory that Jones had been attacked elsewhere and then transported outdoors.

A “white, powdery substance” found in Jones’s hair was initially believed to be trace evidence of some other crime scene area, but later was determined to be fly eggs.

The bullet that killed Kinne’s husband from the earlier death was later ruled out as the murder weapon in Jones’s death. However, a man who worked with Kinne admitted to having secretly purchased a new .22 caliber pistol at Kinne’s request in the beginning of May. Police were unable to locate the gun in question when they searched Kinne’s house, though they found an empty box that they believed had once held a gun.

An initial autopsy performed on Patricia Jones was criticized by police and prosecutors for failure to recover bullets and test stomach contents. Dr. Hugh Owens testified he had recovered one of the presumed three bullets present in the body and argued the body had been “prepared” by an undertaker prior to autopsy, making stomach-content chemical tests useless. Owens added that he had not seen any food apparent in the stomach at autopsy.

The body of Patricia Jones was exhumed on June 17 to collect bullets left behind at the original autopsy and to gather what samples of tissue and stomach contents were possible.

Police search for the prison escape: On December 7, 1969, Kinne’s absence from a routine roll-call at the Ixtapalapan prison went unnoticed until she also failed to show up at a second roll-call later that evening. News of her disappearance was not reported to Mexico City police until 2 a.m. the following morning. A manhunt was arranged, initially focusing on northern Mexican states and later encompassing transport hubs, before circling back to the Mexico City area. American authorities including the FBI were alerted.

Early police speculation was that Kinne bribed guards while escaping; an unusual blackout had been reported at the prison on the evening of and at the approximate time of her escape, and investigation showed a door that should have been locked had been left unsecured. Further questioning led to findings that prison oversight was generally lax and that it was staffed by fewer guards than it should have been.

Arrest

Kinne was arrested at her home for the murder of Patricia Jones around 11 p.m. on May 31, 1960, the same night as Patricia Jones’s funeral.

Walter Jones was taken into custody on June 2 as a material witness and freed the same day on $2,000 bond.

In Mexico after the September 1964 shooting, police responding to Hotel La Vada arrested Kinne on charges of homicide and assault with a deadly weapon. Authorities searched her purse and found a gun and fifty shells. They searched the couple’s room at Hotel Gin, where they found two more guns and additional shells. Authorities took Francis Pugliese into custody, initially holding him without charge and later filing charges of entering the country illegally and carrying an unlicensed gun. Kinne was initially placed in a women’s prison before being transferred to Lecumberri for her trial.

Trial

Trial for the murder of Patricia Jones (1961)

Kinne was tried separately for the two crimes.

Her trial for the murder of Patricia Jones began in mid-June 1961. Jury selection began on or about June 13, and the trial commenced with an all-male jury. Opening arguments by both prosecution and defense set up cases based on purported times of death. The prosecution asserted Jones had died about six hours after she ate lunch on May 26, meaning Jones had died more than 24 hours before Kinne and Boldizs found her body. The defense argued death had more likely occurred six to eight hours prior.

Prosecutor J. Arnott Hill cited testimony by Chief of Detectives Lieutenant Harry Nesbitt and by Patricia Jones’s husband, Walter, regarding Kinne’s motive. Nesbitt recalled statements by Kinne that she was afraid Jones was drifting away from her despite financial support Kinne offered. Walter testified that Kinne told him she was pregnant by him and he attempted to end the relationship.

The prosecution was unable to firmly establish that Kinne owned or had once had the weapon that killed Jones, though Kinne’s known pistol and the one that fired the bullets that killed Jones were .22 caliber weapons. Roy Thrush, the man who sold the pistol to Kinne’s coworker, led police to a tree containing what he claimed were bullets he had fired from the pistol; however, tests showed those bullets were not identifiable as coming from the weapon that killed Jones.

The prosecution rested on June 21 after calling 27 witnesses. Kinne’s defense took less than two days and involved fourteen witnesses other than Kinne, who did not testify. The defense argued that Kinne had no reason to kill Jones and that the .22 caliber pistol alleged to have been owned by Kinne was not proven to be the murder weapon.

After slightly over one and a half hours of deliberation, the jury found Kinne not guilty, citing “just too many loopholes” left in the prosecution’s case.

Immediately after the verdict, juror Ogden Stephens asked Kinne for her autograph, and Kinne was photographed giving it. Kinne was returned to jail the same day to await trial for the murder of James Kinne.

Trial for the murder of James Kinne (1962)

Jury selection began on January 8, 1962. District Attorney J. Arnott Hill stated he did not intend to pursue the death penalty.

The prosecution relied on the contention that Kinne was interested in removing her husband and had been willing to pay for his murder, supported by grand-jury testimony of John Boldizs. On the stand, Boldizs claimed Kinne’s offer to pay $1,000 could have been a joke. Hill had to attack the credibility of his own witness.

The prosecution alleged the marriage was near dissolution, that Sharon Kinne’s adultery caused this, and that she would collect James Kinne’s $29,000 life insurance policies only if she remained his wife.

The defense, led by Martha Hickman and James Patrick Quinn, focused on the circumstantial quality of the prosecution’s evidence and argued prior police investigation had determined James’s death to be “obviously accidental.” The defense emphasized that the jury must assume innocence and attacked the reliability of Boldizs, calling him a “poor, mixed-up kid” who would “sign anything.”

The defense also presented testimony that Danna Kinne could have shot her father, including statements that guns had been regularly left within Danna’s reach, that Danna could pull triggers on toy guns with stiffer trigger pulls than the weapon used, and that Danna had been observed pretending to fire guns.

Kinne was convicted on January 11 after five and a half hours of deliberation. In April 1962, she was formally sentenced to life in prison and began serving in the Missouri Reformatory for Women.

Interviews with jurors indicated that “three or four ballots” had been taken before a “guilty” verdict was reached, with the jury starting solidly divided and moving toward unanimity. A juror told the Kansas City Star that Kinne’s morals had not been considered and that no juror was aware Kinne had been previously tried for the murder of Patricia Jones.

After the verdict, James Kinne’s family continued to believe in Kinne’s innocence, telling reporters: “[W]e can't find it in our hearts to say anything bad about her” and “We still don't feel that she committed murder.”

Kinne told reporters she believed the verdict was a mistake and she regretted her previous enthusiasm for having a woman on the jury.

Kinne’s lawyers requested release on bond with support from a community petition signed by 132 supporters of her innocence. The motion was denied on the basis that first-degree murder was not a bailable offense. Presiding judge Tom J. Stubbs also counseled the lawyers that their involvement in such a petition while bond was being considered was “highly improper”.

A motion requested that Kinne’s conviction be vacated because the jury based its verdict on “surmise and speculation” rather than “substantial evidence,” and it alleged procedural errors including a juror taking “incomplete” notes, attorneys for both sides disputing Boldizs’s testimony, and an incorrect number of potential jurors being provided for selection. Judge Stubbs denied the motion in April 1962. The conviction was appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court, which in March 1963 reversed Kinne’s conviction and ordered a new trial on the basis that the defense had been denied adequate peremptory challenges during jury selection.

Kinne was denied bail in May 1963, but that ruling was overturned in July, and Kinne was released on $25,000 bond posted by her brother.

The state asked the Missouri Supreme Court to reconsider; a hearing granted additional grounds for a new trial in October 1963 based on the prosecutor being allowed to cross-examine a prosecution witness. A further request for rehearing was denied by the Missouri Supreme Court.

Kinne and her children moved in with her mother and awaited the start of the new trial.

Trial for the murder of James Kinne (second trial; mistrial in 1964)

Kinne’s second trial for the murder of James Kinne began on March 23, 1964. As jury selection began that day, the public was initially barred from proceedings but the restriction was soon loosened and media were allowed into the courtroom.

Jury selection lasted fourteen hours on the first day, beginning at 9 a.m. and running until nearly midnight. Presiding judge Paul Carver said he had been forced to choose between sequestering the entire jury pool overnight and forcing the court into a long day due to the notoriety of the case.

The eventual jury was all men and was immediately sequestered. A mistrial was declared days later after it emerged that a law partner of prosecutor Lawrence Gepford had once been retained by one of the jurors.

Trial for the murder of James Kinne (third trial; second mistrial in 1964)

Kinne’s third trial for the murder of James Kinne began on June 29 after being originally scheduled to begin early in June 1964. Assistant prosecutor Donald L. Mason declared he intended to death-qualify the jury, describing a process where a prosecutor peremptorily challenges any juror who automatically opposed the death penalty. Jury selection again took more than twelve hours in one day.

Boldizs’s testimony remained contradictory as to whether he believed Kinne’s $1,000 offer was intended seriously. He added that after James Kinne’s death, Sharon Kinne asked Boldizs not to tell authorities about her $1,000 offer.

A new witness, a female acquaintance of Kinne, testified that Kinne joked that the witness should “get rid of [the woman's] old man like [Kinne] did”. Defense cross-examination highlighted inconsistencies between this testimony and a similar quote the woman had offered at a previous deposition.

For the first time, Kinne took the stand on the last day of the trial and denied all charges.

The all-male jury deadlocked seven-to-five in favor of acquittal, leading to a second mistrial.

Trial in Mexico for the homicide of Francisco Parades Ordoñez (1965)

Kinne’s fourth trial in the death of James Kinne was scheduled for October 1964, but in September 1964 she traveled to Mexico. Kinne and her traveling companion Francis Samuel Puglise traveled as Pugliese’s wife under the name Jeanette Pugliese and registered at a local hotel. Kinne and Pugliese said they came to Mexico to get married.

On September 18, 1964, after the hotel shooting, police arrested Kinne and searched her purse and the couple’s room. Authorities took Pugliese into custody and later filed charges of entering the country illegally and carrying an unlicensed gun. The gun found was later proven by ballistics to be the same gun that killed Patricia Jones in 1960, but Kinne could not be charged again with that crime because of her acquittal.

Kinne filed a recurso de amparo through her attorney Higinio Lara, asserting Mexico violated her constitutional rights by holding her for a shooting committed in self-defense. The request was denied.

Both Kinne and Pugliese were tried in the summer of 1965. Pugliese was cleared of charges and deported to the United States. Kinne was convicted on October 18 of the homicide of Ordoñez.

Despite rumors of probation and deportation, Kinne received a sentence of a 10-year prison term. When Kinne was notified of the sentence the next day, she said she would appeal her conviction. She returned to the women’s prison to serve her sentence.

In prison she was nicknamed “La Pistolera” (“the gunfighter”), a nickname adopted by Mexican press.

Kinne’s appeal resulted in her sentence being lengthened. A three-man superior court upheld her murder conviction and increased her sentence from ten to thirteen years, stating her original sentence had been too lenient. The court overturned charges of attempted robbery while upholding the homicide conviction.

Sentencing

Missouri sentencing and appeals outcomes (James Kinne)

Kinne was sentenced to life in prison in April 1962 after her January 11, 1962 conviction for first-degree murder of James Kinne.

After appeal, the Missouri Supreme Court reversed the conviction in March 1963 and ordered a new trial due to denial of adequate peremptory challenges during jury selection.

After the grounds for a new trial were further expanded in October 1963, Kinne was awaiting a second trial; the second trial ended in a mistrial days later.

The third trial ended with a mistrial after a seven-to-five deadlock in favor of acquittal.

Mexico sentencing and appeals outcomes (Francisco Parades Ordoñez)

Kinne was convicted on October 18, 1965, for the homicide of Ordoñez and was sentenced to a 10-year prison term. Her appeal lengthened her sentence to thirteen years. The appeal court overturned charges of attempted robbery but upheld the murder conviction and increased the sentence from ten to thirteen years.

Arrest warrants and bond status in Missouri

Kinne was released on $20,000 bond while awaiting a preliminary hearing originally scheduled for June 16 after a hearing following a writ of habeas corpus by her lawyers Alex Peebles and Martha Sperry Hickman.

Kinne’s arraignment on July 11 resulted in denial of bail, but the Kansas City Court of Appeals struck down the ruling days later based on the prosecution’s reliance on circumstantial evidence. She was freed on $24,000 bond on July 18.

After the third trial in July 1964, Kinne was released on bond while traveling to Mexico before a scheduled fourth trial in October 1964. Because she was held in Mexico on October 26, 1964, Kinne’s $25,000 bond was revoked on that date. The court ordered forfeiture of the $25,000 bond after United Bond Insurance Company argued paperwork irregularities rendered the issuance of bail illegal. A $30,000 supersedeas bond was issued in August 1965. When the Missouri Supreme Court upheld the bond forfeiture, the $25,000 was paid to the State of Missouri in October 1965.

When Kinne failed to appear for the murder of her husband, a warrant was issued for her arrest in October 1964. The warrant was described as still outstanding fifty years later as the oldest outstanding murder warrant known to exist in the Kansas City area.

Timeline

• November 30, 1939 — Sharon Elizabeth Hall was born in Independence, Missouri.
• Summer 1956 — Sharon met James Kinne at a church function.
• October 18, 1956 — James Kinne married Sharon in Independence.
• Fall 1957 — Sharon gave birth to a girl named Danna.
• March 18, 1960 — James Kinne told his parents he was contemplating divorce and described Sharon’s agreement to divorce terms and a $1,000 payment.
• March 19, 1960 — James Kinne was shot; Danna was found holding a .22 caliber Hi-Standard pistol; the incident was ruled an accidental homicide.
• April 18, 1960 — Walter Jones met Sharon Kinne when she bought a Ford Thunderbird from his dealership.
• May 25, 1960 — Sharon and Walter Jones reunited.
• May 26, 1960 — Kinne contacted Patricia Jones and later met her and dropped her off near the Jones house.
• May 27, 1960 — Patricia Jones’s body was found.
• May 28, 1960 — Investigators questioned Sharon Kinne, James Boldizs, and Walter Jones.
• May 30, 1960 — Kinne was questioned again.
• May 31, 1960 — Boldizs was questioned; Eugene Hall was questioned but declined to answer; Kinne was arrested around 11 p.m.
• June 1, 1960 — Polygraphs for Boldizs and Walter Jones were performed and they were deemed truthful.
• June 2, 1960 — Walter Jones was taken into custody as a material witness and freed on $2,000 bond.
• June 17, 1960 — Patricia Jones’s body was exhumed.
• June 1961 — Trial began for the murder of Patricia Jones.
• June 21, 1961 — The prosecution rested its case in the Patricia Jones murder trial.
• June 1961 — Kinne was acquitted of the murder of Patricia Jones.
• January 8, 1962 — Jury selection began in the case involving the murder of James Kinne.
• January 11, 1962 — Kinne was convicted for the murder of James Kinne.
• April 1962 — Kinne was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of James Kinne.
• March 1963 — The Missouri Supreme Court reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial.
• July 1963 — Kinne was released on $25,000 bond posted by her brother.
• March 23, 1964 — Jury selection began for the second trial in the murder of James Kinne.
• June 29, 1964 — The third trial for the murder of James Kinne began.
• September 18, 1964 — The shooting of Francisco Parades Ordoñez occurred at Hotel La Vada; Enrique Martinez Rueda was wounded.
• October 18, 1965 — Kinne was convicted in Mexico of the homicide of Francisco Parades Ordoñez.
• December 7, 1969 — Kinne escaped from the Ixtapalapan prison during the evening roll-call period and did not appear at a second roll-call; her disappearance was not reported to Mexico City police until 2 a.m. the next morning.

Outcome

Kinne was acquitted of the murder of Patricia Jones.

Kinne was convicted of the murder of James Kinne and sentenced to life in prison; that conviction was reversed by the Missouri Supreme Court and ordered a new trial. The second trial ended in a mistrial after juror conflict involving a law partner of prosecutor Lawrence Gepford. The third trial ended in a mistrial due to a deadlock seven-to-five in favor of acquittal.

Kinne was convicted in Mexico of the homicide of Francisco Parades Ordoñez and sentenced to a 10-year prison term, which was later increased to thirteen years on appeal; the appeal overturned charges of attempted robbery while upholding the homicide conviction.

Kinne escaped from the Mexican prison on December 7, 1969. Despite extensive manhunts, her whereabouts remained unknown.

Aftermath

Kinne’s bond and Missouri legal entanglements continued after her Mexico conviction and imprisonment. Her $25,000 bond was revoked on October 26, 1964 while she was held in Mexico on the scheduled date for her fourth Missouri trial. The court ordered forfeiture of the bond; the insurer disputed issuance but later paid after the Missouri Supreme Court upheld forfeiture in October 1965.

A $30,000 supersedeas bond was issued in August 1965, allowing the insurer to defer payment of the $25,000 bond until a Missouri Supreme Court ruling.

The United Bond Insurance Company later filed suit against Kinne’s family to recover the cost of bail, lawyer’s fees, and searching for Kinne after her escape.

A warrant for her arrest was issued in October 1964 when she failed to appear for her murder trial. Authorities described the warrant as outstanding fifty years later. Kinne remained at large years after her escape, with her whereabouts and ultimate fate unknown.