The Tribune

A YOUNG American is leading a website campaign to secure a retrial for murderess Sante Kimes, who is believed to have drowned a banker in her bath at her Cable Beach home in Nassau. Family friend Bryan Johnson believes Mrs Kimes and her son Kenny, who lived in the Bahamas for four years during the 1990s, are innocent of two murders which led them to be jailed for life. He and a small team of pro-Kimes campaigners are working tirelessly to compile a file which they hope will lead to a new hearing. Mr Johnson, 28, who is based in North Carolina, outlines his view of Mrs Kimes and her family in a new book, Evil and Son, by the former managing editor of The Tribune, John Marquis. He recalls happy childhood memories with Mrs Kimes, her late husband Kenneth Sr and son Kenny when the murderess slipped two $100 bills into his hand so that he could enjoy himself at a funfair. Far from being the cruel murderess of popular renown, Mrs Kimes was a highly amusing and generous person, he tells Marquis in an interview which sought to reveal "the other side" of a woman known as the most notorious murderess of modern times. And he contends the Kimeses had no reason to resort to crime, as Kenneth Sr was a wealthy motelier who owned several valuable properties, enabling the family to live well. Mrs Kimes and her son Kenny, a former student at St Andrew's School, are serving life terms in the US for killing New York socialite Irene Silverman and family friend David Kazdin. During the Kazdin hearing, Kenny also confessed to drowning, with help from his mother, the Cayman-based banker Syed Bilal Ahmed in the bath at their Cable Beach home. He said the body was dumped at sea, but neighbours at Sulgrave Manor, next door to the former Kimes home, are convinced Mr Ahmed was buried in the grounds. In his book, Mr Marquis quotes Nassau associates of the Kimes family and records their shock when their criminal exploits became known. After fleeing Nassau in 1996, the pair set off on a con-and-kill spree across the States culminating in the Silverman murder in 1998. Mrs Kimes is now serving 120 years at Bedford Hills high security prison for women in New York state while Kenny is serving 125 years in a Californian jail. Mr Johnson, who runs a website called the Kimes Campaign for the Wrongfully Convicted, believes the pair will eventually win a retrial because of the lack of a body or forensic evidence in the Silverman case. Mrs Kimes, now 78, is suspected of poisoning her hus band Kenneth Sr in 1994, murdering lapsed lawyer Elmer Holmgren in 1990, and "eliminating" an unnamed vagrant who was talking too much about her various scams. During a three-hour meeting with Mr Marquis last year, Mrs Kimes continued to protest her innocence. In his book, he traces every detail of their encounter and examines the psychological background of a woman described as "the most degenerate person I've ever met" by a supreme court judge who heard her case. "It is, by any standard, one of the most fascinating crime stories of modern times," said Mr Marquis from his home in Cornwall, England. * EVIL AND SON is available from First Edition Press (firsteditionpress.co.uk)