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Cloned puppies may have exposed 31-year mystery
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-10 09:45 SALT LAKE CITY - A woman who made news around the world when she had five pups cloned from her beloved pit bull Booger looked very familiar to some who saw her picture: She may be the same woman who 31 years earlier was accused of abducting a Mormon missionary in England, handcuffing him to a bed and making him her sex slave.
A paper trail of court documents and jail booking information suggests 57-year-old dog-lover Bernann McKinney is Joyce McKinney, who in 1977 faced charges of unlawful imprisonment in the missionary case. She jumped bail and was never brought to justice. British tabloids first recognized the blonde woman's smiling face when she appeared in news photographs this past week with the five pit bull pups she paid South Korean scientists US$53,000 to clone from her pet dog Booger who died two years ago.
"It fits," said Utah filmmaker Trent Harris, who made a documentary about Joyce McKinney's case. He said photographs of McKinney and the dogs left him with no question about her identity. "I said 'Oh my God, that's Joyce,'" he said. Bernann McKinney has flatly denied any connections to Joyce McKinney and says she planned to take legal action against those who suggested otherwise. "I'm filing a US$10 million libel action," McKinney said before boarding a plane to return to the US While in South Korea, she told reporters she was a screenwriter and handed out business cards with a Hollywood, Calif., address. It was later found that address did not exist. In a phone call later Friday, Bernann McKinney repeated she had nothing to do with the Mormon abduction story and only wanted to talk about the cloning of her dog. "It's a story of courage, of a very brave service dog taking care of me. He passed away. I was so depressed. I had him cloned," she said. |
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