Sante Kimes | |
---|---|
Born |
Sandra Louise Singhrs July 24, 1934 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma |
Died | May 19, 2014 Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, in Bedford Hills, New York |
(aged 79)
Nationality | American |
Occupation | Con artist |
Criminal penalty | Life in prison, New York State, Life in prison, California |
Spouse(s) | Kenneth Kimes Sr. (died 1994, aortic aneurysm) |
Children | Kenneth Kimes Jr., Kent Walker |
Motive | Financial |
Conviction(s) | Murder, 2 counts, robbery, slavery, forgery, over 100 other charges |
Sante Kimes (born Sandra Louise Singhrs; July 24, 1934 – May 19, 2014) was an American criminal who was convicted of two murders, as well as robbery, violation of anti-slavery laws, forgery and numerous other crimes. Many of these crimes were committed with the assistance of her son, Kenneth Kimes Jr. They were tried and convicted together for the murder of Irene Silverman, along with 117 other charges. The pair were also suspected but never charged in a third murder in the Bahamas, to which Kenneth has confessed.
According to court records, Kimes was born Sandra Louise Singhrs in Oklahoma City to a mother of partial Dutch descent and an East Indian father. However, Sante Kimes has given numerous conflicting stories about her origins and numerous other accounts are difficult to confirm, which is why her estranged son, Kent Walker, says that his ancestry could be anything from Latino to East Indies to Indigenous American to White.
Kent Walker, in his book Son of a Grifter, has reported a claim by an old acquaintance of his mother that Sante Kimes was the daughter of a respectable family who was unable to cope with the young girl's aberrant, wild antics. Kimes herself has claimed that her father was a laborer and that her mother was a prostitute who migrated from Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl to Los Angeles, where the young Kimes ran wild in the streets.
She attended high school in Carson City, Nevada, and graduated in 1952. She soon married a high school boyfriend, but the marriage only lasted three months. In 1956, she reunited with another sweetheart from high school, Edward Walker. They had one son, Kent. The marriage was troubled. After a shoplifting conviction in 1961, Kimes ended her marriage to Walker. In 1971, she met and married Kenneth Kimes. The marriage produced one son, Kenneth "Kenny" Kimes Jr., who was born in 1975.