Children Who Kill: Profiles of Pre-Teen and Teenage Killers (19 page)

At first, fifteen-year-old Kip offered an insanity defence, but later withdrew this. He was kept under constant suicide watch and charged as an adult. He also received so many death threats that he appeared in court wearing a bullet proof vest.

In September 1999 Kipland Kinkel pleaded guilty to four counts of murder – and twenty-six charges of attempted murder – and was sentenced to 111 years in prison. He was immediately sent to the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility, a prison for violent young men. He will stay there until his early twenties, when he’ll be transferred to an adult prison.

After the trial, various friends of the family spoke publicly in his favour, explaining that he’d been pushed towards academia and sport all his life by a father who just couldn’t let him be himself.

Gweneviere was born in October 1981 to Jann and Clarence Gardner. (The latter was always known by his nickname, Buzz.) Jann had taken heroin and cocaine during the pregnancy and continued to do so after Gweneviere’s birth. Buzz also enjoyed experimenting with soft drugs and alcohol, and the couple – who lived in New York – had a very volatile relationship.

Gweneviere was a sunny natured and loving little girl. She was delighted when, at two years old, her parents gave her a sister, Kathy. But the new baby put pressure on an already rocky marriage so it was an increasingly unhappy home.

When Gweneviere was three her parents had a fight about cigarettes during which her mother lunged at her father with a knife. Some reports say she stabbed him. Buzz fled, permanently ending their relationship.

Jann’s drug addiction was getting worse so Buzz’s mother, Betty, applied to the courts for custody. Betty and her late husband had failed Buzz (who said that his father was a violent ogre and his mother a strict disciplinarian) but presumably she thought she’d succeed in parenting this time around.

Betty was given custody of both girls and they moved to her Saugerties home in upstate New York. Meanwhile Jann had turned to prostitution to support her drug habit and moved to another part of the city, living in a squat.

At first Gweneviere seemed to thrive in Betty’s care. After all, she now had three meals a day and was no longer neglected. Betty’s home was modest but well tended. She decorated the girls’ bedroom and made sure that they were neat and clean.

Unfortunately, Betty followed the rules of a bygone age. She told friends that she lived her entire life by the teachings of the Bible. This seemed to include the maxim of ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ for she beat Gweneviere and Kathy with a fly swat and a paddle. Neighbours sometimes heard shouts and screams emanating from the house.

Gweneviere was glad to escape to school, where the other children shortened her name to Wendy. She will be known as Wendy in this profile from now on.

Wendy learned to play the flute at school. She did well in her exams and on the sports field. Neighbours thought her a very well behaved child who clearly adored her younger sister. She also tried to please the devout Betty by frequently attending church. But whenever she did anything that Betty considered to be wrong, Betty would tell her that she’d end up like her ‘no-good mother’ who Betty despised.

Wendy became an increasingly beautiful girl with long dark hair and sad dark eyes. Like any other human being, she yearned for love and acceptance rather than constant complaints. A neighbour even saw Betty dragging Wendy into the house simply because she’d lost a sewing needle in the grass. Betty made ongoing financial sacrifices in order to feed and clothe the girls, but what Wendy needed most was
approval. At an alarmingly early age, she tried to charm this from the opposite sex.

By ten or eleven she’d found herself two ‘boyfriends’ and wrote in her diary that she’d come close to going all the way with them. (Admittedly, her idea of going all the way might not have been anatomically accurate.) Friends noted that she was desperate for the boys’ acceptance, but one boy finished with her and the other told his friends that she was a slag.

Betty had no idea that these early sexual relationships were taking place. She still treated Wendy as a baby, telling her that she couldn’t use the telephone to talk to boys or go to the shopping mall. But Wendy was becoming her own person and refused to take confirmation (a kind of adult baptism) in Betty’s church.

In turn, Betty made it obvious that she loved Kathy more than Wendy, giving the former new clothes and the latter hand-me-downs.

In the late summer of 1994, twelve-year-old Wendy was out playing tag with a group of other children when she bumped into fifteen-year-old James Evans, who’d just returned to the area to live with his mother. There was an immediate attraction between them and by November of that year, with Wendy now thirteen, they were having sex. Betty, who’d always hated the so-called sins of the flesh, said that James was evil and tried to stop the teenagers seeing each other. But
Wendy loved the tall, thin youth and started playing truant to be with him.

James had been born in 1979 to Dinah Evans. She and her husband already had a son and a daughter who were both at secondary school. The family lived in Kingston, New York.

Dinah, whose own childhood had been violent, got into trouble with the law so she wasn’t around for part of James’s early years. When she was there she was sometimes beaten by her husband and James witnessed this violence. (Children have been known to copy their parents’ violence when they are as young as eighteen months.)

When James was two, his parents’ marriage ended. He spent some time with his grandmother who he really cared for. He also spent some time with Dinah and some with other relatives. He was described as cheerful with a high IQ. By the time he was six his mother was a more permanent part of his life though she still had her problems. But James loved her and he also loved his older sister so he was a child with hope in his heart.

When he was eight his father applied for custody on the grounds of Dinah’s instability. He won his case, the judge noting Dinah’s many brushes with the law and her various personal problems. But for some reason James’s father didn’t take up custody for another three
years. By then James had become so close to his family that he had to be physically dragged from their home.

He kept running away from his father’s house, which was a hundred miles away from his mother. Onlookers would describe his father as a hard worker but a disciplinarian.

The arguments between the parents continued and in the end – at age fourteen – he was placed in a community home. Psychologists found him depressed, angry and tearful, though he tried to hide the latter emotion behind a wall of indifference. Like some of the other unhappy children in this book (Robert Thompson and Kip Kinkel) he found it hard to eat.

The lonely, dispossessed teenager was overjoyed at finding love with tiny, slender Wendy who he described as ‘perfect.’ It would take a few weeks for him to discover just how troubled she was.

Wendy was happy for the first time in years but Betty Gardner – and most of Wendy’s other relatives – didn’t approve of the match. Betty thought that fifteen-year-old James was too streetwise for her thirteen-year-old grandchild. He had a reputation for bullying, but his mother would later say he was hassling older kids for picking on the younger ones.

Betty tried to break up the young lovers – but for once her grand-daughter stood up to her. The elderly woman continued to insult the boy.

Wendy became increasingly distressed. She thought she was pregnant and, terrified, asked James to punch her in the stomach. On another occasion after an argument she grabbed a knife and cut herself. James’s sister, a paramedic, also saw a deep slash on one of Wendy’s wrists as if she’d tried to commit suicide.

In October she ran away and phoned home to say that she was living in a different part of America – but when the police were called in they found her hiding at James’s home.

In December she again cut herself several times, deeply hurt by her grandmother’s ongoing assertion that she’d inherited her mother’s sin.

Towards the end of December the situation at home was so tense that Wendy all but moved in with James and his mother. They knew that the clock was ticking, that her grandmother would eventually phone the police.

But this time Betty started to make arrangements to have Wendy put into a home. She also told Wendy (according to a phone call which James overheard) that she could hit her at any time. A neighbour had seen welts on Wendy’s face which she claimed were inflicted by her grandmother and Wendy told James that when she was younger Betty had pushed her down the stairs.

Wendy was hurt by the abuse and terrified of losing James. She’d effectively lost her parents – by now she hadn’t seen her mother, Jann, for years and the woman
was dying of HIV-related complications. And when her father Buzz visited, he and Betty usually had huge verbal fights.

On 29th December 1994 James suggested that Wendy phone her grandmother and ask if she could stay the night with James and his mother. Betty said no and Wendy told her to ‘fuck off’ and slammed down the phone.

Turning to James, she said she wished the old lady was dead. James seemed to have acted as peacemaker at first, suggesting she try again, but Wendy’s subsequent phone calls to Betty failed to resolve anything. She repeated that she wanted to kill her – and James tried to change the subject suggesting that they get married as soon as they were old enough and live far away.

Wendy continued to talk about murdering Betty Gardner. This was probably the equivalent of fantasising out loud – many who’ve suffered for years at the hands of a violent parent or guardian have lain in bed night after night and imagined killing them. Finally, James said he’d kill Betty if that was what Wendy wanted. Wendy agreed it was, but said she didn’t think he had the guts.

Further fantasising took place, with the teenagers planning grisly ways to dispose of Betty Gardner. In the end, James decided that snapping the old woman’s neck would be easiest.

The young lovers walked the few streets to Betty’s house and went downstairs to the TV room to confront her. They’d rehearsed that Wendy would say ‘You abused me. Now it’s your turn.’ But Wendy – like most children faced with their abuser – lost her nerve.

Betty told James to get out. Ignoring her, James kept asking Wendy what she wanted to do – and in the end Wendy shouted ‘Just do it.’ As he lunged at Betty, eleven-year-old Kathy began to scream. Wendy grabbed her younger sister, dragged her to their bedroom and rammed her head into the wall. She held onto Kathy to prevent her racing downstairs to her grandmother’s aid.

James yanked at Betty’s neck, but it didn’t obligingly snap the way it had in his fantasies. He managed to get her onto the carpet and pulled a kite string from his pocket, looping it around her neck. He also put his foot on her back to keep her in place as he desperately tightened the string.

Betty continued to shout and scream – and Wendy started singing songs upstairs to help drown out the noises. After a few minutes the sixty-seven-year-old’s face changed colour and blood seeped from her throat where the string was cutting into it. Ugly death gurgles began to emanate from her convulsing body. Only when her bladder let loose its contents was James sure that she was dead.

When he confirmed that he’d killed Betty, Wendy started to sob. She hadn’t actually believed that he’d
go through with it. Neither wanted to look at or dispose of the body. Like most children who kill, they hadn’t planned what they’d do after their nemesis was dead.

Wendy cried several times that night and the next day. James was also shaken and tearful. Wendy deliberately cut herself with the scissors and James had bad dreams. Kathy would later say that she overheard Wendy moaning so she thinks the teenagers had sex (as usual, that particular detail was the one emphasised by the prurient press).

Unable to sleep with the corpse in the adjoining room, James and Wendy carried Betty Gardner’s body to her car. They hid it in the trunk then returned to the house and swore Kathy to silence. For the first time in years they could do what they wanted. They even had money, for they’d taken the seven-hundred dollars that Betty had in the house.

The next day Wendy and James took Kathy out for a pizza. Later they took her bowling. At other times, when the eleven-year-old was tired, they locked her in the house and went shopping at the mall.

They drove the car to various fast food joints with the corpse still locked inside the trunk. At one stage they drove to the Catskill mountains where they could easily have dumped the body, but for some unknown reason they brought it back home again. They also showed the body to at least one of James’s friends.

On the third day Kathy left the house whilst the young lovers were asleep and ran to a neighbours’. She told them of the murder and the neighbour phoned the police. The body was found and the teenagers were immediately arrested. Buzz was located and raced to Wendy’s side.

He was shocked that his daughter had encouraged James to kill Betty – but he could understand her motivation. He told a journalist that the Child Protection Services had failed to investigate reports that Betty was abusing Wendy. He said that he’d tried very recently to get custody but had been turned down.

James’s mother and older sister gave him emotional support but both children were refused bail and remained in youth detention centres until their trials.

James went on trial in July 1995. He had no money so was reliant on the public defender’s office. Wendy would fare better, with Buzz getting her a lawyer who he’d used in the past.

A psychiatrist testified that James had murdered Betty in order to protect Wendy. He had been unable to protect his mother from his father’s violence but was determined to be protective this time round. He also spoke about how terrible James’s early years had been.

It wasn’t until little James was six that his mother had been a consistent presence in his life – and by eight he knew that he might lose her at any time as his father
had been granted custody. As an eleven-year-old he’d had to be physically carried to his father’s house and had run away numerous times.

James had been clinically depressed before he met Wendy. He often couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep and was frequently tearful. Their relationship gave him love and acceptance, a reason to get up in the morning. He was also planning a future with her and couldn’t bear for Betty to separate them.

James’s lawyers said that Wendy had been the mastermind behind the murder, that James was a troubled boy rather than a cold-blooded murderer. The prosecution argued that he was a sociopath who would kill again.

Yet whatever James’s faults, he doesn’t appear to have been a sociopath. He was capable of loving Wendy and adored his disabled grandmother. He didn’t lack empathy – instead he empathised with Wendy’s unhappiness to such an extent that he was willing to do anything to alleviate it. He was traumatised after the murder and still found it hard to eat and sleep.

The jury deliberated for a few hours then found him guilty of second degree murder rather than the lesser charge of manslaughter. A month later he was sentenced to the harshest penalty available, nine years to life.