By Melissa Antoinette Garza
Prior to this documentary, I had never heard of Joyce McKinney. I was born in 1979 so I hadn’t even been born when the case broke. I am surprised this is the first I’m hearing of her and the insane events that surrounded Miss McKinney’s young life.
In 1977, Joyce McKinney was a 27-year-old virgin and a former beauty queen. She fell hopelessly in love with Kirk Anderson, a young Mormon man who she met while driving her corvette in town. Anderson’s mother disliked Joyce and was against the union. When Anderson disappears into thin air, McKinney hires a private investigator to track him down. She finds out that Kirk is in England on a Mormon missionary trip. She fears he is being held against his will and with the help of a pilot, her best friend, and a body guard, she breaks him out. Kirk and Joyce spend three days together. They have sex and declare their love. It is then, that she realizes the Mormon church have declared Kirk a missing person who was kidnapped. Kirk swears he’ll go and straighten everything out, but instead he turns on her and Joyce is arrested for kidnapping and rape.
The documentary also delves into the journalism of tabloid trash and how “reporters” went through McKinney’s past and made her appear to be a prostitute. They went as far as to put a bug on her sheepdog.
Some of the people interviewed appeared to be real scumbags, who even after nearly four decades wanted to ruin McKinney’s reputation. The most convincing aspects of the documentary is McKinney who is forthcoming about everything. She doesn’t hold back.
After this documentary was made, there was a lawsuit McKinney brought against the filmmaker Errol Morris and I can understand why. He shows pictures that are doctored and information from unreliable sources. I’ve never spoken to McKinney, but it seems quite easy to tell who was telling the truth. Morris does seem to give merit to crazy allegations with zero evidence. I understand it makes for a more compelling story, but this is McKinney’s life and it’s fair to say she’s been through enough.
The documentary implies she’s crazy because she had her dog cloned. Now this dog had saved her life from a Mastiff that went nuts and died because a pharmacist gave it too much medicine purposely. I understand why McKinney wanted to clone the dog and regardless if the amount was $125,000 or $125 million, I get it. I have five rabbits that I love and in their own ways have saved my life again and again. People react differently to death and loss. One shouldn’t belittle someone else for their way of grieving.
All of that said, I do think this is an interesting documentary and should be watch. Most, I’m sure, will walk away with the same belief I have. McKinney had a scumbag boyfriend named Steve who talked to tabloids and lied to them giving false info. The tabloids portrayed McKinney in a horrible light intentionally and McKinney who gave someone her entire heart and adoration was royally screwed over.
This is on Netflix and it’s a free watch, so I definitely suggest giving it a go. I hope that Kirk Anderson watches it one day. Maybe then, he’ll apologize to her for all the pain she had to endure because he wasn’t brave enough to go against the Mormon faith or even against his mother.
I do hope McKinney’s much talked about book comes out one day as I think the full story needs to be told from her and her alone. I’d also like to see a film adaptation told from McKinney’s point-of-view.
Scared Stiff Rating: 8/10
