Manacled Mormon case
1977 criminal case
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Interest in “Manacled Mormon case” spiked on Wikipedia on 2026-07-20.
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Key Takeaways
- The manacled Mormon case , also known as the Mormon sex in chains case , was a case of rape and kidnap of Kirk Anderson, a young missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), by an American woman, Joyce McKinney, in England in 1977.
- According to Anderson, he had been abducted by McKinney from the steps of a church meeting house, chained to a bed and raped by being made to penetrate her.
- McKinney later discussed the case in the 2010 documentary film Tabloid ; she filed lawsuits against the film's director, Errol Morris, in 2011 and 2016, both of which were dismissed in court.
- His abductor was Keith May, aged 24, who had posed as an investigator into Mormonism, using a fake handgun and chloroform.
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Source summary
WikipediaThe manacled Mormon case, also known as the Mormon sex in chains case, was a case of rape and kidnap of Kirk Anderson, a young missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), by an American woman, Joyce McKinney, in England in 1977. Because McKinney and her accomplice, Keith May, skipped bail and fled to the United States before the case could be tried and were not extradited, they were never tried for these specific crimes. According to Anderson, he had been abducted by McKinney from the steps of a church meeting house, chained to a bed and raped by being made to penetrate her.
After the case, McKinney resided in the US with a falsified passport. McKinney later discussed the case in the 2010 documentary film Tabloid; she filed lawsuits against the film's director, Errol Morris, in 2011 and 2016, both of which were dismissed in court. In 2019, McKinney was homeless and living in her vehicle when she was charged with the hit-and-run manslaughter of a 91-year-old pedestrian; the court found her a mentally incompetent defendant and sent her for psychiatric treatment, confirming in 2020 that she would remain in a psychiatric hospital, with reviews of her competence at future dates.
On 14 September 1977, Kirk Anderson, a young missionary for Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), was abducted from the steps of an LDS Church meetinghouse in Ewell, Surrey, England. His abductor was Keith May, aged 24, who had posed as an investigator into Mormonism, using a fake handgun and chloroform. Three days later, a freed Anderson made a report to police that he had been driven to a cottage in Devon and chained to a bed against his will, at which point Joyce Bernann McKinney had attempted to seduce and then raped him by forcing him to penetrate her.
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