INTERVIEW: Lt. Joe Kenda hunts for killers on new season of homicide show

Homicide Hunter, returning to Investigation Discovery 10 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 19, tells the grisly tales of Lt. Joe Kenda, retired homicide detective for the Colorado Springs Police Department. The no-joke delivery of the unlikely TV personality — “My, my, my” is now a catch phrase — has turned the reenactment series into a hit and put a face on the many victims and suspects investigated by Kenda.

The police lieutenant was first approached about the show by an individual who had been in television news in Colorado Springs. Kenda was seen in a few TV interviews, including one high-profile segment with Diane Sawyer, and light bulbs over a possible series started to go off.

“So [the producer] had this idea for kind of a realistic cop show with no script where I would describe how I felt, what I thought, what I did, why I went where I went,” Kenda said recently during a phone interview. “So he wrote me a letter, which I promptly threw away, and he wrote me another letter. And I threw that away, and he sent me a third letter. And he says, ‘I know you’re throwing these away,’ and I laughed out loud because I thought, the guy’s got a sense of humor because I am.”

It was Kenda’s wife who finally convinced the detective to consider the TV offer. After that push from his high school sweetheart, it didn’t take too long for Homicide Hunter to evolve into a reality series.

Here’s how Kenda explained the process of filming:

“What I told [the producers] from the beginning is, I say, ‘Every one of these is a story — every single one of them. However, you’re TV people, and I am not. So I will send you 50 of these people at a whack, and you read them. And you decide the ones you like best for purposes of television and storytelling,’ and so they pick them out of a group I send them. And then they say to me, ‘We want to do this one.’ ‘Yeah, OK. Turn the camera on.’ When you do this for a living, trust me, I remember every detail because you live with these things day and night, days and weeks, and even years sometimes before you’re finally through court. So it’s something I know so well that it all happened this morning, in terms of my memory of them.”

Because of this impeccable memory, Kenda does not work off a script. The producers edit the interview, which can last four to five hours, to a manageable duration. Then, they write a reenactment script. “You only select the highlights, the important components, and that’s what I talk about when they interview me,” he said. “They’re in the entertainment business, and I was in the murder business. So, you know, they don’t tell me how to investigate murders. I don’t tell them how to make TV shows. We have an arrangement.”

At first, the producers tried to have Kenda work off a script. That wasn’t going to work for the homicide hunter. He told the TV team that all he had to do in life was die and pay taxes. Kenda explained that he was a cop, not an actor.

“I said, ‘I’ll tell you what, turn that camera on, and I’ll tell you about this case for 15 minutes. You don’t like it, I’ll read the script. I’m a vet.’ And they said, ‘Well, OK.’ So they did that. Fifteen minutes was up. I said, ‘Well?’ ‘We don’t need a script.’ And that’s the way it’s been ever since.”

Homicide Hunter sticks mostly to the details of the more than 350 cases Kenda was involved in, but there’s a darker aspect to the series that sometimes goes unexplored. Kenda said he’s a “poster boy” for post-traumatic stress disorder. The ins and outs of the crimes have never left his mind. From restless nights to sleeping with a gun next to the bed, Kenda said these emotional scars are the price he pays for a life in the murder business.

However, there was satisfaction, especially when a suspect materialized: “When you turn a Mr. X into a human, it is better than sex, let me tell you. It is beyond wonderful. It is euphoric.”

Throughout his career, replacing a Mr. X with a human face only came after careful interrogation techniques. Kenda said followed the predictable nature of suspects and developed a personal strategy.

“My approach was very calm, very quiet, no profanity, no insulting comments, no threats, very nice,” he said. “In an interrogation room, after a couple of hours of me being your friend, all of a sudden we are two buddies in a bar having a beer, and you are telling me your story. And I’m listening with rapt attention, and that worked very well for me. … So when I would approach someone, let’s say a new person that I think is my killer, and you walk into the interrogation room. They’re in handcuffs, and they’re distressed, or angry, or both, or they’re sweating, or they’re pissed, or they want to scream at you. I say, ‘Look, I understand you’re upset, and I’m just convinced, probably more than you are, that this is some terrible misunderstanding as to why you’re sitting here. So why don’t you just tell me what happened, and I’ll just listen. And I’ll see if I can help you.’ That’s what they do. They blurt out their story. And, of course, they’re lying their a** off. … So I would say to them, ‘Why don’t you tell me again what happened?’ And, of course, they can’t because they’re lying, and so there are changes. They may be subtle, but there are differences. And when that would happen, that’s when I would interrupt. And I would use a phrase that’s become a catch phrase for the show. I would look at them and say, ‘Well, my, my, my. Now an hour ago you said this, and now you say this. So were you lying then, or are you lying now? Or are you just a f***ing liar? What is it?’ You see, their whole demeanor changes. All of a sudden, I’m not nice anymore.”

Kenda said he knew he wanted to be a homicide detective ever since he was 9 years old. With his family, he traveled to the Pittsburgh Zoo, a trip he called a “huge deal in the kid world.” Outside the primate house, he saw a sign, something along the lines of: Around this corner is the most dangerous animal on earth. Kenda turned the corner and saw a mirror from ceiling to floor. The people nearby, including himself, were staring back.

“Animals kill for need. Humans kill for pleasure. It must be the worst crime because the worst punishment is applied — death or life in prison. If I’m going to investigate this, I want to investigate the worst crime, and that’s murder. So that was my motive. I wanted to do that from day one.”

After joining the force, it took three years for Kenda to become a homicide detective. He served in that position for 21 years. He totaled 387 murders, or roughly 19 per year.

“There is nothing worse than violent murder,” he said. “People unfortunately often become participants in their own demise because of their lifestyle, because of people they associate with. There’s more of that this time [on the new season] than there has been in the past, of people who are perhaps doing something questionable, something maybe that’s even a little dangerous, and somebody killed them. But as a policeman you can’t make the decision, cannot make the decision about the importance or value of a victim. No one gets to play God — no one. So you investigate those as diligently as you do any other — from the truly innocent to the probably not so much.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Homicide Hunter returns to Investigation Discovery 10 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 19. Click here for more information.