Sharon Kinne wanted by police 50 years after her killing spree began

KANSAS CITY, Missouri - Police want your help finding the target of the oldest outstanding murder warrant in the Kansas City area.

The July issue of “Kansas City’s Most Wanted,” a monthly publication featuring dozens of area fugitives, features Sharon Kinne, who is wanted for the March 19, 1960 murder of her husband, James.

Sharon Kinne, just 20 at the time, told authorities that day that her 2-year-old daughter had accidentally shot James, an avid gun collector, with one of his own weapons inside their home.

About a month after her husband’s death, Sharon used the insurance money to buy a used car from a man identified in an u ndated article in “Crime Magazine” as Walter Jones. Kinne took a liking to the married used-car salesman, and the two started an affair.

“Crime” reports Jones refused to marry Kinne when she became pregnant.

So Kinne allegedly shot and killed Jones’ wife, who was found dead inside a car on May 27, 1960. Kinne was arrested and charged with her murder, but was acquitted at trial.

Investigators reopened the case into the death of James Kinne, and eventually charged Sharon with that crime as well, but three subsequent trials over the next four years ended in mistrial.

A fourth trial was set for October of 1964, but it never happened because Sharon Kinne fled to Mexico with another man.

Soon after arriving South of the Border, she fatally shot a different man twice in the heart at a motel. She also shot the motel manager, but he was still able to overcome her and detain her until Mexican police arrived.

Kinne was convicted of the man’s murder in the Mexican motel. Authorities also learned the gun she used to kill that man was the same gun used in the salesman’s wife’s murder, but since she was already acquitted, she could not be again charged with the crime.

Kinne was sentenced to 13 years in a Mexican prison, but on Dec. 7, 1969, she disappeared, and has not been seen since.

Kinne’s Jackson County murder warrant is still on the books. If you know anything about what happened to Sharon Kinne, you are urged to call the Kansas City Crimestoppers TIPS Hotline at (816) 474-TIPS.