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This week, Corinna & Jules have the incredible opportunity to sit down with LT. Joe Kenda, an acclaimed homicide detective with a 92% solve rate who also has a successful True Crime TV show in its 9th season, and a new feature-length special airing this week on 8/17/22 at 8pm Central on ID. That show is Homicide Hunter: Never Give Up. He also has a second show, American Detective, entering its 3rd season. Both shows are available on ID through DiscoverPlus.com.
NOTE: This episode is marked explicit because it both covers harrowing details of the violent crimes that LT. Joe Kenda has worked to solve and a swear word or two.
00:00 Introduction + Trailer Clip from HOMICIDE HUNTER: NEVER GIVE UP with LT. JOE KENDA
02:30 Meet Lieutenant Joe Kenda
04:04 TRIGGER WARNING: The brutal details of the cold case featured in this ID Channel special
08:30 Advances in DNA technology, familial DNA and the public record reality of testing companies like 23andMe and Ancestry.com
10:08 Corinna's confession of losing her best friend from college to a random, brutal attack
11:50 Joe Kenda's bitter truth: we all have a demon within which is capable of incredible violence
13:18 The price you pay for the work of solving homicide cases, including PTSD, sleepless nights, and damaged personal relationships
14:47 The structure of Homicide Hunter and the blessing and curse of LT. Joe Kenda's photographic memory
19:30 LT. Joe Kenda's good cop / bad cop routine, interrogation methods and the power of fear
24:45 The hardest "nut to crack" in interrogations and the reality of the polygraph
26:43 The reality of familial DNA and its ability to help solve crimes
32:48 How and why Joe Kenda got into TV shows from AMERICAN DETECTIVE to HOMICIDE HUNTER on the ID / Discoveryplus.com
About LT. JOE KENDA
Lt. Joe Kenda, a 23-year veteran of the Colorado Springs Police Department, spent 21 years chasing killers as a homicide detective and commander of the major crimes unit. Kenda and his team solved 356 of his 387 homicide cases, getting a 92 percent solve rate—one of the highest in the country. After retiring from law enforcement, he starred in “Homicide Hunter: Lt. Joe Kenda,” an American true-crime documentary series that ran for nine seasons on Investigation Discovery (ID), and is now in premieres of season three of “American Detective with Lt. Joe Kenda,” both available for streaming on discovery+. He has written two books, "I Will Find You" and "Killer Triggers.”
About LT. Joe Kenda's Successful TV Shows And This New Feature-length Special:
(New York, NY) – During HOMICIDE HUNTER’s nine seasons on ID, Lt. Joe Kenda captivated viewers with stories from the hundreds of murder cases he solved throughout his 23-year-long career. Now, Lt. Kenda returns to ID to put to rest more cases that kept him up at night with three theatrical-length HOMICIDE HUNTER specials, revealing chilling new details of career-defining cases. With his gruff voice and no-nonsense demeanor, Kenda leads viewers through labyrinthine cases that have plagued him for years, with the first two-hour special focused on the investigation of a female soldier whose killer was a shadow in the night for decades. HOMICIDE HUNTER: NEVER GIVE UP premieres on ID on Wednesday, August 17 from 9-11PM ET/PT, debuting on the heels of an all-new season of AMERICAN DETECTIVE WITH LT. JOE KENDA, which airs on Wednesdays at 10PM ET/PT on ID. Both are available to stream the same day on discovery+.
“Since I joined the network, we at ID have wanted to bring the HOMICIDE HUNTER brand back to our air. Unfortunately, we had told all the stories we could possibly tell from Kenda’s incredible history of cases…until now. Thanks to advances in science, Joe has finally been able to close cases that have remained unsolved for decades,” said Jason Sarlanis, President of Crime and Investigative Content, Linear and Streaming.
