Original builder of Caliente Tropics wife & son convicted

To those of you who have stayed at the Caliente Tropics motor hotel in Palm Springs (and no doubt many of you have), you'll probably notice the framed story in the bathrooms about how the son and wife of the original builder was serving life sentences for murder. Sante and Kenneth got convicted of a second murder (while still serving prison for the first one). They're already serving a 125 and 100 year sentence.

http://www.presstelegram.com/Stories/0,1413,204~21474~2775265,00.html

This story is quite notorious and I have followed it for a long time, but I can't get my jaw off the floor about the connection to the Caliente Tropics.

What happened to the original builder?

A family that kills together, stays together

Hunted up this item:
Kenny, born 12 years after Kent, wasn't so lucky. His father, Ken Kimes, a multimillionaire developer, loved Sante madly, says Walker, and grew addicted to the thrill of playing her con games. The Kimeses moved from Palm Springs to Newport Beach to Hawaii to Vegas to the Bahamas, always a step ahead of the law. Then, in 1986, Sante was jailed for enslaving the Mexican girls she used as unpaid maids. Kenny was 14 in 1989 when his mother was released, and she promptly made him a full partner in her schemes.

After Ken Sr. died in 1994, mother and son went into overdrive. Where once their houses mysteriously burned down, now associates turned up dead or missing. "Kenny didn't have a chance," says Walker. "In the end, he bought into Mom's delusion. She just broke his spirit."

FROM Yahoo link;http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1896&ncid=1896&e=5&u=/nm/20050322/us_nm/crime_kimes_dc

Here is the text;
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Mother and son Sante and Kenneth Kimes, whose con artist exploits have been the subject of several books and a TV movie, were sentenced to life in prison without parole on Monday for the 1998 murder of a family friend and business associate.

Reuters Photo

Sante Kimes, 71, who is already convicted of the 2000 murder of New York socialite Irene Silverman, was found guilty in July of ordering her son, Kenneth, to shoot Los Angeles business associate David Kazdin, who was about to expose their scheme to take a $280,000 loan in his name.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell called Sante Kimes "one of the most evil individuals" she had met during 16 years on the bench.

The judge said she had "brutalized and dominated" her son and that Sante "has a unique ability to recognize the weaknesses, the avarice and the flaws in other human beings and exploit them."

In a plea agreement, Kenneth Kimes, 29, pleaded guilty in June to the murder of Kazdin and testified against his mother in a bid to avoid a potential death sentence for them both.

Sante Kimes, described during the trial as a manipulative con artist, was portrayed by Mary Tyler Moore in the 2001 made-for-TV movie "Like Mother, Like Son."

She denied killing Kazdin and again proclaimed her innocence on Monday, telling the court from a wheelchair that jailhouse doctors said she did not need: "We are innocent. I object. I object. I object. This is one of the worst criminal obstructions in U.S. history."

The duo are already serving sentences of more than 100 years each for killing 82-year-old New York socialite Irene Silverman in 2000 so they could take over her mansion. The judge said it was up to the Los Angeles and New York authorities to work out where they would serve their jail time.

In the Los Angeles case, Kenneth Kimes testified that he went to Kazdin's home and shot him in the back of the head. His body was later found in a trash bin near Los Angeles International Airport. Kimes said his mother planned the murder.

Kenneth Kimes also admitted that he and his mother were involved in the murders of Silverman and an Arab banker who went missing in the Bahamas in 1996.