Bianca Harkless
Editor-In-Chief
If you are like me and spend an absurd amount of time on true crime cases and Tiktok, you may have heard about the 2009 movie The Poughkeepsie Tapes. Although the movie itself is fictional, they may be based on real events. The found footage style movie follows the story of real serial killer Kendall Francois, a man who killed 8-10 prostitutes between 1996 and 1998.
With such gracious nicknames as The Poughkeepsie Killer, Fat Kan and Stinky, it makes sense that he became popular. He was sentenced to 8 life sentences without a chance of parole and was held in prison until September 11th, 2014 when he passed away from natural causes. It should also be made known he tested positive for HIV during his 2000’s trial. A woman that talked to Francois during his time in prison also said that he had cancer, but that was not said to be the cause of death.
The move, The Poughkeepsie Tapes, has been known to scare people to the extent of tears. What inspired the movie many people are having such panicked reactions to? It is the imagery of what happened to the victims of Francois after he murdered them. After Francois would kill the women, he would put their bodies in the attic of his Poughkeepsie family home to let them rot.
The first life that Francios took was 30 year old Wendy Meyers. Following Wendy Meyers, he killed Gina Barone, Kathleen Hurley, and Catherine Marsh. Catherine Marsh’s disappearance sparked the police to call in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, to assist, although they were not able to do much without a crime scene as none of the women’s bodies had been discovered yet. The next murder was that of Mary Healy Ciacoone, then Sandra Jean French, a 51 year olf mother of 3, who was reported missing when her children found her car three blocks from Francois’ home. The final murder in the series was Catina Newmaster in August of 1998.
Francois was strangling a prostitute he abducted when she became free and managed to escape his home. Deborah Lownsdale, the woman whose murder had been attempted, went up at an unmarked police car and told them she had been assaulted. The same afternoon this happened, police went to Francois’ apartment to talk to him about the most recent attack when they asked him to head down to the local police statement to discuss the report. He agreed and they left for headquarters. After a few hours of being questioned, he admitted to the murders and was charged for the murder of Catina Newmaster. From there, the police were able to obtain a warrant to search his home and on September 2nd, 1998, shortly after midnight, a team of detectives, the district attorney, EMS crews, crime scene processors and police searched the home and found the other bodies.
He appeared in court September 9th where he entered a plea of ‘not guilty’. On October 13th of the same year, he was charged with eight counts of first degree murder, eight counts of second degree murder and attempted assult. In New York State law, first degree murder, which includes serial murder, offers the death penalty if the District Attorney pushed for it. When the DA, District Attorney, pushed for the death penalty, Francios’ attorney’s chose to plead guily on December 23rd, therefore, avoiding the trial and the possiblilty of death. In February of 1999, Dutchess County Court ruled that the guilty plea could not be accepted and it came out during his trial he contracted HIV from one of his victims.
His defense team took the case to the State Court of Appeals, which upheld his guilty plea in ruling in March of 2000. On August 11th, 2000, Judge Thomas Dolan formally sentenced Kendal Francios to life in prison without parole. On September 11th, 2014, Kendall Francois died of natural causes but still lives on in memory, inspiring horror movies and countless podcasts making sure that he is not forgotten for the horrible acts he committed.
Image Credit: Ján Jakub Naništa on Unsplash
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