Dog Cloner/Mormon Rapist Update

Well, there's finally some much needed closure in the case of Joyce McKinney, the woman who paid $50,000 to clone her beloved dead pit bull Booger and was later suspected of being a fugitive convicted of kidnapping and raping a teenage Mormon missionary 31 years ago. She initially denied the charges but has now admitted that she is indeed the fugitive in question. Suspicions were raised when photos of her snuggling with her new clones circulated on the news. She called herself Bernann McKinney at the time, but when she told reporters at the cloning company press conference in South Korea that she was a Hollywood screenwriter, things just didn't add up. The address on her business card didn't exist, and her social security number matched that of the convicted Joyce McKinney. Also, Joyce's middle name is "Bernann". McKinney is a former beauty queen who attended Brigham Young University, where she met the object of her stalking affection, a 19-year-old missionary in training who she followed to England, kidnapped, and handcuffed to a bed in a secluded cottage. She raped him and begged him to marry her. When he relented, she loosened his shackles, and he escaped. After her conviction, she was released on bond and fled Great Britain with a fake passport, posing as a deaf-mute actress on flights through Canada and back into the U.S., where she disappeared. She turned up again in 1984, when she was arrested for stalking the workplace of her Mormon kidnapping victim. Police found rope, handcuffs, and a notebook detailing the man's every move in her car. She disappeared just before she was due in court, and the case was dismissed. The charges against her in England have also been dropped. McKinney, however, still maintains her innocence, telling the AP, "I didn't rape no 300-pound man." She says her victim was a willing sex partner and that the charges against her are false. "I don't want that garbage in the puppy story," she said. McKinney may not be off the hook completely, though. Turns out there are some recent charges against her in her hometown of Newland, North Carolina. There's an active warrant for her arrest stemming from a threat she made toward a woman in 2003. She's also charged with passing bad checks, assaulting public officials, and cruelty to animals. (That last one accused her of not properly caring for a horse, and was later dropped.) James Stamey, the husband of the woman McKinney is accused of threatening, recognized the pictures of the former beauty queen with her puppy clones. "That's our Joy," he said. "She's ugly as sin now. But, sure enough, that's her." More details here.