Story Images
The Charming Predator — photos
In 2017 I found myself holding a copy of a book I had written – a book that was on the Canadian Bestseller list right out of the gate. None of this had I ever imagined, but here it was. The Charming Predator was the result of me accepting a creative challenge in 2015 to see if I could write a book. I decided to give it a try. I reached back into my personal history to the year 1979. The story unfolded page by page and is still unfolding in the world. I’m sitting near recording equipment as this is also an audiobook.
When I decided to write I went into a storage cupboard for a file box that had been hiding away. It had been unopened for forty years. In it was everything I needed to support the story and remember the details: letters, documents, photographs. And so, I embarked on another chapter of this incredible journey.
The story begins in Llandudo, a small town on the north coast of Wales, United Kingdom. I was backpacking and hitchhiking in the summer of 1979 and it was here I met a man named Kenner Elias Jones. We became friends. This is a painting I did of how I remember Llandudno. I am the small figure with the orange backpack. In a few moments I will walk into the tourist office and meet the man behind the counter. This experience begins the book.
As our friendship grew I learned that Kenner had grown up and now lived in the nearby town of Caernarfon. His parents lived there and its where he attended school and church.
As Kenner was growing up he was, by all accounts, dedicated to his attendance in church. He loved serving as an altar boy and singing in the choir.
I was told by his mother that Kenner attended the Church in Wales, which was Anglican. But his father belonged to a Methodist church. Kenner was proud to have his father’s hymn book.
Because of his dedication to the church, Kenner was invited to participate in the service in Caernarfon Castle where Queen Elizabeth invested Prince Charles as Prince of Wales. Official documents and orders came to him at his mother’s home in Caernarfon and were shown to me with pride.
When I visited Kenner and his mother the summer I met them, in 1979, this photograph was shown to me. Kenner is the figure in church robes carrying the cross through the streets of Caernarfon. When this procession entered the church he carried it in front of Prince Charles. This photo was also on display in Caernarfon Castle in a commemoration of the Investiture ceremony.
This gold fountain pen was Kenner’s favourite and it went everywhere with him. He said it was a gift he had been given but did not describe further. It was in constant use the whole time we were together and even has a place in the story of The Charming Predator.
The gold pen found its way into the story of Kenner and me. We exchanged letters as friends when he was sent to prison within months of my meeting him in 1979. He had been convicted of a form of fraud. Through the months of his imprisonment we corresponded and his distinctive writing and choice of pen were clear to see. Eventually we married. Yes, the pen was used at the ceremony.
Although I clearly knew he was in prison for fraud I was young and trusting and believed his explanation of it just being a foolish yet well-meaning mistake. We married in British Columbia and I moved to the United Kingdom to begin our life together. I was completely happy.
Within months of our marriage the outrageous and crushing truths emerged. Kenner was a conman. A criminal. He had been convicted and imprisoned a half-dozen times before I met him. No one told me. As the cover of the book shows his world was a dark one. Within a year I was fleeing the destruction, heartbreak, and danger. Within two years of the marriage divorce proceedings were underway. But the ramifications of my time with him led to years and years of trying to recover emotionally, mentally, financially. Eventually I was free again and determined to repair my life and live happily. But for decades, even to this day in fact, people have contacted me to ask for help or guidance after they have collided with this accomplished impersonator and criminal.
Not long ago a phone call came through and it was, again, people asking for help. They were in Germany and had encountered someone using an alias but they learned was a man named Kenner Elias Jones. At almost the same time the book, The Charming Predator, was being read by a television documentary production company in the UK and they had reached out to me. I agreed to participate in the creation of their project. And now, with an understanding of where Kenner was, we were headed to Germany to knock on his door and bring the story to a conclusion.
This is the interior of a beautiful church in Germany not far from where we believed we would find Kenner. The crew is setting up to interview me. The church was chosen because it is, in fact, a place that I would likely go just to sit in the quiet and think ahead to the next day. That is when after nearly 40 years I would knock on Kenner’s door.
The next morning I was waiting at a tram stop. Today I would hopefully come face to face with Kenner Elias Jones and maybe have a chance to talk to him, return to him some things I had kept for years that were his, not mine. I was also going to offer him a chance to have his say and give a new and balanced ending to the book and to our personal story. I will have to leave the outcome of this part of the adventure for the documentary and the book to reveal. Apologies.
Shortly after the knocking on his door and what occured the documentary crew brought me to a beautiful city square to just relax and contemplate all that had happened. It was a perfect choice. I was just one person in a big crowd. I looked at the beauty around me and appreciated my life.
The documentary shoot in Germany was not the only time I would work with the documentary crew. In the early summer of 2024 they came to my home in Powell River, B.C., Canada. They recorded a long and detailed interview. I’m holding what is known as a scene slate or production slate. When the camera and sound are both rolling the top arm is clapped down to synchronize video and audio. With modern electronics it usually just functions as a way to identify what is on the recording.
The crew shot a wide variety of images and locations in Powell River. They turned the camera on my home, inside and out. They also explored Powell River and local scenery. They enjoyed the beauty of this place and the friendliness of everyone they met.
This is the crew shooting with me at Magpie’s Diner in Powell River. I’m sitting at the counter making notes of what I remember and taking myself back to the people, the places, and the things that happened.
The crew also wanted me in my current life and my work as an artist. They loved our beaches, forests, and fields. The ocean, the mountains…they all worked their magic on the crew. They asked to be allowed to record me sketching and set up on the beach at Lang Bay, just south of town.
And so as things continue to unfold there is no point putting the lid back on the storage box. Throughout this journey this has been true: just when I think the story is over…it isn’t.