As she arrives at the television station, Lee Mackenzie gets a warm welcome from CHEK employees who worked with her in the 1990’s.
But this reunion isn’t the reason for her visit – she’s here to talk about the true story she has written about her marriage to The Charming Predator.
In her twenties, Mackenzie visited Wales, fell in love with, and married Kenner Jones.
Her husband turned out to be a sociopathic fraudster.
“He has defrauded people, crushed their hearts and their lives, right around the planet” explained MacKenzie.
“Portugal, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands. [He spent] years in Kenya where he was passing himself off as a medical doctor, and an ordained priest.”
Within a year, Jones had decimated Mackenzie’s finances, and her trust.
She managed to break away and began again, but it took thirty-five years before she could open the box filled with photographs, letters and documents from that chapter of her life, and begin to write her story.
“It took a lot of emotional energy” Lee says, “but it was the greatest opportunity to heal this, once and for all.”
Released on April 18, Mackenzie’s book is already on the Globe and Mail’s Canadian bestseller list.
“It does seem to touch people very, very deeply” she muses, “because when you’ve taken your love and your trust, and given it, and it’s been abused, that can hurt.
“And it can hurt for a long time.”
Mackenzie hopes her book may serve as a warning.
“If there’s something presented to you that puts you at risk, emotionally, financially, spiritually” she warns, “be willing to look twice at the information you’re being given. Allow yourself discernment, and maybe a little skepticism if you might be in danger.”
Veronica Cooper
