As the final season of Homicide Hunter: Lt. Joe Kenda comes to a bittersweet end Wednesday with the hit Investigation Discovery show’s series finale, the retired police lieutenant is opening up about his struggle with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after 23 years at the Colorado Springs Police Department. Ahead of the finale, fittingly titled “The End,” PopCulture.com has a sneak peek of the special episode, which will examine the cases that eventually forced Kenda to “face his own personal demons” and leave the force, featuring commentary from his wife, Kathy Kenda, as well as his adult children, Dan and Kris.
In this PopCulture.com preview, Kenda remembers the beginning of his struggle with PTSD came after his retirement from the force when he was driving a school bus.
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“I loved it. The first job I ever had in my entire life where everyone was happy to see me,” he quips. “But there were always those nagging memories that pulled at me.”
“PTSD happens when it chooses to,” he continues. “The best way to describe it is having a nightmare while you’re awake. It will take your breath away, and it will last for 15 or 20 seconds. It is absolutely startling.”
Prior to the final season’s premiere, Kenda talked to PopCulture about the toll investigating some of the most vile crimes had on him throughout his career.
“I always would internalize, because you come home from work and your wife says, ‘How was your day?’ What are you going to say? ‘I saw a baby murdered this morning; I saw three people dead.’ You’re not going to say that,” he admitted. “You don’t want to burden them with what you’ve seen and done.”
Telling his stories on Homicide Hunter was the best therapy Kenda ever found.
“I feel better now than I did nine years ago,” he said at the time. “I’ve said more to that camera than I have to my wife about things I’ve seen and done.”
That being said, leaving the show on a high note was important to Kenda.
“I didn’t want to be the singer who stayed on stage after he lost his voice or the athlete who played one season too long,” he explained.
Watch the series finale of Homicide Hunter: Lt. Joe Kenda Wednesday, January 29 at 9 p.m. ET on Investigation Discovery.
Photo credit: Dominik Bindl/Getty Images
