Lt. Joe Kenda Talks the ‘Therapeutic’ Power of ‘Homicide Hunter’ Amid Hit Series’ Final Season (Exclusive)

After 23 years tracking down the darkest parts of humanity as part of the homicide unit of the Colorado Springs Police Department, Lt. Joe Kenda could have never guessed the next nine years of his career would be retelling the horrors he faced on the job to the cameras of Homicide Hunter— or the effect airing it all for the first time would have on him. As the ninth and final season of Investigation Discovery’s hit show airs, Kenda discussed the end of an era with PopCulture.com and his “mission” to do justice to the victims he encountered over his career.

Ending Homicide Hunter after the ninth season wasn’t a difficult choice, Kenda explained, as he felt he had run out of “sufficient cases” to relive that weren’t “too simple or too gruesome,” like those involving children or babies.

“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 told PopCulture, calling the ride of filming Homicide Hunter both “entertaining” and “therapeutic.”

“I feel better now than I did nine years ago,” Kenda recalled. “I’ve said more to that camera than I have to my wife about things I’ve seen and done.”

Kenda has been married to high school sweetheart Kathy since 1967, but said even in a marriage as strong as theirs, it’s not an option for an officer in his position to unload the trauma of his cases on those he loved.

“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.”

“You build armor around your heart to protect from what you’ve seen, and there are occasions where someone cuts through that like a stiletto,” he added, noting that one of the episodes to come this season involves a case that is the subject of a “reoccurring nightmare” for him.

Diving into the darkness alongside Kenda is more than a societal fascination with the macabre — it has real implications for the people who hear his no-nonsense recollections of how things go wrong in the worst way.

Kenda will never forget the two letters he received from two young women over just over a year, telling him that after watching his description of an “abusive male personality,” they finally realized that the toxic relationships in which they were stuck could only end in their death. It was enough for both of them to get out, living to thank the retired lieutenant who finally got through to them.

“Two lives saved, not bad for a TV show,” Kenda quipped. And while there’s more in his future on ID, the lawman will always have a soft spot in his heart for Homicide Hunter. “I would have done it for free. It was a mission.”

Homicide Hunter: Lt. Joe Kenda airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Investigation Discovery.

Photo credit: Discovery