Joseph Patrick Kenda (born August 28, 1946) is a retired homicide detective Lieutenant from the Colorado Springs Police Department as well as a TV personality, actor and author. Throughout his police career (1973-1996), he was involved in 387 homicide cases over a 23-year career, solving 356, a closure rate of 92%.
Kenda was unhappy with retirement and went through a withdrawal stage. He then worked as a special needs school bus operator for a decade starting in 1998.
In 2011, he became the host and is featured on the Investigation Discovery true crime series Homicide Hunter, where he recounts stories of cases he has solved. He worked without a script for the entire series which ran for 9 seasons. In each episode, Kenda's present-day recollections are interspersed with reenactments, as well as additional commentary from police officers, journalists, victims' families and others who were involved in the cases. Both his resignation from the CSPD and period as a bus driver are shown in The End, the final episode of Homicide Hunter. He has also hosted the spinoff specials from the show.
In January 2021, he became the host of the true crime series American Detective with Lt. Joe Kenda on discovery+, with each episode featuring Kenda discussing the cases of different homicide detectives in the United States.
In August 2022, he hosted an ID special titled Homicide Hunter: Never Give Up, featuring a cold case he wasn't able to solve about the murder of a Fort Carson female soldier.
He is an actor and writer, known for Handsome: A Netflix Mystery Movie (2017).
He is the author of two books titled, I Will Find You (2017) and Killer Triggers (2021).
