A FILMMAKER has revealed his horror after discovering the truth about the violent past that tore his family apart.
Kyle Tekiela lived in the Chicago suburbs with his brother Korey and mom Holly, not wanting for anything.
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Kyle Tekiela had no idea his dad was living a double lifeCredit: Kyle Tekiela
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Kyle is a five-time Emmy Award winner and was keen to document his incredible family storyCredit: Kyle Tekiela
DOUBLE LIFE
Dad Ken was a firefighter and paramedic, working tirelessly to provide for his family.
Or so he thought.
“My memories from childhood were very positive,” he told The U.S. Sun as he began recounting the scarcely believable tale that has become the barnstorming True Crime podcast Crook County.
Everything seemed normal – yet the truth was anything but.
Incredibly unbeknownst to Kyle, who is now an Emmy Award winning filmmaker based in Los Angeles, and the rest of his family, his dad was leading a brutal double life that began to unravel amid a crippling heroin addiction that destroyed his family.
Kicked out of home at 16 years old following a bitter divorce and held at gunpoint by his mom, Kyle’s dad Ken was forced to live in the back of his car.
He barely had an education to fall back on.
“My dad didn’t know what the f**k to do with his life,” said Kyle.
Everything became much more evident when Ken had the “bright idea” to rob a local drug dealer.
He would walk alongside the target, not too close to raise suspicion, before threatening him with a knife.
“Give me the stuff, or this is going in your heart,” Ken warned.
A couple of days later, while enjoying some of the recently procured money in a local diner, the family he had ripped off 48 hours earlier recognized him immediately.
The victim’s uncle, who just happened to be in a highly influential member of a notorious Chicago mafia gang, was impressed.
“You’ve got spunk, kid,” he told Ken, “do you want a job?”
It was the start of something blisteringly brutal.
For the next 20 years, the newly anointed Ken “The Kid” Tekiela was a feared foot soldier and hitman for the Southside gang—part of Chicago mafia folklore founded by infamous gangster Al Capone over a century ago.
He ran brothels, allegedly killed “more than 10” people, and did the mob’s dirty work.
An attorney tells Kyle to be careful when talking about his dad’s blood-soaked past.
“You need to be careful; you’re going to have the FBI breathing down your neck. The information is too recent; this is a mistake,” he was told.
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Ken was inspired to become a firefighter after witnessing one of the worst airplane crashes in United States historyCredit: Kyle Tekiela
KILLER QUESTIONS
Yet when contacted by The U.S. Sun for clarification over any possible charges from authorities, the production company said that “all the names have been changed” and that the most important aspect for Ken was to “come clean and tell the truth that had been eating away at him for decades.”
“How can I prove any of this?” added Kyle.
His dad’s methods, including psyching himself up for preparing to whack someone or rob a target, was to listen to the Rolling Stones’ classic Sympathy for The Devil.
“It just did something to me,” Ken admitted. “It was part of my routine.”
He also learned an obscure martial art called Chung Moo Quan, which Kyle suggests was taught by a “convicted con man and felon.”
“It was like a cult,” he explained, “my dad said they would do movements called forms for an hour at a time, and it put him in a possessive, trance-like state. He could flick the good parts of his life on and off.”
“It allowed him to wake up the next day like nothing happened kind of thing and, you know, raise a family or, or turn back on and go out and kill somebody.”
As he told his son in the opening episodes of Crook County, Ken never had visions of rising through the ranks.
“We were the guys in the trenches, hand to hand, knife to knife,” he said. “I was a trusted member, flying under the radar.”
After a decade of dealing with prostitution corruption, extortion, labor racketeering, importing liquor and murder for hire, Ken wanted a change, which was sparked by the shocking deaths of 271 people in one of the worst airplane crashes in history.
A lie this big can’t stay hidden forever.
Kyle Tekiela On His Dad Ken Leading An Astonishing Double Life
Kyle said his dad was so close to the American Airlines disaster at Chicago’s O’Hare airport on May 25, 1979, that he could “feel the heat” of the wreckage on his skin.
Ken ran over to the carnage and instantly became inspired.
“He was watching all these first responders and was like, ‘That looks cool,” said Kyle.
CRASH HORROR
With a burning desire to get away from the dirty work — “he 100% wanted a clean break” — Ken asked his bosses about the possibilities of creating the most unlikely of double lives.
Not only did he want to continue bashing heads on the street. He also wanted to join the Chicago Fire Department.
The mafia men agreed.
It appealed to them to have a man on the inside, someone they knew and trusted, who would work to clean up many of the problems they had created in the first place.
“He could also cover crooked cops and all that other bulls**t,” Kyle said.
And for Ken, who had become “sick” of the grind, the perfect balance was struck.
The problem was his family had absolutely no idea. They just assumed their dad was a brave first responder and member of the fire service.
The long hours and the callouts at wild hours, however, fitted in sweetly with his mafia work.
It was the perfect storm. Yet, after 20 long years, the strain eventually ended. In the late 90s, his final gig for the mob was working as a projectionist in a cinema run by a connected union boss.
“I remember going to the movies and hanging out there,” Kyle said. “It was cool.”
Kyle says his mom potentially suspected her husband was not living a normal life, yet believes “all the grime and bad stuff” was kept away from her.
“It was well-hidden,” he admitted.
Not only was Ken hiding his double life, a heroin addiction began to engulf him.
Just like his employment secrets, his drug use was kept from the family.
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Kyle recalls a happy childhood but was left stunned when the truth reared its ugly headCredit: Kyle Tekiela
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The Chicago mafia gave Ken their blessing to join the fire department and continue his work as a mob footsoldierCredit: Kyle Tekiela
SHOCKING FIND
Kyle’s brother Korey then discovered drug paraphernalia in Ken’s car, and everything began unraveling.
“A lie this big can’t stay hidden forever,” admitted Kyle, who left Chicago for Los Angeles in the late 2000s as Ken’s drug nightmare began to unravel. “I had never felt this kind of emotional pain before.”
The family split up, but Ken’s drug hell continued to rage.
In 2013, Kyle’s phone rang.
“My dad was dying,” he recalled. “He was asking for help.”
Kyle was overcome with emotion. He pulled over his car and cried.
He asked Ken to come to California to get himself clean. When he arrived, his son was stunned. He was “skinny and frail.”
“I didn’t recognize him,” Kyle said. “He was a down-on-his-luck Clark Kent.”
Ken started to come to grips with his addiction, which began with painkillers after an accident while holding a ladder in a fire rescue, which “almost killed him.”
Kyle says that brother Korey saw “the worst” of their father’s addiction and said it “really affected” him and left him scarred.
“This is a mafia story on the outside, but when you peel back the top layer of that onion, it’s just like a family drama of trauma and trying to understand and learn,” said Kyle. “You try and make sense of these awful things and then ask questions like, how the hell did you not know?”
Once Ken began to edge his way out of his self-induced drug-fueled nightmare, he opened up his heart. Kyle was floored as his dad told tales of violence, murder, and utter mayhem.
“I was shocked and numb,” he said, “I knew he was a heroin addict, but a mafia hitman?”
Once firmly ensconced in a rehab facility, the scarcely believable stories began to flow. When Kyle’s mom was told the stunning truth, she was “in shock like we were.”
Korey was equally stunned but wanted nothing to do with his dad.
“He was like, even if he’s the President of the United States, I don’t want to hear his f******* name,” recalled his brother.
Fast forward to today, and Kyle says Ken is in bad shape. He refused to disclose his location but fears the drug problems that have ravaged him for decades have begun to take a serious toll on his health.
“He’s living a near-poverty lifestyle,” the Emmy-nominated film and documentary producer admitted. “He was homeless for a while and has some brain damage.”
Kyle admits he will never have a normal father-son relationship again. Depending on how the podcast series is received, he is considering making Crook County into a film.
Meanwhile, Ken thanked his eldest son for allowing him to expose “his true self.”
“I don’t want to glorify this,” he said in one of the opening episodes. “I have tried to forget these stories for years. My goal wasn’t to run whorehouses and kill people.”
“I am surprised I am sitting here. Historically, people like me don’t make it.”
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An accident while attending a fire sparked a crippling drug addiction which has left Ken fighting for his lifeCredit: Kyle Tekiela
