David Lee Roth Imposter Has Dark History
DAVID LEE ROTH IMPOSTER HAS DARK HISTORY:
July 17, 2008
Susan Gamble of Sun Media reports that the Cambridge man who was posing as David Lee Roth in Brantford and area last month has a history of mesmerizing people to do his will.
David Kuntz was portrayed during a 1989 murder trial as a Svengali who successfully urged one girlfriend to kill another.
Brant OPP stopped Kuntz, who was having an allergic reaction to nuts, for speeding on May 23. He identified himself to police as David Lee Roth and was whisked off by ambulance to Brantford General Hospital.
Later that evening, after recovering, the man partied at the Liquid Lounge in Brantford, posing for pictures and identifying himself as Roth.
But the real Roth was playing that night at Madison Square Garden in New York City on the Van Halen tour.
Now old friends have identified the Roth impostor as Kuntz. He has also gone by the name David P. Angel.
Kuntz could not be found on Tuesday. The only Kuntz in Cambridge is located on Rosewood Court but has a phone number that’s no longer in service.
“I went to high school with the guy,” said one man who asked that his name not be used. “We were sort of close friends and I know he gets people into trouble. He’s a manipulator.”
That seems borne out in coverage of the murder trial of Kim Blinkhorn, Kuntz’s partner.
When Kuntz announced he was going to marry another woman, Blinkhorn purchased an eight-inch carving knife and attacked Rowena Parsons, stabbing her 70 times. The attack took place right in front of Parsons’s and Kuntz’s three-year-old daughter.
It’s an event that Kuntz — even when passing himself off as Roth — talks about.
The owners of a Cambridge hair salon said last week that the Roth poseur, who cadged free manicures, eye treatments and a hair cut and colour, told them about the brutal murder of his girlfriend.
Kuntz played the Roth card when he met Bobbi-Jo King of Brantford about six weeks ago.
He asked directions to an area Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and prevailed upon King to ride with him to show him where the meeting was being held.
Taking off his hat and sunglasses, Kuntz said: “I’m David Lee Roth.”
King was so excited she pressed Kuntz to accompany her to her D’Aubigny Road home to meet her husband, Bill, who’s a big Van Halen fan.
“I’ve been humiliated by this,” Bill King said Tuesday. “I told all my friends he was here and now my (answering) machine is full of messages from them making fun of me.”
The Roth impersonator gave a neighbour of King’s a pair of Fender sunglasses and told King he was going to AA because of an allergy to alcohol: “He said, ‘Every time I drink alcohol I break out in cocaine’,” said King.
King is left with a worthless autograph: To Bill from David Lee Roth. The man didn’t always say he was Roth. He often told people to just call him Dave.
Musician Frank Crytes, who was in the passenger seat when Kuntz was pulled over by police, told Sun Media that “Dave” didn’t try to pass himself off as Roth to him, but as a fellow musician. They met through music producer Dean Hajas of Oakland, who let Kuntz stay at the studio for three weeks before the incident with police.
Last week, Hajas told The Expositor that it was certainly David Lee Roth living and working at his studio. He now says it wasn’t Roth.
Crytes spent days with Kuntz in the recording studio. Kuntz and Crytes were driving together on May 23 when they stopped for a doughnut that sent Kuntz into anaphylactic shock.
The resulting media hype when an officer recognized the rocker’s name caused the real David Lee Roth to release a statement saying he wasn’t in the area, and isn’t allergic to peanuts.
Brant OPP Const. Larry Plummer confirmed Tuesday that the OPP are continuing their investigation of Kuntz now that he’s been identified and want to talk to him.
Kuntz’s Cambridge high school buddy, who also has spent many years in the music scene, has run into Kuntz during the last 25 years since they attended Glenview Park Secondary School together. Even as a young man, Kuntz — a drummer in a band called Majesty — was often mistaken for David Lee Roth, he said.
“He’s never changed. He was always hustling and scamming. I think he’s a sociopath. He’s got a talent for finding people who are gullible.”
In 1988, when Kuntz was 23, he was living with Kimberly Blinkhorn but told his brother he was planning to marry Rowena Parsons.
Blinkhorn, who was 27 at the time, killed Parsons and pleaded a defence of insanity during her Toronto trial in September 1988. She said Kuntz controlled her and told her to kill Parsons.
Kuntz was never charged in the murder.
Kuntz testified that he had told Blinkhorn he had sold his soul but didn’t expect to be taken seriously.
“It’s just an expression– you sold your soul to rock ‘n’ roll,” Kuntz told the court, even though Blinkhorn had satanic books around their home.
Kuntz testified he lied to Blinkhorn about loving her and had just used her as a source of money for his rock band. At one point, the woman was working three jobs at once and gave him around $15,000 to finance the band.
The mother of Blinkhorn’s victim testified in Blinkhorn’s defence, saying Kuntz was a “liar, a con artist, a scam,” who once brought a satanic bible into her home and said his “desire in life was to control people.”
Kuntz testified he had nothing to do with satanism. Blinkhorn said that Kuntz told her her “job” was to kill Parsons.
A psychologist testified that Blinkhorn suffered from psychotic delusions when she stabbed Parsons and was, at the time of the trial, “deeply disturbed.” She was found not guilty of Parsons’s murder by reason of insanity and sentenced to secure custody in a mental hospital.
Courtesy of www.canoe.ca