Kimes, who involved son Kenneth in her devious plots, passed away Monday evening about 7:30 p.m., according to a New York state Corrections Department spokeswoman. She was convicted for murdering Upper East Side widow Irene Silverman and a Los Angeles businessman.

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© Ric Francis/Associated PressConvicted murderer Sante Kimes is shown in court in 2004 awaiting the guilty verdict in her trial for the murder of Los Angeles businessman David Kazdin. She died Monday in a New York prison.
Sante Kimes, the mastermind of a murderous mother-son grifter team in which he killed on her command, has died of natural causes at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.

The conniving Kimes, 79, passed away Monday evening about 7:30 p.m. in the suburban New York prison's maximum security unit, state Corrections Department spokeswoman Linda Foglia said.

Kimes was serving out a life sentence plus 125 years for a pair of grisly murders - one on each coast - that turned the prostitute's daughter into a made-for-television villain.

No less a star than Mary Tyler Moore portrayed the cold-blooded Kimes in one of two small screen biopics based on her bicoastal killings.

In New York, Kimes was convicted for the murder of wealthy Upper East Side widow Irene Silverman in a plot to steal her $7.5 million townhouse.

Silverman disappeared from the E. 65th St. mansion on July 5, 1998. Kenneth Kimes later testified that he zapped the 82-year-old victim with a stun gun before strangling her on his mother's cruel command: "Do it!"

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Sante Kimes, right, 'brutalized and dominated' her hapless son, Kenneth, left, into committing murders for her.
He then drove the former ballerina's corpse across the Hudson River and dumped the woman's body into a trash bin.

Mother and son were busted a day later inside a stolen Lincoln Town Car filled with forged documents in Silverman's name, a 9-mm handgun and date-rape drugs.

Though the victim's body was never found, both mother and son were convicted of murder.

Kimes was also found guilty in the March 1998 slaying of David Kazdin, 63, to cover up a $280,000 loan fraud.

Kenneth Kimes, on orders from mom, fatally shot Kazdin in the back of the head to keep the target from going to the cops. He's currently serving life without parole in California.

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© Clif Lipson/CBSMary Tyler Moore and Gabriel Olds starred in made-for-TV movie 'Like Mother, Like Son: The Strange Story of Sante and Kenny Kimes.
The victim's body was found inside a Los Angeles International Airport Dumpster. Kenneth Kimes said he bought his mother flowers to celebrate the hit, and Sante paid him back with a kiss.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell said flatly that Kimes was "evil," and charged that she "brutalized and dominated" her hapless son.

Sante Kimes' good looks brought comparisons to Elizbeth Taylor, as did her expensive tastes: diamonds, furs and Cadillacs.

But she came from nothing. Her farmhand father abandoned the family. Her mother was a former Los Angeles prostitute.

Her criminal career began early, with the theft of a hair dryer, and she celebrated her 22nd birthday with a resume that included two ex-husbands, a son, an assortment of aliases and a rap sheet.