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🎙 The Dark Devotion: Unmasking Israel Keyes - The Introduction (Part 1)🎙
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🎙 The Dark Devotion: Unmasking Israel Keyes 🎙 – 🎞 Part I | 🎞 Part II | 🎞 Part III | 🎞 Part IV | 🎞 Part V
🎙 The Dark Devotion: Unmasking Israel Keyes 🎙 – 🎞 Part I | 🎞 Part II | 🎞 Part III | 🎞 Part IV | 🎞 Part V
Part I – The Introduction
Part II – Who Was Israel Keyes?
Part III – Into the Mind of Israel Keyes
Part IV – Remembering Bill & Lorraine Currier
Part V – Samantha Koenig
Part II – Who Was Israel Keyes?
Part III – Into the Mind of Israel Keyes
Part IV – Remembering Bill & Lorraine Currier
Part V – Samantha Koenig
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📚 Devil in the Darkness By: JT Hunter
Welcome, fellow true-crime enthusiasts, to today’s case file: “The Dark Devotion – Unmasking Israel Keyes”
Part I – The Case Introduction
INTRODUCTION
Today, we delve into the unsettling world of serial killers, a dark fraternity that constitutes just 1% of all homicides—or so we believe. It raises haunting questions: Is it their intelligence, their skill, the gaps in our investigative systems, or perhaps a sinister blend of all these factors that allows some of them to evade capture?
In the United States alone, more than 3,000 documented cases of serial killers have sent shivers down our spines. Do we unwittingly cultivate them, or are they simply too cunning for our own good? And what about other countries, like the Netherlands with a mere dozen documented cases or England with 166? What sets these numbers in motion, and what lies beneath the surface of such a chilling contrast?
In the year 2012, the nation's tranquility was shattered when law enforcement unmasked a serial killer believed to have terrorized the United States for a horrifying 14 years. His name was Israel Keyes, a seemingly ordinary 34-year-old from Utah—a father, a boyfriend, and the owner of Keyes Construction. But his facade crumbled when he abducted, raped, and murdered 18-year-old barista named Samantha Tessla Koenig, an Alaska native, from her workplace at Coffee Grounds Coffee. This quaint little coffee hut sat innocently in a parking lot on Tudor Road, Anchorage, Alaska, just over four miles from the very residence of Israel Keyes.
Join us as we unravel the chilling story of "The Dark Devotion: Unmasking Israel Keyes."
SAMANTHA TESSLA KOENIG’S DISAPPEARANCE
Anchorage, Alaska, a city with a storied history that traces its roots to the late 19th century Gold Rush, has evolved into a thriving urban center. It boasts the distinction of being the epicenter for the Alaska Railroad, a vital lifeline that stretches northward to Fairbanks.
Today, Anchorage stands as Alaska's largest city, home to both the formidable United States Fort Richardson Army base and Elmendorf Air Force Base. With its blend of first-class dining, luxury hotels, vibrant entertainment, enriching museums, and outdoor adventures, it's no wonder that tourists flock to this northern gem.
But beneath the city's inviting exterior lies a tale of chilling events that unfolded on February 1, 2012. That evening, in the frigid embrace of a 37-degree Anchorage, 18-year-old Samantha Koenig, was not at work when her boyfriend, Duane Tortolani showed up to pick her up from work at 8:33pm. The lights were out. The door was locked, and Samantha was nowhere to be found. Duane found the coffee shop shrouded in darkness.
The perplexing situation took an ominous turn at 11:24 pm when Duane received a text message from Samantha's phone, accusing him of something sinister. It read, "FU asshole I know what U did I am going to spend a couple of days with friends need time to think plan acting weird let my dad know." Minutes later, at 11:53 pm, another message arrived, simply stating, "F U."
As the night wore on, it became increasingly clear that something had gone terribly wrong. Police began to piece together the horrifying truth—a masked intruder had climbed through the window of the Coffee Hut, threatened Samantha, extinguished the lights, and led her away at what is presumed to be gun point. At one point during the process, Samantha attempted to run, but the tall athletic stranger tackled her and escorted her away with a warning that this was just a kidnap for ransom.
At approximately 3:00am, Duane noticed a figure wearing a mask rifling through Samantha's vehicle—a vehicle they both shared—at their residence. The individual had returned to look for Samantha’s debit and identification cards. Unfortunately, they dod not connect Samantha’s disappearance with the break-in.
Samantha's father, James, sensed that all was not well and contacted Duncan, the owner of Common Grounds Coffee, who was away on vacation. Duncan reviewed security footage and, by 12:39 pm, urgently reached out to the Anchorage Police Department, convinced that the footage depicted Samantha's abduction.
CONNECTING THE DOTS
The search for Samantha began with furious intent. A reward for her safe return was publicized almost immediately by her father who desperately wanted his daughter returned. As the search continued with bated breath, a glimmer of hope emerged a little over three weeks after her haunting abduction.
On February 24, 2023, Samantha's boyfriend received a text message from her phone. The message contained cryptic instructions: "Conner Park sign under pic of albert aint she purty." It was a clue, a lifeline, a beacon of possibility. The family responded instantly.
Upon closer examination, the message revealed a chilling photograph—a gloved hand holding braided hair in the bottom left corner, and in the upper part of the screen, an Anchorage Daily Newspaper from February 13, 2012, prominently displayed. But that wasn't all; concealed on the reverse side of the photograph was a demand for $30,000 in ransom.
The note stipulated a peculiar arrangement. In exchange for the ransom, the author promised to provide crucial information to law enforcement regarding Samantha's whereabouts—but not immediately. The chilling message outlined a timeline: between 6 months and a year from the receipt of the money, the author would send a text disclosing the location of a packet of information essential to her recovery.
The note further complicated matters. It specified the account into which the ransom should be deposited. However, the Anchorage Police Department harbored doubts, suspecting that the provided number was not a traditional bank account but, rather, a debit card number. Curiously, the note omitted any explicit deadline or dire consequences for noncompliance.
Samantha's father stepped into the fray, depositing $5,000 into her account on February 29, setting in motion a chilling sequence of events. The first withdrawal took place at the Denali Alaskan Federal Credit Union in Anchorage, Alaska—a breadcrumb on a treacherous trail.
As the story unraveled further, the trail led southward, spanning across states. Withdrawals surfaced in Wilcox, Arizona, then Lordsburg, New Mexico, and finally, Humble, Texas. The ominous puzzle seemed to grow darker with each passing moment.
But this mysterious figure would make a critical mistake, and in a single moment of poor judgement, the investigation caught a break when an ATM camera caught a glimpse of the suspects rented white automobile. This would lead to a break in the case, when police would pull over a similar looking vehicle in Luftkin, Texas. The driver would be identified as Israel Keyes, a former military soldier, from Alaska who owned Keyes Construction.
When the police viewed money with what appeared to be bank dye, they searched the vehicle and found the ATM and identification cards of Samantha Koenig. Keyes was taken into custody, but the most shocking revelation was yet to come.
DARK DEVOTION
At the age of 34, Israel Keyes found himself drawing unsettling comparisons to infamous serial killers of the past. He likened himself to none other than Theodore "Ted" Bundy, a name synonymous with charm and cunning. Bundy, with an IQ of 136, had managed to elude capture, leaving a chilling legacy in his wake. In the macabre hierarchy of intellect among serial killers, Bundy's 136 IQ was eclipsed by the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer at 145 and Nathan Leopold at a staggering 210.
Keyes' background offered a glimpse into the complex tapestry of his life. Born to John "Jeff" Jeffrey Keyes and Heidi Hakansson in Richmond, Utah, he was raised in a deeply religious family, initially adherents of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. When Keyes was about 5 years old, the family would relocate to Colville, Washington where they would first live in a tent and eventually a one-bedroom cabin that Keyes help build for the family. Here they would attend a church called the Ark, a white supremacist church. Keyes would grow up alongside the infamous Kehoe brothers, who would later be associated with a domestic terrorist, the Aryan People’s Republic, and become murderers in their own right.
However, the Keyes would change religious sects again with their move to Maine, but Keyes would renounce religion altogether, opting for an Atheist belief system. Their lifestyle would remain one of self-reliance, a distrust of government, homeschooling, and a skepticism of modern medicine. The family would turn their backs on Keyes when he renounced his religion and further when he joined the military, knowing his families anti-government philosophy.
The shock of Keyes' arrest reverberated through those who knew him. In his chilling confession to detectives, he recounted the events leading to the abduction of Samantha Koenig. He admitted to brandishing a .22 caliber handgun and attempting to coerce her into cooperation with the promise of eventual release and ransom.
Keyes took Samantha to his home, where he chained her up in a shed, subjecting her to sexual assault before ultimately strangling her to death. The horror didn't end there; within hours of this heinous act, he embarked on a Caribbean vacation with his family leaving Samantha’s body to freeze in the unconditioned shed.
Upon his return, Keyes would defrost the body of Samantha, and then engaged in necrophiliac acts so gruesome that they defy comprehension. He posed Samantha's lifeless body, braiding her hair, and sewing her eyelids open with fishing line, all while crafting a ransom note. He would take polarid photos od Samantha’s lifeless corpse and send them to the family to encourage the payment of ransom.
He then proceeded to dismember her and made multiple trips to Matanuska Lake to dispose of her remains through holes he had cut in the ice while fishing. Unthinkably, he would later consume fish caught in the same waters during those same trips.
The recovery of Samantha's body was a harrowing undertaking, taking the FBI's dive team a grueling 10 hours to complete. Keyes, when questioned by Frank Russo, Assistant U.S. Attorney, about his dual nature, chillingly confessed, "I'm two different people basically." When asked how long he had been living this duality, he laughed and replied, "a long time—14 years." It was this revelation that led law enforcement to believe that they had unmasked a serial killer who had eluded justice for over a decade, forever altering the narrative of Israel Keyes and the terror he inflicted upon his victims.
PEELING THE LAYERS
Upon capture, Israel Keyes confessed to additional heinous acts that would shake the core of humanity. One set of victims, William "Bill" Currier and Lorraine Currier, had been listed as missing persons since June 8, 2011. Keyes' macabre revelations left no doubt in the minds of law enforcement—they were standing face to face with a remorseless killer.
On that night, Keyes, dressed in all black and armed with a backpack—a kill kit meticulously assembled from a cache he had buried two years prior. With stealth and cold determination, he scoped and watched the Curriers home to ensure there were no pets and no neighbors. He ventured towards the Curriers' home, intent on delivering terror.
Keyes initiated what he chillingly termed a "blitz attack." He swiftly infiltrated their garage, ransacking their car before making his way inside the house. Once there, he confronted the unsuspecting couple in their bedroom, taking them by surprise.
He ordered the Curriers to roll over onto their stomachs, where he swiftly zip-tied them. Then came the relentless questioning, inquiries about safes and bank cards. He etched their pin into their credit cards.
As dawn broke around 4am, Keyes transported the terrified couple to an abandoned farmhouse off Route 15. There, he separated them, imprisoning Bill in the basement, bound to a stool, and struck Bill with a shovel to keep him complacent. Lorraine, equally terrorized, was placed in a bedroom.
Keyes' methodical cruelty knew no bounds. He secured Lorraine to the bed with duct tape, wrapping a rope around her neck, tying it in a compound knot beneath the mattress. Bill, desperate and shouting for his wife, drew Keyes attention.
With a .40 caliber gun, a knife, and an inexplicable water bottle, Keyes confronted Bill emptying the magazine into Bills body, the shots muffled with a silencer, leaving Lorraine none the wiser.
Turning his sadistic attention to Lorraine, he ruthlessly cut off her clothes with a knife, subjecting her to two horrifying sexual assaults as she fought to resist. Keyes then marched her downstairs to the horror that was her husband's lifeless body in the basement. Keyes sat Lorraine down, and wrapped a rope around her throat and straggled her to death.
Keyes then attempted to remove all traces of his malevolence. He poured Drano over their hands and faces, sealed their remains in 55-gallon trash bags, and concealed their bodies under layers of garbage and wood in the basement's corner. In his haste, he left shell casings strewn across the basement floor.
The sun rose, commuters passed on Route 15, and Keyes was running out of time. His plan to burn the house with the remains inside had crumbled, but he remained undeterred. He left the Curriers' car in a Rite-Aid parking lot, positioned far from surveillance cameras, and retreated to the shadows.
Within six hours, this nightmare unfolded from beginning to end—a crime so shocking that no one suspected a thing. A meticulous predator had left behind a trail of horror, and the world was left to grapple with the chilling revelation of Israel Keyes.
CONCLUSION
In the shadowy realm of true crime, Israel Keyes stands as a perplexing enigma—was he a heinous serial killer, a misguided superfan, or something far more sinister? His chilling confessions and meticulous planning suggest a calculated predator, leaving us with haunting questions about the true scope of his crimes. Samantha Koenig, tragically, was not his sole victim, and the mystery of missing victims lingers.
Keyes' intelligence and elusiveness remain subjects of debate, as does the impact of his upbringing, military training, and society's dark fascination with serial killers. His suicide and the cryptic symbols he left behind add an unsettling final chapter to a story that may never fully reveal its dark secrets, leaving us with a disturbing portrait of a man known as Israel Keyes.
Our next episode will deep dive the man behind the madness. Who was Israel Keyes and what made him the monster that he was.
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Crystal Garcia
Host
Jose Medina
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Body of Crime is a true crime podcast for crime lovers. Join hosts, Crystal, Joe, and Alicia as they present cases and dissect each body of crime. Rather your love is to hear true crime stories, research, debate, and / or even attempt to solve some of the world’s most intriguing cases, we have you covered. Get ready to put your detective hats on and take some notes – you never know which mysteries will get messier with each case!
Welcome fellow true crime enthusiasts to today's case file the dark devotion unmasking israel keys part one the case introduction
Welcome to body of crime your go to true crime podcast where we plunge headfirst into the gripping world of criminal mysteries Join your hosts, Jose Medina, Crystal Garcia, and Alicia Anaya, as we deliver the full stories immersing you in the heart of each case. With spine chilling cases, in depth analysis, captivating interviews, and a comprehensive examination of the evidence, embark on a thrilling journey with us as we explore bone chilling cases from around the globe.
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A 35 year old man has been arrested in connection with the disappearance of an 18 year old barista in Anchorage, Alaska, six weeks ago. Army veteran Israel Keyes, who owns a construction company in Alaska's biggest city, was tracked down by police in Lufkin, Texas. Detectives in Anchorage say the search for the missing teen, Samantha Koenig, continues.
She was last seen February 1st, leaving her espresso booth with an armed man. Today we delve into the unsettling world of serial killers. A dark fraternity that constitutes just 1 percent of all homicides, or so we believe. It raises haunting questions. Is it their intelligence, their skill, the gaps in our investigative systems, or perhaps a sinister blend of all of these factors that allows some of them to evade capture?
In the United States alone, more than 3, 000 documented cases of serial killers have sent shivers down our spines. Do we unwittingly cultivate them, or are they simply too cunning for our own good? And what about other countries, like the Netherlands, with a mere dozen documented cases? Or England with 166, number two after the U.
S. What sets these numbers in motion, and what lies beneath the surface of such a chilling contrast? In the year 2012, the nation's tranquility was shattered when law enforcement unmasked a serial killer believed to have terrorized the United States for a horrifying 14 years. His name was Israel Keyes. A seemingly ordinary 34 year old from Utah, a father, a boyfriend, and the owner of Keys Construction.
But his facade crumbled when he abducted, raped, and murdered 18 year old barista Samantha Tesla Koenig, an Alaska native from her workplace, Common Grounds. The quaint little coffee hut set Innocently in a parking lot on Tudor Road in Anchorage, Alaska, just over four miles from the very residence of Israel Keys.
Join us as we unravel the chilling story of the dark devotion unmasking Israel Keys.
Anchorage, Alaska, a city with a storied history that traces its roots to the late 19th century gold rush, has evolved into a thriving urban center. It boasts the distinction of being the epicenter of the Alaska Railroad, a vital lifeline that stretches northward to Fairbanks. Today, Anchorage stands as Alaska's largest city, home to both the formidable United States 4th Register Army Base and Elmdorf Air Force Base, with its blend of first class dining, luxury hotels, vibrant entertainment, enriching museums, and outdoor adventures.
It's no wonder that Tur has flocked to this northern gem. But beneath the city's inviting exterior lies a tale of chilling events that unfolded on February 1st, 2012. That evening, in the frigid embrace of a 37 degree anchorage, 18 year old Samantha Koenig was not at work when her boyfriend Duane Tortolani showed up to pick her up from work at 8.
33 p. m. The lights were out, the door was locked, and Samantha was nowhere to be found. Duane found the coffee shop shrouded in darkness. A perplexing situation took an ominous turn at 11. 24pm when Dwayne received a text from Samantha's phone, accusing him of something sinister. It read, F you asshole. I know what you did.
I'm gonna spend a couple of days with my friends. Need time to think. Plan. Acting weird. Let my dad know. She probably meant phone. Acting weird. Minutes later, at 11. 53pm, another message arrived, simply stating, F you. As the night wore on, it became increasingly clear that something had gone terribly wrong.
Police began to piece together the horrifying truth. A mass intruder had climbed through the window of the coffee hut, threatened Samantha, extinguished the lights, and led her away at what is presumed to be gunpoint. At one point during the process, Samantha attempted to run. But the tall athletic stranger tackled her and escorted her away with a warning that this was just a kidnap for ransom.
At approximately 3am, Dwayne noticed a figure wearing a mask rifling through Samantha's vehicle. A vehicle they both shared at their residence. The individual had returned to look for Samantha's debit and identification cards. Unfortunately, they did not connect Samantha's disappearance with the break in.
Samantha's father, James, sensed that all was not well and contacted Duncan, the owner of the Common Grounds Coffee, who was away on vacation. Duncan reviewed security footage and by 12. 39pm, urgently reached out to the Anchorage Police Department, convinced that the footage depicted Samantha's abduction.
So this happens to be the very last incident. That he's involved in that will eventually lead to his capture that we're aware of, right? The last thing that we know that he did that before he got captured, right? and He makes a couple mistakes. So this is the one that gets him caught So this is the one where he that he messes up, right?
Because this is the first time that he commits a crime that's around the block from where he lives I think this is a one off. I don't think this is within his normal scope of how he plots his crimes I think you're right Something triggered this that was outside of the norm. Maybe she was attractive to him.
He had to have been there before to know when questioned. I understand that he said it was a crime of opportunity. It was open late. I knew she was there. Yeah, but I also know that he really liked Ted Bundy and he likes. Um, I don't know if that's the right way to put it, but I think it's just to speak as though that was kind of like the person he looked up to, the person he felt like he was most like, because Ted Bundy is one of the few serial killers who has a pretty high IQ.
He actually doesn't have the highest IQ by actually a significant margin, but even Dahmer had a higher IQ than him, but when You're talking about the lengths that Ted Bundy went through to conceal his crimes. He was able to blend in with everybody. He was pretty intelligent. He committed crimes in different states knowing that states don't have a good system for communicating.
They still don't, unfortunately. It is much easier to get away with something if you're going from state to state. It makes it hard to connect your crimes. He really wanted to be looked at as somebody who was very smart and I could tell that it really bothered him when he felt Like he messed something up Yeah, you even hear him say in his interview.
He's back when I was smart. Yeah. Yeah, but you know When you've been doing something for a long time, you become very it becomes a routine for you so you almost do things inherently because That's what you're used to doing. And so it If that were true, though, don't you think that he would have stuck with his routine?
Cause this is not in his routine. That's what I'm saying. I don't think that it is. If he indeed was a serial killer for 14 years, we're going to mull through all that. Yeah. If he indeed was, then I believe that Samantha was a one off. I believe that he met Samantha. And actually I believe that there's evidence of that because there's a couple of comments that he made, and we'll get into this later in another episode, when we talk about the details of some of this stuff, but.
There are two comments that he made on a thread for a news report that had come out about Samantha before they arrested him and one of them wasn't published because the bot like flagged how he was talking. The way that he was talking was very aggressive but it definitely sounded like she had upset him.
So it didn't sound like she was some random person, but for him to admit that she was anybody beyond a random person Was admitting that he was flawed in his ability to be this best serial killer ever Yeah, I think that's what he was kind of aiming for and the other piece of it Is that so in terms of mistakes in terms of serial killer mistakes one, he chose someone who was close to home To he kidnapped her and took her to his house Yeah, to his shed, which was only feet away from where his daughter was sleeping and left her there.
And then the third mistake that he made was that he kidnapped her the day before he was getting ready to leave town to go with his family to go on a Caribbean cruise. So it wasn't the best time to commit a kidnapping when it's all said and done. So it seems like he was upset. It was an emotional act.
Yeah, he did it emotionally, he kidnapped her to prove a point or, you know, whatever the case is, and he was real sloppy about it.
The search for Samantha began with furious intent. A reward for her safe return was publicized almost immediately by her father who desperately wanted his daughter returned. As the search continued with bated breath, a glimmer of hope emerged a little over three weeks after her haunting abduction. On February 24th, 2012, Samantha's boyfriend received a text message from her phone.
The message contained cryptic instructions. Connor Park signed under pic of Albert. Ain't she purdy. It was a clue, a lifeline, a beacon of possibility. The family responded instantly. Upon closer examination, the message revealed a chilling photograph. A gloved hand holding hair in the bottom left corner and in the upper part of the screen, an Anchorage Daily newspaper from February 13, 2012.
Prominently displayed. But that wasn't all. Concealed on the reverse side of the photograph was a demand for 30, 000 in ransom. The note stipulated a peculiar arrangement. In exchange for the ransom, the author promised to provide crucial information to law enforcement regarding Samantha's whereabouts, but not immediately.
The chilling message outlined a timeline, between six months and a year from the receipt of the money. The author would send a text disclosing the location of a packet of information essential to her recovery. The note further complicated matters. It specified the account info which the ransom was to be deposited.
However, the Anchorage Police Department harbored doubt, suspecting that the provided number was not a traditional bank account, but rather a debit card number. Curiously, the note omitted any explicit deadline or dire consequences for non compliance. Samantha's father stepped into the fray, depositing 5, 000 into her account on February 29th, setting in motion a chilling sequence of events.
The first withdrawal took place at the Denali Alaskan Federal Credit Union in Anchorage, Alaska, a breadcrumb on a treacherous trail. As the story unraveled further, the trail led southward, spanning across states. Withdrawals surfaced in Wilcox, Arizona, then Lordsburg, New Mexico, and finally in Humboldt, Texas.
The ominous puzzle seemed to grow darker with each passing moment. But this mysterious figure would make a critical mistake. And in a single moment of poor judgment, the investigation caught a break when an ATM camera caught a glimpse of the suspect's rented white automobile. This would lead to a break in the case when police would pull over a similar looking vehicle in Lufkin, Texas.
The driver would be identified as Israel Keyes, a former military soldier from Alaska who owned Keyes Construction. When the police viewed money with what appeared to be bank die, they searched the vehicle and found the ATM and the identification cards of Samantha Koenig. Keys was taken into custody, but the most shocking revelation was yet to come.
So, here he goes on this rampage across the U. S. going from ATM to ATM. Where was he going? Which was also dumb. His sister was getting married in Texas and so he was attending one of his sister's weddings and He had come to Texas for the wedding. And so he was Using the card all throughout these different states.
Leaving this digital signature of my understanding He was wearing a disguise every time he used the ATM. Yeah, it appeared to be like a gray looking sweater hooded Typically with glasses gloves to conceal his identity. Yeah, so So, and he had been getting away with it, but obviously the FBI was tracking his movement and tracking his withdrawals, and so they caught a glimpse of the rental car he was using.
Maybe in Alaska where it's cold, that hooded get up, might've passed. Yeah. But when you're in Texas and it's hot, I don't know that that's a good look to be walking up to a a t m. You're looking kind of, you're looking, kind of suspect. A suspect. So the police see the car, they identify it as a vehicle that is similar to the one that was viewed in the video from the a t m.
Obviously they have a bolo out for the, for the car. They wait until it exceeds the speed limit by a little bit, just waiting for probable cause to stop the car. He exceeds the speed limit. He gets pulled over and when they pull him out of the car, one of the things they see in the car is the money that looks like it's been dye packed, tinted, like it's been stained with dye pack.
Why is that important? Because he was robbing a bank He was a bank robber, wasn't he? He was also a bank robber. So not only was he a rapist and a serial killer He was also a bank robber a home burglar and an arson All in the same costume. Yeah, so they take him into custody and What's the deal with them taking him into custody?
What do you know about that? So originally what they took him into custody for and this is kind of a play on law enforcement's part in Trying to get all of their ducks in a row But he technically was arrested for bank fraud and the bank fraud was for utilizing Samantha Koenig's cards at the various ATMs.
So that was considered bank fraud. And so because of that, they were able to arrest him for that as they gathered all the other information that they needed to gather. Yeah. Cause they still don't have a body yet. They don't even know if she's dead. Right. So of course they're suspecting him and the kidnapping obviously, but with the money as well, they're suspecting that he could quite possibly be a bank robber as well.
So they're trying to tie all those things together. And so in the meantime, that's what he was arrested for. So how does that go in terms of they arrest him, they bring him in, they question him, what happens? So they put him into a federal facility. In Texas, where he awaited to be extradited to Alaska. So they extradited him to Alaska.
They were the ones that were working Samantha's case. And so they kind of became the lead for, even though the FBI stepped in very early on, Alaska asked the FBI to step in as soon as they thought that she was abducted and could have gone across state lines. And that's an area actually where he really messed up because once he used that card in another state, that automatically kind of, Right, because already they're thinking, okay, we already saw a video that appears that she's been abducted and now her card's being used in another state.
We don't have any sign right now to think that she's not alive. So by him using that card in another state, it automatically made it that he was taking her outside of state lines or made them believe that that was a possibility also by just using the card in another state, he also committed a crime across, across borders as well, because that the card was stolen in Alaska.
So wouldn't it automatically make it a federal crime? I actually think it's a federal crime anyways, because it's because it's a bank fraud. Gotcha. So I think that's federal anyways. Yeah. So, so he really messed up when he used that card because he, I don't know, the smartest, the smartest, um, tool in the shed.
Well, maybe the, maybe the serial killer with the most mistakes. I don't know. It's hard to see the amount of mistakes that he made in this situation that got him caught. And to believe that he had done this 11 other times and made no mistakes. See, and I don't know, I realized that there's a reason that they came up with the number 11 and that had to do with the pictures that we'll talk about later, but I think they're numbers off.
Whether that's more or less, and there's a lot of interesting stuff that's going to come out in this deep dive, I believe, because there's so much to this that I don't think has been looked at. And I think that they've done a very good job of a lot of the investigative aspect of this case, but I also think that sometimes we tend to look through the same kind of narrowed lens.
And honestly, sometimes we take the offenders at their word, and I think he also told a little bit of lies as well. He may have, uh, embellished I think he did some embellishment. Yeah. And hey, it got a lot of people interested in him.
At the age of 34, Israel Keyes found himself drawing unsettling comparisons to infamous serial killers of the past. He likened himself to none other than Theodore Ted Bundy, a name synonymous with charm and cunning. Bundy, with an IQ of 136, had managed to elude capture, leaving a chilling legacy in his wake.
In the macabre hierarchy of intellect among serial killers, Bundy's 136 IQ was eclipsed by the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer at 145 and Nathan Leopold at a staggering 210. Key's background offered a glimpse into the complex tapestry of his life. Born to John Geoffrey Keyes and Heidi Hankinson in Richmond, Utah, he was raised in a deeply religious family, initially adherents of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.
When Keyes was about five years old, the family would relocate to Colville, Washington, where they would first live in a tent and eventually a one bedroom cabin that Keyes helped the family build. Here they would attend a church called The Ark, a white supremacist church. Keyes would grow up alongside the infamous Kehoe brothers.
Would later be associated with the domestic terrorist group arian people's republic and become murderers in their own, right? However, the keyes would change religious sex again with their move to maine But keys would renounce religion all together opting for an atheist belief system Their lifestyle would remain one of self reliance A distrust of the government and homeschooling, and a skepticism of modern medicine.
The family would turn their backs on Keyes when he renounced his religion and further when he joined the military, knowing his family's anti government philosophy. The shock of Keyes arrest reverberated through all those who knew him. In his chilling confession to the detectives, he recounted the events leading to the abduction of Samantha Koenig.
He admitted to brandishing a 22 caliber handgun and attempting to coerce her into cooperation with the promise of eventual release and ransom. Keyes took Samantha to his home where he chained her up in a shed, subjecting her to sexual assault before ultimately strangling her to death. The horror didn't end there.
Within hours of this heinous act, he embarked on a Caribbean vacation with his family, leaving Samantha's body to freeze in the unconditioned shed. Upon his return, Keyes would defrost the body of Samantha and then engage in necrophilic acts so gruesome that they defy comprehension. He posed Samantha's lifeless body, braiding her hair and sewing her eyelids open with fishing line, all while crafting a ransom note.
He would take Polaroid photos of Samantha's lifeless corpse and send them to the family to encourage the payment of ransom. He then proceeded to dismember her and make multiple trips to Matanuska Lake to dispose of her remains through holes he had cut in the ice while fishing. Unthinkably, he would later consume fish caught in the same waters during those same trips.
The recovery of Samantha's body was a harrowing undertaking, taking the FBI's dive team a grueling ten hours to complete. Keyes, when questioned by Frank Russo, the assistant U. S. attorney, about his dual nature, chillingly confessed, There is no one who knows me, or who has ever known me, who knows anything about me, really.
They know, they're going to tell you something that does not line up with anything I tell you, I'm two different people basically, and the only person who knows about what I'm telling you, the kind of things I'm telling you is me. Okay. How long have you been two different people? ? Long time. 14 years. It was this revelation that led law enforcement to believe that they had unmasked a serial killer who had alluded justice for over a decade.
Forever altering the narrative of Israel Keyes and the terror that he inflicted upon his victims.
This guy. It's a lot. It's a lot. First, let's talk about his comparison to Ted Bundy. Obviously, they both made serious mistakes. Ted Bundy left people alive that were able to identify him. Ted Bundy also Out in the open would approach people and with his charm come with him. You trick him It's very likely the longer that you live a life of crime The higher the probability that you're gonna make a mistake Well, yes and no and the reason that I say that is because as you're going through and you're committing crimes especially as a serial killer they get better and so they learn early on and the things that we're gonna talk about when we talk about his profile and stuff Because we're really going to get into the, into the deep, dark details of his mind and his profile.
But when you've been committing crimes for years, you perfect it. So let's say you realize that if you kill a person a certain way that it's too bloody, and so it takes you too long to clean up. And so the next time you do it, you commit it in a way to where you don't have that long of a cleanup. So for somebody who's been committing a crime for 14 years, He was making some serious mistakes that seemed to be not in alignment with somebody who's been committing crimes for As long as they're, they're believing that he has been, you know, do I believe that you can be complacent?
Absolutely. Um, you can get to a certain point to where you just think that you're so good, you're better than everybody else, that there's just no opportunity for anybody to catch you, that you just can't make a mistake. And unfortunately, when you're doing something and you're caught off guard, when something isn't happening in alignment with how you've planned it, there's area for human error.
Absolutely. I think that ego comes into play. At some point for sure. And the fact that he's comparing himself to one of the most prolific serial killers of all time, a name that everyone knows in the serial killer industry as being like the man, when it comes to serial killers, Ted Bundy, uh, you would think that his ego is up there.
Israel keys. Ego is high. And I think when you have an ego and you start reacting from that ego, I think that's when you start to make mistakes because like you just said, you start to feel invincible. You start to feel infallible, like you can't make a mistake big enough to be caught. You've been doing this for 14 years and just think about this.
Just think about your habits when you drive a car. When you first start driving a car, you got both hands on the steering wheel. You got the radio turned down so you can pay attention to the sounds of traffic. You're driving your car. You're stopping, you know, three car lengths away from the car in front of you.
But as you drive more and more and more and more, you start to take more risk. You start to drive a little bit more reckless. Now you got the radio turned up. You got one hand on the steering wheel. You're leaning to the left. You're what I'm trying to say is that habits develop, right? And sometimes they're bad habits and they're based off of.
Your ego and based off of the fact that you become more confident, you become more, it becomes more of a natural thing for you. So you're bound to make some more sloppy mistakes even happens in the job. Most people who get hurt at work, aren't the guys who just started, they're the guys that have been working there for 10, 12 years who think I got this.
I've been doing this for 12 years, you know, and now all of a sudden you have an accident because you're just not paying attention. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Except in his line of work. of serial killing, an accident gets his ass caught and on death row, potentially. Well, first of all, anytime that you're dealing with a human being, there's a potential for human error.
Absolutely. So, if you're in the business of taking people's lives, you're dealing with people who are going to respond in ways that you may not be prepared for. Yeah. So, yeah, and you're, you're not just playing chess with one person, you're playing chess with a group of agencies that are all playing chess against you at the same time, you've got to be a good chess player to continue to get away with that.
And I think part of what allowed him to get away with it for so long is that no one knew he was playing chess. No one knew he was playing chess until Samantha came up missing. And as soon as she was missing, they knew there was a chess game on the board. Now everybody's playing. Right. They're really the biggest reason for that is if he indeed did kill a lot of people in all of his travels, we know that, that, that the law enforcement system just isn't good when it comes to being connected statewide.
Right. Um, There isn't a system that you go into and you just get to see all the crimes that are committed all throughout the U. S. And, you know, you get a link, little details like that system doesn't exist, unfortunately. And so a crime committed in Washington isn't going to be connected to a crime, you know, committed in Texas without those agencies reaching out to one another and saying, Hey, we have these cases that have occurred here.
Do you guys have anything like that? Like there's, it's just not where it should be. It sounds like they need a Google for crime. Um, when we start looking at where he grew up and we see that his family are big time anti government people, a lot of the churches that they go to are focused on white supremacy and segregationist type mindsets where they're talking about anti government and anti race mixing and stuff like that.
What influence do you think that has on a guy like this? I don't think that that necessarily makes you a serial killer or a violent person or anything of that nature. But I do believe that it builds into your value system as a young child, seeing that women are treated different. So women are supposed to be submissive to their husbands.
All religions, there's a belief. and most that the wives are supposed to be submissive to their husbands but in some of the ones that he's been associated with it's to an extreme and so down to what the women are wearing, who they're marrying, if there's more than one wife marrying, there's some extremes there that can give him and even More of a complex ego in the sense that he thinks he's better, that he thinks his group is better, that he thinks who he has in his circle is better.
And I think all that plays into His mindset later on. Yeah. And I know we're going to get into that in other, in future episodes, when we really deep dive who he is as a person, he ends up leaving the church and he ends up telling his family that he's going to be an atheist or that he is an atheist and the family denounces him, they're like, you're not part of this family, they tell the children, don't talk to your brother no more, he's not part of this family anymore.
Was that triggering to him? Do you think that had an impact on what he would later go out and do? It could, in a way, simply because, you know, honestly, I don't, I don't care where you're at in life, I think anybody who feels rejected is gonna have a certain type of disposition because of it, especially if you don't have a good support system, and I'm, you know, pretty positive that he didn't have that type of support system at that point in time, and because of that, he wouldn't have had it.
Kind of that already built up kind of callousness or strength at that point to have resilience that you would expect for somebody who has a lot of support. So I think that that would have been impactful, you know? Yeah, I would think so. One of the things that I understood about his relationship with his father is that his father died when they weren't talking anymore.
His father died while they weren't talking. Well, but he was one of the pallbearers for his father's coffin. Yeah. But he never got that chance to say, father, I'm sorry. I, you know, whatever. He never got that closure. Yeah. Yeah. And supposedly that impacted him pretty big. One of the things about Israel Keyes that really stands out is how much of a devoted father he is.
He put a lot of attention into his child that he had. I really believe to him family was important. That was a value to him that was, that was strong in him. He really cared what happened to his kid. And I do know that even the religious sector that his family's currently in, that's a big thing is the father is the man of the house, the caretaker, the taking care of the women, making sure the, you know, making sure that the family unit is, is good, like being the provider.
And so I think those are things that definitely he took. Even if he no longer wanted to have anything to do with that religion. I still think that those are some of the things that he took away from it and kept. Yeah, that makes sense. Makes a lot of sense. Now with this last crime, this kidnapping of Samantha, he takes her, he sexually violates her, he murders her, he strangled her, he hit her in the cabinet, wrapped her up, hit her in the cabinet, turned off the heat, let the body freeze, went on vacation.
Um, what do you think his mindset is when he comes back? I think he just was in that amount of time. I think he was thinking some time would go by and it would be a good way to deal with her body. I'm not dealing with it right away. You know, he's giving them time where they've been searching for her and things kind of slowed down cause it's been a few weeks.
It's almost like it was playing into kind of his plan a little bit. Yeah. Um, So, plus he would have a really good alibi. He was gone. Yeah. Cause he left, he left right away. Yeah. So, but also when a body freezes, it's harder to tell how long the body has been dead. So, yeah. So there's some manipulation there.
So, yeah, but he, he defrosts her. He performs necrophiliac acts on the body, on the corpse. And that's actually pretty rare. Yeah. Um, necrophilia is actually pretty rare. There are not a whole lot of serial killers who were necrophiliacs. So that's not a very common thing amongst a lot of the serial killers, believe it or not.
He does things like braiding her hair, which I'm assuming he's done with his daughter. I know that one of the things that was on their list of things hairbrush. And so my guess would be that they thought that hairbrush had been used possibly on Samantha's head. Yeah. But, yeah, that's a whole nother level of, you know, you have to think about the intimacy between the killer and the person who they're killing, who their victim is.
And it's very different when you're committing different types of crimes and the amount of intimacy that you have with that person, either prior to or during or after. And so he was getting very close and very intimate and doing things that, that show that he wasn't just like,
He was doing things that are different than killing somebody and feeling bad or killing somebody and just throwing them out. So there's some layers there for him. Yeah. Tell us about the recovery of Samantha's body. So, aside from what Israel Keyes ended up telling detectives before he told them anything about where he had put her body, they were already getting some tips in about him being seen there at the lake on numerous occasions.
One person said that they had seen him pulled up and parked and they said it stood out to them because of how, where he was pulled up at was a place where technically you shouldn't have been parking. And they said they didn't see anybody get out or get in the vehicle. It was his truck. But that it struck them as odd because it wasn't a place where you were supposed to be parked but they thought maybe the person had like pulled up there to eat lunch or whatever.
But something I thought was interesting was that there was multiple days that people saw him. So there was multiple, so like if you were creating an alibi, it's not just one day. So this actually made me think about the Peterson case because I was thinking about how in the Scott Peterson case in California where there was multiple people who said they saw him.
Lacey Peterson walking on different days or they saw a, you know, a robbery taking place and they weren't sure on the day. I was thinking about that and seeing how there was multiple people who had come forward and said, we saw him out there. This is what he was doing. And in a lot of them you can tell that they're legit, like it this wasn't somebody who just saw some random person.
Like this was definitely him who they saw. But in him going out there on multiple occasions, it's almost like, well, If he murdered somebody would he go out there multiple times like it's almost like he was creating his own Pattern of yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So like I'm always here. Yeah, I always go out there I'm always fishing so nobody saw him on one day at one time at a and it was suspicious like he was seen Multiple days and he actually when when he told detectives where her body was He did tell them that he took multiple trips to take her out there, right?
And you have to remember that he dismembered her, right? So It would have been strange to show up with a trash bag full of body parts and then walk out to the ice and then start dunking things into the ice. That would have been very obvious. Right. But what, you know, one of the witnesses was saying how he had seen him drilling holes, which when you ice fish, you do that.
I wouldn't personally go ice fishing, but you do that when you go ice fishing. And a lot of people will actually set up tents over where they're fishing and they'll sit in there in their tents and like relax and have music, whatever. But somebody had noticed. Him drilling holes and they were saying man like he was doing them fast Like he was bro, like, you know, most people it takes him a little while but he was drilling these holes super fast Yeah, so but you also have to remember that growing up They lived off the land, right?
So so this is something. Yeah, this is normal for him I don't think he lived on the ice though, but I don't either but he was a hunter He was a person who knew how to live off the land, right? Yeah Yeah, so that was one of the things that one of the witnesses had said was that He was out there Yeah. On the ice and drilled the holes pretty quickly.
But what he was doing was he was, he took most multiple trips and he would drill the holes and he'd put the body parts through the hole. And, um, it's part of the reason why, in addition to the fact, obviously that the water's cold and it's, there's ice that they had to get under to go get all of her remains.
That's one of the reasons that it took them as long as it did. Yeah. And that water had to help sustain those bodies from decomposition as well. Cause the water would have been so cold that it would have helped preserve the body.
Yeah, so definitely that manipulation of freezing her body and then unfreezing her body and then putting her in a frozen lake like those things all manipulate the, you know, you coming to a definitive timeframe. So I can say that there's a little bit of intelligence in that regards. And I do have some questions later that we'll talk on in terms of, His thought process.
And I want to know, was this really about sex for him? I don't think that it was, but we'll talk more about that in future episodes. Cause I think it's going to be very interesting to get into his mind.
Upon capture, Israel Keyes confessed to additional heinous acts that would shake the core of humanity. One set of victims, William, or Bill, as they called him, Currier, and Lorraine Currier, had been listed as missing persons since early June of 2011. Keyes macabre revelations left no doubt in the minds of law enforcement.
They were standing face to face with the remorseless killer. On that night, Keyes, dressed in all black and armed with a backpack, a kill kit meticulously assembled from a cachet he had buried two years prior. With stealth and cold determination, he scoped and watched the courier's home to ensure there were no pets and no neighbors.
He ventured towards the courier's home intent on delivering terror. Keyes initiated what he chillingly termed... A blitz attack. He swiftly infiltrated their garage, ransacking their car, before making his way inside the house. Once there, he confronted the unsuspecting couple in their bedroom, taking them by surprise.
He ordered the couriers to roll over onto their stomachs, where he swiftly zip tied them. Then came the relentless questioning. Inquiries about safes and bank cards, he etched their pins into their credit cards. As dawn broke around 4 a. m., Keyes transported the terrified couple to an abandoned farmhouse off Route 15.
There, he separated them. First, he imprisoned Bill in the basement, bound to a stool, and struck Bill with a shovel to keep him compliant. Lorraine, equally terrorized, was placed in a bedroom. Key's methodical cruelty knew no bounds. He secured Lorraine to the bed with duct tape, wrapping a rope around her neck, tying it in a compound knot beneath the mattress.
Bill, desperate and shouting for his wife, drew Key's attention. With a 40 caliber gun, a knife, and an inexplicable water bottle, Key's confronted Bill, emptying the magazine into Bill's body. The shots muffled with a silencer, leaving Lorraine none the wiser. Turning his sadistic attention to Lorraine, he ruthlessly cut off her clothes with a knife, subjecting her to two horrifying sexual assaults as she fought to resist.
Keys then marched her downstairs to the horror that was her husband's lifeless body in the basement. Keys sat Lorraine down and wrapped a rope around her throat and strangled her to death. Keys then attempted to remove all traces of his malevolence. He poured Drano over their hands and faces. Sealed the remains in 55 gallon trash bags and concealed their bodies under layers of garbage and wood.
In the basement's corner in the haste, he left shell casings st thrown across the basement floor. The sun rose commuters passed on Route 15, and Keys was running outta time. His plan to burn the house with the remains inside had crumbled, but he remained undeterred. He left the courier's car in a Rite Aid parking lot, positioned far from surveillance cameras, and retreated to the shadows.
Within six hours, this nightmare unfolded from beginning to end. A crime so shocking that no one suspected a thing. A meticulous predator had left behind a trail of horror. And the world was left to grapple with the chilling revelation of Israel Keys.
Now what's weird is that he volunteered this information. Why? He wanted to put a narrative out there about just how incredible he was. How incredible of a killer he was. And I have a hard time believing that a lot of his story is true. You don't believe that he did this crime? No, I believe he did the crime, and the reason I definitely believe that he did the crime is because he knew details that nobody but the killer would have known, such as that the line was cut to their house for the phones, that the phone line was cut.
He knew what was used to get through the garage, and those are just things that weren't reported that, like, he couldn't have Googled and known. So, I believe that... He was indeed the person who went there and took them and killed them. As to how they were killed and this whole story, I kind of wonder about a little bit.
And in the interview when they're questioning him, there's a couple times where he says, Oh, I don't want to get into that right now. Or, you know, I feel like he didn't have some of that story like he wanted to embellish. And why not? Like, They're, they're none the wiser, so yeah, I think there was a little bit of embellishment in his story.
I think there was a little bit of honesty in his story too, but I think there was some embellishment for sure. Why haven't they found the bodies? So one of the things that he says that he did was he would scope out these abandoned, you know, buildings and this abandoned building wasn't owned by the couriers.
I don't believe it actually was for sale. This abandoned building he went to because he knew nobody would be around. Nobody would be in that building. I'm actually kind of surprised there was a bed in there, but If it's abandoned, it'll probably have a bed in it. Good abandoned. Meaning is meaning they left it the way that it was like, I don't know.
There's things kind of strange to me, but, but yeah, people don't abandon their house and take everything with them typically. No, but sometimes they do, but people will break in and steal stuff. And I don't know, I guess I just don't imagine there being a bed and like, I don't know. So, especially cause it was an old, like, farmhouse.
Yeah. You don't think old farm people used to sleep on beds? Well, of course, but, like, I don't know. I guess I just don't expect for there to be beds in there. I know it's a possibility, but, you know. But anyways, so, I believe that he planned on burning it down and he was basically gonna try to get rid of evidence, you know.
I think he was gonna try to be slick about it, leave in the middle of the night. He wasted a lot of time. According to that story. And so he wasn't able to complete it in the way that he wanted. But the reason that they never have found them, if indeed his story is accurate, is that that building was torn down.
So like nobody went in and like went through it beforehand. They went in and they went to tear it down and they took it to a landfill. So they've tried to like dig up, I guess, and. Where the landfill is to see if they could find anything and they've, they've never found anything. So more than likely they were to use like a bulldozer and it would have like, it would've like knocked the building down and they would have like scooped it up and put it into the back of a truck and if you were covered in trash and in a trash bag, nobody would that to investigate.
And then plus once you're fully decomposed and you're just bones, like it's just super hard once you're mixed with a lot of other stuff to identify something like that. I'm so sad. Yeah. It is. It's really sad for the family because they don't get to have the peace of knowing that they have their family member.
It really sucks. What do you think about his story? Do you think that his story is embellished or do you think that he was being like, do you think any parts of his story seemed unrealistic? Well, I'm sure whenever you're telling a story, you're always your own hero in your own story. So I'm sure there was some embellishment at some point, but I do believe that he committed the crime.
I do believe that he killed those two individuals. Now, when he's telling the other stories, there are times where he's like, well, I don't really want to talk about that. And I know to me. It could be two things. One, it could be he's full of crap and he still doesn't have a story for it yet. That could be one, one version of the truth.
The other version could be, is that he wants to maintain control and he wants to put out things at his pace and in his direction, you know, that is part of it. Yeah. He was trying to, and he wanted to make sure that he had enough to give, to be able to receive what it was that he wanted to receive as well.
He also knew that every little piece of information was something he could barter with. Right. And so he wants to barter for the best position that he can. He's not going to just put everything out. You know what I'm saying? So yeah, we know that eventually he commits suicide. Why do you think he committed suicide before putting all the beans on the table?
Control. I honestly think it's totally control. He realized that it was checkmate for him and he realized that he had no control. And he was too much of a sucker to sit in prison, he definitely would have gotten the death penalty. Especially the fact that he wanted it, he wasn't gonna refute it. He would have gotten the death penalty.
Anybody who's ever done any research on serial killers knows that serial killers have a hard time when they go to prison because they lose. control and it's also one of the reasons why a lot of serial killers tend to open up a little bit more when they're in prison about wanting to help solve crimes or wanting to, you know, they tend to like speak out a little bit more, be a little bit more open.
They still try to maintain control, don't get me wrong, but they tend to be more open because now they're not in a high position of control. Yeah, they're not in a dominant position. So I think for him, honestly, it really had to do with control and it had to do with not wanting to be in a position of inferiority and that was just so important to him.
His crimes were cowardly. So he wasn't going to be well received, well received in prison. Yeah. He's going to be low, low tier prisoner in prison. Yeah. And you know, a lot of the ways that he responded, you know, and we'll talk more in depth about this in our episode about his profile, but if you pay attention to the way that he's speaking in his interviews that the FBI has released, because they've released a number of interviews that you can look at that are Well, you just, you get to observe everything and you can see his demeanor and you can hear the way he talks.
You can hear the questions he chooses to answer and doesn't answer. And those things are all very telling. You know, it's very telling even his positioning in the chair and whether or not he's trying to create space or make space. It's very telling in how he responds when they're in the room or out of the room.
One of the mistakes I think they made with him is they had too many people in the room. For the interviews truthfully, yeah empowered him. Yeah, it can come off in a couple different ways one It can make them less likely to speak and then two it can also Yeah, make them feel like they're oh you need six people in the room, you know And I know what it is.
They all wanted to be in there, you know It's intriguing, you know, but sit in another room. God dang it Yeah, it's not every day that you catch a serial killer But when you do you definitely want to be in the room, but guess what? He ain't been convicted And they have never found any other bodies. They've only found one.
One. One body. So what kind of one body serial killer is he? That's all I gotta say. He's so smart. And he's like the most incredible, intelligent serial killer of modern times. Guys, he's got one body count. One confirmed body count. Yeah. One confirmed. He did talk about other deaths and they're also looking into more deaths based off of his, uh, his travel schedule and where he was and, and there are some alignment with where he was at, at times when people came up missing, where their bodies haven't been recovered and it's very possible he could be so good at getting rid of bodies that they're not going to be bodies.
It's just confirmation through his, what he said and then aligning it with the schedule and his MO. So, something to take into consideration. There are some people that they were looking into as possible victims of Israel Keys, and many of them have been ruled out as not being his. As a matter of fact, there was one not too long ago, Where they received DNA evidence on the killer and obviously it wasn't Israel Keyes and he's just been convicted within the last couple years.
Um, maybe even this last year. But anyways, there's a number of ones that have come up since, you know, he committed suicide in 2012. That they've tried to link to Israel keys that they've positively linked to somebody else or have confirmed that there's no way because they do have DNA evidence from Israel keys to match up and There's been a lot that have been Yeah, he left DNA evidence all over his cell little paintings that he drew aliens.
There's all kinds of DNA evidence everywhere I'm just joking What do you think of a serial killer who commits suicide um What do I think of a serial killer who commits suicide? I think that it is a weak way to go out, especially for a guy who says he's like Ted Bundy and purports to be the best of the best and to say, Oh, these guys are my idols.
Like he didn't really follow through. He left so many gaps to me, what would have made him an amazing serial killer is if he would have sat down and been like, here's all the details for all my, all my killings, here's where all the bodies are, my body count is more than, you know, I'm more prolific, I'm better, I'm, you know, and to have that in support of his claim right now is just an empty claim.
I feel a little unsatisfied. Maybe that's what he wanted to leave everybody with satisfaction. Yeah. That level of control. He just screwed us all. Like we don't know, was he the most prolific serial killer of our day and age? I don't know. Obviously the best serial killer of our day and age is the one that hasn't been caught.
In the shadowy realm of true crime, Israel Key stands as perplexing enigma. Was he a heinous serial killer, a misguided super fan, or something far more sinister? His chilling confessions and meticulous planning suggest a calculated predator, leaving us with haunting questions about the true scope of his crimes.
Samantha Connick tragically was not his sole victim, and the mystery of missing victims lingers. Key's intelligence and elusiveness remain subjects of debate, as does the impact of his upbringing, military training, and society's dark fascination with serial killers. His suicide and the cryptic symbols he left behind add an unsettling final chapter to a story that may never fully reveal its dark secrets, leaving us with a disturbing portrait of the man known as Israel Keyes.
Our next episode will deep dive the man behind the madness. Who was Israel Keyes and what made him the monster that he was? And
that's a wrap on today's investigation fellow detectives if you found this episode both enlightening and captivating Then please subscribe to our podcast show and our patreon leave a review and hit that like button share our podcast with others And engage with us on our website and social media platforms.
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