I bring you this column out of my pure fascination with police work, cold cases, forensics, interrogation and all things criminal and mysterious. As an active-duty police officer, I hold an interest in all cases especially those that bring justice to light in the end. The purpose of this column is to tell the story of cases which were solved by technological advancements, unconventional tactics, dumb luck, and any other manner outside the norm. I hope you find these cases as intriguing and motivating as I do. This month, the conclusion to the story of a man who killed for years, stunning experts by breaking all the rules of serial killing.
Israel Keyes was born January 7, 1978, in Richmond Utah. Israel was born into a Mormon family and would end up with nine siblings. His parents eventually denounced their Mormon faith and moved to Stevens County, Washington, hidden away from the rest of the world, living a primitive lifestyle without electricity or plumbing. The Keyes family began attending white supremacist Christian churches. The Keyes children were expected to fend for themselves, foraging for their food and supplies. Israel took to this lifestyle with a little too much enjoyment, resulting in his peers avoiding him after seeing him torture animals. Young Israel broke into homes and amassed a collection of stolen firearms before being discovered by his parents. Eventually the Keyes moved to Smyrna, Maine, to work and lived among the Amish. In his teens, Israel was disowned by his parents once he denounced Christianity in favor of Atheism and later, Satanism. In 1998, Israel Keyes enlisted in the Army and developed a habit of binge drinking. He faced a DWI arrest in 2001, and was honorably discharged soon after. Keyes eventually had a child with his girlfriend, and moved to Anchorage in 2007, where he started construction business. His adult life appeared completely normal on the outside, until his arrest in Texas.
Now being held in an Anchorage jail, Keyes asked to speak with Detectives Doll and Bell once again. He said he would give them information about Samantha Koenig on the condition they would keep the story from the media, because he did not want his daughter to read about what he did in the newspapers. Israel Keyes confessed he did kidnap Samantha Koenig from the coffee stand, and took her to his house after stealing her phone and ATM card from her boyfriend’s truck. He hid her in a shed on his property and told her all he wanted was ransom money, and she would be freed. He coerced her to give up her PIN number so he could access the money in her bank account, but it was all a lie. He raped her and strangled her to death. The day after he killed her, he and his family traveled to Louisiana for a cruise, as if nothing had happened. He had planned the vacation months before and didn’t let the kidnapping and murder get in the way. On Feb. 17, he got home from his trip and decided he could profit from the murder. He took Samantha’s body, preserved by the freezing temperature in the shed, and applied make-up to her and forced her eyes open. He took the photo of her for the ransom note, and dismembered her corpse, before traveling to Matanuska Lake, and dumping her body parts through a hole in the frozen lake.
Unsolved Killing sprees in Washington and Florida have been attributed to him, as well as a 2009 murder of a New Jersey woman. Keyes took credit for a murder in New York, but nothing is known about the victim. Keyes is confirmed to have killed a Vermont couple, Bill and Lorraine Currier, after breaking into their home. Bill was shot to death, and Lorraine raped and strangled. Their bodies were never recovered. He claimed he would never harm a child or a parent, because as a father, he could not bring himself to disrupt that relationship. However, investigators believe he may be responsible for the late 90s murders of two teenage girls in Washington. Until Samantha Koenig, Keyes never killed close to home, always traveling far away, greatly reducing the chance of being identified. Over eight years, he left Alaska over 30 times, traveling across the U.S., Mexico and Canada. While traveling, he buried “murder kits”—five gallon buckets containing guns, ammunition, money, restraints and chemicals to aid in decomposition of bodies. He did this so he would not have to bring any equipment with him when he decided to kill. He would travel to a desired location, retrieve his nearest murder kit, and begin scoping out his victims. He then reburied the kit in a new location in case he needed it again. Israel not only studied other serial killers like Ted Bundy and H.H. Holmes, but he also read “Mindhunter” by famed FBI profiler, John Douglas. If there was a school for serial killers, Israel Keyes would have been valedictorian.
In December of 2012, Israel Keyes committed suicide in his jail cell, slicing his wrists with a razor blade and strangling himself with a bed sheet as he bled out. Sadly, he would never stand trial for any of his crimes, and worst of all, the full list of his crimes died with him, leaving an untold number of victims unknown.
Israel Keyes broke the mold of a serial killer as we know them, such that the best criminal profilers were baffled by his existence. The only consistency of his crimes was their lack of a clear modus operandi. His murders were completely random, but planned in advance. He stashed his tools all around so he could easily attack almost anywhere at anytime. Up to the time of his suicide, all of his confessions had been deemed credible. If it wasn’t for one slip up, he would likely still be unknown and still be killing. In 14 years he was never named as a suspect for anything he did, and his crimes all appeared unconnected, committed by different people. Israel Keyes may have been the most dangerous man to ever live, and we will never truly know the depth of his depravity. This of course raises the question: how many more like him are out there?
