Speaker 1: True Crime Bullshit is off this week, but I wanted
to pop in and announce my newest Trova trip. On
June thirteenth of twenty twenty six. We are going to Iceland,
And when I say we, I mean you, Me and
Shana and Tooks from the research team, and Sydney Copp
who helped identify Christopher Roof. For as long as I
can remember, Iceland has been number one on my travel
list and it still somehow eluded me for all these years.
So I'm inviting you to come experience Iceland with me
for the very first time. Will visit secret geothermal lagoons, waterfalls, geysers,
the Continental Rift, and black sand beaches littered with icebergs.
We'll take a private boat tour, see the glaciers, see
puffins and hang out and rekivic. It will be I'm
sure a life changing six days. Tickets go on sale
at noon Eastern today, but because of pre sale there's
actually only a few tickets left, so reserve your spot asap.
Check out the link in the show notes or on Instagram.
I cannot wait to see you in Iceland. This is
a studio both and production. This is part two of
my interview with Israel's childhood friend Scott. To listen to
the entire interview, start with episode seven oh six My
Friend Israel Part one. When you would stay out there,
would you stay on Rocky Ridge or would you stay
somewhere else? You would, yeah, but you would stay in
the main house or on trailers.
Speaker 2: Or main house or we would camp out up at
Israel's cabin a lot once we were once once you
had that built, and we would you know, we'd sometimes
just throw a tarp out because it was a pretty
small cabin. But it was like home base for like
the semi grown up kids or whatever you want to
call it.
Speaker 3: And yeah, and and it was weird.
Speaker 2: There were certain I guess kind of probably unwritten rules,
right like, because a lot of times it was just
my older brother is raeling myself. Here's where are there
any known pictures of the smiley face? What is it called?
Speaker 3: Brand? No?
Speaker 1: I mean I've heard it described, but no, I've never
seen any.
Speaker 3: Photos of it. How big do you think that is?
Speaker 1: I don't think it's very big at all. Actually, hold on,
I can tell.
Speaker 3: You, okay. I I think.
Speaker 2: I think I was there for that, oh really, yeah,
and had done it to myself, but I was never
never lit it enough to leave permanent.
Speaker 1: Okay, So before I tell you where do you recall
if he hasn't had done it, where would it have been?
Speaker 2: So in my mind and this might have been where
I did it was the inside of a left wrist.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, he did it on his left shoulder, on.
Speaker 2: His left shoulder. So here's here's what I remember of it.
And I'm I'm blurring this with other things because it's
a chicken or the egg problem. I don't know if
it was something we kind of got planted in us
from visits with Israel, or if it's something we kind
of brought with us. It's like, hey, this is weird
and dumb, like maybe you'll be interested in it. But
we would take lighters, right, just regular big lighters and
kind of hold it sideways, upside down, get it as
hot as you can, and then the two top burrs
of the striking and then the kind of loop of
the end of the lighter does make a smiley face. Yeah,
And so we would you know, if you did it
at a certain heat, it would go away after a
month or so, right, it would kind of heal like
a second degree burn or whatever. But so I was
I was kind of curious because I was like, I
remember obviously doing dumb stuff like that with him, but
I was like, couldn't recall an exact memory of that,
and definitely feels like something I would have been goaded
into participating in, not necessarily being excited about. But that's
interesting because shoulder almost makes me wonder, like it's like
a show of strength or something like, oh, you you
held it for ten seconds and did it watch this
hold it for thirty seconds, then just shove it into
my shoulder or something like that.
Speaker 3: That's what it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But also I feel like shoulders a weird place
for a brand that would be that small. Yeah, it
would get buried. So you probably you probably figured out
how to dial it up a little bit from there.
Speaker 1: We talked about obviously like the bad stuff. But you
guys were friends. Tell me, you know what, tell me
about your friendship. I guess, like some of the good
memories why you liked him.
Speaker 2: So I think there was very much a and I
guess this is what this is obviously hindsight bias. So
I had a I had a very strange relationship with
that family in general, just being that like I and
I feel this way generally about a lot of things,
like just didn't know if I belonged or not, right,
And I think that's something that I wear more than
something that that happens to me. But so the things
that would have endeared me to Israel, like the strongest
and best example I have. I don't know that they
always had horses. This could be borderline other crimes perhaps,
but they at one point they did have some horses.
And I remember thinking how kind of interesting, weird and
cool this would be that we're going to go, like
we need to go fix a fence out somewhere, and
so they're like putting on horses and whatever else. I'm
It's like, oh, this is this will be interesting. Like
I think I'd ridden horses before, but this was like
we're working.
Speaker 3: Now and doing this.
Speaker 2: And then I quickly found out that I don't get
a saddle right, so I'm just like on the back
of a horse. And that did have reins that were
you attached to the front of the horse. But I
shouldn't have been and I shouldn't have gone. And it
was a decent length ride to get to where the
fences were and stuff, and I know she was with us.
I want to say it was also or it could
have been a couple of the sisters. And so we're
riding out. I'm clearly like out of my element. I
have no stirrups. I'm not great with horse control. There's
certain port parts where it's fairly steep, which was fine
when we were headed out there, but then like coming
back it had rained and whatever else, and like you know,
there there was nothing like you didn't like swoop in
and just like kind of take over and save the
day kind of a thing, but like there was a
I think there was almost like a sense of responsibility
on his part or like I just remember being like
watched over in a sense of just like this is
weird and really wishing I hadn't wound up in this scenario.
But it's like, Okay, I feel like it's probably gonna
be fine, right, And he's he's not Ted Lasso, so
he's not telling me this either. It's just that he
wouldn't wander off too far or he would like look
over his shoulder enough that I'm just like okay, at
least he knows I'm like struggling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And if I fall off.
Speaker 2: He's at least going to see a horse without somebody
on it, and like they're not going to have to
come looking for me, you know, sometime later on. And
so there were a few things like that. There was
you know, there were a few situations like that where
he kind of really enjoyed. I think being the older
brother was a burden in a lot of ways for him, right,
The whole idea of a parentified adults, which happens everywhere,
a very unique setting for him to experience that in
some ways. But I think there were periods where it
was really exciting and fun for him to get to
be that. We crossed over into Canada and went to
a water park there and they had like an underwater cave, right,
maybe something that the US wouldn't allow whatever else, but
like I'd never seen that before, right, So you have
to hold your breath and go in, and there's there's
air pockets in the back, and but you know there's
kind of like tunnels you do have to be submerged
to go through. And you know, I think that was
kind of one of those things where I could kind
of tell he got a sense of like, here's how
you have to do it Like it's not that bad.
You don't even have to open your eyes, but like
you know, use your hands so you can like feel
where it is so you know when you can come
up and things like that that you know, I think
he he got to switch and it felt more like
an opportunity than like an obligation to be, you know,
the one of the older, not on parent individuals of
the of the group. And I think you probably had
very very few instances of that throughout his life, to
be to be in that setting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's actually interesting because you think a lot about
particularly when he was with Kim, where he had very
little control or autonomy.
Speaker 2: M I'm not sure I know enough about that when
his time with Kim.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean mostly just she was older, she was
the moneymaker, she had all the friends. He was kind
of just the boyfriend.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: I was did you know Jeff to participate in polygamy
at all?
Speaker 3: No? Okay, no, I mean I see that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I'm trying to think because like as weird
as this sounds, and maybe this is going to sound
dumb to somebody who would listen to but like maybe
unsurprisingly there's a like when I'm in central Utah, right,
if I'm at a costco, I think sometimes the people
from that area will call them the colleagues or something
like that, or the plagues or what like. You know,
I saw this, and there may or may not be
multiple wives, but they're certainly an aesthetic. That was very much,
you know, how how the family would dress and whatever else.
I kind of very frontier, prairie kind of kind of
vibes not yeah, not something that I'm aware of. And
that's interesting because I I would imagine if that were
to be the case, that's likely not something they would
have volunteered or allowed my parents to see or understand.
Speaker 3: So that's interesting. That's interesting. Yeah, did you know, Well.
Speaker 2: She seems like one of more of the mysteries. And
I don't know, because I like the word disappeared came
to mind. That is not the right word, but I
feel like she didn't live there the entire time that
we would go visit. I do say that period. Okay,
well then that makes that a little bit more obvious.
I'm again, I guess there's the church or whatever else,
But then there's I'm just puzzled as how some of
that happens without it being like almost arranged in a way.
But but yeah, that I also think there were a
lot of incentives to launch from the nest.
Speaker 3: Did you ever go down to Hunters while you were there?
So I don't know where Hunters is located. I want
to take thirty minutes south, okay, So I.
Speaker 2: Don't remember like where we would have gone when we
participated in this church event. Was that a center for
the church stuff?
Speaker 1: Maybe we're trying to figure that out. That there was
in Callville kind of like a church square where everybody congregated,
So that's probably it. But we're finding more and more
connect between Hunters and the Christian that community.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not a it's not a town name that
that stands out to me from memory.
Speaker 3: And we really didn't wander all that much.
Speaker 2: Maybe a little bit more in the in the later years,
but it was pretty much like you know, I I
want to say, they were like, you know, trying to
expand like the garden area and other things like. So
usually we were really helping with projects and then goofing
around and stuff. I think it was I think the
other aspect of my parents' goals was, you know, my
dad had been raised on like a pseudo farm, like
a math teacher running a farm. Still kind of a
thing blend of a World War two vette of his
dad was. And so I think part of it from
his standpoint was like I don't know where else you
get it, Like you kind of just have to like,
you know, time to time to roll up your sleeves
or you know whatever else kind of a almost like
a scared straight program.
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 1: When you went to the church activities, did they leave
any sort of impression with you? Did it feel similar
to like Mormon church activities. Did you feel like was
it fun?
Speaker 2: So I want to say the the closest to fun
that it got was I enjoyed meeting new people. That
part was that part was interesting. The I remember mostly
feeling on guard. And you can probably draw directly draw
some of the lines here, right, like having been homeschooled
and whatever else, Like I was very cognizant of the
fact that people might assume that I'm weird as a homeschooler, right, So,
like I learned very quickly and you know, to be
like there's certain times where I need to just like
kind of shut up and listen so that then when
I am participating, I'm not doing a thing that will
like give me away as somebody who's unfamiliar with this
the protocols or the standards or.
Speaker 3: The you know, the unwritten rules whatever.
Speaker 2: And I remember, like it was so stark, because I
think all all religion is performative in a lot of ways.
Like I think maybe for a few handful of people
it really is like some kind of inner peace, but
I think for a lot of people there's a performative
aspect to it, but especially for this group, right, like
you might stand in circles, you're going to hold hands
and hold your hands up above your head and kind
of you know, maybe somebody who's being the most pious
in that setting is going to be like yelling to
the Lord about why we need what we need and
like so it was very stark from that way. Whereas
like the Mormon community that I grew up in Northern Utah,
I've even dubbed it Mormon masculinity, And maybe that's a
term other people have used, but I don't know, if
you're too valid in the news or like some of
those things, Like I don't recommend it necessarily, but you know,
like you might be this you know whatever kind of
powerful influential person, but like it's okay for you to
be up like kind of talking to the congregation and
like have a shaking voice and be like this is
just so important that our people get like whatever else
and so like, and it's a tone that you would hear.
There's the semi annual General conference where it's so easy
to mimic. You don't even have to mimic a particular person,
it's just a cadence and whatever. And so so it
was very jarring from that standpoint of like what they're
what the kind of the norms were there versus in
my community? And I felt like I could mimic my
own communities just because I had absorbed them long enough.
And and that one I just was so like, you know,
the way one person would do it, you know, to
kind of draw attension or you know, show their position
in the pack or something was like different from how
somebody else would And I'm just like, oh, so there's
I don't think there's a playbook kind of you know,
was at least part of my interpretation of that. And
like I don't remember an exact example. I want to
say that there was maybe a girl about my age
or something that I was like, oh, hey, here's like
a peer that I could go meet and talk to.
And I don't again, I don't. The sense I remember
from that is that like maybe that wasn't okay or
it was weird because I was an outsider and people
were uncomfortable with that. But I remember a form of
getting my wrist slapped, you know, in terms of just like,
we don't know what's going on here, so it's not
happening like something to that regard.
Speaker 3: And I remember that being.
Speaker 2: Abrasive to me because you know, I don't know how
old I was at the time, but I don't think
I was much of a much of a threat. But yeah,
those that's some of the vague memories I have of
the of the church community is, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did keys ever have any girlfriends while you were there?
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't remember there ever being I did. I did
kind of try to chew on that for a while
and think to myself, like, was there a name or
something else that I could, you know, might have come up.
I think I'm probably less likely to remember it. That
would be a really interesting question to ask my older brother,
because I think it would be much more likely that
they might have confided or talked about that.
Speaker 3: And I've I've made little to no.
Speaker 2: Effort to ever really digest some of that stuff with him,
but you know, I think there's certainly be some value there,
but yeah, not not to my understanding. And I don't
like even participating in some of the church stuff, Like
you know, I probably wouldn't have ever been very far
away from the people that I did know. Yeah, and
you know, I don't I don't remember any instance of like, oh,
this seems like an important orson for him to like
you know, run over to go talk to or whatever.
Speaker 1: Else did he ever talk about not his own but
just like crime in general with you, Like I know,
he was really into true crime and was reading a
lot of books and stuff.
Speaker 2: I can't remember any specific examples or cases, right, Like
I know he became you know, obsessed with the the
guy that had operated here in Utah for a while
and should not be forgetting his name, Yeah, Bundy, I
remember kind of some of those topics or talking about police,
like certainly being clever was like an important thing to him,
or like kind of having this understanding and certainly books
and whatever else were like one of the ways that
he could get access to certain things or you know,
I guess information on experiences that he's but I don't.
I don't remember him ever having being like a real
strong I don't want to say obsession because I would
certainly stand out, but yeah, I don't remember any specific
examples or or scenarios other than that was definitely something
he had an interest in, right, Or if we were
going and breaking that gate, right, he would almost like
talk through his thought process of like, you know, I'll
put it back this way so that if somebody's looking
from like thirty yards away, they won't know that the
chain's gone and like not connected, but like but there's
no padlock on it anymore. Like just some of those things,
like you know, he was you know, flagging and paying
attention in a way which is almost weird to me
because at this point he would have had very few
instances of any external enforcer, right, or like I'm not sure,
and maybe there were instances of like forest rangers or
like something like I don't know what that would look
like in his world, but in a way it almost
seems strange because it's you know, it's like when you're
in the countryside and you're like, I'm gonna go ten
to fifteen over, there's a cop anywhere in the next
five miles. I would see it already because I'm in
Nebraska and I can I can see the shoulder for
the next you know, that kind of how it would
have felt, at least how it felt to me out there.
Speaker 1: But when would have been the last time you saw
or talk to him.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm thinking now that it it must have been
ninety six. And I'm only saying that because I feel
like I feel like that would be such a standout
memory if we had gone up the summer of ninety
seven after my sister had passed away, But maybe maybe not.
Speaker 1: I ninety six makes sense because they moved down to Oregon,
I think right after that summer.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so that was I actually was looking for
that this morning because I was just like, part of
me was just like, I'm gonna sound dumb on a
couple of these things, are gonna do a little bit
of homework.
Speaker 1: I actually preferred when you sound dumb because I know
you haven't been like studying.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: It is a little bit funny because Yeah, some of
the things that I would be quote unquote tainted by
is you know, a lot of it would be your
own work, you know, to begin with, because that's where
I've been able to revisit or you know, collect Obviously
a lot of a lot of that's coming from from
the records or the interviews, which which I've never listened
to in their entirety.
Speaker 3: I've only heard them clipped.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how would you classify him? I guess, you know,
trying as best you can to remove what you now know.
Speaker 3: It's a very interesting way to think about it.
Speaker 2: And like, as I've leading up to this, right, my
mind's gone a couple of different directions. I have no
desire to come out and be an apologist for him, absolutely,
But at the same time, I've been trying to do
what you just said, which is like, okay, kind of
peel it away. If I just got a phone call
in twenty thirteen, and rather than hearing what had happened
or sorry twenty twelve again, dumb not paying attention, but
I just know I was already living in San Francisco
at the time, so it's easy to date that way.
Like if somebody just called up and said like, Hey,
like I just read about this guy and like whatever,
what do you what do you know about him? Like
kind of going back to that place. It's very strange.
Part of me wants to try to categorize him with
like some sort of mental health markers or indicators or
you know, like neuro a divergency or something like that,
which I which I think is just a dangerous thing
to begin with because I don't think any of that
has necessarily has criminal implications. Yeah, but it's it's like
an easy direction for me to want to go because
I do think there were certain ways that he would
just you know, like like anyone wanted to entertain himself,
wanted to like find something to be good at and
like feel you know, efficient to add or things like that.
And I think he had a very poor, poor selection bias.
He was obsessed with knife and gun magazines and stuff
like that. So he and I think I mentioned I
probably edited out of an email because I was like,
this guy doesn't need novels for me.
Speaker 3: Every time, but I'll take them though. Well he and
my brother.
Speaker 2: So my brother still has I think at least two
knives that I know of that he had gotten from
trading with Israel, right that they had, you know, they
would kind of collect, however, they collected them and then
and then kind of barter and trade and talk about
what they liked about different stuff. And then that did
extend to guns. But by the way, I don't remember
a lot of guns just showing up. But I guess
I never asked a lot of questions either, So if
I if I was, I guess categorizing him in a
way for me is I think he was. He was
somebody who was not afraid of working hard at something.
And that feels almost horrible to say, given some of
the things that we know happened later on in his life.
But he was not afraid of, you know, rolling up
his sleeves, kind of doing what the situation called for,
you know, and wanting to try to get somewhere better
as a result of that, right, I think he had
some of the same frustrations any of us might have
had in his setting growing up, which is, there are
things he would have agreed with, there are things he
wouldn't have agreed with. Living in the house with Jeff
is the dad, Like, there's there's not a lot of room, right,
There's a certain lens when I learned that there were
male victims. There's a certain lens on my side that
was just like, oh, this could so easily be just
a curiosity, and just from such a young age, he
was just like, this is never going to be okay
with anybody that I know or I'm aware of. And
so if this is anything I ever explored, like you know,
this is nobody will ever find out about it, right,
like something to that effect, Like it did not if
that were a large contributing factor, which we obviously don't know,
like that would not have surprised me, right when I
you know, you think of the key hose and like,
you know, the I was a little bit surprised when
I was paying enough attention to learn that Tammy was
was not white, right, and I'm and some of those
things like and then hearing more about it later it
was I guess, kind of validating in a way, because
my impression really was before that, like the white supremacy
stuff never got him excited, right. He would buy into
some of the culture or whatever and like kind of
talk about how cool it would be to have like
big high top Doc Martins or whatever else, Right, But
that's not that's not how they were. You know, they
weren't shopping at those kinds of stores or whatever. But
you know, so he would get kind of day dreams
like the rest of us. Yeah, I think he was
somebody who wanted to do well, be able to take
care of himself to a certain degree, and kind of
have that be enough in some ways, Like he's the
second oldest of ten, I'm the second oldest of nine.
There's other parallels in terms of like setting where I
can kind of commiserate with that in a way, like
not necessarily just having a big family, but like I guess,
kind of a version of being prentified and you know,
not having a lot of participation but not a lot
of control or planning or whatever else. Doing a bad
job of narrowing in on any kind of short statement,
But that's I guess if you would, Yeah, if you
would talk to me after the last time I saw him,
that's the sense I would have had.
Speaker 3: I completely forgot.
Speaker 2: But now that I'm going back to your thought of Oregon,
I do believe my parents and some of my other
siblings had visited them in Oregon, the Key like because
the Keys family was there, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all of them were there. Keys was in mop
and the restaurant dufour, which I think are like an
hour apart from each other.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's interesting. I will I will add that to.
Speaker 2: I'm actually gonna write it down, but I'll add that
to my list of like when you guys were in Oregon,
did you know, did Keys show up? But that I
may very well have been part of the window of
a time where he and the parents were around the outs.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Actually that's what I was very curious about, is I
guess his relationship with Jeff and Heidi. But also you're
how you would characterize Jeff and Heidi as parents? Uh?
Speaker 2: Not a lot of warmths to be found. Yeah, I mean,
I'm trying to think. I mean, I I can't even
tell you what it was about. But I'm I'm pretty
sure nobody has dressed me down as much as Heidi.
And like I said, I can't even remember what it was.
I don't think I even understood. And it might have
even just been that like I was putting the shucked
corn in the pile, like in the wrong pile. It
should have gone over here like it. And I'm not
trying to say they have like a hair trigger and
whatever else. But like it certainly wouldn't surprise me. I
mean I would I believe I would expect that Jeff
was probably physical with at least the sons, you know,
maybe not any more than he felt he needed to be.
I don't think it was an enjoyable thing, but like
it was very kind of frontier z in that way,
and which is a little bit surprising, right in a way,
Like I I wish I had any convictions as much
as somebody must have. Who's I'm just gonna go live
in the woods, right, like like the real Walden, like
not not the not the Walden with good friends that
are close by kind of a thing, but like and
so I mean, I don't know that they necessarily were
that way because of their life circumstances.
Speaker 3: They would do.
Speaker 2: Like, you know, we would do Bible study some nights,
and you know, they would kind of read, and I
remember that was kind of like, you know, shoulders back
kind of you know, you got to like play the part.
You can't just kind of you know it. I don't
I don't know the right way to describe it. But yeah,
not a lot of warmth and not not people I
necessarily wanted to be in the same room with when
we were up there, not for any other reason than
it was just was. You know, it's kind of one
of those things you look back and you're like, I
don't remember a good experience, Like they weren't all bad,
but it's like I don't remember anything constructive from like
you know, Heidi teaching me how to X Y Z
or something like, and so it just was not I
was always seeking to be elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Tell me about when you found out about his arrest
and eventually the breadth of his crimes, like what, how
did were you surprised? How did that make you feel?
Speaker 3: So the.
Speaker 2: I mean it was it was very very difficult in
a way like it was you know, the kind of
the glass shattering type of moment of like, Okay, there
are certain things like I just don't understand and won't
be able to understand. I will say, the ripple effects
of that we're sus staying long, much longer than I
think should should even be necessary. So like I don't
necessarily have not ever really been diagnosed as OCD, but
I like to think I have an understanding of what
intrusive thoughts are, Like maybe the volume for me is
not the same whatever else. But like that became a
very like scary thing in a way of like, you know, okay,
like did a few things happen in just the right circumstances.
It was just like, oh, okay, I'm just this is
now an outlet for me, This is an option for me,
and I don't I don't mind the kind of work
it takes to do it. So you know, it's kind
of like the uh, you know, you might smoke your
first cigarette and it makes you sick and so like
you just kind of never smoke, right, But somebody else
is like, oh, this is these were made for me, right,
And so like I got this weird idea of like,
you know, are we all kind of like one to
five poor decisions away from something that we may not
be able to control. I do not believe that, but
that that became a fear that I had and carried
as a result of that. Part of it was the
carry on effect, right, because this was only like I mean,
it's like seven years later from when I first heard
of Shane and Chevy, but it was it was very difficult.
So if you think of that being and I'm sorry,
I wouldn't was his death.
Speaker 3: It was like a December December, the December of twelve.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so I think I'm thinking of thirteen, because
that's probably when I learned was probably very early in
twenty thirteen. Did not the news did not race to me.
So at that point, my wife and I have moved
to San Francisco. She was a very San Francisco itself
wasn't important to me, but like experiencing my felts where
I wasn't able to go away to college or that
sort of thing, so we went away to work, and
so there was there was a version of that experience
that you know, I had been autonomous, I'd been an adult,
I'd been outside of the faith that I grew up
in for a number of years by then. But that
was a weird, like kind of slap in the face
of just like you can run, but you can't hide
it almost kind of there was that aspect to it
for me personally of just like, okay, but I'm still
kind of the product of how I grew up and
you know, what I experienced and that sort of thing,
and that really took away from my to enjoy kind
of that developmental cycle that I had helped set up
for myself, which is like nobody really looks the same,
nobody really has the same background versus where I grew
up in Northern Utah.
Speaker 3: Like it's very very homogenous.
Speaker 2: Right, Like everybody plays football or basketball, everybody hunts with
their dads in October, and you know, and I can't
take fish off the hook.
Speaker 3: I still get teased about that.
Speaker 2: I have sensory issues and milking goats was like the
worst thing in the world for me.
Speaker 3: But I would try to figure it out.
Speaker 2: That might have been why I got yelled at by Heidi,
but it just, you know, some of those things. So
it was it was charring to bring some of that
stuff back. And it would be quite a while before
I learned any of the details of exactly what had happened.
Speaker 3: I knew it was a sexual crime. I knew that the.
Speaker 2: Samantha had been killed, but I couldn't really like I
couldn't not think about it, and I couldn't hold attention
long enough to read an article like through through some
of the upset. So I was I was like damned
in a way on both sides.
Speaker 3: And so it was it was very difficult.
Speaker 2: I wasn't comfortable talking to the people in my family
about it. It was very clear to me that they
weren't thinking about it the way that I was thinking
about it, which was like this weird you know, all
of a sudden, there was this weird distance on their
side of like, oh, like, you know, we still love
and support Heidi and like whatever else, and like I
can't believe he made those choices for himself and whatever else.
And I'm just like, like, I'm not saying Heidi like
asked the guy to develop this habit, but I like,
I have a really hard time that everybody just feels
this way now of oh, it's such a shame that
he decided to go make these decisions and do this thing.
And I'm just like, you know, I'm trying to think
of how old he would have been when he was arrested, right,
he was certainly an autonomous adult and whatever else. But
it's like, I don't know, it's a almost has to
be a system thing. And that's not to excuse his
part in it, but like, I didn't feel like I
could talk to any of the people in my family
about it because of that component and the way I
was thinking about it like even allowed the taint to
like travel out to us in a way, right, which
again I don't necessarily think is fair. But I wanted
to understand if there was a taint or if there
was this thing from it, Like, I wanted to work
to understand it from a place that it might exist,
rather than kind of this more distance approach that seemed
to be natural to the rest of my family. So
I don't know that was maybe maybe an over explanation
of an answer, but that was certainly how it felt.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting because to me, it kind of
speaks to like, and I've never been religious, but I've
spent a lot of time with Mormons, in particular, this
inability to really interrogate the impact of your religion on
its congregants and kind of like, well, we don't want
to attach this to like more holistic things like the
Keys family or either of the religions Keys was involved in,
and we're just going to say Keys was a bad apple.
Like I do think it's fascinating and very indicative of religion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and what's interesting to me, And again, they certainly
had their own very unique profile in terms of religious
affiliations that obviously has continued. Some of the things I've
heard about Heidi sense, you know, all made sense to
me in the way that maybe my parents were being
treated in some ways is like there's this way of
garnering support that's unconventional. One of the kind of almost
joke level things is like people leave the Mormon faith
and then love mushrooms. I've never done mushrooms, but like,
you know, it's kind of a maybe further expanded version
of like somebody who leaves the Mormon faith tries alcohol
for the first time, and it's just like, oh, I've
been lied to. Yeah, right, Like I don't feel like
driving my car into any schools, right, I just I'm
just a little bit loopy and laughing more easily at
people's jokes or whatever, whatever the effects are. I think
of that in some ways where I do think certain
rules in religion or somewhat arbitrary in terms of like,
you know, how else am I going to understand if
you're taking this barrier seriously other than to give you
one that's asinine, But if you follow it, then I
can understand that you've kind of accepted that we've agreed
to this as a boundary right, And that relays back
to me as a leader of that you know that
you're not necessarily under my control, but like we're aligned.
I have some influence with you, and now I can
feel better about, you know, whatever it is we talk
about or do. And I just have to think of
how many of those layers must have existed for somebody
like Israel who had this very limited life experience, this
very stringent kind of ideology and everything else around him,
and there's only so much for him to glean from,
like the world around him, because it just wasn't there
in a lot of ways, right, So the number of
times there must have been some example or some version
of that in his in his growing up or joining
the military or whatever else where, he's just like, oh,
that's what it is. Well, you know, we're like, I
don't know. I have to think that that played played
some role or at least, you know, complicated his ability
to navigate the world when he came across it, you know,
as as an adult or somebody who should have been yeah,
somebody who should have been an autonomous adult.
Speaker 1: I give him a lot of credit for existing in
such severe monoculture and then being an independent enough thinker
to challenge a lot of that. You know, he was bisexual,
he dated black women, he lived on indigenous reservations, and
I think in a culture like that, where you're surrounded
by everybody who has a strong shared belief, it would
be very hard to think outside that box. So I
give him credit for that, But then I also wonder, like,
what did that develop for future autonomous Israel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and the other way to think about it
would be I existed in this like fairly difficult, you
know whatever setting, So how is that possible? There was
like this little version of support group whatever else? So like,
does the version that I now maybe have a different
version of support group? Does the need for that trump
the ideology that might lead me to pick one group
versus another? But this one is the one that's available
to me, and having those things is so much more
a priority than something else. I don't know I'm inventing
at this point, but but yeah, it's and those were
things I would try to think about, right, obviously with
no new sources of information at the time, but it
was it was interesting to struggle with some of that
and then you know, some some difficulty when we eventually
my wife and I moved back to Utah for some
some family reasons with her family, and I'm trying. It
really was a lot of it was around that education book.
We were in a book club, and like, you know,
my wife, like anybody else her age and demographic whatever,
very interested in true crime. But it was like it
was like a third rail for me, Like if if
I caught the wrong five minutes of like a Criminal
Minds episode, like I would, I would struggle because it's
just like too real. The other thing that happened to me,
you know, so Israel dying in late twenty twelve, fast
forward to Charlottesville, and like I went years without wearing
a polo or a pair of khakis, like just in
total because like that's not that's not like a I
don't know, Like I know that that stuff is real.
I know that those people really feel that way. I
know those people can really be dangerous under the right circumstances.
I also know they're full of shit in a lot
of ways, and as weak and challenge as the rest
of us are about you know, our stage in life
or whatever. But like there were certain things like that
where and then when it became a curiosity in a way.
It was like, you know, I could tell like my
wife was more comfortable about it and like wanted me
to tell some of the people in the book club
and whatever else, and it was just like I'm not
I don't know how to be a person that can
talk about it. And also I don't know what the
value is, like what am I what am I bringing there?
And so this is this is the closest thing I
found to a platform where I think it could potentially
contribute anything to any one by sharing.
Speaker 1: I think it's incredibly helpful.
Speaker 3: For me.
Speaker 1: Like I'm not black and white about it. I think
we can better understand his crimes if we better understand him,
and that concludes the good parts. So I don't see
him as like holistically evil or you know, think that
this is all about identifying the bad parts of keys
to identify the bad that he did. I think it's
you know, not one thing in a weird way, right,
Like I'm I'm sure there was this dichotomy of kind
of juggling these two people for him, if that's how
he came to understand it, which is like if I
just want to go be a bad dude, like this
is just just just becomes a.
Speaker 2: Spree and I don't have to plan for the long term,
I don't have to do whatever else.
Speaker 3: And so like.
Speaker 2: That was another kind of puzzling thing to think through
for me because like maybe in a way, that's a
version of what happen as he was getting to a
point where that that side was winning out by the way,
I think. I think it was one of your podcasts
where you were talking about like like this guy wasn't
really that solid on the details, like he got he
got away with him stuff for a while. Like that
that resonated. It made sense to me because it's like,
I don't know, the first person you see juggle, it's
just like, oh, holy shit, how does this guy do this?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: But it's like you put him next to somebody who's
really good at juggling and it's like okay, So like
he's kind of doing the same thing that was That
was that was like kind of how I thought about
it at the time, because it's like, we're not like
the devastating thing that happened with Charlie Kirk, which is
not too far down the road. It was a similar
kind of thing. Right, some people are like, oh, this
must be like military train sniper and other people are
like or somebody who's ever been deer hunting right like that.
It was, it was that kind of a thing, and
and I think that was I think that was an
important note in the podcast that there were lots of
sloppiness or whatever else. I don't know where I'm trying
to go with this, but that was interesting and helpful
to me in a way that I'm not sure I
understand that. It was a helpful version of exploring that
for what that's worth.
Speaker 1: I only have a few more questions, and they're kind
of I don't know, on the darker side of things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when you found out.
Speaker 1: Initially that his crimes had a sexual component to them,
what what?
Speaker 3: What wenten for your head?
Speaker 2: So I being the type of person that I am,
I and maybe better understanding my own sexuality and my
relation to it. I I know some fairly intimate details
about some of my friends who have been sexually assaulted, so.
Speaker 3: We don't have to go there. I think it was.
Speaker 2: It was more difficult to hear from that perspective, and
in a weird way, you know, none of the none
of the women in my life who have shared any
of that with me to any degree had been attacked
by a by a professional kind of somebody. I don't
know the right way to say that, but and so
it was I I had a hard time fathoming one
version of it that I had heard about that I
did believe. I certainly didn't know how to wrap my
head around as somebody who could live with themselves performing
some of those things and sequestering that in some way, right, And.
Speaker 3: So that.
Speaker 2: Became very difficult to understand. And I even kind of
understood within that experience of you know, trying to process
this that I knew I had probably a different relationship
to the way some people might experience sexual need or
sexual desire, Like I just had observed enough differences in period.
But like it was, I don't know, it was so
like challenging to even wrap my head around. And then
of course there were like three more layers of that
when you know, the first time it might have been
your podcast or something else, when I heard more of
the nature and the timeline of the crimes, particularly with Samantha,
where there were so many like kind of layers and
you know, events and like the proximity to fant like
whatever else and it's just like, you know, probably took
me a month to listen to whatever that podcast episode
was that where that was some of that was happening,
because you know, and by by then it was important
to me to get through to the other side of it.
There had been some time, there had been some other things,
and it was almost in a way, it was just
more important for me to just like I call it
exposure therapy, right, like, I don't in a way, I
don't want to learn this information by accident in a
setting where somebody it's either being talked about or it's
being readdressed in the news and they're just like not
you know. This is somewhat similar to the smanth of
coding case where X y Z also happened and be like,
oh shit, I didn't know so, but it was.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And again it's not that I had this idea of
a Israel in my mind, of him like throwing his
coat over puddles for elderly women crossing the street or
things like that, but it was I guess the jarring
part was on the other side of it. There's one
thing I haven't told you, partially because it's just crazy
enough that like I don't really expect people to believe it,
and I almost have a fear that it could be
fifty percent invented fifty percent real. I very much believe
it's real. But we would do a thing called rat bashing.
They were like old abandoned sheds. We would just get
sharp objects and whatever else. And again it was not
it was something that I was more goaded to participate in.
And it was horrifying and it was whatever, but there
was like it was like the it was like my
ani ing up right to be at the poker hand.
Speaker 3: I'm going to lose all my money by the end.
Speaker 2: Of this, but like I would rather do this than
you know, wander off by myself or whatever else you
want to call it. I'm being defensive here. I don't
think you're you're trying to do that. But like I
I can remember this arcs shed even though it's the
middle of the day, so maybe kind of like some
utility building or something to that effect. And it was
it was just like rats crawling all over each other.
Speaker 3: They had like.
Speaker 2: Found this place and nested and whatever else, and you
would only hear what other people are doing. We could
not see inside the building, and I remember, you know,
kind of just being in there just long enough and
then like kind of seeing where the one silver of
light is and be like, okay, I'm out of here
right And partially because people are swinging sharp objects, I
don't know how close they are to me. But that
was like, so so I say, there's this impossibility to
wrap my head around this thing. But at the same time,
there's this other part of me that's just like, am
I allowed to be surprised at this, like in a
sense like that, you know, I just I had seen
I guess unique enough behavior and kind of this more
normalization in a way. And I don't know how he
even got to the normalization of the of the rat bashing,
for instance, but you know, so I far be it
from me to wout my head around something else.
Speaker 3: So that juxtaposition was.
Speaker 2: Probably the weirdest part to swallow, trying to make it
somewhat analogous to something I had known in my life
it's obviously not. And then at the same time hold
out in next to all the indications I would have
had that, you know, like I remember being in like
high school sociology class later on, or you know, something
to that effect, and them talking about the consistencies of
animal abuse and bedwetting and whatever else and you know,
serial killers or criminals of a certain type. And you know,
it was just like kind of like just shut your
mouth and try not to think about it kind of
a thing. Not that any of it was so egregious,
but it was. It was just like, oh, shoot, I'm
not you know, made me feel bad or like worried
for myself in a way, even even when I was
hearing that in my high school sociology class.
Speaker 1: That makes sense, but I also think you're a dumb
kid trying to fit in. I mean, yes, nine exactly.
Speaker 2: And by the way, like I've done other things where
it is just like, oh shit, this could this could
be for me, right, Like the first time I was
doing ninety on a highway, I was just like, oh,
this could be a habit.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: I don't don't let me near any country roads, you know.
And so so I'm comfortable enough with myself that I
now have a sense of you know, I don't have
any concern from the standpoint of like, oh I was
I was getting you know, some juice out of that,
and now I feel bad about that because I had
that proclivity or whatever. So I thankfully I'm comfortable enough
with some of those things, but taking some taking some
time just to I guess, reassure myself.
Speaker 3: I don't think I ever really felt the other way.
Speaker 1: But yeah, when you found out he was bisexual, that
did that come as a surprise to you.
Speaker 2: It did come as a surprise to me. And in fact,
there was like a moment in time where I kind
of putting the putting the israel Keys lens on it,
or at least what I knew of family background everything else.
And at the time I'm having this thought, I don't
think I knew about Tammy or that he had dated
women who were part of the bipod community. Certainly wasn't
aware of you know, him being with I want to
be careful here, but with like you know, trends, trends
or I want to say, one of my initial thoughts
putting that lens on it was just like, oh, I
wonder if this was like a weird like throwing them
off the scent kind of a thing of like or
the idea that like the killing was the more important
aspect for him. And in terms of like, you know,
the the high that he needed or whatever else like,
and that was me like trying to apply the lens
to it. And then as some of that settled and
I learned more of the other details, that that's when
I started to have more of the feeling of just like, oh,
if this is something that he had like maybe understood
about himself any younger age, he had years and years
and years to try to figure out how to even
be able to explore or think about or consider like,
but it was not there was not going to be
an opportunity in front of him. He was going to
be an opportunity he would have to find and then
you know, how to do that in a way that
you know, would not would.
Speaker 3: Not cost him socially.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that that became that came to way more
and more in my mind in terms of how, you know,
somebody might have developed a very unhealthy relationship with how
to find the things that they were desiring.
Speaker 1: It's interesting I never thought about it like this, but
you know, I was gay and only a few years
younger than Israel, and like growing up at that time,
like I still have a lot of rage for just
the way people talked about and treated gay people. And
then you think the environment he's in is like ten
times is homophobic, and there isn't any space to have
a differing point of view. And I'm sure that instilled
a lot of long term anger inside of him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's and that's part of why I like
having learned those things, Like it did make me like
kind of investigating my own experience of it. Right, not
to say that I I should have been some target
of his admiration or anything, but it's like, you know,
I don't know when he might have understood that about himself, right.
I am of the opinion that you know, people are
you know, more or less born that way. That's part
of our you know, we kind of have some built
in programming in a way. And so I don't know
when he might have been aware of that. But certainly
if it was, you know, he was he was effective
at masking it if it was, or or avoiding the topics.
But but again, it didn't it felt authentic once I
learned enough of the other factors, Like you were saying,
he had had this environment, but then like once he
was had other communities available to him, he was not
He was not timid about you know, trying to assimilate
or become a part of those and it can be helpful, right.
I think the the NA based stuff, I think he
probably maybe like that older brother thing, kind of felt
very good about the way that he could contribute there.
To borrow your analogy talking about Kim, that might have
felt very very different in contrast. Right, So that's that
was interesting to think about and how that might have
impacted his seeking opportunities to commit the crimes that he committed.
Speaker 1: Well, and like you said, his ability to like assimilate
into a community. He spent his whole childhood asking who
he really was and trying to fit in and doing
it somewhat successfully.
Speaker 2: So yeah, So, which, by the way, is just another
you know, heart kind of heartbreaking thing. I don't know
why this stood out to me as much as it did,
but just I guess, person to person, the my I
guess my last straw whatever with the LDS Church was
my cousin Lance, who was the second in his family,
and my uncle Dan on one side. They were both
both came in. I would hear the way they were
talked about by their own grandmothers or their mothers or
whatever when when they weren't around, and some of the stuff,
and like it was, it was something I never got
over and I had enough of my own, you know.
I just it was an interesting thing. And again that's
a very water day version of what somebody in Coleville
or that area would have would have experienced. And I
mean it makes me happy in a lot of ways
for what it's worth. Again the person to person's side.
I was at a professional event waiting for Gavin Newsom
to speak the morning of the oberger Fell decision. So we,
like hundreds of us, sat in the ball room in
the financial district of San Francisco. He was at least
an hour and a half late, and we all sat
there and listened to him for you know, forty five
minutes until you had to leave and go somewhere else.
And that was I was quite an experience. But anyway,
it makes me very grateful for the areas where where
progress has happened. And it's it's very scary to think
of this as one of the potentially one of the
avoidable outcomes of bigotry. And yeah, I want to I
would love to watch more poetic but I think that's
what I got there without.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess to close things. It's very clear
to me who Israel was and who he became has
had a huge impact on you, and that you've spent
a lot of time, I guess, not even just thinking
about it, interrogating your own experiences. Do you want to
touch on that at all?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I I'm trying to think of how much
this even has one thing has to do with another.
I think there's a very interesting parallel in a way,
like you could call it a diet version. And I
don't think I saw all of this right away, right
but there were there were things in ways that I
had to be to live in my household, to grow up,
you know, kind of keep the peace and whatever else.
Speaker 3: And I.
Speaker 2: Naturally grew to resent my parents for continuing to have children,
which is a weird instance. I was talking with a
therapist and was like kind of laying this thing out
when my sister that passed away nineteen ninety eight, sorry
she was born in ninety seven, passed away early in
nineteen ninety eight. I think I misspoke earlier when I
was talking about that, Like there was a part of
me that felt like I did it in a way
because like that was you know, I was like fourteen
when she was born. I was just like, I don't
understand what's going on here. I'm not being consulted, like
I'm part of the support system here. And thankfully I
have some very good memories of my sister who passed away. Like,
you know, I'm down in my room doing schoolwork or
whatever else I was doing, goofing off, and she was just.
Speaker 3: Crying and crying and crying, crying, crying.
Speaker 2: So I just quit what I was doing, went upstairs,
rocked her to sleep, put her back to sleep, and
so but there was this weird feeling of like my
having to participate in kind of the adult aspects of
the family when it's not something I saw. One of
the reasons I don't have any children on my own,
not that I've hadn't even mentioned that yet, but I
knew from a very young age that I would not
be interested or capable of having and caring for children.
That was just something I knew about myself. So I
don't think I understood some of those parallels. And then
as I did learn more about Israel and his trajectory,
none of it ever got any easier really, because again,
although we didn't make some of the same decisions like
I've had, and I think, like anyone does some self
destructive streaks and whatever else. And I think I was
probably looking for some of the common commonality points more
so than I needed to. It was, I guess a
better way of saying is I don't understand why it
seeded as deep as it did when some of those
things were learned, But I had been in and out
of therapy at different points of my life. It became
very important to me, and in a way that I
bottled up what I'm I guess I'm driving to at
this is like a year and a half after I
would have learned this about Israel having killed himself in prison,
and it had gained maybe enough information in that and
I was struggling in my own life for my own reasons.
Right had moved from northern Utah to a big city.
I had never lived in a big city. It was,
you know, my first real, big, serious, grown up job,
and things were just, I guess oft enough that I
was really frustrated challenge by things, trying to figure out
how to understand it, how to like get like my
skill set up to where I needed to be, because
it didn't seem as difficult for the other people I'm observing,
and that's probably how it always looks. And I saw
an opportunity. I didn't think about it, and I walked
in front of like an nineteen seventies like Sadan, a
big car, Like in my mind, it's a miracle that
the car stopped. They honked me. There's a bunch of
guys in it that just started yelling and like I
had never been like more let down in a way,
like I kind of had whatever that split second thing was.
And so in a weird way, that was helpful. I
spent like the next two or three weeks just being
scared of myself in a way, calling different mental health
facilities and being told of what Like one guy literally
told me, he's like, yeah, like okay, I definitely regommend
find somebody to talk to. He's like, I was like,
but I regularly try to keep people from throwing their
their shit at me. And I was just like, I
was like, I think I appreciate where you're trying to
stay here, but this doesn't like that is where I'm
at in my head.
Speaker 3: This is as messy as it's gotten.
Speaker 2: And I think there was a I think there were
a lot of important lessons that that came out of
drawing those analogies. I think I could have gotten there
with a lot less cost, had I not you know, chosen,
or had this example kind of placed in front of
me at a pivotal time. But yeah, I think because
of having left my own faith or kind of walked
away from some of the support systems that I had
had because they they were not as perfect as I
wanted them to be right for whatever version, But then
I was going into a setting where where I didn't
having a bad support system and figuring out how to
do that.
Speaker 3: I apologize.
Speaker 2: I keep I keep finding not very clean ways of
describing things that. Yeah, I apologize. I feel like I
got a little bit scrambled there.
Speaker 3: But it's okay.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you reaching out, and I think that this
interview is going to be helpful in ways you will
never imagine. So I really appreciate it. And I appreciate
you being candid and vulnerable and honest, because I'm sure
it's not easy to have these conversations. So I thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like, like I said, I kind of vacillated
between like how how health I can be or not,
But I do appreciate the way that you're you know,
exploring it. At the end of the day, it's a
it's like an information seeking exercise, right, We're not passing
judgment one way or the other. And so, yeah, I
appreciate that there might be some value to clean there,
and obviously I had the confidence that if there is,
you know, you would be at least on the very
short list of people that that would be able.
Speaker 3: To do that.
Speaker 2: One one thing that all that I'll say in closing
is I I do want to make an effort to
obtain some more identifiable information dates, times and things. So
like I'm I'm I'm happy to pursue that. And so
I was going to say, if there's you know, I
think I have a mental idea of what that list is.
But I was going to say, even if you have
a few things that's like, hey, this would essentially be
the wish list, right, Yeah, So even just getting a
description of the glasses from from my brother and some
of that stuff, I'm, you know, this is I only
want to do as much of this as as helpful,
and I think it would be a better judge of
that than I am that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, anything he said about that trip, like where he
was going after why he was there, incredibly helpful because
that trip is one it's like high on our priority list.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I would love to be I'd love to
be a piece of that.
Speaker 2: And yeah, thank you for some of the catharsists that
this has and will allow me to continue to digest.
I'd like to think that wasn't my only reason or purpose,
but certainly that'll be a benefit that I that I
get from it. And so we'll be happy to follow
up your emails and whatnot and help provide what I can.
Speaker 4: Yesterday anyway made it was how you time your days? Intonight?
Didn't you know? You can't bang him without ever? Even
banstop things? Aren't plants show you that you're breaking up?
Please on your dreams too fasting. You can't bang him
with ever even try.
Speaker 1: This episode was written, edited, and produced by Josh Hallmark,
and it was made possible by the following Patreon producers.
Amy Basel Kendall see how the Horton wheedon, Sherry d
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Lana Holiday, Rural, jur Tuesday Woodworth, Zach Agnotowitz, Warren, Kathleen Stuter, Annette, Elle, Casey, Jensen, Richardson,
sc Benjamin Choppafong, Trista, Nicole, Ashfish, Becky C Pink, Jen
j Cory d, Robin, Carroll, Jordan, M, Kate Lusier, John Comery,
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Michael Randall, d Wayne c, Jen, Justin Runyon and Trixie.
Thank you to True Crime Bullshit's newest Patreon supporters, Gail C,
Chelsea K Claire, Johnny, Suzy j kate E, Nancy, b,
Lee C and Lee El. To support the investigation, go
to Patreon dot com, slash Studio both and This episode's
featured music was by Kate Dalton
Speaker 3: Mois