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Speaker 5: True Murder The most shocking killers in true crime history
Speaker 5: and the authors that have written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer,
Speaker 5: The Nightstalker BTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about
Speaker 5: the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history.
Speaker 5: True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zupansky,
Speaker 5: Good Evening. He was a hard working small business owner,
Speaker 5: an army veteran, an attentive lover, and a doting father.
Speaker 5: But he was also something more, something sinister, A master
Speaker 5: of deception. He was a rapist, arsonist, and bank robber,
Speaker 5: and a new breed of serial killer, one who studied
Speaker 5: other killers.
Speaker 3: To perfect his craft. He methodically buried kill kits containing
Speaker 3: his tools and murder years before returning to reclaim them.
Speaker 3: Viewing the entire country as his hunting grounds, he often
Speaker 3: flew across the country to distant locations where he would
Speaker 3: rent a car and drive hundreds or even thousands of
Speaker 3: miles before randomly selecting his victims. Such were the methods
Speaker 3: and madness of serial killer Israel Keys. Such were the
Speaker 3: demands of the Devil in the Darkness. The book they
Speaker 3: were featuring this evening is Devil in the Darkness, The
Speaker 3: True Story of serial killer Israel Keys, with my special guests,
Speaker 3: journalist and author J. T.
Speaker 6: Hunter.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the program, and thank you for agreeing
Speaker 3: to this interview.
Speaker 6: J T. Hunter, Thanks for earing back. Then, thank you
Speaker 6: very much. DT.
Speaker 3: Another amazing and wild story you've gotten your hands on
Speaker 3: and good for our audience and myself. So thanks very much.
Speaker 3: Let's start with We're going to jump right into this
Speaker 3: because there's a lot to cover it. It's a very
Speaker 3: very strange and odd and unique tale. Let's first talk
Speaker 3: about Bill and his wife Courier, and so let's talk
Speaker 3: about let's talk about this couple and what they were like.
Speaker 3: Because she was forty nine years old and Bill fifty five,
Speaker 3: and we're talking about they live in Vermont. So tell
Speaker 3: us a little bit where they're living in Vermont and
Speaker 3: what this couple is like. I'll tell us a little
Speaker 3: bit about this these people.
Speaker 7: Okay, yeah, Bill and Lorraine Courier, As you said, they
Speaker 7: were living in ethics Vermont, which is a smaller town
Speaker 7: not far from Burlington, and they were a married couple
Speaker 7: living together and Bill worked at the University of Vermont
Speaker 7: there in Burlington. He was an animal care worker technician,
Speaker 7: and Braine worked in the medical field also in the
Speaker 7: Burlington area.
Speaker 6: There.
Speaker 3: Now these people. You open the story basically or soon
Speaker 3: after in the book, you talk about Diana Smith calling police.
Speaker 3: It's her brother and sister in law didn't show up
Speaker 3: for work. And then a police are alerted. So take
Speaker 3: us to where the police are at this investigation. They've
Speaker 3: been called and they go to the home. Tell us
Speaker 3: what they find, what their conclusions are.
Speaker 6: Tell us about that.
Speaker 7: So when the police were called about had this missing
Speaker 7: person report, and they showed up at the courier's house
Speaker 7: and everything looked fine when they first arrived there, they
Speaker 7: you know, they started looking around the perimeter of the
Speaker 7: house there, and they peered into the garage one of
Speaker 7: the windows into the garage, and they noticed that there
Speaker 7: was broken glass on the floor in the garage inside
Speaker 7: from the door connecting the garage to the house. Turned
Speaker 7: out it went from the garage into the kitchen of
Speaker 7: the home and the glass had been shattered out from
Speaker 7: that door, and they went from there. They went inside
Speaker 7: and they saw that it look like somebody had broke
Speaker 7: the window with a crowbar from the garage. And then
Speaker 7: we're able to unlock and open the door that way
Speaker 7: and get access to the house. And when they went
Speaker 7: inside the house, it looked looked like everything was pretty
Speaker 7: much where it should be. It wasn't as if someone
Speaker 7: had ran backed the home or anything like that. But
Speaker 7: both Bill and the rain they were both missing, and
Speaker 7: their car was missing as well.
Speaker 3: Now the police canvassed the neighbors and some of the
Speaker 3: neighbors said they had heard a gunshot around nine pm
Speaker 3: and someone had spotted someone driving the Courier's Saturn. They
Speaker 3: said a lone man was driving and there was a
Speaker 3: former cop was the witness. An accompass it sketch was
Speaker 3: made as a result. But tell us, again, this is
Speaker 3: a series of very frustrating things. But Detective Murdy was
Speaker 3: curious about this tipster. So tell us what happened with
Speaker 3: this tipster and what seemed to be a pretty promising
Speaker 3: lead early on.
Speaker 7: You're talking about the tipster of seeing the car being driven.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was a former police officer.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Yeah, they had that information come in and you know,
Speaker 7: it turned out that they weren't sure how accurate that
Speaker 7: ended up being, but they did end up doing so.
Speaker 7: They ended up finding the car abandoned a few days
Speaker 7: after the couriers were abducted a few days after they
Speaker 7: reported missing. The car was found abandoned by a dumpster
Speaker 7: in a parking lot parking lot of an apartment complex
Speaker 7: in Essex. There So they did ultimately recover the car,
Speaker 7: but were not able to at that point ascertain the whereabouts.
Speaker 7: Still a bill on the rain. So it was a
Speaker 7: very frustrating case, as I think you mentioned, especially for
Speaker 7: the chief detective involved in the case, George Murdy up
Speaker 7: there in the Essex Police Department, just really no solid
Speaker 7: leads whatsoever in the case. It was very perplexing case
Speaker 7: for him.
Speaker 6: And they ran to the normal things.
Speaker 3: They checked to computers and checked where they these people
Speaker 3: might have run into a potential perpetrator. And Murdy did
Speaker 3: call someone and had a consultation with the behavioral analysis
Speaker 3: unit in Quantico. And so what did the case, what
Speaker 3: did it look like in terms of amateurism, and what
Speaker 3: did it look like in terms of what did they
Speaker 3: have as a result of the crime scene itself. What
Speaker 3: real evidence of any did they have after this, Well, there.
Speaker 7: Wasn't really a lot of evidence for them to go on,
Speaker 7: and that's part of why it was so frustrating. I mean,
Speaker 7: they had they had the evidence of the obvious break in,
Speaker 7: and there were some things missing from the home. For instance,
Speaker 7: Lorraine was known to have a handgun that was missing
Speaker 7: from the home, but a lot of things weren't weren't missing,
Speaker 7: and there wasn't a lot of evidence to try to
Speaker 7: connect to anyone. So that's what made the case so
Speaker 7: frustrating for the officers working it. And as you mentioned,
Speaker 7: they to consult with the FBI, the Behavioral Analysis unit there,
Speaker 7: and they did get a report back from the FBI
Speaker 7: and that and the FBI made a bunch of suggestions
Speaker 7: and you know, offered their theory as to what sort
Speaker 7: of person may have done this. And one of the
Speaker 7: things the FBI advised Essex Police Department to do was
Speaker 7: to look into some of the activities that Bill and
Speaker 7: Lorraine were involved in. For instance, Bill was online quite
Speaker 7: a bit, so they wondered, well, maybe did he meet
Speaker 7: somebody online somehow that led to this, and you know,
Speaker 7: Lorraine had become very vocal.
Speaker 6: With respect to.
Speaker 7: Conservative values and things, and so they wondered to somehow
Speaker 7: speaking out about this and somehow attract somebody's attention. So,
Speaker 7: but there wasn't any real solid leads, and the FBI
Speaker 7: had even offered the opinion that it was somebody that
Speaker 7: most likely had known them, because it would really be
Speaker 7: out of the ordinary, be quite extraordinary for it to
Speaker 7: be some sort of random abduction.
Speaker 3: Now you jump to Anchorage, Alaska, and you describe and
Speaker 3: then you show a photo in the book as well
Speaker 3: as very interesting when you think of a coffee place,
Speaker 3: but this is an actual coffee stand that's sitting out
Speaker 3: in the streets, basically according at least according to the photo.
Speaker 3: So tell us a little bit about these coffee stands
Speaker 3: in Anchorage, Alaska, this common ground and a young girl
Speaker 3: that's eighteen years old named Samantha koning Yeah, So.
Speaker 7: The couriers that disappeared in June of twenty eleven and
Speaker 7: then in February of the next year, of twenty twelve,
Speaker 7: Samantha Konig, who was eighteen year years old and who
Speaker 7: worked at one of these coffee shops. As you mentioned,
Speaker 7: these coffee shops are pretty common in the Anchorage area.
Speaker 7: They're scattered around the city, different locations. And she worked
Speaker 7: at one called common Grounds, and it was stationed near
Speaker 7: a major intersection, in a parking lot at a major
Speaker 7: road intersection there in the city, and she worked there.
Speaker 7: She had been working there for a few months, I believe,
Speaker 7: and on a night in February, she was working there
Speaker 7: by herself, which was the common practice there at night.
Speaker 7: And Israel Keys had scoped out the particular coffee shop
Speaker 7: a few days before and decided that he was going
Speaker 7: to do something to it. At first, he thought he
Speaker 7: would just rob it whoever was working there, but when
Speaker 7: he ended up actually going to commit the robbery, he
Speaker 7: decided to take it further, and he ended up abducting
Speaker 7: Samantha Koonik from the coffee shop there at gunpoint.
Speaker 6: You describe the whole.
Speaker 3: Thing because you have the benefit of having that incredible
Speaker 3: access to the information and won't give away how that happens,
Speaker 3: but at least you describe. And again this is the
Speaker 3: most moviesque portion of the book, I would think, and
Speaker 3: so profound is that he's at the stand but he
Speaker 3: realizes that there's someone across the street at a car dealership.
Speaker 3: And Samantha is eighteen years old, and obviously this person
Speaker 3: is older and more experienced. So what does this person
Speaker 3: do to abduct someone? What does he have to what's
Speaker 3: the process he has to do to be able to
Speaker 3: get her to comply, not have this person be suspicious.
Speaker 3: You take us that into that in the book. Tell
Speaker 3: us what really happens and how to illustrate early on
Speaker 3: this killer.
Speaker 6: Tell us what he does well.
Speaker 7: The coffee shop, it's it's the type where they have
Speaker 7: the order window where you can drive up in order
Speaker 7: and then you drive off, or you can walk up
Speaker 7: to it to the window and order. And so he
Speaker 7: walked up there close to closing time and had had
Speaker 7: his own cup or mug for coffee, ordered to coffee,
Speaker 7: and then as she was fixing it, he pulled out
Speaker 7: the gun, told her to turn the lights off in
Speaker 7: the store, which she did. And you know, one of
Speaker 7: the kind of tragic things was it turned out that
Speaker 7: right next to the light switches was the alarm for
Speaker 7: you know, an emergency. And you know, you can imagine
Speaker 7: though this eighteen year old girl, she's frightened at her
Speaker 7: with someone holding a gun on her. So she didn't
Speaker 7: think to trigger the alarm there, but she turned the
Speaker 7: lights off, and he he noticed, as you said, this
Speaker 7: person in the car across the way, so he just
Speaker 7: kind of calmly stood there and talked to her and
Speaker 7: kind of acted like, you know, he was her boyfriend
Speaker 7: or some sort of acquaintance or friend or something, and
Speaker 7: they were just kind of chatting until the person in
Speaker 7: the car finally decided that must be what's going on
Speaker 7: in fact, and then drove off and left. And then
Speaker 7: once the person in the car left, Ke's jumped in
Speaker 7: through the window and tied up Samantha Konig, using these
Speaker 7: plastic cable ties, tied her hands and bound her and
Speaker 7: then ended up walking her back to his truck, which
Speaker 7: he had parked not too far away in a parking lot,
Speaker 7: and took her away in his truck. And you know,
Speaker 7: and along the way he they encountered some people out
Speaker 7: going to stores and parking lots, you know, not too
Speaker 7: far away from him. But he stayed very calm throughout
Speaker 7: the whole thing. Had the gun there, and that got
Speaker 7: her in the truck, even after she tried to get
Speaker 7: away one time. And then they drove around for a
Speaker 7: while and he ended up taking her back to his
Speaker 7: actual residence, which was the first time that he had
Speaker 7: done this sort of thing. He kind of had a
Speaker 7: rule that he wouldn't take any victims anywhere near where
Speaker 7: he lived in the area he lived, but he got
Speaker 7: a little brazen and more bold as things went on,
Speaker 7: and so he took her back to his house and
Speaker 7: put her in a shed that was adjacent to the
Speaker 7: house there and ended up sexually assaulting her and ultimately
Speaker 7: killed her.
Speaker 3: Now you talk about a heartbreaking part of it is
Speaker 3: her father, James Koning, didn't like her working alone in
Speaker 3: this and didn't even like her working at this place
Speaker 3: at all, had some kind of instinct that something might
Speaker 3: be He was very protective of her. He raised her
Speaker 3: himself as a single dad, and they were very close,
Speaker 3: as you talk about in the book. And so she
Speaker 3: also part of this compliance is is that he explains
Speaker 3: to her, he convinces her that this is a ransom.
Speaker 3: So tell us a little bit about what she says
Speaker 3: about the phone call and about her dad and what
Speaker 3: she tries to do to try to worm away out
Speaker 3: of this situation, and what he tells her to even
Speaker 3: be more compliant and compliance is what's really turning them
Speaker 3: on about the situation, isn't it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, as you said, he in order to keep her calmon,
Speaker 7: to have her be compliant with his demands, he did
Speaker 7: spend the whole thing as being an abduction purely for
Speaker 7: a ransom, and that that's what he was after. He
Speaker 7: just wanted money from her family. But all along, you know,
Speaker 7: he knew it was so baloney. He really wasn't the
Speaker 7: reason for take for taking her, but he did. He
Speaker 7: did tell her that was the reason and set set
Speaker 7: this whole thing up so that she would believe that's
Speaker 7: what he was going to do, so that she would
Speaker 7: you know, she wouldn't freak out. You know, obviously she
Speaker 7: knew he was planning on raping her and killing her,
Speaker 7: then she probably would have been a little more aggressive
Speaker 7: in her actions to try to get away. At one point,
Speaker 7: even when they were in the truck together stopped at
Speaker 7: a stop light, a patrol car from the Anchoraged Police
Speaker 7: department pulled up right next to them, so you know,
Speaker 7: her potential rescuers were literally a couple of feet away there.
Speaker 7: But you know, she she didn't do anything to draw
Speaker 7: draw attention to what was going on. Because you know,
Speaker 7: one she was afraid, obviously, and then two she thought
Speaker 7: she did what this guy said that you know, she
Speaker 7: would eventually be let go. He would let her go once,
Speaker 7: you know, the ransom came.
Speaker 3: Now, she was eighteen years old. She had a boyfriend
Speaker 3: named Dwayne, and Dwayne she had given up her truck
Speaker 3: to Dwayne so that because he didn't have a vehicle,
Speaker 3: and she said, well, her cousin Dan would pick her up.
Speaker 3: But unbeknownst to her, the boyfriend Dwayne was going to
Speaker 3: pick her up and wanted to pick her up. And
Speaker 3: so tell us a little bit about Dwayne and him
Speaker 3: going to the stand and leaving work.
Speaker 7: Yeah, as you said, he didn't have a working vehicle
Speaker 7: at the time, so she let him take his take
Speaker 7: her truck to his work, and he decided he was
Speaker 7: going to come by and pick her up after work
Speaker 7: because he didn't trust the person that was supposed to
Speaker 7: pick her up will be doing it. So so yeah,
Speaker 7: he came by the coffee stand after she had been abducted,
Speaker 7: and of course found it. He found it dark, all
Speaker 7: the lights were off, but nothing really stood out that
Speaker 7: there was anything to be particularly alarmed about, because it
Speaker 7: looked like as far as he could. He it looked
Speaker 7: like she just closed the coffee stand down like she
Speaker 7: normally did so, but he did. He did stop by there,
Speaker 7: and he stood there appearing in the window, trying to
Speaker 7: trying to find her, and texted her and called her.
Speaker 7: And of course meanwhile these texts and phone calls were
Speaker 7: going through to her phone that Israel Keys now had.
Speaker 3: Now you go into great detail because again we have
Speaker 3: access Israel Keys, pardon me this, well, I've given it away,
Speaker 3: but obviously we mentioned his name. Anyway, Israel Keys, the
Speaker 3: very unique killer. And of course, like many, they want
Speaker 3: to talk later at some point. And this part of
Speaker 3: the fast fascinating part of your book is again access
Speaker 3: to that kind of profound and shocking information. You talk
Speaker 3: about how she tries to deal with him when she
Speaker 3: realizes and she asks the question, and so I'll get
Speaker 3: you two to say what she asks of him and
Speaker 3: what his reaction is, and then the contraption. This guy's
Speaker 3: a very handy person. He's we'll talk about his skills later,
Speaker 3: but tell us what he has set up so that
Speaker 3: we understand the magnitude and the I guess the uniqueness
Speaker 3: of this killer.
Speaker 7: What he's set up as far as you're talking about
Speaker 7: the shed, yes, So he had given a lot of
Speaker 7: forethought to what he was going to be doing. And
Speaker 7: you know, he was one of these organized serial killers
Speaker 7: plans these things out well in advance, So he had
Speaker 7: done this ahead of time, and he had prepared the
Speaker 7: shed for ringing whoever it was he ended up abducting.
Speaker 7: Back over there, he had, you know, he had the
Speaker 7: floor lined so that there wouldn't be DNA evidence left there,
Speaker 7: and he had the whole thing set up for a
Speaker 7: sexual assault that he intended and and what he would
Speaker 7: be doing afterwards. And you know, once she got in
Speaker 7: there and realized that he was planning on raping her before,
Speaker 7: she tried to talk him out of it and pleaded
Speaker 7: with him, and you know, offered some some things to
Speaker 7: him and his uh which you know, I'll.
Speaker 6: Leave for the book.
Speaker 7: But he he he kind of laughed it off, basically,
Speaker 7: and and just went ahead with what he planned on doing.
Speaker 3: Now, he strangles her, and he stuffs her in his cabinet,
Speaker 3: and he knows that the temperature is enough to be
Speaker 3: able to preserve her. That's what he believes. He stuffs
Speaker 3: her in, puts a top and then he leaves. But
Speaker 3: where does he go and how long does he go
Speaker 3: for before we talk about the incredible and bizarre thing
Speaker 3: he does when he gets back.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so after he killed her, as he said, he
Speaker 7: stuffed her in a shed in a in a in
Speaker 7: the shed there, he had the cabinet there he put
Speaker 7: her in. And you know, it's Anchorage, Alaska in February,
Speaker 7: so it's it's cold. So he felt confident that her
Speaker 7: body would just kind of be preserved there by the cold,
Speaker 7: kind of a natural refrigeration, which which it did ultimately.
Speaker 7: But yeah, he after he did that, he he caught
Speaker 7: a flight to Texas and ended up going on a
Speaker 7: cruise out of New Orleans and then flew back to
Speaker 7: back home, back to Anchorage about ten days later or so,
Speaker 7: and got her found her body there's frozen solid where
Speaker 7: he had left it, and he actually took it out
Speaker 7: and had the body start fawn out, had some heaters
Speaker 7: out to help thought out, and did some did some
Speaker 7: things to it then not only a very disturbed person
Speaker 7: would do, and then ultimately ended up dismembering the body
Speaker 7: to dispose of it, dispose of the body parts, which
Speaker 7: he ended up doing he in a frozen lake not
Speaker 7: too far outside of anchorage.
Speaker 3: Well, the truly bizarre thing is what he does before,
Speaker 3: because of course we skipped over what happens after Samantha
Speaker 3: Coining goes missing our father, So tell us about what
Speaker 3: happens with that investigation. And then when Israel Keys comes
Speaker 3: back from his cruise, what does he do in response.
Speaker 6: To the reward for Samantha.
Speaker 3: And even the idea that people don't know whether she's
Speaker 3: dead or not. What is going on at the same
Speaker 3: time he's on his cruise, and how does he respond
Speaker 3: when he comes back, and how does he respond with
Speaker 3: that body and what does he do?
Speaker 7: Well, At first, nobody thought too much about Samantha's disappearance.
Speaker 7: You know, her boyfriend was worried, was concerned. Her father
Speaker 7: thought maybe she was just kind of out with friends
Speaker 7: for the night, so he wasn't too concerned at first,
Speaker 7: but when she didn't show up, you know, by the
Speaker 7: next morning, they really got concerned, and they ended up
Speaker 7: contacting the employer, the owner of the common ground's copy shop,
Speaker 7: and the employer went back and reviewed the security camera
Speaker 7: video footage from the night she was abducted, and sure
Speaker 7: enough they had it on tape that there she is
Speaker 7: being held up at gunpoint and this dark figure coming
Speaker 7: in the window of the shop and ultimately taking her away.
Speaker 7: And you can see video footage for one of the
Speaker 7: cameras outside the stand, you can see Israel Keys leading
Speaker 7: her away through the snow and the darkness to his truck.
Speaker 7: And once he learned that there had been a big
Speaker 7: ransom formed and growing after she was missing, you know,
Speaker 7: as a reward for any information for her return, he
Speaker 7: got back to Alaska and decided he was going to
Speaker 7: go forward with this ransom idea after all. So he
Speaker 7: before he got rid of her body, he actually went
Speaker 7: to great lengths to apply various makeup to kind of
Speaker 7: style her hair to make it look like she was alive,
Speaker 7: to add color to her face to make it look
Speaker 7: like he was actually alive. And he staged a photograph
Speaker 7: of her with a edition of the newspaper to make
Speaker 7: it appear that she was actually alive. And then he
Speaker 7: sent a left a ransom note along with the picture,
Speaker 7: demanding money for her return. So he fooled everybody that
Speaker 7: she was still alive. She made he made her father
Speaker 7: think that she was still alive. He made the Anchorage
Speaker 7: Police Department. Folks believed she was still alive, all for
Speaker 7: the purposes of getting this money from the reward fund
Speaker 7: that had been growing. There was a huge support from
Speaker 7: the community to try to find her big out pouring
Speaker 7: a support from everybody around there, and a lot of
Speaker 7: people contributed to this reward fund. So he did leave
Speaker 7: the ransom note and the police recovered it, and I guess,
Speaker 7: sort of the ironic thing is that that's ultimately what
Speaker 7: led to his being captured eventually.
Speaker 3: Now the thing is is that it's and it's interesting
Speaker 3: is that he can only get five hundred dollars that
Speaker 3: the stipulation is he has stolen her ATM card. So
Speaker 3: then he stipulates in the ransom that he wants that
Speaker 3: money put in her account so he can take it out.
Speaker 3: So of course the police react. What do the police
Speaker 3: do with every ATM machine in Anchorage? And tell us
Speaker 3: what they get as a result, not to give it away,
Speaker 3: but tell us what they're looking for and how far
Speaker 3: are they behind this perpetrator and what is he doing
Speaker 3: to disguise his appearance.
Speaker 7: So after he leaves the ransom note and the police
Speaker 7: get it and they start actually putting money into this account.
Speaker 7: As you mentioned, he starts taking money out from Samantha
Speaker 7: Kunig's bank account using her ATM card. And what he
Speaker 7: does is just starts going around different ATM machines in
Speaker 7: the Anchorage area and taking out little bits at a time,
Speaker 7: you know, the maximum amount he can because there's you know,
Speaker 7: the withdrawal limits that I guess all ATMs have. So
Speaker 7: he starts doing that. But you know, of course, by
Speaker 7: the time the police ascertain where he's doing this, he's
Speaker 7: long gone by the time they can get to that
Speaker 7: particular location. And he's also you know, sometimes he disguises himself,
Speaker 7: wears a mask or whatnot so that the camera won't
Speaker 7: pick up his real face. But that is that's something
Speaker 7: that he does in Anchorage, and then he continues that
Speaker 7: when he he leaves and catches a flight to uh To,
Speaker 7: Texas to to go to his sister's wedding there. He
Speaker 7: continues this these withdrawals of ATMs all over the area
Speaker 7: in Arizona, New Mexico, and ultimate only in Texas as well,
Speaker 7: which as I mentioned before, is what ends up leading
Speaker 7: to his capture because what happens is that one of
Speaker 7: the ATMs that he draws money from in Texas. The
Speaker 7: video cameras there are, the security cameras at the ATM
Speaker 7: at the bank capture an image of the car he's driving.
Speaker 7: It's a rental car, a white Ford Focus, and so
Speaker 7: they get that on video. So finally, now the FBI
Speaker 7: and the other law enforcement evolved. Now finally they have
Speaker 7: something that they can work with to try to find them.
Speaker 7: He goes and tries to trade in the rental car,
Speaker 7: you know, not even knowing that he's been captured on
Speaker 7: a video, but you know, to help just help cover
Speaker 7: his tracks more. He goes and tries to trade in
Speaker 7: the rental car at a rental car agency. I think
Speaker 7: it was Herts in Texas there and the only car
Speaker 7: that they have at the location he goes to is
Speaker 7: the same exact make and model and even color. Same thing.
Speaker 7: All they have is a white Ford Focus. So he
Speaker 7: does trade the car in for a different one, but
Speaker 7: it's the same same car basically. So the law enforcement
Speaker 7: is looking for this white Ford Focus and now they're
Speaker 7: still looking for a white Word Focus, so they're still
Speaker 7: able to stay on his tracks. And sure enough, a
Speaker 7: few days later, several days later, they a member of
Speaker 7: the Texas High Patrol spots a car matching the description
Speaker 7: in the parking lot of a quality in hotel in
Speaker 7: the town in Texas there in Lufkin, Texas, and they
Speaker 7: end up following him when he leaves the hotel and
Speaker 7: are able to pull him over when he heeds a
Speaker 7: little bit and goes a few miles over this feed limit,
Speaker 7: so they're able to pull him over, and when they
Speaker 7: ask for his license, of course, he produces this Alaska license,
Speaker 7: which sends up a big red flag too, and he's arrested.
Speaker 7: Ultimately arrested.
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Speaker 3: talked about finally the law catching up to Israel Keys.
Speaker 3: And part of this you chronicle in the book too,
Speaker 3: is that this guy has this and we'll talk about
Speaker 3: this double life a little bit more. But he had
Speaker 3: met this woman named Tammy and they had a serious
Speaker 3: relationship and there's a child involved here as well, and
Speaker 3: he is arrested and of course, as he talks about,
Speaker 3: there's going to be an awfully lot of people surprised
Speaker 3: by the rest of this person. So tell us about
Speaker 3: that initial arrest my police and what they did. Just
Speaker 3: tell us about that initial arrest and what police are
Speaker 3: just beginning to learn about Israel Keys.
Speaker 7: Well, after he was arrested, he was you know, he
Speaker 7: was arraigned and ultimately a complaint with fil against them
Speaker 7: in federal court based on his use of the ATM card,
Speaker 7: so the Konigs ATM card. So he had the federal
Speaker 7: case brought against him, and he was ultimately sent back
Speaker 7: to Alaska, and he through the course of being interviewed
Speaker 7: with the both the Alaska Police Department members and also
Speaker 7: FBI agents and also the federal prosecutor, he ultimately ended
Speaker 7: up admitting killing Samantha Konig and revealed where he had
Speaker 7: hit her body. And there was an interesting dynamic that
Speaker 7: was going on and during the interviews. On the one hand,
Speaker 7: Keys seemed excited when he talked about his crimes and
Speaker 7: things he had done. He grew visibly excited, you know,
Speaker 7: kind of came on the edge of his seat and
Speaker 7: really really seemed to enjoy talking about it. But then
Speaker 7: on the other hand, he was very concerned about what
Speaker 7: effect the information about his crimes would have on his daughter.
Speaker 7: As you mentioned, he had a he had a daughter.
Speaker 7: And that's one of the really interesting things about Keys
Speaker 7: to me was, you know, when you think about these
Speaker 7: these serial killers, you know, they have these psychopathic personalities.
Speaker 7: They tend to not really have the sort of emotions
Speaker 7: that you or I might have or the empathy for
Speaker 7: other people. But in Key's case, he actually seemed to
Speaker 7: be genuinely concerned about the welfare of his daughter. He
Speaker 7: really seemed to have true feelings for her, and from
Speaker 7: all accounts, he was a very good father, doting father
Speaker 7: to her. So that really struck me as really one
Speaker 7: of the fascinating aspects of Key's personality in the case
Speaker 7: was this concern for the daughter. So so there was
Speaker 7: this this dynamic going on during the course of all
Speaker 7: the interviews. He was always worried about trying to keep
Speaker 7: control of the information that was being let out about
Speaker 7: the things he had done. He didn't want his name
Speaker 7: associated with these crimes. He wanted his name kept out
Speaker 7: of the media so that his daughter wouldn't have to
Speaker 7: read about the things he had done, you know, on
Speaker 7: Google or something online. So that was a big concern
Speaker 7: of his. During the course of his talks with law
Speaker 7: enforcement too.
Speaker 3: He created conditions. Really manipulative and quite an intelligent guy,
Speaker 3: at least it seemed in these negotiations that he wanted
Speaker 3: conditions before divulging information to these officers. He had struck
Speaker 3: up a relationship with a detective Monique Dahl, and he
Speaker 3: only wanted to speak to her, and it was few
Speaker 3: people that he wanted to speak to, but those people
Speaker 3: he developed a relationship. He was very as you write,
Speaker 3: he was very calm, he was laughing, he was very thought.
Speaker 3: It was enjoyable when he relived some of the things.
Speaker 3: But he wanted conditions on divulging. Based on that, he
Speaker 3: wanted to be executed, and he won assurances that execution
Speaker 3: and as you talk, he didn't want to go be
Speaker 3: tried in different states. He wanted federal charges, so he
Speaker 3: was informed of what the laws were. He knew a
Speaker 3: fair amount tell us as you do, about how he
Speaker 3: had set this up so that he had some semblance
Speaker 3: of control. He had control of the situation, at least
Speaker 3: in his mind.
Speaker 7: Yeah, there were really there were two main points of
Speaker 7: agenda that he had. Two main things he really wanted.
Speaker 7: One was what I mentioned about the you know, protecting
Speaker 7: his daughter and family as much as possible. But the
Speaker 7: other one is this wanting to get the death penalty,
Speaker 7: and just that he wanted the death penalty, but he
Speaker 7: wanted it quickly. He wanted it to be imposed as
Speaker 7: fast as possible. He wanted he wanted to do whatever
Speaker 7: was possible to speed up the process, because you know,
Speaker 7: the death penalty isn't something that's done very rapidly. It
Speaker 7: takes a long time to go through that process, and
Speaker 7: ultimately to even get to the point where the person
Speaker 7: who receives it actually is is executed, can take you know,
Speaker 7: decades in some cases. So he wanted to speed all
Speaker 7: that up. He wanted to get the death pinitty quickly.
Speaker 7: He wanted to be executed quickly. And he explained it
Speaker 7: in terms of he was used to, you know, being
Speaker 7: able to go wherever he wanted to and traveling around.
Speaker 7: You know, he traveled all over the country for his killings,
Speaker 7: and he didn't want to be sitting around in some
Speaker 7: big kind of supermacs federal prison, you know, staring at
Speaker 7: the walls. He he wanted to he wanted to go
Speaker 7: out when, as he phrased it, when he still had
Speaker 7: his sanity, you know, while he still had good memories
Speaker 7: and things. He didn't want to kind of be dying
Speaker 7: inside while he was stuck in a cell. So he
Speaker 7: really pushed this this death penalty. So, you know, he
Speaker 7: he used bargaining chips. He you know, he kind of
Speaker 7: played games with the investigators and tried to manipulate them
Speaker 7: and tried to get what he wanted, and you know,
Speaker 7: it all boiled back to control. A lot of these
Speaker 7: serial killers want control, and of course he wanted to
Speaker 7: have control as well, and so he would kind of
Speaker 7: tantalize the investigator from time to time, give him little
Speaker 7: hints of things he had done, give them a little
Speaker 7: bit of information to keep them working with him. Uh
Speaker 7: And you know, out of the course of that he
Speaker 7: got talked into a few times actually revealing things. He
Speaker 7: did admit to killing Samantha Koonig, and it did ultimately
Speaker 7: tell the authorities where her body was and they went
Speaker 7: and retrieved her her body parts. And he also ended
Speaker 7: up admitting ultimately to abducting and killing the couriers back
Speaker 7: in Vermont, in Essex, Vermont, which was which you know,
Speaker 7: really was a huge break for the Essex Police, you know,
Speaker 7: and Georgia Murdy and the others working on it, because
Speaker 7: you know, they had that There's no way in a
Speaker 7: million years they ever would have connected him to that
Speaker 7: case if he hadn't admitted to it. So so that
Speaker 7: was one of the bits of information he did provide.
Speaker 7: He gave a lot of specifics about that case and
Speaker 7: went into great detail about how he abducted them and
Speaker 7: what happened later that night where he took them, what
Speaker 7: he did to them, and how he disposed of their bodies.
Speaker 3: It was a it is a fascinating story where you
Speaker 3: talk about Israel telling the authorities again excitingly telling, recalling
Speaker 3: with no absolutely not a ounce of remorse, that they
Speaker 3: both tried to fight for their lives and escape, which
Speaker 3: didn't work, obviously, but they were the rain was struggling
Speaker 3: and almost got out of her zip ties, and he
Speaker 3: then subdued her. Bill the same thing and fought hard,
Speaker 3: and Israel went out of his went out of his
Speaker 3: emo and shot him numerous times, emptied his gun in Bill.
Speaker 3: So it's interesting to hear those kinds of details as
Speaker 3: rare that you get those kinds of details via any
Speaker 3: method in a murder. So it's very it was at least,
Speaker 3: I don't know, some semblance of good that people had
Speaker 3: those details, at least to know what happened in the
Speaker 3: last hours of the courier's life.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the shooting of Bill is really you know, he's
Speaker 7: you know, he said that that was the only time
Speaker 7: he had ever used the gun. He never had to
Speaker 7: shoot somebody. And the reason why was Bill was not
Speaker 7: doing things like he wanted to according to this plan
Speaker 7: that Keys had for what he was going to do
Speaker 7: with Bill and Lorraine that night. Bill wasn't following the
Speaker 7: script so to speak, that Keys had thought out ahead
Speaker 7: of time, and so that just infuriated him because, you know,
Speaker 7: he wanted to have this control over the situation about
Speaker 7: what he would do when he would do it, and
Speaker 7: so Bill's resistance to that really screwed it up, and
Speaker 7: so Keys became furious and ended up getting the guns
Speaker 7: and shooting him. You know, he had tied Bill up,
Speaker 7: had him downstairs in the basement of an abandoned house
Speaker 7: that he took the two of them too. He had
Speaker 7: Lorraine upstairs in the second floor in a bedroom where
Speaker 7: he sexually assaulted her. But while he was doing that,
Speaker 7: Bill got free in the basement he'd been tied up
Speaker 7: to a chair down there, and got out of the
Speaker 7: the tithe and was down there, you know, cosnic commotion,
Speaker 7: trying to get away, and so Israel Keys went down
Speaker 7: there and confronted him and ended up imphying the gun
Speaker 7: to kill him. At a rage.
Speaker 3: Basically part of this too, that what Israel wanted and
Speaker 3: he tried to control, and he did control to a
Speaker 3: great degree. There were negotiations with these officers to get
Speaker 3: what he wanted. Was also that he wanted, and I
Speaker 3: thought it was incredible that they actually complied with this,
Speaker 3: is that they kept his name out of the media.
Speaker 3: They made an announcement that there was charges, but they
Speaker 3: didn't mention any name, which is what he wanted and
Speaker 3: what happened despite what he wanted.
Speaker 7: Yeah, as you mentioned, you know, this was one of
Speaker 7: the key conditions that keeping his name out of the
Speaker 7: out of the media. And when he admitted to the
Speaker 7: killing the couriers, that was one of the big conditions
Speaker 7: he had on that that would.
Speaker 6: Not be.
Speaker 7: Revealed that he was the one who did it. And
Speaker 7: you know, law enforcement agreed to do that, and their
Speaker 7: rationale for doing that was to keep him talking, to
Speaker 7: keep him revealing information about other crimes he had committed
Speaker 7: about other victims, so that they could try to bring
Speaker 7: some sort of closure to the families of his other victims.
Speaker 7: So they agreed to do this. They kept his name
Speaker 7: out for quite a long time and kept him talking,
Speaker 7: and of course it was It was hard for the
Speaker 7: folks back in Vermont to do that because you know,
Speaker 7: they wanted to be able to give the ultimate closure
Speaker 7: to Bill Moraine's family and let them know who it
Speaker 7: was who had done it, but that they had their
Speaker 7: hands kind of tied behind their back back due to
Speaker 7: the agreements that had been made with him on the
Speaker 7: federal level. So they went, they went along with it.
Speaker 7: The family, a Courier family was told kind of what
Speaker 7: was happening, and they agreed to it as well because
Speaker 7: they wanted to try to help out other victims, the
Speaker 7: families of other victims as well, to try to try
Speaker 7: to get their loved ones identified. So so his name
Speaker 7: was kept out of the media for months and months
Speaker 7: as the as the FBI kept interviewing him, trying to
Speaker 7: get work with him to get more information.
Speaker 3: Now, what ended this relationship that was developing and they
Speaker 3: were they were getting he was alluding to other crimes.
Speaker 3: He was promising he was going to reveal about other
Speaker 3: things if he just got his his conditions met. And
Speaker 3: what happened with this promise, Like I say, what happened
Speaker 3: despite the promise by police, by everybody's efforts, what happened.
Speaker 7: Well, somehow his name was was learned, and it was.
Speaker 6: It was.
Speaker 7: Run and some me news media ran the story that
Speaker 7: his name, that he was the one that had had
Speaker 7: abducted them. But you know, of course they they they
Speaker 7: would not acknowledge or confirm that, but his name was
Speaker 7: out there, and when he saw that he was, he
Speaker 7: was furious about it, and it really caused him to
Speaker 7: clam up quite a bit for a while. He went
Speaker 7: and talked to the FBI or the prosecutors for quite
Speaker 7: a while after that, and they kind of had to
Speaker 7: get his trust back after that. For for a while,
Speaker 7: they had to work at it.
Speaker 3: Now everybody's ready, they're they're working towards this deal. Despite
Speaker 3: this setback and he's imprisoned. Is there any you I
Speaker 3: guess I'm giving it away. But he's on a suicide watch,
Speaker 3: and obviously nothing happens while he's on that suicide watch.
Speaker 3: But what happens before this trial to change this entire story.
Speaker 7: Well, even though he was on suicide watch and got
Speaker 7: off of it and was deemed no longer a risk
Speaker 7: to kill himself and was actually in a segregated unit,
Speaker 7: you know, in an isolated unit there at the anchorage,
Speaker 7: correctional complex where he was supposed to be you know,
Speaker 7: closely monitored and very restricted with what sort of things
Speaker 7: he had access to. He was ultimately able to kill
Speaker 7: himself while he was in prison there. He ended up
Speaker 7: somehow getting a razor and used that to slit his wrist,
Speaker 7: and also ended up setting up a way that he
Speaker 7: would end up strangling himself as well. So he wanted
Speaker 7: to be you know, like everything else, he planned these
Speaker 7: things well ahead of time and planned out to make
Speaker 7: sure that when he tried to kill himself, he actually
Speaker 7: succeeded in doing it, so he had not just one
Speaker 7: way of doing it, but two ways of doing it.
Speaker 7: So he did end up killing himself, and it was
Speaker 7: a huge blow to the investigators because they really thought
Speaker 7: they had this connection with him. They really were hoping
Speaker 7: to still get a lot of information from him about
Speaker 7: other victims, because he had dropped tidbits of information about
Speaker 7: quite a few murders that he had committed without giving
Speaker 7: specifics or identifying the actual victims and things. So they
Speaker 7: were really hoping to get more information from him for this,
Speaker 7: but he ended up taking all that information with him,
Speaker 7: and you know, again that goes back to this control issue.
Speaker 7: It's control he had. He had the ability to keep
Speaker 7: that information for himself, and that's ultimately what he did.
Speaker 7: He even mentioned that at one point that you know,
Speaker 7: it's the victims' names and identities belonged to him unless
Speaker 7: he decided to reveal them.
Speaker 3: Very profound scene in the book is that Tammy says
Speaker 3: that she talked to him a day or two before
Speaker 3: he seemed to be upbeat. She had maybe thought that
Speaker 3: he may commit suicide, but at least she didn't hear
Speaker 3: that in that conversation, and she said to him, don't
Speaker 3: kill yourself. You can raise our daughter from prison. Obviously
Speaker 3: they were still in contact. Very amazing that this woman
Speaker 3: would still be in contact at the same time. But
Speaker 3: what do you think in terms of well not would
Speaker 3: you think he alluded to with those investigators though without
Speaker 3: giving again every detail that they obviously wanted. But there
Speaker 3: was a total that he had alluded to, and then
Speaker 3: investigators had thought that revised that number. So what was
Speaker 3: the number that he had alluded to? At least it
Speaker 3: seemed that he had given enough information to more than
Speaker 3: strongly suggest a number.
Speaker 6: What were those numbers?
Speaker 7: Yeah, so he gave he did give that information, and
Speaker 7: he gave specifics in a couple of them. Gave specific
Speaker 7: detailed information in the Samantha Cony case, he gave specific
Speaker 7: detailed information in the Courier case. So that was three
Speaker 7: murders between those. But then he also gave bits of
Speaker 7: information enough to convince the interviewer, there's interviewers that these
Speaker 7: are things he'd actually done. So he ultimately admitted to
Speaker 7: about seven or eight murders, and the FBI believed, based
Speaker 7: on other things he had said and alluded to, believed
Speaker 7: that he had killed at least eleven people. Is ultimately
Speaker 7: what they decided. But unfortunately they weren't able to identify
Speaker 7: those other specific victims. He didn't give him enough information
Speaker 7: to do that. And you know, so by killing himself,
Speaker 7: he was able to keep these cases unsolved. You know,
Speaker 7: it's unfortunate for the families of these victims, but that's
Speaker 7: something he chose that he wanted to do. He wanted
Speaker 7: to keep that to himself, and the investigators had even
Speaker 7: appeal tried to appeal to his you know, kind of
Speaker 7: better nature about giving some sort of closure to the
Speaker 7: victims' families. You know, they appealed to him about that
Speaker 7: you know, these families deserved to have some kind of
Speaker 7: closure and be able to put.
Speaker 6: This behind them.
Speaker 7: But so he thought about that, and then he came
Speaker 7: back the next day basically and said, you know, I've
Speaker 7: thought about this issue about closure. But he said, you know,
Speaker 7: if someone I loved was missing, you know, would I
Speaker 7: rather think that maybe that they're somewhere on a beach
Speaker 7: or something, or would I rather know that they were
Speaker 7: horribly raped and murdered or something like that. So he
Speaker 7: decided that, you know, this issue of closure was not
Speaker 7: going to get him to reveal any of the other
Speaker 7: specifics about these other victims.
Speaker 3: There was a suicide note soaked in blood. Again, they
Speaker 3: had to look at that for any kind of promising
Speaker 3: lead in terms of evidence of something he might have said,
Speaker 3: deathbed confession.
Speaker 6: So they went through.
Speaker 3: So the FBI grabs a tele what the FBI did
Speaker 3: and how they managed to get information from that note
Speaker 3: and what did this note contain.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the note was multiple pages, handwritten on you know,
Speaker 7: kind of legal sized type paper, and as you said,
Speaker 7: it was saturated in blood. It couldn't be read when
Speaker 7: they first found it. It was so so saturated, so soaked.
Speaker 7: But they were able to send it back to their
Speaker 7: analysts and they were able to ultimately to decipher what
Speaker 7: was written there, and it's a really interesting suicide note
Speaker 7: in terms of the things that he wrote there. They
Speaker 7: ultimately determined that there wasn't anything in the note that
Speaker 7: would help them find other victims or anything of that sort.
Speaker 7: But it is a very interesting note to read, nonetheless,
Speaker 7: and you know that the text of it is is
Speaker 7: included in the book as well.
Speaker 3: He had tried to helps the police with Google maps
Speaker 3: and and talk of his kill kits, and we alluded
Speaker 3: to that, and again we've heard of kill kits. People
Speaker 3: are fans of true crime, noble kill kits. But what
Speaker 3: was the unique aspect of this guy and his kill kits.
Speaker 7: Well, the really the really interesting thing about him. One
Speaker 7: of the other interesting things about him, and as you said,
Speaker 7: is probably unique, is that he had these kill kits.
Speaker 7: And what he would do is he would he would have,
Speaker 7: you know, one of these plastic buckets that you can
Speaker 7: get at Low's or home depot, and he would put
Speaker 7: items in there that he planned on using and committing
Speaker 7: his crimes, you know, be it cable ties or guns
Speaker 7: or duct tape whatever else.
Speaker 6: They happened to be.
Speaker 7: He would put that in there, he would seal it up,
Speaker 7: and he would he would then bury this bucket in
Speaker 7: the ground at a location that he determined that he
Speaker 7: would come back to in the future. So he buried
Speaker 7: these all over the country. A couple of them were
Speaker 7: recovered because he gave specific information about where to find them,
Speaker 7: and a bunch of them weren't, so they're you know,
Speaker 7: they're still out there somewhere. But you know, a specific
Speaker 7: example of one is he had buried one of these
Speaker 7: kill kits in Essex, Vermont in April of two thousand
Speaker 7: and nine when he was in the area there, and
Speaker 7: then he came back over two years later in June
Speaker 7: of twenty eleven and dug up the kill kit and
Speaker 7: then ultimately used the things in it to abduct the courier.
Speaker 7: So this is something he planned out well over two
Speaker 7: years in advance the commission of this crime. He buried
Speaker 7: this kill kit, came back, dug it up, and then
Speaker 7: used it in the future for this crime.
Speaker 3: What about James Koning, This guy's a kind of a
Speaker 3: tough guy, or at least has a tough image a
Speaker 3: little bit, and he went his extraordinary effort to put
Speaker 3: out the word with the flyers and the rewards and
Speaker 3: everything that he tried to do to get his daughter back.
Speaker 3: You capture the almost pathetic the plea with the would
Speaker 3: be ransom or that would be kidnapper. Meanwhile his daughter
Speaker 3: was already dead. What is his reaction to the authorities
Speaker 3: letting this guy that had stole the key and was
Speaker 3: placed in segregation and tried to escape one time and
Speaker 3: acted up at court breaking.
Speaker 6: A leg shackle.
Speaker 3: What was his reaction to this guy being able to
Speaker 3: escape justice?
Speaker 7: He felt cheated. He felt that Keith had cheated him,
Speaker 7: had cheated his daughter Samantha, of their ability to receive justice,
Speaker 7: to see he to have Keys put on trial and
Speaker 7: to get some sort of closure in that respect, and
Speaker 7: to see him prosecuted. And so James felt very, very cheated.
Speaker 7: He was outraged. He really kind of understand how Keyes
Speaker 7: was able to get this razor that he used to
Speaker 7: kill himself. So he was he was outraged, he was angry,
Speaker 7: he was mad. He felt cheated. He felt as if
Speaker 7: you know, Keys had committed another crime, basically had robbed
Speaker 7: him of the opportunity and his daughter of the opportunity
Speaker 7: for justice.
Speaker 3: Now we talked to I mentioned his Key's girlfriend, Tammy,
Speaker 3: and they had the daughter. Tammy had gone through Key's
Speaker 3: journals and she was privy to his past. And so
Speaker 3: you talk about in the book and again with your
Speaker 3: incredible access, not that any and can explain this kind
Speaker 3: of behavior and this kind of need to kill or
Speaker 3: want to kill, But tell us what you found anyway
Speaker 3: in terms of the background of this guy, his religious family.
Speaker 6: Tell us about.
Speaker 3: Not that it can explain anything, but tell us about
Speaker 3: his curious and interesting background that you talk about in
Speaker 3: the book.
Speaker 7: Well, he came from a very large family. He had
Speaker 7: nine siblings. He was the oldest son, and he was
Speaker 7: homeschooled for most of his life. And his parents were
Speaker 7: very strict, especially his mother. They were religious, a very
Speaker 7: strict sort of religious environment in the home there. And
Speaker 7: Keith came to resent this, this imposition of this religion
Speaker 7: on him, and that became a big part of his
Speaker 7: personality that he developed. And you know, as he as
Speaker 7: he went through his adolescence and as he got into
Speaker 7: his teenage years, he began to see that he was
Speaker 7: different than most people. That he he was he didn't
Speaker 7: see things the way other people did. And you know,
Speaker 7: there's one story in particular he related to the investigators
Speaker 7: and it's in the book as well as how when
Speaker 7: he was fourteen, it was really the kind of the
Speaker 7: moment that he really knew that there was something different
Speaker 7: about him, that he wasn't like other people. And it
Speaker 7: was a story about you know, animal torture. Again, this
Speaker 7: is one of the things we hear about a lot,
Speaker 7: right with serial killers, is that you know, if they're
Speaker 7: torturing animals when they're kids, then that's a big should
Speaker 7: raise a big red flag. So sure enough, he has
Speaker 7: a story about torturing a cat, and you know, seeing
Speaker 7: the reaction of the people is with when it happened.
Speaker 7: You know, most of them are kind of freaking out
Speaker 7: or getting physically ill even from it. They're so traumatized
Speaker 7: by the experience, whereas he thought the whole thing was funny,
Speaker 7: you know. And that's when he realized that he was
Speaker 7: way different than a lot of other people.
Speaker 3: And he also realized at that time that because he
Speaker 3: was way different than other people, almost like the story
Speaker 3: in Dexter, that he should remain again a solo act,
Speaker 3: not try to tell people or not divulge this stuff
Speaker 3: to anyone. So the next time he the first time
Speaker 3: he ever talks about this to anyone, is not his wife,
Speaker 3: it's not his girlfriends, it's not in a drunken slip
Speaker 3: up to friends. And that's what he talks about when
Speaker 3: he when he first gets arrested, that people won't believe
Speaker 3: that this is me. They're going to be quite shocked.
Speaker 3: So he really dedicated in his life to being very
Speaker 3: very meticulous and careful in and methodical as you describe
Speaker 3: most methodical serial killer ever really in that he was
Speaker 3: very very careful, methodic, and traveled and did, like we
Speaker 3: alluded to in the beginning, studied other serial killers, and
Speaker 3: it seemed to be that he understood other people's mistakes
Speaker 3: and didn't want to make them.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and this this ability to maintain these dual lives,
Speaker 7: to to have this this life, this this quote normal
Speaker 7: life where he was living with his girlfriend, Tammy Hawkins,
Speaker 7: who they actually ended up getting engaged. That's all discussed
Speaker 7: in the book as well. So he he he had
Speaker 7: this life, this normalcy life where he lived with her,
Speaker 7: where he had a daughter, where he had a you know,
Speaker 7: a job, where he was well liked in the community.
Speaker 7: All these sorts of things seemed, you know, like the
Speaker 7: kind of a normal person he had that life, but
Speaker 7: then he had this this dark side where he was,
Speaker 7: you know, brutally murdering people. And he really enjoyed that.
Speaker 7: He enjoyed the knowledge that he was able to fool
Speaker 7: all these people. He talked about that how you know,
Speaker 7: he would be out with with some friends, you know,
Speaker 7: having a beer or whatever, at a party or something,
Speaker 7: and you know, he would he would enter his mind
Speaker 7: while that was going on that you know, none of
Speaker 7: these people really know know me. You know, I'm fooling
Speaker 7: all these people. You know, I've been able to to
Speaker 7: maintain this, this this dual life without anybody knowing. And
Speaker 7: that really that really excited him that he was able
Speaker 7: to do that. He really took a lot of satisfaction
Speaker 7: from the fact that he was able to do that,
Speaker 7: and he did it so well. He was able to
Speaker 7: fool this woman that he lived with for you know,
Speaker 7: for years, she had no idea that he was doing
Speaker 7: these things, committing these terrible acts, and and he fooled
Speaker 7: a lot of people that way.
Speaker 3: Didn't He also will say that that part of this
Speaker 3: was that he was an inconsequential and a son of
Speaker 3: a person not to be noticed, wasn't Didn't he make
Speaker 3: that profound statement as well?
Speaker 7: Well, he did say that if after he was arrested
Speaker 7: in everything, and during one of the univies, he did
Speaker 7: mention that when investigators went back, as he knew they would,
Speaker 7: and you know, went back and looked into his background
Speaker 7: and his past and started talking to people who knew
Speaker 7: him and all this sort of thing, that there wouldn't
Speaker 7: be a lot there, you know, for much of his.
Speaker 6: Life, that he was.
Speaker 7: Really kind of off the off the grid, so to speak,
Speaker 7: for much of his life. So he he did comment
Speaker 7: about that, yeah, at one point, that there wouldn't be
Speaker 7: a whole lot there that they would be able to
Speaker 7: find out, and that they wouldn't be able to learn
Speaker 7: anything about his other victims unless he chose to reveal
Speaker 7: information about them. He was so meticulous and so careful
Speaker 7: to make sure he covered his tracks.
Speaker 3: What I thought was interesting too, and quite unique, is
Speaker 3: I've heard people I read about people inappropriately laughing or
Speaker 3: again almost jovial in the recounting of murders. But this
Speaker 3: guy laughed a lot, and smiled a lot, and winked
Speaker 3: a lot, didn't.
Speaker 7: He yeah, he really enjoyed talking about it. You know,
Speaker 7: he he felt a lot of satisfaction in doing these things,
Speaker 7: and you know, exhibited the classic traits of not feeling
Speaker 7: any kind of remorse for these brutal acts that he
Speaker 7: had committed. You know, he enjoyed doing them. He enjoyed
Speaker 7: telling them about him. And it was interesting too. He
Speaker 7: actually revealed his his motivations for the killings too. He
Speaker 7: was asked about, you know, why are you why did
Speaker 7: you do it things? I mean, why do you why
Speaker 7: do you why did you keep killing these people and
Speaker 7: doing these these terrible things, And he said, uh, he
Speaker 7: said it was a combination of things, really, he said,
Speaker 7: he said, it's not just about the sexual fantasy, you know,
Speaker 7: this kind of rape fantasy, of this having this power
Speaker 7: over and over human being sort of thing. He says,
Speaker 7: it's not just about the sexual fantasy. And it's definitely
Speaker 7: not about the money. You know, he got the money,
Speaker 7: he got the money from ransoms or from robbing banks
Speaker 7: that he did and these sorts of things. And he said,
Speaker 7: it's not just about the adrenaline. You know, obviously he
Speaker 7: he got this these adrenaline surges doing these things, you know,
Speaker 7: kind of like a drug. You know, there's an addiction
Speaker 7: there with that. So he said, it's not just this,
Speaker 7: it's not just that. It's not just that. He said,
Speaker 7: it's all those things together. He said, it's the it's
Speaker 7: the sexual fantasy component, it's the money, it's the adrenaline,
Speaker 7: the high he gets from doing it. It's all those
Speaker 7: things together is what him doing it. And he said,
Speaker 7: he said, once he started, he said, there was nothing
Speaker 7: else like it, So that's why he kept doing it.
Speaker 3: One last thing, he there is a again a profound
Speaker 3: short discussion on whether he was born A detective thought
Speaker 3: maybe he was not born a monster, but he was
Speaker 3: created and what did Israel keys? How did he respond
Speaker 3: to that?
Speaker 7: Yeah, early on in the interview process, I think it
Speaker 7: was a detective doll from the Anchorage Police Department. I
Speaker 7: mentioned that that she didn't she thought that they were
Speaker 7: they were monsters, were were created somehow, and so he
Speaker 7: he he wanted to to give her an answer to that,
Speaker 7: and his response was, you know something along the lines of,
Speaker 7: you know, that's that's just that's who I am. That's
Speaker 7: how I've always been and that's how I always will be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, basically, you talk about to the it's very very
Speaker 3: odd again the response from the Keys family. I mean,
Speaker 3: only you talk about just a handful of people attending
Speaker 3: the funeral, and then there's their response. So before we
Speaker 3: wrap it up, what you write about it? What was
Speaker 3: their response to this whole thing to their family member.
Speaker 7: Yeah, there weren't a lot of people that attended his funeral.
Speaker 7: Barely any of his family attended. And you know, his
Speaker 7: as I mentioned earlier on his his mother was had
Speaker 7: these very strict religious views and you know, not even
Speaker 7: not even really kind of your your normal sort of
Speaker 7: religious beliefs and viewpoints. And she was very very much
Speaker 7: of the belief that Keys, that her son was, you know,
Speaker 7: would would essentially be burning in hell for all eternity
Speaker 7: for what he had done. And so she she didn't
Speaker 7: have the sort of emotional parental reaction that you might
Speaker 7: expect that a mother might have. You know, a lot
Speaker 7: in a lot of these cases or these where people
Speaker 7: do terrible things, the you know, the mother in particular,
Speaker 7: you hear them still saying I still love my child
Speaker 7: even though they did these things. But you didn't get
Speaker 7: that from her. You know, she was more of you know,
Speaker 7: he he was a bad person. He was a sinner
Speaker 7: and now he's paying for what he did. You know
Speaker 7: his soul was going to be eternally tormented.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, very interesting case. I want to thank you
Speaker 3: very much JT for coming on and talking about Devil
Speaker 3: in the Darkness, true story of serial killer Israel Keys.
Speaker 3: For those that might want to find out more about
Speaker 3: your work, do Facebook, you have a website, tell us
Speaker 3: about that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I am on Facebook. You just google JT. Hunter.
Speaker 7: But the easiest way to do it is through Amazon
Speaker 7: dot Com. If you go on there and you know,
Speaker 7: you can type in the book title Devil in the Darkness,
Speaker 7: it'll pop up, or you can just type in JT.
Speaker 7: Hunter and it'll take you to my author page and
Speaker 7: it has a Devil in the Darkness on there, as
Speaker 7: well as the other books I've written as well, you know,
Speaker 7: including The Vampire next Door, which was my first one
Speaker 7: from a few years back.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah, it was fascinating. Well, I want to thank
Speaker 3: you very much, JT. I hope to speak to you
Speaker 3: again soon. I know you're a prolific writer, so we
Speaker 3: will be talking to you again in near future. But
Speaker 3: thank you very much for this, and you have a
Speaker 3: great evening, good night.
Speaker 7: All right, Dan, Thanks for having me on I enjoyed it,
Speaker 7: Take care.
Speaker 3: Thanks all life
Speaker 4: It