The Happy Face Killer: Keith Hunter Jesperson’s Highway Murders
January 21, 1990. A young woman leaves a Portland bar with a charming stranger. By morning her body is dumped near the Columbia Gorge—raped, beaten, and strangled. Two people go to prison for the crime. The real killer is still driving.
Host Alexander Lawson tells the full story of Keith Hunter Jesperson, the long-haul trucker known as the Happy Face Killer. Between 1990 and 1995 he murdered at least eight women across six states, then taunted police and the press with confessions signed by a simple smiley face.
This episode covers the wrongful convictions that almost let him get away, the…
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