Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Serial Killer Israel Keyes 'Broke His Own Rule,' Lost Control

Transcript

Serial Killer Israel Keyes 'Broke His Own Rule,' Lost Control · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You know when you suggested this whole deep dive on Israel, Keys,
• 0:05
  I gotta say I knew the name, but I didn't
• 0:07
  realize just how deep this would go. This isn't like
• 0:09
  our usual true crime case. This is like going way
• 0:12
  down the rabbit hole, you know.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right on the money with that. I mean,
• 0:16
  we're talking about a guy who wasn't content with just
• 0:19
  you know, murder, robbery's arson, you name it. Keys was
• 0:22
  into it. And the creepiest part is he was flying
• 0:26
  under the radar doing all this for over a decade. Yeah,
• 0:29
  building this whole normal guy facade while he's out there.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: That's what gets me. You know, we always think of
• 0:35
  these criminals, especially the really bad ones, as like these
• 0:37
  messed up loaners. But Keys just throws that out the window.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: He really does. And to get how he pulled it off,
• 0:42
  we get to rewind a bit, go back to his childhood.
• 0:45
  Not saying it's the only reason or anything, but there's
• 0:47
  no denying it was messed up.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you mentioned his upbringing being super isolated. What was
• 0:51
  so strange about where he grew up? You think it
• 0:53
  really affected him that much?
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Okay, picture this. Keyes spent a chunk of his childhood
• 1:00
  way out in Washington State, right, huge family, and they
• 1:04
  were all about this hardcore religious thing. And I'm not
• 1:06
  talking to your average church group here. This was some
• 1:09
  serious anti government, white supremacist stuff. Really warped their whole worldview,
• 1:15
  you know.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Intent. So it wasn't just religion, it was like this
• 1:18
  whole environment.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: I guess exactly. It was everything all the time. And
• 1:23
  then you add in the constant.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Violence, right, hunting, and all that hunting was.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Just the start. I mean, Keys himself admitted to some
• 1:30
  seriously messed up stuff with animals when he was a kid,
• 1:33
  skinned deer alive as a teenager. I call that up
• 1:35
  seriously dead serious. Now, to be clear, doesn't mean it's
• 1:39
  a one to one cause and effect. Right, You've got
• 1:41
  to wonder how much that stuff desensitized him, made violence normal.
• 1:45
  You know, most people will be horrified, but.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: For him, just another Tuesday. It's chillin' man. To think
• 1:51
  he was already so detached as a kid makes you
• 1:53
  wonder if he's even capable of empathy. But then there's
• 1:56
  the whole military thing.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Don't get me started. That's the part that really he
• 2:00
  throws me for a loop. Here's this guy serving his
• 2:03
  country honorably discharged in two thousand and all the while
• 2:08
  he might have already been knee deep in criminal activity.
• 2:11
  Talk about leading a double life.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: It's mind blowing. Right. You read accounts from other soldiers
• 2:15
  and they're like, yeah, quiet guy, maybe kept to himself
• 2:17
  a bit, nothing out of the ordinary, zero indication of
• 2:20
  the darkness underneath.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: It just goes to show how good he was at compartmentalizing,
• 2:24
  at putting on this act. And I don't even think
• 2:26
  he was acting, not really. I think he fully believed it,
• 2:29
  you know, convinced everyone he was just an average joe. Meanwhile,
• 2:32
  he's meticulously planning and executing crimes, getting bolder each time,
• 2:36
  which leads.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Us to how he actually pulled those crimes off his
• 2:39
  mo Right, what was it about Keys's approach that made
• 2:42
  him such a tough nut to crack for law enforcement?
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: It was like he was playing by his own set
• 2:46
  of rules, totally random. Unlike most serial killers who go
• 2:50
  after a certain type, Keys didn't discriminate man, woman, old, young,
• 2:55
  didn't matter to him. He chose his victims like he
• 2:58
  was throwing darts at a map, completely random, making it
• 3:01
  nearly impossible to connect the dots.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: And it's not just the random victims, right, it's the
• 3:05
  lengths this guy went to, paying cash for everything, or
• 3:08
  burn her phones, always thinking ahead. But you know what
• 3:11
  really gets under my skin. The murder kits.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Those murder kits were straight out of a nightmare.
• 3:16
  Buckets full of weapons, tools, even draino, and he would
• 3:20
  bury them close to where he was planning to do
• 3:22
  the deed. Sometimes get this years beforehand.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Talk about chilling right to think about that level of planning,
• 3:28
  that cold blooded calculation. What does that say about his
• 3:31
  mental state.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: It's like he needed to control every little thing, eliminate
• 3:35
  any chance of a screw up. This wasn't some crime
• 3:38
  of passion, no way. This was pure calculated evil.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: And the fact that he was targeting people randomly all
• 3:44
  over the country just makes it even scarier. It's like
• 3:47
  nobody was safe. It could have been anyone anywhere at
• 3:49
  any time, like some messed up game he was playing.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: And here's the worst part. We might never know how
• 3:55
  many people he actually hurt. I mean, yeah, he was
• 3:58
  caught and confessed to some murders. William and Lorraine Courier
• 4:02
  in Vermont and Samantha conig in Alaska, but he implied
• 4:07
  there were others, lots of others, victims whose stories we
• 4:11
  might never hear.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: See. That's what makes this whole thing so unsettling. You
• 4:15
  have those confirmed victims and their stories are absolutely tragic,
• 4:18
  But then there are all these other potential victims, like
• 4:20
  that possible link to the triple homicide in boker Raton, Florida.
• 4:25
  What's the deal with that one?
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, So Keys was connected to this bank robbery in
• 4:29
  Boca happened just a few days before. A couple and
• 4:32
  their housekeepers are found dead in their home, same area.
• 4:35
  Keys was there at the time, and his violence seemed
• 4:37
  to be.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Escalating, so definitely got their attention.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Definitely, Investigators are definitely looking at him for that one man.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: So we have these confirmed cases, all these hints at
• 4:46
  other victims, and then Keys takes the easy way out
• 4:50
  in prison suicide, takes his secrets with him. It's almost
• 4:54
  too much, you know.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's heavy stuff, But we got to remember, for
• 4:57
  all his planning, Key slipped up. He was human made mistakes.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: And one of those mistakes kind of ironic considering how
• 5:05
  careful he usually was involved. Samantha Koenig's ATM card Bingo.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: After he killed Samantha, he used her ATM card a
• 5:13
  bunch of times, left a trail across state lines. That
• 5:17
  and the description of his car finally gave law enforcement
• 5:20
  something to work with. Put out a bilo on him.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: And that bilo is what led to his arrest, pulled
• 5:25
  over in Texas for a busted taylight. It's crazy, right,
• 5:28
  this guy, so careful, so meticulous, brought down by something
• 5:32
  so small.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: It's like they say pride comes before the fall, right. Yeah,
• 5:36
  he started getting cocky, thought he was invincible and that's
• 5:39
  all it took.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: So they arrest him. They're building the case, and then
• 5:42
  he tries to escape from prison. It's like he couldn't
• 5:45
  stand not being in control anymore, even locked up exactly.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: And when the escape fell apart, he went for the
• 5:50
  ultimate act of control suicide.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: It blows my mind, you know, the sky, so careful,
• 5:57
  so obsessed with having everything just so, and he ends
• 6:00
  up taking his own life. Just doesn't add up.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: It was like his final screw you to the world. Yeah,
• 6:06
  he couldn't control being caught, but he could control how
• 6:09
  it ended, and taking all those secrets with him. That
• 6:13
  was just icing on the cake. I mean, we have
• 6:15
  his confessions, yeah, but he hints it that way more
• 6:18
  leaves everyone trying to piece together a puzzle that might
• 6:21
  never be finished.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: And that's the haunting part.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: We know about the confirmed victims, but then there are
• 6:27
  all these question marks, all these missing people who might
• 6:30
  have been as victims but will never know for sure.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: It's crucial to remember those folks, the family still searching,
• 6:36
  still grieving, never getting closure. It's gotta be the worst
• 6:40
  part of Key's legacy, you know, than not knowing totally.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: For every case they closed, there are tons that just
• 6:46
  go cold, leaves those families in limbo, stuck with unanswered
• 6:50
  questions forever, and.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: It gets worse. Keys wasn't just some lone wolf cooking
• 6:53
  up these horrible plans on his own. He was digging
• 6:56
  into other serial killers, studying them, Bundy especially.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the Bundy thing kept popping up in my research too.
• 7:03
  What was it about Bundy that fascinated Keys so much?
• 7:06
  Was it the meticulous planning, how he could charm his victims,
• 7:10
  or was it something even darker, like some twisted brotherhood.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: That's the million dollar question, right, Yeah, Criminologists and psychologists
• 7:17
  are still scratching their heads over that one. But there's
• 7:20
  no doubt Key saw himself as part of that world,
• 7:23
  the Big Leagues of killers. He even said he related
• 7:26
  to this character from a Dean Koon's book, a serial
• 7:29
  killer who stalks and kills his victims, super creepy.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: It's like he was trying to outdo them, to be
• 7:34
  the most shocking, most meticulous killer out there. Wanted to
• 7:38
  make his mark on history, even if it was in
• 7:40
  the worst way possible.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: And you know what, he kind of did, no clear motive,
• 7:44
  crimes scattered all over it adds to the mystery, makes
• 7:48
  it almost impossible to forget.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: I'll say the whole thing is the stuff of nightmares.
• 7:52
  Someone so calculated, so cold blooded, and yet they could
• 7:56
  blend in act totally normal, makes you wonder who you
• 7:58
  can really trust.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: It does. Key's case, just throws it in our faces.
• 8:04
  Evil doesn't always wear a scary mask, right. It can
• 8:07
  be hiding right next to us, looking just like everyone else.
• 8:10
  That's what makes it so terrifying, exactly.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: So, here's the question that keeps me up at night.
• 8:14
  Are there more people like Keys out there right now?
• 8:18
  Just living their lives? Blending in. But with these horrific secrets.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: It's scary to think about, but we have to. You know,
• 8:27
  what Keys did is a wake up call. Can't get complacent,
• 8:29
  can't just assume we know someone. The line between good
• 8:32
  and evil thinner than we think.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: No doubt. So if we're taking away one thing from
• 8:36
  this whole deep dive, let it be this knowledge is power.
• 8:40
  The more we understand what makes guys like Keys tick,
• 8:42
  how they operate, the better chance we have of spotting
• 8:45
  the red flags, maybe even stopping the next Keys before
• 8:47
  it's too late.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Couldn't have said it better myself.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: And to everyone listening, thanks for joining us for this
• 8:52
  chilling look inside the mind of a truly terrifying criminal.
• 8:56
  The case of Israel Keys might be full of unanswered questions,
• 8:59
  loose ends that I'll never be tied up, but one
• 9:01
  thing's for sure. It shows as the dark side of
• 9:04
  human nature. How someone can seem so normal on the
• 9:06
  surface but have a world of darkness underneath. Makes you
• 9:10
  think twice about this every day encounters, doesn't it