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Serial Killer Documentary - Keith Jesperson · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:04
Speaker 1: In March nineteen ninety five, the body of forty one
0:08
Speaker 1: year old Julie Winningham was found just off Highway fourteen
0:12
Speaker 1: in Washington in the USA Spacific Northwest.
0:15
Speaker 2: She'd been strangled to death.
0:18
Speaker 3: He's a monster, six plus feet, two hundred and eighty pounds.
0:21
Speaker 3: My mom was five pounds one hundred pounds soaken wet.
0:25
Speaker 4: So it was like a toothpick.
0:26
Speaker 5: You know.
0:27
Speaker 4: He's a big man.
0:28
Speaker 1: Julie had become the eighth victim of an active serial
0:32
Speaker 1: killer named Keith Jesperson. The thirty nine year old truck
0:35
Speaker 1: driver had been murdering innocent women across America for the
0:39
Speaker 1: previous five years.
0:42
Speaker 6: In a sense, they were falling into the hands of
0:44
Speaker 6: a wolf. Their hens in the hen coop, and Jesperson
0:49
Speaker 6: is the wolf at the door.
0:51
Speaker 1: Jesperson captured the intrigue of the nation when he confessed
0:55
Speaker 1: to five murders in an anonymous letter he sent to
0:58
Speaker 1: a newspaper, which he signed with a smile.
1:02
Speaker 7: Ash brawler, that I killed Tanya Bennett in January nineteen ninety.
1:06
Speaker 4: And put down a.
1:08
Speaker 7: Circle with two eyes and a happy face.
1:11
Speaker 1: Keith Jefperson, labeled a happy face killer, had made his
1:16
Speaker 1: mark as one of the world's most evil killers. When
1:39
Speaker 1: thirty nine year old trucker Keith Jefperson confessed all to
1:44
Speaker 1: detectives in March nineteen ninety five, the media finally got
1:48
Speaker 1: a chance to put a name to the notorious Happy
1:51
Speaker 1: Face Killer.
1:53
Speaker 2: Over a five year period.
1:55
Speaker 1: Jefperson squeezed the life out of at least eight women
1:58
Speaker 1: across five states. Detective Monte Bututne was part of the
2:02
Speaker 1: investigative team that finally brought an end to the Happy
2:06
Speaker 1: Face Killer's reign of terror.
2:09
Speaker 8: Jefferson targeted typically prostitutes, homeless women, women that he felt
2:15
Speaker 8: that would not have anybody that would report them missing
2:18
Speaker 8: anytime soon, to give him a chance to escape.
2:21
Speaker 4: To get out of the area.
2:22
Speaker 1: Driving his truck six foot seven inch, Jefperson, a divorced
2:27
Speaker 1: father of three, towered over his diminutive victims.
2:31
Speaker 8: For Keith Jefferson, his big thing was control. He wanted
2:35
Speaker 8: to control women. He wanted to abuse them in the
2:38
Speaker 8: way that he was aroused by, so he focused on
2:41
Speaker 8: finding victims that he thought would meet that need for him.
2:45
Speaker 1: Despite his size and destructive power, Jefferson was mild mannered
2:50
Speaker 1: and softly spoken during his confessions.
2:53
Speaker 2: To detectives he.
2:55
Speaker 5: Purposes of voice certification. Would you please state your full.
2:58
Speaker 7: Amplas mynors Keith Hunter, just person, and.
3:02
Speaker 9: You understand this conversation is being recorded.
3:04
Speaker 3: Yes, I your permission, Yes it is.
3:09
Speaker 5: Every time I talked to him, he was my best friend,
3:11
Speaker 5: and when you looked at him, the last thing you
3:14
Speaker 5: would ever suspected this guy was a serial killer. I mean,
3:17
Speaker 5: he didn't hang around with bad people. I never heard
3:21
Speaker 5: him swear wall if you met Jasperson, the last thing
3:24
Speaker 5: you would suspect that he was a criminal. He doesn't
3:27
Speaker 5: come across as a criminal. At one point he said
3:30
Speaker 5: to me, you know, you and I could go on
3:32
Speaker 5: a tour teaching people how not to get murdered. And
3:35
Speaker 5: that was kind of the mindset of this particular guy
3:38
Speaker 5: that he really enjoyed people looking at him and saying,
3:41
Speaker 5: oh my god, this is our serial killer and he
3:44
Speaker 5: must be really an important and powerful person to be
3:47
Speaker 5: involved in that sort of a lifestyle. So I don't
3:50
Speaker 5: think there was ever any remorse. It was it was
3:52
Speaker 5: all about I want people to look at me.
3:56
Speaker 1: This killer's story begins just outside of Vancouver, Canada. Keith
4:02
Speaker 1: Hunter Jesperson was born in Chilliwack, British Columbia, on the
4:06
Speaker 1: sixth of April nineteen fifty five. He grew up in
4:10
Speaker 1: a large family in a rural home.
4:13
Speaker 6: Jefperson had two brothers and two sisters. He was the
4:16
Speaker 6: so called runt I think of the litter. The boy
4:21
Speaker 6: I think sought to get his father's attention from quite
4:25
Speaker 6: an early age.
4:26
Speaker 10: His father was incredibly domineering. His father really looked down
4:31
Speaker 10: on women. So from a very early age he develops
4:34
Speaker 10: this view that a misogynistic view of women, a view
4:38
Speaker 10: of women that is quite demeaning, is one that's normal.
4:42
Speaker 1: Jefferson's assertive father appeared to bring out a violent side
4:47
Speaker 1: in the young men.
4:49
Speaker 10: One of Jesperson's earliest memories is apparently of throwing a
4:53
Speaker 10: rock down a slide as a children's playground that hit
4:57
Speaker 10: his brother in the head. And I think what he
4:59
Speaker 10: was trying to do here was essentially get his father's attention.
5:03
Speaker 10: His father was somebody who valued aggression, who valued this
5:08
Speaker 10: kind of behavior, and I think this really was a
5:11
Speaker 10: cry for that kind of validation from him.
5:15
Speaker 6: The ugly truths must be that he had no normality
5:21
Speaker 6: in his life. There was no convention in that family life,
5:24
Speaker 6: from that upbringing, which meant that in a sense, there
5:28
Speaker 6: was no moral compass, there was no right and wrong.
5:32
Speaker 1: Before he'd even turn seven, Jefperson displayed traits that had
5:37
Speaker 1: become synonymous with serial killers.
5:40
Speaker 10: Jefferson liked to kill and torture animals, so he harmed
5:45
Speaker 10: cats and dogs and gophers and crows. That gave him
5:49
Speaker 10: a sense of power, a sense of control that he
5:53
Speaker 10: couldn't get in any other way. But he's also realizing
5:56
Speaker 10: that he quite enjoys having control over an living creature,
6:01
Speaker 10: of holding its life in your hands.
6:04
Speaker 1: The family moves south across the border into the US,
6:08
Speaker 1: and Jefferson would eventually find work in a job that
6:11
Speaker 1: would assist him in his murderous career.
6:14
Speaker 6: He's become a truck driver for company in Washington State,
6:19
Speaker 6: which gives him access to freedom, drive around, can sleep
6:24
Speaker 6: in the cab, he can pull up whatever truck stop
6:27
Speaker 6: he fancies, where that almost always a collection of young women,
6:32
Speaker 6: knowing that drivers want company. It's the perfect fit for
6:37
Speaker 6: Jesperson's character.
6:39
Speaker 10: So he's got a lot of time on his hands
6:42
Speaker 10: to ruminate, to fantasize, to start to plan things. So
6:47
Speaker 10: this is quite a dangerous situation to be in because
6:51
Speaker 10: nobody's there to put the brakes on his behavior.
6:55
Speaker 1: By early nineteen ninety, Keith Jefferson was separated from his
7:00
Speaker 1: life and spending much of his time driving his truck
7:03
Speaker 1: up and down the seemingly endless highways of America. On
7:08
Speaker 1: the twenty second of January nineteen ninety, in Portland, Oregon,
7:13
Speaker 1: a twenty three year old woman was found dead.
7:16
Speaker 5: Kanye Bennett was reported missing by her mother, and some
7:21
Speaker 5: young man stopped along that highway one day then discovered
7:25
Speaker 5: her body, which had been drug off the road down
7:28
Speaker 5: into a little bit of a rouffine off of the
7:31
Speaker 5: scenic Highway out in the Columbia Gorge.
7:35
Speaker 1: Detectives presumed they'd solve the case quickly when a local woman,
7:39
Speaker 1: Laverne pavilion Neck, told the police that her boyfriend was
7:43
Speaker 1: responsible for the death of Tanya Bennett.
7:46
Speaker 5: Well, Laverne was several years older than John Sisnovsky, and
7:53
Speaker 5: John was an alcoholic, and I think John was probably
7:58
Speaker 5: a very abusive to Laverne, and I think she was
8:03
Speaker 5: just trying to get John Sosnowski out of her life
8:06
Speaker 5: and decided she would frame him for murder as a
8:09
Speaker 5: way to get John out of her life.
8:12
Speaker 10: In the beginning, she just tries to pin it completely
8:14
Speaker 10: on him, but then she kind of inserts herself into
8:19
Speaker 10: this narrative, and I think there's almost a sense in
8:21
Speaker 10: which she's enjoying the drama of the story and she
8:24
Speaker 10: wants to play a larger part in it.
8:27
Speaker 1: LaVerne's story was alive. The police didn't know it yet,
8:31
Speaker 1: but Tanya had in fact been killed by a thirty
8:34
Speaker 1: four year old trucker named Keith Jefferson.
8:38
Speaker 5: He had met Tanya playing pool out to be an
8:41
Speaker 5: i tavern, which was an Esmolam canyon. They had decided
8:44
Speaker 5: we'll get something to eat at a nearby restaurant, and
8:49
Speaker 5: when they left the tavern, he realized he didn't have
8:55
Speaker 5: enough money with him to buy dinner, so he said,
8:58
Speaker 5: let's go to my house. I'll get some money. He
9:02
Speaker 5: gets involved in a sexual act with Tanya, and at
9:06
Speaker 5: that point Tanya said something that offended him and he
9:09
Speaker 5: murdered her. He choked her with his fist, and he
9:14
Speaker 5: was a big man, Tanya was a little woman, and
9:17
Speaker 5: so that wasn't a big challenge to kill Tanya.
9:21
Speaker 6: And I don't think he cared very much. I mean
9:25
Speaker 6: he left her in the house and to cover his tracks,
9:27
Speaker 6: went back to the bar and had another series of
9:30
Speaker 6: drinks and then went back to the house and decided
9:31
Speaker 6: he's going to dump the body. What he's got plenty
9:34
Speaker 6: of opportunities to dump the body. All he needs to
9:36
Speaker 6: do is to load her into the truck and he
9:38
Speaker 6: can drop her where he wants.
9:40
Speaker 1: Chanya Bennett had become Jefferson's first victim, and despite the
9:45
Speaker 1: fact that two other people were in court charge with
9:48
Speaker 1: the twenty three year old's murder, Jefferson had an urge
9:52
Speaker 1: to tell the world that he was her killer.
9:55
Speaker 6: While the trial's taking place, he stops off and I
9:59
Speaker 6: rest room and writes a message on the wall which
10:04
Speaker 6: is ibter I raped her, I Kilda. I liked it.
10:08
Speaker 6: You may think I'm sick, but I enjoyed it. And
10:11
Speaker 6: two other people are taking the form and he signs
10:15
Speaker 6: it with a smiley face.
10:18
Speaker 10: And at first this would appear to be quite compelling,
10:21
Speaker 10: but it wasn't new information. It was information that anybody
10:25
Speaker 10: could have heard and just repeated onto the wall. So
10:29
Speaker 10: I think this was a desire for recognition on Jafferson's part.
10:33
Speaker 10: It was a desire to be noticed and to actually
10:36
Speaker 10: take the credit for these murders.
10:38
Speaker 1: As news of the truck stop confession reached Laverne Pavilink
10:43
Speaker 1: and John Sarsnowsky's lawyers, they were intrigued, but the jury
10:48
Speaker 1: would never get to hear about the revelations. Signed with
10:51
Speaker 1: a smiley face.
10:53
Speaker 6: The defense of Laverne and John try to get these
10:59
Speaker 6: confessions brought in as evidence in the trial, but the
11:04
Speaker 6: judge forbids it's hearsay. It could be anybody. It's not convincing,
11:11
Speaker 6: there's no forensic proof. Sorry, we're not allowing it into evidence.
11:16
Speaker 6: And both are duly convicted of the murder. And Keith
11:23
Speaker 6: Jefferson is free to kill again. After all, he's already
11:27
Speaker 6: boasted it he can, so why shouldn't he.
11:32
Speaker 1: As two innocent people were sentenced to life in prison
11:36
Speaker 1: for the murder of Tylia Bennett, Keith Jefferson remained free.
11:42
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety two, two years after killing for the
11:45
Speaker 1: first time, Jefferson struck again, this time in California.
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Speaker 10: Jefferson's second victim, Claudia, was a woman who he kept
11:55
Speaker 10: alive in his truck for four days. He quite enjoyed
12:00
Speaker 10: void torturing her. He quite enjoyed the fact that she
12:03
Speaker 10: would have been fearful for her life and probably pleading
12:06
Speaker 10: for her life. So this really highlights that it's the
12:10
Speaker 10: process that Jessperson enjoys. It's that feeling of power, that
12:14
Speaker 10: feeling of complete control and domination he gets when he
12:18
Speaker 10: has got somebody who's completely subservient to him.
12:22
Speaker 6: He eventually, after a few days, gets bored, kills her
12:25
Speaker 6: by punishing her literally to death, and then chucks her
12:28
Speaker 6: out of the truck. Now, how do you identify the
12:32
Speaker 6: body of a young woman found miles away from where
12:35
Speaker 6: she may have been last seen. We remember we're in
12:39
Speaker 6: the early nineties here, we don't have the kind of
12:42
Speaker 6: elaborate databases that the police authorities have. Now is simply
12:47
Speaker 6: a body, and again that confirms to Jesperson his ability
12:56
Speaker 6: to get away with it, his ability to do what
12:58
Speaker 6: he wants. It's a very powerful, addictive substance for a
13:05
Speaker 6: man who's already got a warped mind and has no
13:09
Speaker 6: moral compass. This is powerful medicine.
13:12
Speaker 1: Indeed, by April nineteen ninety four, Jefferson had killed another
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Speaker 1: three women, taking his crusome tally to five.
13:22
Speaker 2: But the thirty nine year old.
13:23
Speaker 1: Was growing frustrated with the lack of credit he felt
13:26
Speaker 1: he deserved for his ongoing killing spree. He began to
13:30
Speaker 1: write that wrong by sending letters to an Oregon courthouse
13:34
Speaker 1: and a local newspaper reiterating his claims that he was
13:39
Speaker 1: the person responsible for the death of Tania Bennett back
13:43
Speaker 1: in January nineteen ninety.
13:45
Speaker 4: Keith loves the media attention.
13:47
Speaker 8: He was doing anything he could to obtain that attention,
13:51
Speaker 8: and when somebody else was getting it, Keith wasn't comfortable
13:54
Speaker 8: with that. So when that occurred was the first time
13:57
Speaker 8: Keith came out of hiding speak contacted. The newspaper took
14:02
Speaker 8: credit for the homicide of Tiny Bennett, but would not
14:06
Speaker 8: devult who he was. With all of the letters, he
14:08
Speaker 8: signed them with a happy face at the bottom, and
14:10
Speaker 8: the Oregonian newspaper deemed him the happy Facekiller.
14:14
Speaker 10: At this point, he's really really frustrated. He's written on
14:18
Speaker 10: the walls, truck stops, he's written to the county court,
14:21
Speaker 10: and yet still he's not getting the recognition that he
14:24
Speaker 10: feels he deserves, especially around that smiley face monika that
14:29
Speaker 10: he's crafted.
14:30
Speaker 6: He probably thought that.
14:31
Speaker 10: Was a brilliant kind of brand identity, and nobody's picking
14:35
Speaker 10: it up. So at this point he's really really angry.
14:38
Speaker 10: He's screaming out, now I've done this. I'm proud of this.
14:42
Speaker 10: I deserve recognition for it.
14:45
Speaker 1: The letters detailed all five of the murders that Jessperson
14:49
Speaker 1: had committed, allowing authorities to link these separate cases together.
14:54
Speaker 1: But the truck you continued on regardless. He killed a
14:58
Speaker 1: six victim known only as Suzanne, in September nineteen ninety four,
15:03
Speaker 1: and in January nineteen ninety five, he claimed a seventh
15:08
Speaker 1: is most inhumane so far.
15:11
Speaker 6: Angela's sabrese is one that always sticks in my mind
15:19
Speaker 6: because it doesn't start out at a truck stop in
15:22
Speaker 6: the same way as the many of the other killings have.
15:26
Speaker 6: This time, he offers Angela a lift. She's twenty one.
15:31
Speaker 6: She wants to lift to see her father. In the end,
15:34
Speaker 6: she phones her father and her father says, oh, don't
15:36
Speaker 6: come now, so she decides to go and see her
15:39
Speaker 6: boyfriend in Indiana.
15:41
Speaker 10: According to Jasperson, he got irritated with her because she
15:45
Speaker 10: was telling him to hurry up. He says how much
15:48
Speaker 10: she was nagging at him and how much she was
15:50
Speaker 10: bitching at him, And what he's doing.
15:52
Speaker 6: Here is victim blaming.
15:55
Speaker 10: He's drawing on these stereotypical notions of women as annoying
15:59
Speaker 10: as nagging, because that has often been used in.
16:02
Speaker 6: The past to justify murders.
16:04
Speaker 10: It's this kind of crime of passion type of argument,
16:08
Speaker 10: and he really is quite in tune with that.
16:11
Speaker 1: After spending a week together on the road, Jesperson strangled
16:16
Speaker 1: Angela to death, but he was far from finished with her.
16:20
Speaker 6: You have a man who is now quite literally out
16:23
Speaker 6: of control. But what makes Angela's killing so horrible is
16:31
Speaker 6: that he decides to cover his tracks, and he ties
16:38
Speaker 6: the poor dead young woman's body under his truck and
16:44
Speaker 6: toes it, and the objective is to obliterate her face
16:48
Speaker 6: and her fingerprints. He's sufficiently aware that he knows that
16:54
Speaker 6: this one could be traced. After all, one or two
16:56
Speaker 6: people may well have known that he had offered her
16:58
Speaker 6: a lift. Wants to make sure that she's unidentifiable. This
17:06
Speaker 6: is a killing of the supreme wickedness. I mean, one
17:09
Speaker 6: feels desperately that she couldn't possibly have deserved that horrific fate,
17:17
Speaker 6: and yet Jefferson meted it out to her without a
17:24
Speaker 6: twinge of conscience.
17:25
Speaker 1: As far as we can see, the pace of Jefferson's
17:29
Speaker 1: killing spree was accelerating, and just two months after the
17:32
Speaker 1: murder of Angela's surprise, in March nineteen ninety five, a
17:37
Speaker 1: body was discovered in Washington, just off Highway fourteen.
17:42
Speaker 11: I'm at the washing Over Police Department and I need
17:45
Speaker 11: to see an officer. How I think I've found a
17:47
Speaker 11: body longside thrown?
17:49
Speaker 9: So why didn't think it's the body?
17:51
Speaker 11: Well, because I was decided the row and I was furinating,
17:54
Speaker 11: and I thought down on the hillside looked like a female.
17:56
Speaker 11: I could see a hand and singer of Polish.
18:00
Speaker 8: I was actually on days off and it was I
18:02
Speaker 8: believe March eleventh, nineteen ninety five, when I received a
18:06
Speaker 8: call at home stating that they had received a report
18:09
Speaker 8: of a body that was found near the county line
18:12
Speaker 8: just into Scamania County. The patrol officers were responding at
18:15
Speaker 8: that time, and they asked that I respond as well.
18:18
Speaker 11: I went off the bushes there and I looked down
18:20
Speaker 11: the hill and it looked like I thought it was
18:21
Speaker 11: a manneku At a first night, I saw the puno pause.
18:23
Speaker 11: I went down and got kind of close to then
18:25
Speaker 11: I got kind of sick.
18:27
Speaker 8: The only thing really in that area between the highway
18:30
Speaker 8: and the river is a set of railroad tracks. It
18:32
Speaker 8: was all the way at the lower edge of that,
18:34
Speaker 8: but just over the bank, probably twenty feet down over
18:37
Speaker 8: the edge from the highway, is where the body was located.
18:41
Speaker 1: This latest case bared all the hallmarks of the notorious
18:45
Speaker 1: happy Face killer.
18:47
Speaker 10: When we look at the locations in which Jefperson dumped
18:50
Speaker 10: the bodies and you look at the other types of
18:52
Speaker 10: item that you find in that location, it's trash, it's rubbish,
18:56
Speaker 10: it's discarded things that people no longer won. And that
18:59
Speaker 10: is exactly how jesperson sees his victims. He's had his
19:03
Speaker 10: fun with them, they've served the purpose, and now he's
19:05
Speaker 10: just going to dispose of them.
19:09
Speaker 8: It appeared to me that she had not been there
19:11
Speaker 8: very long, between possibly twenty four and thirty six hours.
19:15
Speaker 8: She was laying on her right side and her face
19:18
Speaker 8: was facing the ground. I could see evidence it's either
19:21
Speaker 8: consistent with strangulation or lividity, because she was basically inverted.
19:28
Speaker 4: Her head was lower than the rest of her body.
19:31
Speaker 4: Once the heart.
19:31
Speaker 8: Stops, blood woll Pool at its lowest point, and in
19:35
Speaker 8: this case it would have been her upper torso, neck
19:38
Speaker 8: and face.
19:39
Speaker 6: One of the things that became a hallmark of Jesperson's
19:45
Speaker 6: killing was the punched his victims repeatedly in the neck
19:49
Speaker 6: and face and in the throat, thereby eventually killing them.
19:54
Speaker 6: He was a puncher, beat them literally to death.
19:59
Speaker 1: The first ask for the investigating team was identifying the body.
20:04
Speaker 8: We had no clothing, we had no personal wallet, no
20:08
Speaker 8: way to identify her. So one of the things that
20:10
Speaker 8: we do at the Medical Examiner's offices we take fingerprints.
20:14
Speaker 4: From the victim.
20:15
Speaker 8: We then run those through the automated fingerprint identification system
20:19
Speaker 8: known as ape's and in this case the victim, Julie Winningham,
20:22
Speaker 8: her fingerprints were in ape's system.
20:25
Speaker 1: Forty one year old Julie Winningham had become the latest
20:29
Speaker 1: woman to be killed at the hands of the Happy
20:32
Speaker 1: Face killer.
20:33
Speaker 10: Jefferson is a man who feels completely entitled to treat
20:37
Speaker 10: women in this way. He picks up women in his truck.
20:40
Speaker 10: He thinks, I have a right to do with these
20:42
Speaker 10: women whatever I want.
20:44
Speaker 11: Now.
20:44
Speaker 10: He knows that what he's doing is wrong, but that
20:47
Speaker 10: that doesn't stop it because he feels that he has
20:50
Speaker 10: some God given right.
20:51
Speaker 11: To do this.
20:53
Speaker 6: In a sense, they were falling into the hands of
20:56
Speaker 6: a wolf. Their hens in the hen coop, and Jefferson
21:01
Speaker 6: is the wolf of the door.
21:03
Speaker 1: But Jefferson's world was about to come crashing down around him.
21:08
Speaker 1: The thirty nine year old serial killer had made a
21:11
Speaker 1: mistake that would lead the police to his door. Julie
21:15
Speaker 1: Winningham had become Keith Jefferson's eighth victim, but she would
21:19
Speaker 1: also be his last. Julie's son, Don Finley, was twenty
21:24
Speaker 1: four at the time.
21:30
Speaker 3: My mom she was a cheerful, free spirit, caring and loving.
21:36
Speaker 3: She was just a traveler and an adventurer, and was
21:39
Speaker 3: a free soul. And didn't understand that when I was young,
21:44
Speaker 3: but as I grew up, I grasped what it was
21:48
Speaker 3: all and why she chose her life the way she did.
21:52
Speaker 1: Julie and Don did not have a traditional mother son relationship.
21:57
Speaker 1: Don was working in California while Julie moved between the
22:01
Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest.
22:03
Speaker 3: There was a time when I came up here in
22:06
Speaker 3: ninety one, the last time I physically saw my mom.
22:12
Speaker 3: We drove around, we talked, we got caught up and
22:15
Speaker 3: in ninety five. My mom had called me February twelfth,
22:19
Speaker 3: which was her birthday, and my birthday was February twentieth.
22:24
Speaker 3: She told me she was up in Idaho with a
22:27
Speaker 3: friend and planning on coming down to Washington.
22:33
Speaker 1: By March nineteen ninety five, Julie was spending a lot
22:37
Speaker 1: of time with some friends in the Portland area, just
22:40
Speaker 1: on the Oregon side of the Columbia River.
22:43
Speaker 4: She started hanging out at some of the truck stops.
22:47
Speaker 8: Burns Brothers over in Troutdale had a dance floor and
22:51
Speaker 8: quite the nightlife.
22:52
Speaker 4: A lot of people would go over.
22:53
Speaker 8: There, whether they drove trucks or not, and I believe
22:56
Speaker 8: it was a country in western bar and they would
22:58
Speaker 8: just hang out and have with friends over there.
23:01
Speaker 4: So she got into that circle over there as well.
23:04
Speaker 1: After Julie's body was found just across the river in Washington,
23:08
Speaker 1: her son Don was given the devastating news.
23:13
Speaker 3: I was at work and I received a phone call
23:15
Speaker 3: from my aunt telling me that they had found my
23:20
Speaker 3: mom dead on the side of Highway fourteen, murdered and raided.
23:29
Speaker 6: I lost it.
23:34
Speaker 3: I punched fences, I pulled off paper towells, walked down
23:42
Speaker 3: the street and just collapsed in the middle of the street.
23:45
Speaker 5: No one around.
23:46
Speaker 3: Friends, the people I knew as friends didn't know what
23:49
Speaker 3: to think.
23:51
Speaker 1: Detectives interviewed Julie's friends and they immediately had a lead.
23:57
Speaker 1: She had a boyfriend who was a truck driver.
24:00
Speaker 8: Speaking with Julie's friends, we were very interested in who
24:04
Speaker 8: this truck driver was that she was with. Unfortunately, her
24:07
Speaker 8: friends really didn't pay much attention to him. They noticed
24:10
Speaker 8: that he drove a big blue truck, a semi truck
24:12
Speaker 8: with a sleeper cab, but they weren't sure of his name.
24:15
Speaker 8: Some of them said his name maybe was Keith, some
24:18
Speaker 8: of them said his name was Chris.
24:21
Speaker 4: They were just unsure.
24:23
Speaker 1: Just as it seemed the trail was going cold, investigators
24:27
Speaker 1: got their biggest break yet.
24:30
Speaker 8: Fortunately, one of Julie's friends had just bought a car
24:33
Speaker 8: from Julie, and out of that transaction of buying the car,
24:37
Speaker 8: Keith was there and I was asked to sign the
24:39
Speaker 8: bill of sale as a witness. So the friend gave
24:42
Speaker 8: us the bill of sale and on his witness it
24:45
Speaker 8: said Keith Hunter Jefferson. So that was our first indication
24:48
Speaker 8: of who we were looking for.
24:50
Speaker 1: For the first time since his killing spree began. The
24:54
Speaker 1: name Keith Jesperson was with the detectives. The thirty nine
24:58
Speaker 1: year old had made an characteristic error.
25:02
Speaker 6: There's all sorts of footprints that have been left in
25:07
Speaker 6: the sand that lead you directly back to Keith Jesperson.
25:12
Speaker 6: He makes a mistake of killing someone who has got
25:14
Speaker 6: a past, would have a future, and has got a
25:17
Speaker 6: whole network of friends to prove it. It's a gigantic miscalculation.
25:21
Speaker 6: But the reason he miscalculates is why now he is
25:25
Speaker 6: simply addicted to killing. He oversteps the mark. He goes
25:28
Speaker 6: too far because he can't stop himself, and.
25:31
Speaker 10: I think that's testament to his arrogance at this point
25:34
Speaker 10: in his serial murders. He really does think he's untouchable,
25:39
Speaker 10: that he's not going to get cool.
25:41
Speaker 1: Detectives traced Jefferson via his employers to a job over
25:45
Speaker 1: one thousand miles away from Washington.
25:49
Speaker 8: Keith Jefferson was told that when he dropped off his
25:52
Speaker 8: load in Hurley, that he was to travel to the
25:55
Speaker 8: Las Crucis, New Mexico Fairgrounds County Fairgrounds to pick.
25:59
Speaker 4: Up a lot of steeler.
26:00
Speaker 8: That point that was fabricated to the point to where
26:02
Speaker 8: we could basically bring Keith Jesperson to us and him
26:06
Speaker 8: thinking that it was another pickup point, it was actually
26:08
Speaker 8: us waiting for his arrival.
26:10
Speaker 1: Monsie remembers his first encounter with the imposing killer.
26:16
Speaker 8: Keith Jesperson is a very big man. However, he is
26:19
Speaker 8: somewhat soft spoken, so it's almost like he's he's using
26:24
Speaker 8: that to make people feel comfortable around him. And my
26:28
Speaker 8: first impression was using the way he was speaking to
26:33
Speaker 8: us and the soft tones, even though he was a
26:35
Speaker 8: very big man, I could see where he could pick
26:39
Speaker 8: a victim up and they would feel somewhat safe being
26:42
Speaker 8: with him until he changed unexpectedly. So that was my
26:46
Speaker 8: first impression that this man could easily victimize some women.
26:51
Speaker 1: Jesperson claimed that Julie was still alive when he last
26:55
Speaker 1: saw her. Without any physical or forensic evidence, actives wore
27:00
Speaker 1: powerless to arrest him. They flew back to Washington to
27:04
Speaker 1: continue their investigation into the death of Julie Winningham.
27:10
Speaker 3: I saw my mom for the very last time in
27:14
Speaker 3: a white room on a silver slab with a white
27:19
Speaker 3: sheet up to her neck, with a black and blue
27:24
Speaker 3: mark across her hall face, shrug marks on her cheeks,
27:29
Speaker 3: and that was.
27:30
Speaker 2: The last time I.
27:33
Speaker 4: Physically Simon.
27:38
Speaker 1: No sooner had the detectives touched down in Washington, Jefferson
27:42
Speaker 1: had a sudden change of heart.
27:45
Speaker 6: Maybe at this point, jesperson realizes that really the game
27:50
Speaker 6: is up and there's nothing he can do, so he
27:53
Speaker 6: confesses to his employer, the truck company, that he's going
27:58
Speaker 6: to confess to the police, and he himself leaves a
28:04
Speaker 6: voicemail for one of the detectives who's come to interview him.
28:09
Speaker 9: This is Keith j just forer.
28:10
Speaker 11: Some like to talk to you.
28:14
Speaker 9: I'll be in Phoenix in the morning, and You're.
28:18
Speaker 6: Right I have.
28:20
Speaker 9: I've been a fight with myself for the last two days.
28:24
Speaker 9: Tried to kill myself a couple of times and it
28:25
Speaker 9: hasn't worked. It's not a tamn killed in this damn country.
28:30
Speaker 9: I'll talk to you in the morning.
28:33
Speaker 11: Bye.
28:35
Speaker 12: March twenty three, ten thirty eight pm.
28:40
Speaker 11: To save this message, Press.
28:42
Speaker 12: One, Yes, Keith, I am in Arizona. I'll call you
28:49
Speaker 12: when you're there. I guess I want to turn myself in,
28:52
Speaker 12: so I'll talk to you later.
28:55
Speaker 2: Bye.
28:57
Speaker 1: Detective Rick Buckner spoke to Esterson on the phone when
29:01
Speaker 1: the killer reached a truck stop in Arizona. Okay, Keith
29:06
Speaker 1: to me.
29:06
Speaker 11: What happened right now? And Keith still what happened?
29:35
Speaker 4: Stream?
29:37
Speaker 11: I am?
29:41
Speaker 8: Julie then was angry because of the car that she
29:45
Speaker 8: recently sold to the friend because Keith Jefferson signed it
29:48
Speaker 8: as a witness.
29:51
Speaker 4: She wanted the car back, and she blamed Keith.
29:54
Speaker 8: Because she couldn't get the car back because of the
29:56
Speaker 8: bill sale that he had witnessed. Keith said that they
29:58
Speaker 8: got into an argument about that, what'd.
30:02
Speaker 11: You do it that way?
30:03
Speaker 7: What do you do?
30:04
Speaker 12: Then grabbed your throat and he pushed her down and
30:07
Speaker 12: the bike parts click?
30:16
Speaker 11: Okay, and.
30:19
Speaker 9: You still bringing when I uh, I'm mars sure.
30:26
Speaker 8: He held his hands around her neck or his fist
30:28
Speaker 8: on her throat and held her down. At that interview.
30:32
Speaker 8: On the phone interview, he said as long as five minutes.
30:34
Speaker 8: In later interviews he thought it was as long as
30:36
Speaker 8: ten minutes that he held his fist or hand over
30:40
Speaker 8: her neck, strangling her until she stopped moving, drove up.
30:47
Speaker 12: Why was worked up to.
30:50
Speaker 9: Know what way to do?
30:53
Speaker 12: Here? I had you read of the marsh parked her
30:57
Speaker 12: white apart and took her over to ride.
31:00
Speaker 8: So at our request Cochise County Sheriff's Office sent deputies out,
31:05
Speaker 8: and they arrested him at the truck stop where he
31:07
Speaker 8: had made the call to call Detective Buckner.
31:10
Speaker 1: Keith Jesperson was finally in custody, but the police were
31:14
Speaker 1: only just beginning to realize they'd captured the notorious happy
31:18
Speaker 1: Phase killer. In a letter to his brother sent just
31:22
Speaker 1: before his arrest, Jesperson had outlined his crimes, writing, I
31:26
Speaker 1: am sorry that I turned out this way. I've been
31:29
Speaker 1: killing for five years and have killed eight people, assaulted more.
31:34
Speaker 1: I guess I haven't learned anything.
31:37
Speaker 8: By the time that we had knowledge of those letters,
31:39
Speaker 8: the investigation at Julie Wenningham was in his final stages,
31:44
Speaker 8: and so at that point in time, the letters to
31:47
Speaker 8: his brother that was reviewed, the letters to The Oregonian
31:50
Speaker 8: that were reviewed, it was it was believed at that
31:52
Speaker 8: time that yes, we indeed possibly had multiple victims in
31:56
Speaker 8: this case of Keith Jesterson.
31:59
Speaker 1: Was trying to sit down with Keith Jefferson and find
32:03
Speaker 1: out exactly what the happy Faced Killer had to say
32:06
Speaker 1: for himself.
32:10
Speaker 7: I didn't feel like I had control of what I
32:13
Speaker 7: was doing. I felt like I was sitting back watching
32:16
Speaker 7: I just couldn't believe I did it.
32:22
Speaker 1: From the letters and interviews with Jefferson, detectives learned that
32:26
Speaker 1: he'd killed eight women across the USA, from the very
32:30
Speaker 1: northwest in Washington all the way down to the southeast
32:33
Speaker 1: in Florida. Investigators were determined to put names and faces
32:38
Speaker 1: to some of the unknown women that Jefferson had claimed
32:42
Speaker 1: to have murdered.
32:44
Speaker 6: Gradually, the police put together a picture of the victims
32:49
Speaker 6: and where they are. They begin to find or at
32:51
Speaker 6: least identify some of the bodies, which are in five states,
32:54
Speaker 6: so it's not an easy chance.
32:58
Speaker 1: In a letter he sent to the orig newspaper a
33:01
Speaker 1: year before his arrest, Jesperson had claimed to have killed
33:04
Speaker 1: a woman before dumping her body in Salem, Oregon.
33:09
Speaker 2: This alerted Marion County.
33:10
Speaker 1: DA Mark Mackler when he heard that the happy Faced
33:14
Speaker 1: killer had been apprehended.
33:17
Speaker 5: His hands were very large.
33:19
Speaker 13: When I met him and interviewed him and Simon for
33:22
Speaker 13: the first time in the Clark County Jail in Vancouver, Washington,
33:26
Speaker 13: he had a duck when he walked through doors because
33:29
Speaker 13: he had that kind of size. I mean, he was
33:31
Speaker 13: a big guy, and he didn't present himself with that
33:35
Speaker 13: size as a monster.
33:39
Speaker 6: So much as.
33:40
Speaker 13: Somebody who probably looked like a big, giant, friendly guy
33:46
Speaker 13: until enraged.
33:48
Speaker 5: I suppose Mark was.
33:50
Speaker 1: Able to get a blood sample from Jesperson which revealed
33:54
Speaker 1: a DNA match to semen found on the body of
33:57
Speaker 1: Lorie Pentland, who'd been the killer's fourth victim.
34:01
Speaker 2: In November nineteen ninety two.
34:03
Speaker 13: Lory Pentlin was choked to death, and what we understood
34:07
Speaker 13: was whether he intended to kill her or not, whether
34:12
Speaker 13: he intended that she was the next victim or not.
34:14
Speaker 13: What we understood was that she was engaged in a
34:17
Speaker 13: sex act with him, and oral sex acts with him.
34:20
Speaker 13: I think it probably got violent with him a little
34:22
Speaker 13: bit and she bit him and he killed her.
34:27
Speaker 5: That's what we understood.
34:28
Speaker 1: Jesperson had employed his usual emo of squeezing the life
34:33
Speaker 1: out of Lolly Pentland's body.
34:35
Speaker 10: Jefferson killed Laurie by a process of stop start strangulation.
34:40
Speaker 10: So he would throttle her until she almost went unconscious,
34:44
Speaker 10: and then he would kind of back off and she
34:47
Speaker 10: would come round again, and then he would start.
34:49
Speaker 2: That process over again.
34:51
Speaker 10: So I think this is part of the murder that
34:53
Speaker 10: Jesperson really enjoys. This holding somebody else's life in his hands.
34:58
Speaker 10: It's something that he wants to prolong, it's something that
35:01
Speaker 10: he wants to amplify. So this must have been incredibly
35:04
Speaker 10: terrifying for his victim.
35:07
Speaker 13: When a victim has choked, typically bones and the neck
35:09
Speaker 13: are broken. Remember I told you had massive hands, so
35:13
Speaker 13: he crushed her neck. I mean, that's effectively what happened.
35:19
Speaker 1: Jefferson was charged with the murder of Lolly Pentland, and
35:23
Speaker 1: after telling detectives where they would find her mutilated body,
35:27
Speaker 1: the forty year old was charged with a third murder,
35:31
Speaker 1: that of Angela's Surprise, the woman he dragged under his
35:34
Speaker 1: truck in January nineteen ninety five. As his confessions continued,
35:40
Speaker 1: he once again claimed to be responsible for killing Tania
35:44
Speaker 1: Bennett in January nineteen ninety a crime for which two
35:48
Speaker 1: people had already been convicted.
35:51
Speaker 5: Okay, at some point, did you mean a female that
35:55
Speaker 5: you were killed?
35:56
Speaker 4: Yes, I did.
35:59
Speaker 7: I met a a gal that's I can't remember exactly.
36:04
Speaker 7: It's the twentieth to the twenty first of the month.
36:06
Speaker 7: It's been such a long time ago of what month
36:09
Speaker 7: of January nineteen ninety I mean, you know what her
36:12
Speaker 7: name was. I found out it was Tanya and Bennett.
36:18
Speaker 1: Jesperson told detectives that Tanya had come back to his
36:21
Speaker 1: home after the pair had met in a bar and
36:24
Speaker 1: been for a meal. They soon began having sex on
36:28
Speaker 1: a mattress on the floor.
36:30
Speaker 7: And she made a comment to when I was over
36:34
Speaker 7: the top for her, something like, well, I'm not getting
36:37
Speaker 7: there once.
36:38
Speaker 4: She just hurried to get it over with, kind of like.
36:41
Speaker 11: I pissed.
36:41
Speaker 7: Like I pissed me off.
36:43
Speaker 11: I tagged her with my right arm.
36:47
Speaker 5: Let me, why you tagger her with your right arm?
36:48
Speaker 5: What does that mean?
36:50
Speaker 7: I just lost my cool and I had struck her
36:53
Speaker 7: in the side of the face, and I never stopped,
36:56
Speaker 7: I can hear until she was.
36:59
Speaker 11: Laying there.
37:00
Speaker 7: I took my right fist and put it into her
37:02
Speaker 7: ABMs up and shoved down until she was dead.
37:06
Speaker 5: Or I felt she was dead.
37:07
Speaker 7: I just heard gurgling noises and that she probably died
37:11
Speaker 7: at the time I put my fist.
37:13
Speaker 4: In her throat.
37:16
Speaker 1: Jesperson described the brutal murder, the first one he committed
37:20
Speaker 1: in a calm manner. The Washington detectives contacted their colleagues
37:26
Speaker 1: across the Oregon state border.
37:29
Speaker 5: One day, I got a call from Rick Buckner, who
37:32
Speaker 5: was a Clark County detective. And Rick said, we've got
37:36
Speaker 5: an inmate in custody in Clark County for killing his girlfriend.
37:42
Speaker 5: And he is telling us, and he's telling his fellow
37:47
Speaker 5: inmates that he murdered a woman named Tanya Bennett.
37:50
Speaker 8: Of course, detectives didn't believe him because we have two
37:53
Speaker 8: people in prison already, one of which confessed to it. However,
37:56
Speaker 8: heth Jesperson asked if we located Tanya Bennett's perse and
38:01
Speaker 8: identification card, which wasn't located at the location where her
38:05
Speaker 8: body was. He indicated that he dumped that at a
38:08
Speaker 8: different location and he was willing to show us where
38:10
Speaker 8: that was.
38:11
Speaker 1: Jesperson described throwing the evidence into a BlackBerry field the
38:16
Speaker 1: morning after he'd murdered Tanya.
38:19
Speaker 7: I looked down off the side and nobody's around. I
38:24
Speaker 7: take the person's contents and throw it down off over
38:27
Speaker 7: the bank.
38:28
Speaker 5: I figure I threw the purse probably forty feet.
38:32
Speaker 4: If I could get you out of.
38:33
Speaker 5: Jail and taking show me where you adopted, yes, I were.
38:38
Speaker 5: We took him to the crime scene or the dump
38:40
Speaker 5: site on the Columbia Gorge, and he said that he
38:45
Speaker 5: left her body, but took the purse with him. He said,
38:48
Speaker 5: I threw the contents of her purse in this area. Well,
38:53
Speaker 5: it was a big area and it was the blackberries
38:55
Speaker 5: were ten feet high.
38:57
Speaker 1: After a thorough search of the vast area by police
39:00
Speaker 1: and the local scouts, they failed to find any evidence,
39:04
Speaker 1: but the detectives refused to give up the ghost.
39:08
Speaker 5: My partner Jim McNally said, maybe we ought to do
39:11
Speaker 5: it one more time. So the next Saturday we sent
39:14
Speaker 5: the explorer scouts out again with the police supervisor and
39:18
Speaker 5: they found Tanya's ID card, Oregon issued ID card, and
39:22
Speaker 5: it was as good a condition as it was the
39:25
Speaker 5: day I was thrown there. Well, only a person who
39:30
Speaker 5: threw it there could have pinpointed that precise location within
39:35
Speaker 5: within I guess one hundred yards of where we founded.
39:38
Speaker 5: But so that was the turning point, and that was
39:41
Speaker 5: the point where I felt we could charge jessperson with
39:45
Speaker 5: a crime because we had enough evidence to implicate him
39:48
Speaker 5: in the crime, and we wanted more than his confession,
39:51
Speaker 5: and the ID card turned out to be that one
39:54
Speaker 5: piece that we needed. I think I just want to
39:57
Speaker 5: tell us we didn't ask, so we should ask.
40:01
Speaker 7: I'm sorry, that's what I've been long time.
40:07
Speaker 1: Just three weeks after the ID card was uncovered, on
40:10
Speaker 1: the second of November nineteen ninety five, Keith Jesperson entered
40:15
Speaker 1: a no contest plea for the murder of Tanya Bennett.
40:19
Speaker 2: He was given a life sentence.
40:21
Speaker 1: Less than a month later, Laverne Pavlink and John Sovlovsky
40:26
Speaker 1: were freed from prison.
40:29
Speaker 5: Jefperson, had he not wanted to talk about it, probably
40:32
Speaker 5: never would have been convicted. There was virtually no forensic
40:36
Speaker 5: evidence left at the crime scene, so had Jesperson not
40:40
Speaker 5: come forward, there's a good chance that the two people
40:44
Speaker 5: who went to prison would still be in prison.
40:47
Speaker 1: On the fifteenth of November nineteen ninety five, Jefferson was
40:51
Speaker 1: given another life sentence for the murder of Lorie Pentland,
40:55
Speaker 1: and in December, Jefferson was back in court for a
40:59
Speaker 1: third time, this time charged with the murder of Julie Winningham,
41:03
Speaker 1: the girl whose death had led to the downfall of
41:06
Speaker 1: the Happy Face Killer.
41:08
Speaker 5: I attended every day front row.
41:10
Speaker 4: What he said in court was he had raped my mother.
41:17
Speaker 3: He had duct taped my mother, stuck his fist down
41:21
Speaker 3: her throat to make sure she was dead. He kept
41:26
Speaker 3: her in the cab of his truck for twelve to
41:28
Speaker 3: twenty four hours and drove her up and threw her
41:32
Speaker 3: off the side of the gorge like a piece of garbage.
41:39
Speaker 5: And I had to hear this man say that in court.
41:42
Speaker 4: This monster's telling me what he did.
41:45
Speaker 1: Once again, Jesperson was found guilty his third life sentence.
41:51
Speaker 13: He was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in Oregon
41:56
Speaker 13: and a consecutive life term in Washington, effectively three lives
42:00
Speaker 13: back to back to back. So he's going to die
42:04
Speaker 13: in prison.
42:06
Speaker 3: He took a kind, caring, loving, free spirited mother, aunt, sister, daughter,
42:16
Speaker 3: sul from this planet for his enjoyment, and the impact
42:23
Speaker 3: it's left is.
42:27
Speaker 4: Almost unreal.
42:30
Speaker 3: But I had to face it because it was my mom,
42:34
Speaker 3: not nobody else's mom.
42:38
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety eight, Jesperson was found guilty once more
42:42
Speaker 1: for the murder of Angela's Surprise, and in two thousand
42:46
Speaker 1: and seven and two thousand and ten, he was convicted
42:49
Speaker 1: of two murders in California between nineteen ninety two and
42:53
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three.
42:55
Speaker 2: In total, the.
42:56
Speaker 1: Outspoken killer has been convicted six times. He remains in
43:01
Speaker 1: prison in Oregon.
43:03
Speaker 5: I've arrested a lot of people for a lot of
43:05
Speaker 5: crimes and a fair number of murders, and this is
43:09
Speaker 5: the only one that I ever arrested. It seem to
43:10
Speaker 5: be awful pleased with his accomplishments.
43:14
Speaker 4: Keith Jesperson is a very evil person. He looks for
43:17
Speaker 4: people's weaknesses.
43:18
Speaker 8: He looks for women's weaknesses, and then exploits those to
43:21
Speaker 8: get everything he can possibly get from them, and then
43:25
Speaker 8: he kills them and discards them when he's done.
43:27
Speaker 4: He is the epitome of evil.
43:31
Speaker 1: Jefferson was an imposing figure who used his huge fists
43:35
Speaker 1: to either beat his victims to death or strangle the
43:39
Speaker 1: life out of them. For five years, he managed to
43:42
Speaker 1: evade justice until the same hands he used to kill
43:47
Speaker 1: signed a document that led detectives.
43:49
Speaker 2: Right to his door, wiping the smile off the happy
43:52
Speaker 1: Face of Keith Jesperson, one of the world's most evil killers.