In Keith's own words, he came from an abusive home. His father was an alcoholic and often violent with his children, as was his grandfather. Keith was a large child and often faced teasing from other children, and was treated like an outcast even by his own family. He showed vindictive tendencies, feeling like he needed to retaliate against every slight against him. Twice as a child he tried to kill his classmates. One boy, he beat badly until his father pulled him away, and later Keith admitted that he was attempting to kill the boy. In another incident, a different boy had held Keiths head under water when swimming till he blacked out. In retaliation, when swimming in a public pool, Keith tried to drown the boy and would have if a lifeguard hadn't stopped him.
While Keith was still in school, he moved to Selah, Washington. He had trouble fitting in, the other children teased him because of his size and his brothers called him "Igor" or "Ig". This nickname followed him to adulthood. He often would act out, sometimes with violence and he was severely punished by his father. He would beat Keith with his belt, sometimes in front of others, and once it is reported that his father even tazed him.
Keith grew to be a large, imposing man. At age 35, Keith was 6'7.5" tall and weighed 240lbs. Often Keith would dream of becoming an RCMP officer, the power of a position like that appealed to him, but his dream was dashed in 1990 after an injury prevented him from qualifying. Soon after his injury was when Keith started to kill.
His first known victim was Taunja Bennett. On January 23, 1990, near Portland, Oregon, Keith met Taunja in a bar and invited her back to his place. They went to the house he was renting, Keith tried to have sex with her, but Taunja refused. Keith then beat her, and when he was worried she would report him to the police, he strangled her to death. Keith later told police that he had punched Taunja over twenty times until he could no longer recognize her face, and the fact that she was slightly mentally disabled made him sexually excited.
He tried to give himself an alibi after the murder by going back to the bar for more drinks, then returning later to dispose of Taunja's body in Columbia River Gorge. Keith left town the next day and Taunja's body was found a few days later but police were unable to make any connections to her murderer.
2 and a half years later the body of an unidentified woman was found raped and strangled in Blythe, California, Keith said he thought her name was Claudia. A month later in Turlock, California, the body of Cynthia Lyn Rose was found. Keith took responsibility for this murder, saying that she was a prostitute that entered his truck while he was sleeping in a truck stop. In November that year, the body of another prostitute was found. Her name was Laura Ann Pentland. Keith said she tried to double the price of her services. After she threatened to call the police on him (according to Keith), he strangled her to death.
A little more than 6 months later Keith found his next victim in an unidentified homeless woman in Santa Nella, California. Keith thought her name was Carla or Cindy. Over a year later in Crestview, Florida, 1994, he killed another homeless woman that Keith thought was named Susanne.
 |
| Facial reconstruction of "Carla Doe" |
January 1995, Keith picked up a young woman while driving his truck named Angela Surbrize. He was to give her a lift from Spokane, Washington to Indiana. Somewhere along the drive, Angela began to get impatient with his driving, demanding he hurry up. In response, Keith raped and strangled her, then tied her body to the undercarriage of his truck to "grind off her face and prints". Her body was only found after Keith gave information to the police.
In March of 1995, Keith decided that his girlfriend was using him for money. So he strangled and killed her. This murder turned the polices attention to Keith as she was the only person he was connected to. Two weeks after he murdered his girlfriend, Keith knew he was going to be arrested and attempted to kill himself twice. After his failed attempts at suicide, Keith decided to turn himself in and hope for leniency.
After he turned himself in, Keith started to tell the police about his horrible crimes that spanned from 1990 to 1995. He told police that he liked to play with his victims, strangling them to almost death then bringing them back to strangle them again. Police found out after he was arrested that a few days before, Keith had mailed a letter to his brother and claimed to have killed 8 people in those 5 years.
Keith later would claim that he killed over 180 people. Police were able to connect him to 8, some of them Keith himself led police to the remains of his victims. He was later convicted and sentenced to 3 consecutive life sentences, meaning he serves the time one after another, and after being extradited to California, he was convicted of another murder and sentenced to another consecutive life sentence.
Reading about the murder of Taunja Bennett in the newspaper, a woman named Laverne Pavlinac decided that she would confess to the murder in an attempt to escape from her abusive boyfriend. Using the information found in the news reports, Laverne filed a false confession to the murder of Taunja, stating that she and her boyfriend had raped, strangled and murdered Taunja. Laverne and her boyfriend were arrested and charged with murder. To avoid the death penalty, Laverne's boyfriend pleaded guilty to the murder charge and was sentenced to life in prison, while Laverne was sentenced to 10 years.
Even though Laverne changed her story shortly after being convicted, it wasn't until Keith confessed to the crime and told police where he hid some personal items of Taunja that Laverne and her boyfriend were released from prison.
Keith hated the fact that Laverne and her boyfriend took the credit for his murder of Taunja, and in order to take credit for the crime he wrote a confession on a bathroom stall of a truck stop and signed it with a happy face. After this didn't have the desired effect, Keith started to write letters to media outlets taking credit for his murders, each one signed with a happy face. It wasn't long before the media dubbed him "The Happy Face Killer".
Long after Keith was convicted, his daughter wrote a book about her experiences with her father. She would later receive a letter from her father in prison. One line read "I don't want the world to judge me as a dad. I was a great dad. My only mistake was my eight errors in judgment." Over the years, looking back on her time spent with her father, there were a few times when it seemed like Keith wanted to tell her something, but decided against it at the last minute.
Once he drove his children in his truck and they were surprised when they found a pack of cigarettes in his glove compartment. He was an adamant non-smoker. When asked if he was a "closet smoker" by his children, he told them that the cigarettes were for the women he picked up. On another occasion, when turning a corner a roll of duct tape rolled out from under the seat. Looking back on this, his children never believed something sinister was going on.
When talking to a reporter Keith stated, “Would I escape if I was let out by accident? Damn right I would. Back to Canada, to Chilliwack. I should have gone there 30 years ago. I didn’t want to leave Canada,” he told the reporter. “I knew every tree in our woods, every ripple in our creek. Chilliwack was the greenest place on earth.”
"It was their fate to die by my hands, like a car accident or illness."
Keith Hunter Jesperson is currently in prison in Oregon State Penitentiary for the rest of his natural life without the possibility of parole.
Your visits and reads greatly support me and this site. If you would like to help support this site, even more, click the link below to buy me a coffee and keep me up researching more of the worst Canada has to offer. See you next time.
Audiobooks.com has a really cool promotion going on right now, click the link below and get a one month trial from audiobooks.com and a free book!
I find myself using Amazon quite a bit for my various book and hobby needs. Click the banner add below for a free trial of Amazon Prime.
As always another great read. Haven't heard of this one before either
ReplyDeleteThis is one I've never heard of before either. A good read, Liam. I can't wait for the next installment.
ReplyDelete