00:00:04
NARRATOR: In March, 1995, the body of 41-year-old Julie
00:00:09
Winningham was found just off Highway 14
00:00:12
in Washington in the USA's Pacific Northwest.
00:00:15
She'd been strangled to death.
00:00:17
DON FINDLAY: He's a monster.
00:00:18
Six plus feet, 280 pounds.
00:00:21
My mom was five pounds and 100 pounds soaking wet.
00:00:25
So it's like a toothpick He's a big man.
00:00:28
NARRATOR: Julie had become the eighth victim
00:00:30
of an active serial killer named Keith Jesperson.
00:00:34
The 39-year-old truck driver had been
00:00:36
murdering innocent women across America
00:00:39
for the previous five years.
00:00:42
GEOFFREY WANSELL: In a sense, they were falling
00:00:44
into the hands of a wolf.
00:00:45
They're hens in the hen coop, and Jesperson
00:00:49
is the wolf at the door.
00:00:51
NARRATOR: Jesperson captured the intrigue of the nation
00:00:54
when he confessed to five murders in an anonymous letter
00:00:58
he sent to a newspaper, which he signed with a smile.
00:01:11
NARRATOR: Keith Jesperson, labeled the Happy Face
00:01:14
Killer had made his mark as one of the world's
00:01:17
most evil killers.
00:01:19
[MUSIC PLAYING]
00:01:39
NARRATOR: When 39-year-old trucker Keith Jesperson
00:01:42
confessed all to detectives in March, 1995,
00:01:47
the media finally got a chance to put
00:01:49
a name to the notorious Happy Face Killer.
00:01:53
Over a five year period, Jesperson
00:01:55
squeezed the life out of at least
00:01:57
eight women across five states.
00:02:00
Detective Monty Beuttner was part of the investigative team
00:02:04
that finally brought an end to the happy face
00:02:06
killer's reign of terror.
00:02:09
MONTY BEUTTNER: Jesperson targeted typically
00:02:12
prostitutes, homeless women, women that he felt that would
00:02:15
not have anybody that would report them missing
00:02:18
any time soon to give him a chance to escape to get out
00:02:21
of the area driving his truck.
00:02:24
NARRATOR: Six foot seven inch Jesperson,
00:02:26
a divorced father of three, towered
00:02:29
over his diminutive victims.
00:02:31
MONTY BEUTTNER: For Keith Jesperson,
00:02:32
his big thing was control.
00:02:35
He wanted to control women, he wanted to abuse them in the way
00:02:38
that he was aroused by, so he focused on finding victims
00:02:42
that he thought would meet that need for him.
00:02:45
NARRATOR: Despite his size and destructive power,
00:02:48
Jesperson was mild-mannered and softly spoken
00:02:51
during his confessions to detectives.
00:03:08
CHRIS PETERSON: Every time I talked
00:03:09
to him, he was my best friend.
00:03:11
And when you looked at him, the last thing
00:03:14
you would ever suspect was that this guy was a serial killer.
00:03:17
I mean, he didn't hang around with bad people.
00:03:20
I never heard him swear.
00:03:22
If you met Jesperson, the last thing
00:03:24
you would suspect that he was a criminal.
00:03:26
He doesn't come across as a criminal.
00:03:28
At one point he said to me, you know,
00:03:31
you and I could go on a tour teaching
00:03:33
people how not to get murdered.
00:03:35
And that was kind of the mindset of this particular guy
00:03:38
that he really enjoyed people looking at him and saying,
00:03:41
oh my God, this is a serial killer,
00:03:43
and he must be really an important powerful person
00:03:47
to be involved in that sort of a lifestyle.
00:03:49
And so I don't think there was ever any remorse.
00:03:51
It was it was all about I want people to look at me.
00:03:56
NARRATOR: This killer's story begins just
00:03:58
outside of Vancouver, Canada.
00:04:01
Keith Hunter Jesperson was born in Chilliwack,
00:04:05
British Columbia, on the 6th of April 1955.
00:04:09
He grew up in a large family in a rural home.
00:04:13
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Jesperson had two brothers and two sisters.
00:04:16
He was the so-called runt, I think, of the litter.
00:04:20
The boy, I think, sought to get his father's attention
00:04:24
from quite an early age.
00:04:26
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: His father was incredibly domineering.
00:04:29
His father really looked down on women,
00:04:32
so from a very early age he develops this view
00:04:35
that a misogynistic view of women,
00:04:37
a view of women that is quite demeaning,
00:04:40
is one that's normal.
00:04:42
NARRATOR: Jesperson's assertive father
00:04:44
appeared to bring out a violent side in the young man.
00:04:49
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: One of Jesperson's earliest memories
00:04:51
is apparently of throwing a rock down
00:04:54
a slide at a children's playground
00:04:56
that hit his brother in the head.
00:04:59
And I think what he was trying to do here was essentially
00:05:01
get his father's attention.
00:05:03
His father was somebody who valued aggression, who valued
00:05:08
this kind of behavior, and I think
00:05:10
this really was a cry for that kind of validation from him.
00:05:15
CHRIS PETERSON: The ugly truth must be that he
00:05:19
had no normality in his life.
00:05:21
There was no convention in that family life
00:05:24
from that upbringing, which meant that, in a sense,
00:05:28
there was no moral compass, there was no right and wrong.
00:05:32
NARRATOR: Before he'd even turned seven,
00:05:34
Jesperson displayed traits that have become
00:05:37
synonymous with serial killers.
00:05:40
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Jesperson like
00:05:41
to kill and torture animals.
00:05:43
So he harmed cats, and dogs, and gophers, and crows.
00:05:48
That gave him a sense of power a sense of control
00:05:52
that he couldn't get in any other way.
00:05:55
But he's also realizing that he quite enjoys having control
00:05:59
over another living creature, of holding its life in your hands.
00:06:04
NARRATOR: The family moves south across the border into the US,
00:06:08
and Jesperson would eventually find
00:06:10
work in a job that would assist him in his murderous career.
00:06:15
CHRIS PETERSON: He's become a truck driver for a company
00:06:17
in Washington state, which gives him access to freedom,
00:06:22
drive around, can sleep in the cab.
00:06:25
He can pull up with whatever truck stop he fancies,
00:06:28
where that almost always a collection of young women
00:06:32
knowing that drivers want company.
00:06:35
Is the perfect fit for Jesperson's character.
00:06:39
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: So he's got a lot of time
00:06:41
on his hands to ruminate, to fantasize, to start to plan
00:06:45
things, so this is quite a dangerous situation
00:06:50
to be in because nobody's there to put
00:06:52
the brakes on his behavior.
00:06:55
NARRATOR: By early 1990, Keith Jesperson
00:06:58
was separated from his wife and spending much of his time
00:07:02
driving his truck up and down the seemingly
00:07:05
endless highways of America.
00:07:08
On the 22nd of January 1990, in Portland, Oregon,
00:07:13
a 23-year-old woman was found dead.
00:07:16
CHRIS PETERSON: Taunja Bennett was reported
00:07:18
missing by her mother, and some young man stopped along
00:07:23
that highway one day then discovered her body, which
00:07:26
had been drug off the road down into a little bit of a ravine
00:07:30
off of the scenic highway out in the Columbia Gorge.
00:07:35
NARRATOR: Detectives presumed they'd solved the case quickly
00:07:38
when a local woman Laverne Pavlinac told the police
00:07:41
that her boyfriend was responsible for the death
00:07:44
of Taunja Bennett.
00:07:46
CHRIS PETERSON: Laverne was several years older than John
00:07:49
Sosnovske and John was an alcoholic,
00:07:55
and I think John was probably a very
00:07:58
abusive partner to Laverne.
00:08:01
And I think she was just trying to get John Sosnovske out
00:08:05
of her life, and decided she would
00:08:07
frame him for murder as a way to get John out of her life.
00:08:11
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: In the beginning
00:08:13
she just tries to pin it completely on him,
00:08:15
but then she kind of inserts herself into this narrative.
00:08:20
And I think there's almost a sense in which she's enjoying
00:08:22
the drama of the story and she wants
00:08:24
to play a larger part in it.
00:08:27
NARRATOR: Laverne's story was a lie.
00:08:29
The police didn't know it yet, but Taunja
00:08:32
had in fact been killed by a 34-year-old trucker
00:08:36
named Keith Jesperson.
00:08:37
He had met Taunja playing pool at the B&I tavern, which
00:08:42
was in east Wallowa county and they had decided
00:08:44
we'll go get something to eat at a nearby restaurant,
00:08:47
and when they left the tavern, he
00:08:52
realized he didn't have enough money with him to buy dinner.
00:08:58
So he said, let's go to my house and I'll get some money.
00:09:02
He gets involved in a sexual act with Taunja and at that point
00:09:07
Taunja said something that offended
00:09:08
him and he murdered her.
00:09:10
He choked her with his fist.
00:09:13
And he was a big man, Taunja was a little woman,
00:09:16
and so that wasn't a big challenge to kill Taunja.
00:09:21
GEOFFREY WANSELL: And I don't think he cared very much.
00:09:25
I mean, he left her in the house, and to cover his tracks,
00:09:27
went back to the bar and had another series of drinks,
00:09:30
and then went back to the house and decided
00:09:32
he's going to dump the body.
00:09:33
What he's got plenty of opportunities to dump the body.
00:09:35
All he needs to do is to load her into the truck
00:09:37
and he can drop her where he wants.
00:09:40
NARRATOR: Taunja Bennett had become
00:09:41
Jesperson's first victim.
00:09:44
And despite the fact that two other people were in court,
00:09:47
charged with the 23-year-old's murder,
00:09:50
Jesperson had an urge to tell the world
00:09:53
that he was her killer.
00:09:55
GEOFFREY WANSELL: While the trial's taking place,
00:09:58
he stops off in a restroom and writes a message
00:10:03
on the wall, which is "I beat her, I raped her, I killed her.
00:10:06
I liked it.
00:10:08
You may think I'm sick, but I enjoyed it."
00:10:11
And two other people are taking the fall.
00:10:14
And he signs it with a smiley face.
00:10:18
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: And at first, this
00:10:19
would appear to be quite compelling,
00:10:21
but it wasn't new information.
00:10:23
It was information that anybody could have had, and just
00:10:26
repeated onto the wall.
00:10:28
So I think this was a desire for recognition
00:10:32
on Jesperson's part.
00:10:33
It was a desire to be noticed, and to actually take
00:10:36
the credit for these murders.
00:10:38
NARRATOR: As news of the truck stop confession
00:10:41
reached Laverne Pavlinac and John Sosnovske's lawyers,
00:10:45
they were intrigued.
00:10:47
But the jury would never get to hear about the revelations
00:10:50
signed with a smiley face.
00:10:53
GEOFFREY WANSELL: The defense of Laverne and John
00:10:57
try to get these confessions brought
00:11:01
in as evidence in the trial, but the judge forbids it.
00:11:06
It's hearsay, it could be anybody, it's not convincing,
00:11:11
there's no forensic proof.
00:11:13
Sorry, we're not allowing it into evidence.
00:11:16
And both are duly convicted of the murder,
00:11:21
and Keith Jesperson is free to kill again.
00:11:26
After all, he's already boasted that he can.
00:11:29
So why shouldn't he?
00:11:32
NARRATOR: As to innocent people were sentenced to life
00:11:35
in prison for the murder of Taunja Bennett,
00:11:38
Keith Jesperson remain free.
00:11:42
In 1992, two years after killing for the first time,
00:11:46
Jesperson struck again.
00:11:48
This time in California.
00:11:51
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Jesperson second victim,
00:11:52
Claudia, was a woman who he kept alive in his truck
00:11:57
for four days.
00:11:59
He quite enjoyed torturing her.
00:12:01
He quite enjoyed the fact that she would
00:12:03
have been fearful for her life and probably
00:12:05
pleading for her life.
00:12:07
So this really highlights that it's the process that Jesperson
00:12:12
enjoys, it's that feeling of power,
00:12:14
that feeling of complete control and domination
00:12:17
he gets when he has got somebody who's
00:12:19
completely subservient to him.
00:12:21
GEOFFREY WANSELL: He eventually, after a few days,
00:12:23
gets bored, kills her by punching
00:12:25
her literally to death, and then chucks her out of the truck.
00:12:30
Now, how do you identify the body of a young woman
00:12:33
found miles away from where she may have been last seen.
00:12:38
Remember, we're in the early 90's here.
00:12:41
We don't have the kind of elaborate databases
00:12:43
that the police authorities have now.
00:12:46
It's simply a body.
00:12:49
And again, that confirms to Jesperson
00:12:54
his ability to get away with it, his ability
00:12:57
to do what he wants.
00:13:00
It's a very powerful addictive substance
00:13:05
for a man who's already got a warped mind,
00:13:08
and has no moral compass.
00:13:11
This is powerful medicine indeed.
00:13:13
NARRATOR: By April 1994, Jesperson
00:13:16
had killed another three women, taking
00:13:19
his gruesome tally to five.
00:13:22
But the 39-year-old was growing frustrated
00:13:24
with the lack of credit he felt he deserved
00:13:27
for his ongoing killing spree.
00:13:30
He began to right that wrong by sending letters to an Oregon
00:13:33
courthouse and a local newspaper,
00:13:36
reiterating his claims that he was
00:13:39
the person responsible for the death of Taunja Bennett
00:13:42
back in January 1990.
00:13:45
MONTY BEUTTNER: Keith loves the media attention.
00:13:47
He was doing anything he could to obtain that attention.
00:13:51
And when somebody else was getting it,
00:13:53
Keith wasn't comfortable with that.
00:13:54
So when that occurred, it was the first time Keith
00:13:57
came out of hiding so to speak.
00:14:00
Contacted the newspaper, took credit
00:14:02
for the homicide of Taunja Bennett,
00:14:05
but would not divulge who he was.
00:14:07
With all of the letters, he signed them with a happy face
00:14:09
at the bottom, and the Oregonian newspaper deemed
00:14:12
him the Happy Face Killer.
00:14:14
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: At this point he's really, really frustrated.
00:14:18
He's written on the walls of truck stops,
00:14:20
he's written to the county court,
00:14:21
and yet still he's not getting the recognition that he feels
00:14:25
he deserves, especially around that smiley face moniker
00:14:29
that he's crafted.
00:14:30
He probably thought that was a brilliant kind
00:14:32
of brand identity, and nobody's picking it up.
00:14:35
So at this point he's really, really angry.
00:14:38
He's screaming out now, I've done this, I'm proud of this,
00:14:42
I deserve recognition for it.
00:14:45
NARRATOR: The letters detailed all five of the murders
00:14:48
that Jesperson had committed, allowing authorities to link
00:14:52
the separate cases together.
00:14:54
But the trucker continued on regardless.
00:14:57
He killed a sixth victim known only
00:15:00
as Susanne in September 1994.
00:15:03
And in January 1995, he claimed a seventh.
00:15:07
His most inhumane so far.
00:15:11
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Angela Surbrize
00:15:13
is one that always sticks in my mind
00:15:19
because it doesn't start out at a truck stop in the same way
00:15:23
as the many of the other killings have.
00:15:26
This time he offers Angela a lift.
00:15:30
She's 21, she wants to lift to see her father.
00:15:34
In the end, she phones her father and her father
00:15:36
says, oh don't come now.
00:15:37
So she decides to go and see her boyfriend in Indiana.
00:15:41
According to Jesperson, he got irritated with her because she
00:15:45
was telling him to hurry up.
00:15:47
He says how much she was nagging at him
00:15:49
and how much she was bitching at him.
00:15:51
And what he's doing here is victim blaming.
00:15:55
He's drawing on these stereotypical notions of women
00:15:58
as annoying, as nagging because that has often been used
00:16:02
in the past to justify murders.
00:16:04
It's this kind of crime of passion type of argument.
00:16:08
And he really is quite in tune with that.
00:16:11
NARRATOR: After spending a week together on the road,
00:16:14
Jesperson strangled Angela to death,
00:16:17
but he was far from finished with her.
00:16:20
GEOFFREY WANSELL: You have a man who is now
00:16:22
quite literally out of control.
00:16:24
But what makes Angela's killing so horrible
00:16:31
is that he decides to cover his tracks,
00:16:35
and he ties that poor dead young woman's body under his truck,
00:16:43
and toes it.
00:16:45
And the objective is to obliterate
00:16:47
her face and her fingerprints.
00:16:50
He's sufficiently aware that he knows
00:16:52
that this one could be traced.
00:16:55
After all, one or two people may well
00:16:57
have known that he had offered her a lift,
00:16:59
and he wants to make sure that she's unidentifiable.
00:17:06
This is a killing of the supreme wickedness.
00:17:08
I mean, one feels desperately that she couldn't possibly
00:17:13
have deserved that horrific fate,
00:17:17
and yet Jesperson meted it out to her,
00:17:22
without a twinge of conscience as far as we can see.
00:17:27
NARRATOR: The pace of Jesperson's killing spree
00:17:29
was accelerating, and just two months after the murder
00:17:33
of Angela Surbrize, in March 1995,
00:17:37
a body was discovered in Washington, just
00:17:39
off Highway 14.
00:18:00
MONTY BEUTTNER: I was actually on days off
00:18:01
and it was, I believe, March 11 1995, when I received a call
00:18:06
at home stating that they had received
00:18:09
a report of a body that was found near the county line,
00:18:12
just into Skamania county.
00:18:13
The patrol officers were responding at that time
00:18:15
and they asked that I respond as well.
00:18:27
MONTY BEUTTNER: The only thing really
00:18:28
in that area between the highway and the river
00:18:30
is a set of railroad tracks.
00:18:32
It was all the way at the lower edge of that.
00:18:34
But just over that bank, probably 20 feet down
00:18:37
over the edge from the highway, is where the body was located.
00:18:41
This latest case bared all the hallmarks
00:18:44
of the notorious Happy Face Killer.
00:18:47
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: When we look at the locations in which
00:18:49
Jesperson dumped the bodies, and you look at the other types
00:18:52
of items that you find in that location, it's trash,
00:18:55
it's rubbish, it's discarded things
00:18:57
that people no longer want.
00:18:59
And that is exactly how Jesperson sees his victims.
00:19:02
He's had fun with them, they've served a purpose,
00:19:05
and now he's just going to dispose of them.
00:19:08
MONTY BEUTTNER: It appeared to me
00:19:09
that she had not been there very long, between possibly
00:19:13
24 and 36 hours.
00:19:15
She was laying on her right side and her face
00:19:18
was facing the ground.
00:19:20
I could see evidence that's either
00:19:21
consistent with strangulation or lividity
00:19:26
because she was basically inverted,
00:19:28
her head was lower than the rest of her body.
00:19:31
Once the heart stops, blood will pool at its lowest point.
00:19:34
And in this case, it would have been her upper torso, neck,
00:19:37
and face.
00:19:39
GEOFFREY WANSELL: One of the things
00:19:40
that became a hallmark of Jesperson killing
00:19:45
was he punched his victims repeatedly
00:19:49
in the neck, and face, and in the throat,
00:19:51
thereby eventually killing them.
00:19:54
He was a puncher, beat them literally to death.
00:19:59
NARRATOR: The first task for the investigating team
00:20:02
was identifying the body.
00:20:04
MONTY BEUTTNER: We had no clothing,
00:20:05
we had no personal wallet, no way to identify her.
00:20:09
So one of the things that we do at the medical examiner's
00:20:12
office is we take fingerprints from the victim.
00:20:16
We then run those through the automated fingerprint
00:20:18
identification system, known as AFIS,
00:20:20
and in this case, the victim Julie Winningham,
00:20:22
her fingerprints were in the AFIS system.
00:20:25
NARRATOR: 41-year-old Julie Winningham
00:20:27
had become the latest woman to be killed at the hands
00:20:31
of the Happy Face Killer.
00:20:33
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Jesperson is a man
00:20:34
who feels completely entitled to treat women in this way.
00:20:38
He picks up women in his truck, he thinks,
00:20:41
I have a right to do with these women whatever I want.
00:20:44
Now, he knows that what he's doing is wrong,
00:20:46
but that doesn't stop him because he
00:20:49
feels that he has some God-given right to do this.
00:20:53
GEOFFREY WANSELL: In a sense, they were falling
00:20:55
into the hands of a wolf.
00:20:57
They're hens in the hen coop and Jesperson
00:21:01
is the wolf at the door.
00:21:03
NARRATOR: But Jesperson's world was about to come
00:21:06
crashing down around him.
00:21:08
The 39-year-old serial killer had made a mistake that would
00:21:12
lead the police to his door.
00:21:15
Julie Winningham had become Keith
00:21:17
Jesperson's eighth victim, but she would also be his last.
00:21:22
Julie's son Don Findlay was 24 at the time.
00:21:30
DON FINDLAY: My mom, she was a cheerful free spirit,
00:21:34
caring, and loving.
00:21:36
She was just a traveler and an adventure, and was a free soul.
00:21:41
And didn't understand that when I was young, But as I grew up
00:21:46
I grasped what it was all and why she chose her life the way
00:21:51
she did.
00:21:52
NARRATOR: Julie and Don did not have
00:21:54
a traditional mother-son relationship.
00:21:57
Don was working in California, while Julie moved
00:22:00
between the Pacific Northwest.
00:22:03
DON FINDLAY: There was a time when I came up here in '91.
00:22:08
The last time I physically saw my mom, we drove around,
00:22:13
we talked, we got caught up, and in '95
00:22:17
my mom had called me February 12, which was her birthday.
00:22:21
And my birthday was February 20.
00:22:24
She told me she was up in Idaho with a friend and planning
00:22:29
on coming down to Washington.
00:22:33
NARRATOR: By March, 1995, Julie was spending a lot of time
00:22:37
with some friends in the Portland area,
00:22:40
just on the Oregon side of the Columbia River.
00:22:43
MONTY BEUTTNER: She started hanging
00:22:45
out at some of the truck stops.
00:22:47
Burns Bros, over in Troutdale, had a dance
00:22:50
floor and quite the nightlife.
00:22:52
A lot of people would go over there whether they drove trucks
00:22:54
or not.
00:22:55
And I believe as a country and Western bar.
00:22:57
And they would just hang out and have
00:22:59
drinks with friends over there.
00:23:01
So she got into that circle over there as well.
00:23:04
NARRATOR: After Julie's body was found just
00:23:06
across the river in Washington, her son Don
00:23:09
was given the devastating news.
00:23:12
DON FINDLAY: I was at work, and I received a phone call
00:23:15
from my aunt telling me that they
00:23:19
had found my mom dead on the side of Highway 14,
00:23:26
murdered and raped.
00:23:29
I lost it.
00:23:33
I punched fences, I pulled off the paper towels,
00:23:41
walked down the street and just collapsed
00:23:43
in the middle of the street.
00:23:44
No one around.
00:23:47
The people I knew as friends didn't know what to think.
00:23:51
NARRATOR: Detectives interviewed Julie's friends
00:23:54
and they immediately had a lead.
00:23:57
She had a boyfriend who was a truck driver.
00:24:00
MONTY BEUTTNER: Speaking with Julie's friends,
00:24:02
we were very interested in who this truck
00:24:04
driver was she was with.
00:24:06
Unfortunately her friends really didn't
00:24:08
pay much attention to him.
00:24:09
They noticed that he drove a big blue semi
00:24:12
truck with a sleeper cab, but they weren't sure of his name.
00:24:15
Some of them said his name maybe was Keith, some of them
00:24:18
said his name was Chris.
00:24:21
They were just unsure.
00:24:23
NARRATOR: Just as it seemed the trail was going cold,
00:24:26
investigators got their biggest break yet.
00:24:29
MONTY BEUTTNER: Fortunately, one of Julie's friends
00:24:32
had just bought a car from Julie.
00:24:34
And out of that transaction of buying the car,
00:24:37
Keith was there, and he was asked to sign the bill of sale
00:24:39
as a witness.
00:24:40
So the friend gave us the bill of sale,
00:24:43
and on it as a witness had said Keith Hunter Jesperson.
00:24:47
So that was our first indication of who we were looking for.
00:24:50
NARRATOR: For the first time since his killing spree began,
00:24:54
the name Keith Jesperson was with the detectives.
00:24:57
The 39-year-old had made an uncharacteristic error.
00:25:02
GEOFFREY WANSELL: There's all sorts of footprints that
00:25:07
had been left in the sand that lead you directly
00:25:10
back to Keith Jesperson.
00:25:12
He makes the mistake of killing someone who has got a past,
00:25:15
would have a future, and has got a whole network of friends
00:25:18
to prove it.
00:25:20
It's a gigantic miscalculation.
00:25:21
But the reason he miscalculates is by now he
00:25:25
is simply addicted to killing.
00:25:26
He oversteps the mark.
00:25:27
He goes too far because he can't stop himself.
00:25:30
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: And I think that's
00:25:31
testament to his arrogance at this point
00:25:34
in his serial murders.
00:25:37
He really does think he's untouchable,
00:25:39
but he's not going to get caught.
00:25:41
NARRATOR: Detectives traced Jesperson
00:25:43
via his employers to a job over 1,000
00:25:46
miles away from Washington.
00:25:49
MONTY BEUTTNER: Keith Jesperson was told that when he dropped
00:25:52
off his load in Hurley, that he was to travel to the Las
00:25:56
Cruces, New Mexico, county fairgrounds to pick up
00:25:59
a load of steel at that point.
00:26:01
That was fabricated to the point where we could basically bring
00:26:03
Keith Jesperson to us, and him thinking that it
00:26:06
was another pickup point.
00:26:08
It was actually us waiting for his arrival.
00:26:10
NARRATOR: Monty remembers his first encounter
00:26:13
with the imposing killer.
00:26:16
MONTY BEUTTNER: Keith Jesperson is a very big man.
00:26:18
However, he is somewhat soft spoken,
00:26:20
so it's almost like he's using that to make people
00:26:26
feel comfortable around him.
00:26:27
And my first impression was using the way he was speaking
00:26:33
to us in the soft tones, even though he a very big man,
00:26:36
I could see where he could pick a victim up
00:26:40
and they would feel somewhat safe being with him
00:26:43
until he changed unexpectedly.
00:26:45
So that was my first impression that this man could
00:26:49
easily victimize some women.
00:26:51
NARRATOR: Jesperson claimed that Julie was still
00:26:54
alive when he last saw her.
00:26:56
Without any physical or forensic evidence,
00:26:59
the detectives were powerless to arrest him.
00:27:02
They flew back to Washington to continue
00:27:05
their investigation into the death of Julie Winningham.
00:27:10
DON FINDLAY: I saw my mom for the very last time
00:27:14
in a white room on a silver slab with a white sheet up
00:27:21
to her neck, with a black and blue mark
00:27:24
across her whole face, shrub marks on her cheeks,
00:27:28
and that was the last time I basically saw my mom.
00:27:36
|
00:27:38
NARRATOR: No sooner had the detectives
00:27:40
touched down in Washington, Jesperson
00:27:42
had a sudden change of heart.
00:27:45
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Maybe at this point
00:27:47
Jesperson realizes that really the game is up
00:27:51
and there's nothing he can do.
00:27:53
So he confesses to his employer, the truck company,
00:27:57
that he's going to confess to the police.
00:28:01
And he himself leaves a voicemail
00:28:05
for one of the detectives who's come to interview him.
00:28:57
NARRATOR: Detective Rick Buckner spoke to Jesperson on the phone
00:29:01
when the killer reached a truck stop in Arizona.
00:29:41
MONTY BEUTTNER: Julie then was angry because of the car
00:29:44
that she recently sold to the friend
00:29:47
because Keith Jesperson signed it as a witness.
00:29:51
She wanted the car back, and she blamed Keith
00:29:54
because she couldn't get the car back because of the bill sale
00:29:56
that he had witnessed.
00:29:58
Keith said that they got into an argument about that.
00:30:25
MONTY BEUTTNER: He held his hands
00:30:26
around her neck or his fist on her throat and held her down.
00:30:30
At that interview, on the phone interview,
00:30:33
he said as long as five minutes.
00:30:34
And later interviews he thought it was as long as 10 minutes
00:30:37
that he held his fist or hand over her neck,
00:30:41
strangling her until she stopped moving.
00:31:00
MONTY BEUTTNER: So at our request,
00:31:02
Cochise County Sheriff's Office sent deputies out
00:31:05
and they arrested him at the truck stop
00:31:07
where he had made the call to call detective Buckner.
00:31:10
NARRATOR: Keith Jesperson was finally in custody,
00:31:13
but the police we're only just beginning to realize they'd
00:31:16
captured the notorious Happy Face Killer.
00:31:20
In a letter to his brother sent just before his arrest,
00:31:23
Jesperson had outlined his crimes, writing,
00:31:26
I am sorry that I turned out this way.
00:31:29
I've been killing for five years and have killed
00:31:32
eight people, assaulted more.
00:31:34
I guess I haven't learned anything.
00:31:37
MONTY BEUTTNER: By the time that we had knowledge
00:31:39
of those letters, the investigation
00:31:40
of Julie Winningham was in its final stages.
00:31:43
And so at that point in time, the letters
00:31:46
to his brother that was reviewed, the letters
00:31:49
to the Oregonian that we reviewed,
00:31:51
it was it was believed that time that, yes, we indeed
00:31:55
possibly had multiple victims in this case of Keith Jesperson.
00:31:59
NARRATOR: It was time to sit down with Keith Jesperson
00:32:02
and find out exactly what the Happy Face
00:32:05
Killer had to say for himself.
00:32:22
NARRATOR: From the letters and interviews with Jesperson,
00:32:25
detectives learned that he had killed eight women
00:32:27
across the USA, from the very Northwest in Washington,
00:32:31
all the way down to the Southeast in Florida.
00:32:35
Investigators were determined to put names and faces to some
00:32:39
of the unknown women that Jesperson
00:32:41
had claimed to have murdered.
00:32:44
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Gradually, the police
00:32:46
put together a picture of the victims and where they are.
00:32:49
They begin to find, or at least identify,
00:32:52
some of the bodies, which were in five states,
00:32:54
so it's not an easy task.
00:32:57
NARRATOR: In a letter he sent to the Oregonian newspaper
00:33:01
a year before his arrest, Jesperson
00:33:03
had claimed to have killed a woman before dumping
00:33:06
her body in Salem, Oregon.
00:33:09
This alerted Marion County DA Mark
00:33:11
Makler when he heard that the Happy Face
00:33:14
Killer had been apprehended.
00:33:17
MARK MAKLER: His hands were very large.
00:33:19
When I met him and interviewed him and saw him
00:33:22
for the first time in the Clark County jail
00:33:24
in Vancouver, Washington, he had to duck
00:33:26
when he walked through doors because he
00:33:29
had that kind of size.
00:33:30
I mean, he was a big guy.
00:33:32
And he didn't present himself with that size as a monster,
00:33:39
so much as somebody who probably looked
00:33:42
like a big giant friendly guy until enraged, I suppose.
00:33:49
NARRATOR: Mark was able to get a blood sample from Jesperson,
00:33:53
which revealed a DNA match to semen found
00:33:56
on the body of Laurie Pentland, who'd been the killer's
00:34:00
fourth victim in November 1992.
00:34:03
MARK MAKLER: Laurie Pentland was choked to death,
00:34:05
and what we understood was, whether he intended to kill her
00:34:10
or not, whether he intended that she was the next victim
00:34:14
or not, what we understood was that she
00:34:16
was engaged in a sex act with him, in oral sex acts with him.
00:34:20
I think it probably got violent with him a little bit
00:34:22
and she bit him, and he killed her.
00:34:27
That's what we understood.
00:34:28
NARRATOR: Jesperson had employed his usual MO
00:34:31
of squeezing the life out of Laurie Pentland's body.
00:34:35
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Jesperson killed Laurie by a process
00:34:38
of stop-start strangulation.
00:34:40
So he would throttle her until she almost went unconscious,
00:34:44
and then he would kind of back off
00:34:47
and she would come around again, and then he would
00:34:49
start that process over again.
00:34:51
So I think this is part of the murder
00:34:53
that Jesperson really enjoys.
00:34:55
This holding somebody else's life in his hands.
00:34:58
It's something that he wants to prolong.
00:35:00
It something that he wants to amplify.
00:35:02
So this must have been incredibly
00:35:04
terrifying for his victim.
00:35:07
MARK MAKLER: When a victim is choked,
00:35:08
typically bones in the neck or broken.
00:35:10
Remember, I told you he had massive hands,
00:35:12
so he crushed her neck.
00:35:15
I mean, that's effectively what happened.
00:35:19
NARRATOR: Jesperson was charged with the murder of Laurie
00:35:22
Pentland, and after telling detectives where they would
00:35:25
find her mutilated body, the 40-year-old
00:35:28
was charged with a third murder, that of Angela
00:35:32
Surbrize, the woman he dragged under his truck
00:35:35
in January 1995.
00:35:38
As his confessions continued, he once again
00:35:41
claimed to be responsible for killing Taunja Bennett
00:35:44
in January 1990, a crime for which two people
00:35:48
had already been convicted.
00:36:18
NARRATOR: Jesperson told detectives
00:36:19
that Taunja had come back to his home
00:36:22
after the pair had met in a bar and been for a meal.
00:36:26
They soon began having sex on a mattress on the floor.
00:37:15
NARRATOR: Jesperson described the brutal murder,
00:37:18
the first one he committed in a calm manner.
00:37:22
The Washington detectives contacted their colleagues
00:37:25
across the Oregon State border.
00:37:29
CHRIS PETERSON: One day I got a call from Rick Buckner who
00:37:32
is a Clark County detective.
00:37:35
Rick said we've got an inmate in custody in Clark County
00:37:39
for killing his girlfriend, and he is telling us,
00:37:45
and he's telling his fellow inmates that he murdered
00:37:48
a woman named Taunja Bennett.
00:37:50
MONTY BEUTTNER: Of course, detectives
00:37:51
didn't believe him because we have
00:37:52
two people in prison already.
00:37:54
One of which confessed to it.
00:37:56
However Keith Jesperson asked if we located Taunja Bennett's
00:38:00
purse and ID card, which wasn't located at the location where
00:38:05
her body was.
00:38:06
He indicated that he dumped that at a different location
00:38:08
and he was willing to show us where that was.
00:38:11
NARRATOR: Jesperson described throwing the evidence
00:38:14
into a blackberry field the morning
00:38:16
after he'd murdered Taunja.
00:38:38
CHRIS PETERSON: We took him to the crime scene or the dump
00:38:40
site on the Columbia Gorge and he said that he left her body,
00:38:46
but took the purse with him.
00:38:47
He said, I threw the contents of her purse in this area.
00:38:52
Well, it was a big area and the blackberry were 10 feet high.
00:38:57
NARRATOR: After a thorough search of the vast area
00:39:00
by police and the local scouts, they
00:39:02
failed to find any evidence, but the detectives
00:39:06
refused to give up the ghost.
00:39:08
CHRIS PETERSON: My partner Jim McNally said maybe we
00:39:10
ought to do it one more time.
00:39:12
So the next Saturday we sent the explorer scouts out again
00:39:15
with the police supervisor and they found Taunja's ID card,
00:39:20
an Oregon issued ID card, and it was
00:39:23
as good a condition as it was the day it was thrown there.
00:39:28
Well, only a person who threw it there
00:39:31
could have pinpointed that precise location within,
00:39:36
I guess, 100 yards of where we found it.
00:39:38
So that was the turning point, and that was the point where
00:39:42
I felt we could charge Jesperson with a crime
00:39:46
because we had enough evidence to implicate him in the crime,
00:39:49
and we wanted more than his confession
00:39:51
and the ID card turned out to be that one piece that we needed.
00:40:07
NARRATOR: Just three weeks after the ID card was uncovered,
00:40:10
on the 2nd of November 1995, Keith Jesperson
00:40:14
entered a no contest plea for the murder of Taunja Bennett.
00:40:18
He was given a life sentence.
00:40:21
Less than a month later, Laverne Pavlinac and John Sosnovske
00:40:26
were freed from prison.
00:40:28
CHRIS PETERSON: Jesperson, had he not wanted to talk about it,
00:40:31
would probably never would have been convicted.
00:40:33
There was virtually no forensic evidence
00:40:36
left at the crime scene.
00:40:38
So had Jesperson not come forward,
00:40:41
there's a good chance that the two people went to prison
00:40:45
would still be in prison.
00:40:47
NARRATOR: On the 15th of November 1995,
00:40:50
Jesperson was given another life sentence for the murder
00:40:54
of Laurie Pentland.
00:40:55
And in December, Jesperson was back in court for a third time.
00:41:00
This time, charged with the murder of Julie Winningham,
00:41:03
the girl whose death had led to the downfall
00:41:06
of the Happy Face Killer.
00:41:08
DON FINDLAY: I attended every day, front row.
00:41:10
What he said in court was he had raped my mother,
00:41:17
he had duct tape my mother, stuck his fist down her throat
00:41:23
to make sure she was dead, he kept her
00:41:26
in the cab of his truck for 12 to 24 hours, and drove her up
00:41:31
and threw her off the side of the gorge
00:41:35
like a piece of garbage.
00:41:39
And I had to hear this man say that in court, this monster's
00:41:43
telling me what he did.
00:41:45
NARRATOR: Once again Jesperson was found guilty.
00:41:48
His third life sentence.
00:41:51
He was sentenced to two consecutive life
00:41:53
terms in Oregon, and a consecutive life
00:41:57
term in Washington.
00:41:58
Effectively three lives, back to back to back.
00:42:01
So he's going to die in prison.
00:42:06
DON FINDLAY: He took a kind, caring, loving,
00:42:10
free spirited mother, aunt, sister,
00:42:14
daughter, soul from this planet for his enjoyment.
00:42:22
And the impact it's left is almost unreal.
00:42:30
But I had to face it because it was my mom, nobody else's mom.
00:42:37
NARRATOR: In 1998, Jesperson was found guilty once more
00:42:42
for the murder of Angela Surbrize.
00:42:45
And in 2007 and 2010, he was convicted
00:42:49
of two murders in California between 1992 and 1993.
00:42:55
In total, the outspoken killer has been convicted six times.
00:43:00
He remains in prison in Oregon.
00:43:02
CHRIS PETERSON: I have arrested a lot of people
00:43:04
for a lot of crimes and a fair number of murders,
00:43:07
and this is the only one that I ever
00:43:09
arrested that seemed to be awful pleased
00:43:11
with his accomplishments.
00:43:14
MONTY BEUTTNER: Keith Jesperson is a very evil person.
00:43:16
He looks for people's weaknesses,
00:43:18
he looks for women's weaknesses, and then
00:43:20
exploits those to get everything he can possibly get from them,
00:43:23
and then he kills them and discards them when he's done.
00:43:27
He is the epitome of evil.
00:43:31
NARRATOR: Jesperson was an imposing figure
00:43:33
who used his huge fists to either
00:43:36
beat his victims to death, or strangle the life out of them.
00:43:40
For five years he managed to evade justice,
00:43:43
until the same hands he used to kill,
00:43:46
signed a document that led detectives right to his door,
00:43:50
wiping the smile off the happy face of Keith
00:43:53
Jesperson, one of the world's most evil killers.
00:43:57
[MUSIC PLAYING]
