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ashley.com esally For the Love of Home Twisted Mind of a serial killer Israel keyed left investigators stunned by
00:02:11
telling them he's a serial killer textbook serial killer he took pleasure in the act of
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taking a life there is nothing probably greater than holding the power in control of
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someone life and looking him in the eye and being able to control all that is intoxicating the serial killers textbook
00:02:38
serial killer Israel keys so just you describe the status of the case and the interest in Israel keys
00:02:46
right now yeah so it's uh it's an ongoing case obviously after Keys killed himself that um kind of changed
00:02:52
everything for us there's no longer a defendant there's no longer crimes per se to investigate like we would in a
00:02:58
traditional case um but we have unsolved homicides that we're trying to solve so
00:03:03
it's remained open um recognizing that he took so many secrets with him when he died um we've
00:03:11
really reached out to the public in various projects and news media type things trying to get tips people that
00:03:17
might remember seeing them or things like that um the caches we've usually talked about the caches in most of these
00:03:23
media things because we do think that they potentially hold Clues to some of his past victims um so that's ongoing
00:03:30
type strategy of ours is to hopefully make people aware that these cashes are out there and to you know if they come
00:03:37
across something they think might be one of his caches contact law enforcement immediately don't touch it don't
00:03:41
contaminate the DNA that might be in there that might be helpful to [Music] us today we have a true crime garage
00:03:58
round table on tap for all of you Nick and the captain with you of course but joining us we have Josh Hallmark who is
00:04:05
the host and creator of the True Crime [ __ ] podcast an investigative podcast aimed at identifying the missing
00:04:12
Israel Keys victims and also joining us we have Dakota and Joshua from the Somewhere In the Pines podcast which is
00:04:20
dedicated to locating the hidden caches weapons and kill kits of American serial
00:04:26
killer Israel Keys Israel Keys is a deceased serial killer we know that he killed at least three people he
00:04:34
committed several other known attacks and when he died in 2012 he left behind a huge mystery with potential additional
00:04:42
murder victims in fact there is much evidence to suggest that these three victims were not the only victims of
00:04:50
Israel keys and that there are other kill kits out there hidden and buried across the country that can still be
00:04:56
found we asked Josh Dakota and Joshua to join us to discuss the mystery of keys and to talk about a lot of the evidence
00:05:06
in this case suggesting that there are in fact additional victims tying keys to other murders will close out some other
00:05:14
cases how many well that remains to be determined at this moment let's go around the room and introduce ourselves
00:05:23
to the beautiful listeners Josh Hallmark why don't you tell everybody about your
00:05:27
podcast hey everyone this is Josh Hallmark I started investigating Israel keys in 2014 and launched True Crime
00:05:36
[ __ ] in 2018 it was intended to just be a one season exploration of Israel keys and now 6 years later I it's just a
00:05:46
deep dive investigation into all things keys with a specific focus on trying to identify his unknown victims and how
00:05:54
about the Somewhere In the Pines guys how's it going everyone my name is Dakota I I uh work with Joshua Ash on
00:06:02
the show Somewhere In the Pines and our focus is to locate the hidden caches of Israel keys to hopefully help identify
00:06:10
his unknown victims and hey everyone this is Joshua Ash we've been researching for the past three years and
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physically searching for about the last year and a half um all throughout the Olympic Peninsula I'm trying to locate
00:06:22
any sort of signs or landmarks that Israel could have used to help identify where a cash would be well gentlemen we
00:06:28
are forced to reverse engineer this case Keys is caught and then this mystery starts to unfold for investigators and
00:06:35
the FBI in particular so we need to start with how did Israel Keys get apprehended and what for yeah so Keys's
00:06:44
apprehension is funny because the whole mythology surrounding Keys is he's the most meticulous thoughtful serial killer
00:06:51
ever and he actually got caught uh being pretty reckless and stupid he was arrested on March 13th of 2012 in Lin
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Texas after he had used a missing woman named Samantha koenig's debit card at ATMs in Arizona New Mexico and Texas
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while he was traveling from Las Vegas to his sister's wedding in Welles Texas essentially the cops were able to pull
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uh ATM video from one of the uh ATM transactions found his rental car and the license plate were able to look it
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up uh and track him to a motel in lein Texas they waited for him to leave and then pulled him over I think he was
00:07:35
going I think he ran a red light so they used that to pull him over and then immediately apprehended him they
00:07:41
searched and seized uh items from his car and in those items they found Samantha koenig's debit card cell phone
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and other evidence from her abduction and so at the time they suspect him of this one abduction and murder but once
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they learn more about Israel keys and some of the things he starts to tell them we find out that there is much more
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beneath the surface here than just this one murder that he appeared to be on the
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run from yeah pretty quickly you know Keys had said I think in his second interview uh following his arrest
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alluded to the fact that there were many more crimes uh and that Samantha kig was
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just the tip of the iceberg and the agents who were seizing his stuff and interviewing him were not surprised by
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that it was clear to them that this was someone who who had been committing crimes uh with efficiency for quite some
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time throughout the course of several interviews Keys LED on that there were other victims and he finally gave up the
00:08:41
names of two in April so just a month and a half later and those victims were Bill and lra Courier who had disappeared
00:08:50
from Essex Vermont on June 8th of 2011 from there keys would eventually insinuate that there were at least a 11
00:08:59
other victims in my opinion there are many more than that so to put this in perspective for our listeners here for
00:09:06
the folks that are not familiar with this case we have his first known victim which was taken from Alaska correct Keys
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abducted her from a drive-through coffee stand uh the day before he and his family left to go on a cruise in
00:09:23
Anchorage Alaska she's working alone and then I believe he kept her captive on his property for some time well he kept
00:09:32
her on his property for some time he abducted her and essentially drove around Anchorage with her in his car for
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I think two to three hours while he was waiting for his family to go to sleep when he felt like the coast was clear he
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took her back to a shed in his driveway where he tied her up uh and assaulted her eventually realized that uh in the
00:09:55
haste of abducting her he had not gotten some of her items that needed specifically a debit card so he drove
00:10:03
back to her house uh went through her car got her debit card returned uh got the pin number from her to use at a
00:10:11
later date um as far as we can tell he kept Samantha alive in that shed for about 4 hours uh and then killed her
00:10:22
immediately went into his house showered uh and took his kid to the airport so they could take this family cruise but
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he kept Samantha in the shed and his driveway for weeks while he was traveling in Texas Louisiana and the
00:10:35
Caribbean this attack and abduction and murder takes place in Alaska where he's living and then after apprehension
00:10:42
hundreds of miles away in the state of Texas he's confessing to a double homicide that took place the year prior
00:10:51
hundreds of miles away from Texas in Vermont and so I wanted to make that clear to all the listeners there the how
00:10:58
expansive his crimes and crime scenes and victims that he's Left Behind could be already trailing from Alaska all the
00:11:07
way out to Vermont and Josh could you break down what is known about his confessions and his interviews after he
00:11:15
gets caught yeah so you know he only ever confessed uh to Samantha koenig's murder and the murders of Bill and
00:11:24
Lorraine Courier but like I had previously mentioned he did insinuate or actually state that there were other
00:11:31
victims and it's interesting because I I think you could take these interviews in
00:11:36
many different ways one could be bragging but what he said that has always stuck with me is this is the
00:11:41
first time I'm able to talk about these things so I think while trying to not give them too much information he was
00:11:49
also very excited to talk about this other life that he had been living for 14 years it became abundantly clear that
00:11:56
Keys had rules about AB abducting and killing people and he didn't always stay true to those rules the first one was
00:12:04
never abduct or kill someone from your own backyard which he obviously did with Samantha Koenig and I think that's a big
00:12:11
reason he got caught eventually so you would see as the FBI started talking to him and going through his travel records
00:12:19
that he had traveled extensively in the 14 years that he claimed to be active so
00:12:24
98 to 2012 uh in that time he traveled to almost every single state multiple countries and he in addition to just
00:12:33
traveling away from his home base to commit crimes he would go to Great Lengths to muddy his travels uh so for
00:12:42
example when he abducted the couriers he flew from into Chicago rented a car drove from Chicago to Vermont abducted
00:12:51
them and then immediately left the area he drove to Maine so this became hiso it's something he bragged about to the
00:12:58
FBI how however we don't believe that this Mo was consistent across all crimes um I've talked to multiple criminal
00:13:06
psychologists and the general consensus is there were you know crimes of desire and opportunity and then crimes that
00:13:14
took place because he couldn't have the right victim or the right circumstance but was primed to kill so you know a lot
00:13:21
of the mythology surrounding Keys is he was super meticulous and he only lived by these rules and while they were rules
00:13:26
he wanted to commit crimes by they were often the exception and not the rule so let me just wrap my head around this he
00:13:35
confesses he's caught for a crime that took place in 2012 and then he confesses to crimes that took place in
00:13:43
2011 but you say that there's a 14-year period so during one of these interviews
00:13:49
he's alluding to the idea that he started 14 years prior what he says verbatim is when asked how long he's
00:13:57
been two different people he says 14 years you know unfortunately the language is a little bit muddy here but
00:14:03
they ask you know how long he's gone in between crimes I believe and he says three years while he was in the Army and
00:14:11
he enlisted in the Army in 98 which again corroborates that 14year period now there's some confusion about what he
00:14:17
means by that U whether the crime he committed in 98 was a murder or just an assault um which he does go into pretty
00:14:27
specific detailed accounts regarding an assault he committed he believes in 97 or 98 so you know there isn't Clarity
00:14:36
around when he began killing people but uh the the two lines of thinking are either 98 or 2001 uh so active across
00:14:46
the entire country for 12 to 14 years and the thing about Keys is he was sexually motivated uh he was bisexual he
00:14:56
said that once his daughter was born he stopped targeting children but essentially any American could be a keys
00:15:03
Victim Because He targeted men and women and occasionally children and traveled the entire country with the bill and
00:15:11
Lorraine Courier homicides out in Vermont what what do we learn about that because when you say he flies into
00:15:20
Chicago rents a car and then goes off driving several states away and finds two victims there were these two
00:15:28
targeted we we know that he had a murder kit that it's believed that he had a murder kit there that he had hidden
00:15:36
months or years prior so do we know for certain if these two victims were were chosen and watched for any period of
00:15:44
time or was he simply going to go to this area retrieve the kill kit and then go find a victim that is a great
00:15:53
question and I'll start with what we know for sure he buried a kill kit uh about half a mile from their house 2
00:16:00
years prior to abducting them he told the FBI that they were chosen basically because of the house that they lived in
00:16:09
uh that he had not chosen them as victims but was looking for a specific type of house to break into and to
00:16:16
abduct someone from and then there are a few lines of thinking one is that he's telling the truth I believe that he had
00:16:23
actually targeted this couple for some period of time prior to abducting them Lorraine Courier had told a friend that
00:16:30
a man had been watching her in the weeks leading up to her disappearance there are multiple sightings placing keys in
00:16:37
the area of their home in the weeks and months leading up to their disappearance
00:16:42
there is some reason to believe that keys and Bill Courier may have digitally crossed paths prior to the abduction so
00:16:52
you know I I don't want to say positively that they were previously selected by Keys um and I I know that at
00:17:02
least Josh from somewhere in the Pines does not necessarily agree with that um but I think there's enough compelling
00:17:08
circumstantial evidence to consider that he might have uh not just in this case but in several others pre-selected and
00:17:16
then targeted a victim for some time prior to abducting them we'll give Joshua a chance to weigh in here in a
00:17:21
second but back to if he was telling the truth that he was selecting a particular
00:17:27
home fill us in on why that is it didn't it have something to do with his his work history his what he did for a
00:17:34
living his expertise um possibly um and I I don't you know there's a lot of content I don't have it all by heart but
00:17:42
uh I don't recall him ever making that distinction but he did say that he was looking for singl story ranch style
00:17:50
homes with a single car garage and no other cars than the driveway he said that they were easier to get in and out
00:17:58
of um that it was more likely that there were fewer people in a home if there was
00:18:03
only a single car and that he wanted an attached garage so he could move the abductees from their home into their car
00:18:11
and leave the premises as quickly as possible without anyone witnessing that him that he would have a good guess at
00:18:17
the layout of the building or the house as well yeah that too and you know going
00:18:23
back to my theory or hypothesis that he had pre-chosen this couple he said that he walked from his Motel uh essentially
00:18:31
to their house and this was the first house that matched that desired description I've walked it many times
00:18:37
and there are many houses like that between his hotel and the Courier's home one of the things that's fascinating
00:18:43
about Israel Keys it it seems like you were saying he has this list of rules that he tries to follow so at some point
00:18:52
obviously he understood that he had these urges to kill and obviously then maybe he then goes on to study other
00:19:01
Killers do we have a definitive list of these rules that he tried to follow um is you know I I he never pulled up an
00:19:13
Excel spreadsheet put together his rules but yeah you know he he said never uh commit crimes in your own backyard
00:19:21
immediately leave the area once you've committed the crime one rule which we actually have no evidence that he ever
00:19:28
followed followed was abduct a victim from one state assault them and or murder them in a second state and then
00:19:37
bury them in a third state another was to plan his crimes in conjunction with travels so it looked like he would be
00:19:45
too busy to commit these crimes you know a great example is like I had mentioned
00:19:50
he abducted Samantha kig just hours before he went on a family cruise uh in out of Louisiana with the c years he
00:19:59
visited his mother days before he abducted them in Indiana and then visited his brothers immediately
00:20:06
following his murder of them in Maine so you know he he did follow the rules most
00:20:11
of the time he would turn off his phone he would stop using credit cards or he would use credit cards in a way to place
00:20:19
him somewhere he actually wasn't he would often book several hotels in different areas for the same night so
00:20:26
you know it was it was more of an ideal ology than a rule book but again the thing about Keys is he was more
00:20:32
meticulous in his planning than he was in the actual execution of his crimes yeah the so the one thing um about the
00:20:39
stocking stocking victims I think when Israel describes finding the house for the cers that a lot of that makes sense
00:20:46
uh in my eyes I'm also a contractor Dakota is also a contractor and Israel Keys was a contractor and you've worked
00:20:53
in these home we've worked in this style home so many times over the years that it's very easy to identify the lay of
00:21:00
the house from just the exterior um even like where the bath maybe there's a difference of where the bathroom may be
00:21:07
but you can even identify that by the roof um so I think the way that he describes it makes a lot of sense like a
00:21:14
typical serial killer that would go and have like the trolling phase and the stalking phase I think he mainly did
00:21:19
that more towards locations then towards uh specific people um just trying to find he said before that um he's always
00:21:29
driving around looking for good places to do stuff and I think that's really what his main focus was was to try to
00:21:37
identify a good something that he feels uh familiar with as a spot to abduct someone and then so we've reached out
00:21:45
we've been lucky enough to reach out to special agent Ted holla from the FBI and
00:21:49
we asked him specifically if there has been any any evidence that Israel has stalked any victims and they said
00:21:56
they've had zero evidence for any victims and then we also spoke with Julia CI from the consult she's a
00:22:04
retired FBI profiler and they talk a little bit about this in one episode that they also feel that uh he did not
00:22:09
stalk victims they they covered The Courier case and the Samantha con con case separately as two separate cases
00:22:16
not even realizing that they're tied together and they still said that they don't think there's any real connection
00:22:20
any stalking uh between them so that's kind of where um I get my point of view from and I think that probably one of
00:22:28
the the cool things about teaming up with with Josh and his team has been that we've been able to share these
00:22:33
different perspectives over a group of people that are very familiar with the case so we're coming up with like new
00:22:38
ideas all the time it's been I think a really good process uh having people challenge your ideas Back in Forth well
00:22:45
like you said he sometimes follows rules and sometimes doesn't so but it seems what you guys were saying is he studied
00:22:53
these locations and that was probably more important to him than the actual victim yeah I'm sure he the ideal
00:23:00
situation is he could have his his perfect victim um but I think the the overarching thing is finding a location
00:23:07
where he would feel safe and comfortable to abduct somebody and you know a lot of
00:23:11
things that Josh had just said about the garage having window access there's a fan in the window so he had access to
00:23:17
the garage very easily um he had a spot in the backyard where he could hide and I think just walking around the house he
00:23:23
was able to identify that you know this was an older couple what bedroom they were staying in because had a fan on it
00:23:29
was a really muggy night I guess really humid night um so I think it was I guess
00:23:34
another thing that is really important is the location where he found the victims compared to the location where
00:23:39
he was going to take them it was just three right-and turns very quick access to get out of that neighborhood on the
00:23:45
highway Into The Farmhouse where he eventually sexually assaulted them and then murdered them and that was an
00:23:51
abandoned old house correct that where he took the victims yeah yeah he said that he had um I believe I it was for
00:23:59
sale at the time and if I recall correctly he had seen a listing for it in a real estate
00:24:04
magazine and his his one form of torture he was going to use during that those assaults and the
00:24:14
murders was the having one victim witness the other victim he never specifically said that but I that's kind
00:24:22
of my opinion I believe that's a general consensus I'll let Joshua and Dakota weigh in on their thoughts this is
00:24:28
something that I think I find like super fascinating because the two times that he speaks about having a couples one
00:24:35
male and one female in both situations the male is killed premature of the actual plan that he had in place um
00:24:42
there's a couple that he took in Washington that he ended up hitting the male over the head with a with a shovel
00:24:49
to quiet them down or to hopefully just take them out for a minute but ended up killing them and then with Bill Courier
00:24:56
as he was assaulting um his wife rain he came down Bill Curry was trying to get loose and trying to fight back and
00:25:03
Israel eventually came down and shot him with a silencer just because he was too
00:25:08
unruly during during that time period so I'm really fascinated by what the actual
00:25:13
plan was and he didn't really get into detail of that yeah I don't know I I'm just super fascinated by what the
00:25:18
possibilities are there and and why each time that he described it both male victims were killed before the actual
00:25:24
event so Israel Keys has these roles that he's trying to follow and I think that makes them fascinating but the
00:25:31
other thing that's really fascinating about Israel Keys is these hidden murder kits can somebody explain these well I
00:25:41
think it's important to just in case people don't know to briefly explain what a cash is because I don't think
00:25:47
that everyone everyone knows this a cash is a stored container of goods hidden to
00:25:52
be retrieved and used at a later date so you usually relate this to survivalists
00:25:58
cashing food or a kind of like a gorilla wartime tactic of cashing weapons and ammo in this case we have a serial
00:26:06
killer that's cashing items used for abduction and murder um and he's cashing these items all across the United States
00:26:13
for him to retrieve at a later date the cash for example that was buried in Essex Vermont that was used in The
00:26:19
Courier abduction and murder that was that they were abducted in 2011 it was placed 2 years earlier and we believe it
00:26:27
coincides with another murder back in April of 2009 it was buried uh within the Essex City Limits very close to a
00:26:36
highway very close to apartments and hotels and you know big box stores things like that so it's it's these
00:26:43
things aren't way off in the wilderness somewhere they're somewhere very accessible for him to retrieve and use
00:26:51
in a in a very convenient way he left this kit in Essex there for 2 years came back for it and although it was uh the
00:27:01
the actual kit the the the container was never uh recovered by the FBI but Keys gave a lot of details on on this cache
00:27:12
and how he used it which was really important for our research and figuring out how he used these things and um what
00:27:22
exactly they role they played in his crimes so we have a ton of information about this cach and how we used it and
00:27:30
we were able to kind of look at so there was three caches that were recovered by
00:27:34
the FBI and so we were able to look at the three caches and kind of identify markers and landmarks that were similar
00:27:44
in each each situation and so when we talk about the kill kits these these caches have items for like I said
00:27:53
abduction and murder so we're talking about weapons knives guns ammunition then you have binding materials like zip
00:28:00
ties rope duct tape things like that and that would be considered the kill kit I
00:28:07
think that one thing that we kind of learned about this kit in particular was that the the kit in Essex in particular
00:28:15
was that it was in a wooden box and I'm not sure if I think I kind of feel like this shows his Evolution a little bit
00:28:23
when it comes to strategy is that when he came back to to get this box that had guns and ammunition in it and it had
00:28:32
been in this uh kind of wet land along the river for two years his guns were damaged a little bit they were Rusty and
00:28:42
so he had to take them back to his hotel which was only like a f minute walk or a
00:28:47
10minute walk away and so the this cash was extremely accessible it was right in
00:28:53
in the city and so he had to go and clean up his guns before he approached whatever house or person he was going to
00:29:02
approach to abduct and so after The Courier abduction he reburied this cash in a new container in another location
00:29:11
and that new container was a five gallon bucket with a sealed lid and so I'm not
00:29:18
sure if the box was just a container of opportunity at the time back in 2009 maybe it's the only container that he
00:29:26
could come up with at that moment or maybe this shows a bit of evolution where he realized oh I need a better
00:29:34
container to protect my the these materials so that when I get back to them I know they're going to be in
00:29:39
working order but so he Rees this cash after The Courier abduction and murder and in a five gallon bucket in Upstate
00:29:47
New York one thing that Josh and I uh Joshua and I have noticed is that this there's not only one type of cash but we
00:29:55
can get to that a little bit later if you guys want well in man cannot control Mother Nature so those Wetlands may not
00:30:02
have been so wet when he first put those items there to start with and then he learned along the way it's it's it's
00:30:09
interesting to go back and retrospectively watch and learn how these guys learn and adapt what it is
00:30:17
that they are doing to try to achieve their horrific goals with him being locked up so he
00:30:26
gets caught and we're kind of they're really hoping to pull a lot of information out of Israel keys they do
00:30:34
kind of uh it sounds like to me they did like a very mind Hunter sort of thing where they played toward the psychology
00:30:41
of the situation and of the perpetrator with the idea of oh well let's bring in a female agent and have
00:30:50
her kind of lead these interviews and steer the ship and maybe he will open up more to a lady rather than than a a male
00:31:01
agent yeah I you know he was first dealing with alasa PD when they got back to Anchorage uh and there was a
00:31:10
detective Monique doah who he had very clearly developed for lack of a better word a good rapport with uh he was a lot
00:31:19
more candid with her and chatty with her and so I think when the Anchorage FBI kind of took the Reigns I think that was
00:31:28
very critical and uh apt in their decision to put Jolene Goen as the lead FBI investigator on the case um as far
00:31:39
as we can tell he never developed quite that same rapport with Goden that he had
00:31:43
with do but I I have found that he is a lot more talkative when she is in the room yeah for for sure and I think that
00:31:50
um he actually requested early in the first couple interviews up in Anchorage actually requested to tell the story of
00:32:02
Samantha koenig's abduction specifically to detective doll and and didn't want many other people in the room and so I
00:32:12
think that was a big tell for the investigators to know okay he's going to open up to a female more than he's going
00:32:19
to open up to a male and it's interesting because I've heard a lot of takes on this that you know it was about
00:32:25
control or uh Rel living his experiences but I think it's much more simple than that this was a guy who was raised in a
00:32:33
household with nine women and then you know went on to have a daughter and multiple girlfriends and I just he
00:32:40
seemed to be just generally a lot closer to women because of the way and the environment that he was raised in so I
00:32:46
don't really think it has a great deal to do with controlling or reliving and more to do with just his comfort level
00:32:54
yeah if he doesn't feel threatened by the individual he might be more likely to be vulnerable yeah and he
00:33:01
even said that he liked talking to women um because he never really had to be himself and I I think that kind of came
00:33:09
into play here uh where he got to be himself for the first time with women in a way that I
00:33:16
think maybe gave him power but not in the way that we generally tend to think in male female Dynamics do do you think
00:33:23
that maybe he was or felt that a was going to be more affected or shocked by his retelling
00:33:33
sometimes I think maybe that's the facade I I you know I think he wanted to talk to women because he was more
00:33:41
comfortable talking to women but he wanted the people in the room to believe that it was about something else but you
00:33:47
know I I changed my mind daily on a lot of this stuff which I'm sure you guys do
00:33:53
too yeah the the confessions in the FBI interviews is is something that I am completely fascinated with here what do
00:34:03
you think we learn about him because like you just said there's there's a part of him that is also still playing a
00:34:11
game here I you know it's I am constantly struck by just the situation he's gotten himself into where he is
00:34:21
trying to maintain control but he's also excited to talk about these things and I
00:34:26
think that push and pull of his psyche is is one of the most evident and prolonged situations in these interviews
00:34:36
is this guy who is really torn between you know his internal desires and his need for control and it comes out you
00:34:44
know he'll say something and then he'll immediately be like oh [ __ ] I shouldn't
00:34:47
have said that you know not in so many words but he'll recoil or retract or change the subject and I think that's
00:34:53
what I am most profoundly struck by and and I guess viewing him as as a human and not a monster as you see these weird
00:35:02
idiosyncrasies and this weird dynamic where he's you know in conflict with himself throughout these entire
00:35:07
interviews yeah and Ted Ted holla we asked we asked Ted um if special agent Ted holla if he thought that Keys was
00:35:17
mostly honest in interviews or if he you know was thought kind of thought he was
00:35:23
a liar or just what his opinion of that was and I think that it was his answer was spoton which is it's very obvious
00:35:33
when Keys gets kind of backed into a corner where he doesn't he knows that they're talking about information that
00:35:40
is accurate and he doesn't want to go any further he he kind of recedes into himself and starts mumbling and you know
00:35:49
his body language makes it really obvious when he's either being deceptive or flat out line
00:35:58
yeah and I've spoken with and worked with quite closely doctors uh forensic uh and criminal psychologists doctors
00:36:06
ramsland and kungl uh and they both independently came to that same conclusion this is not a guy who's prone
00:36:12
to Fantasy this is not a guy who is a natural-born liar for the most part he is telling as much truth as he can
00:36:19
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Plan additional taxes fees and restrictions apply cement mobile for [Music] details and he enjoyed being cryptic
00:41:52
along the way it seems like like you said in at times when he when he's a little more obvious that's when he wants
00:42:00
to take the information back or or spin it a different way and I think I think it's some point as to the captain's
00:42:07
Point that he's playing this game right of I got a whole lot of information or some of it maybe even made up but I have
00:42:17
a whole lot of information that these people really want to know and if I deliver it in a certain way in a certain
00:42:24
manner I might just live forever right because people will continue to analyze this for a very long time and as I'm
00:42:32
sure you guys have seen and Josh you've pointed out on your show that some people analyze this and
00:42:39
really make something out of nothing and and he it and he but he left he opened that door to allow that to happen yeah
00:42:48
you know I agree and disagree I I don't I think that's his worst nightmare is people analyzing his words a nauseum in
00:42:58
a public setting like we're doing today I think that's his worst nightmare he his greatest thing with control was that
00:43:05
he didn't want people to know what he did or who he was I think he knew that the more he gave away the more likely he
00:43:14
was to become infamous and I think up until the end that's not what he wanted at all he wanted to quietly die in
00:43:22
prison without ever without anyone ever talking about him I named my show after a quote
00:43:27
from him where he said you know I don't want to be caught up in all this true crime [ __ ] so I think you know
00:43:33
that's what he wanted and why he was careful about what he was saying and I think his strategy was to be very
00:43:39
thoughtful and deliberate about the language he was using so that he wasn't necessarily lying but he was lying by
00:43:46
Omission or concealing things through language um because I think even he knew and it's abundantly clear to anyone
00:43:53
who's watched these tapes like he is a terrible liar yeah he he I think he was like kind of learning learning the
00:44:01
interrogation game I don't I don't he didn't go into it prepared for that I don't think he kind of handed Over The
00:44:08
Courier story on a silver platter when he didn't really need to I believe that he thought that the FBI was going to be
00:44:15
able to connect him to that abduction and murder when they might not have and so I think he definitely regretted that
00:44:24
later on um and so he was trying to figure out what information he could give and keep the FBI happy and get what
00:44:33
he wanted but he realized that he didn't have to give as much as he thought he did so we think maybe he thought they're
00:44:39
gonna find out anyway maybe I have a chance here to control the narrative and tell it my way rather than
00:44:50
how everything went down to the te yeah I think that and again going back to to you know his internal desires which is
00:44:59
like oh I can talk about this stuff so like I will control the narrative I get to talk about these things that I did
00:45:05
and brag about these things that I did only because I have a sense that you're going to find out anyway and you know he
00:45:12
talked about less than a dozen victims and I think that is very much a product of this I think he thought once the FBI
00:45:19
looked at his computer they could tie him to 11 victims now whether there were more is Up For Debate but I think that
00:45:27
what he went into those interrogations originally thinking like okay they have my computer who can they tie me to I'm
00:45:34
going to control the narrative it seems like a like a fine line too that he was walking because the the way I always
00:45:40
kind of took keys with the information that he was giving and what he was willing to talk about with the
00:45:47
authorities it seemed to me my opinion was that he wanted to tell some of these stories and some of the horrific acts
00:45:55
that he did that I either it being a form of confession or a form of bragging or maybe a a mashing of the two but but
00:46:05
then he also has this other side of him where it's like oh I my daughter one day
00:46:12
is going to hear these things my daughter at some point will become aware of what kind of monster and just how
00:46:19
disgusting I really am so it it feel I always thought he was like walking this weird very conflicting find line of of
00:46:28
what he wanted what information he wanted to give as well as what was going to be what people thought of him in the
00:46:36
end you can hear him actually grapple with that like in real time during the interrogations he talks about how he has
00:46:43
to get comfortable with actually starting to talk to people about these things because he's have cut them inside
00:46:49
his entire life um so it's really interesting like the the interrogations are absolutely fascinating it's like
00:46:55
over 30 hours where they'll just break down so many parts of his his crimes the arson the burglaries
00:47:03
the sexual assaults the murders and they'll get all these little tiny pieces here and there where he's kind of
00:47:10
speaking freely at one moment and doesn't realize that they it it doesn't seem like he realizes that they'll be
00:47:15
able to connect those things together later on down the line but then at the same time it's fascinating because he
00:47:21
will talk freely but he will distance himself like he very rarely says rape or murder or kill um and the few times he
00:47:29
does say the word rape he gets very sheepish about it and I think that goes back to like in many ways he was raised
00:47:37
to be the caretaker of his family and it's a role that I think I I will never know how he felt about it but I think
00:47:43
it's a role that gave him purpose and I think that comes into play when he's talking about these things where it's
00:47:49
like I want to talk about what I've done but I still have significant amount of Shame about it and I want to protect my
00:47:55
family and we could AR arue all day about the intentions of protecting his family but I do think some of them were
00:48:02
pure uh I I think he did care as much as someone like him can about the people in
00:48:07
his life and whether that care comes from narcissism or a more I guess typical care we'll never know it's it's
00:48:15
so bizarre because you get these guys and the the what they're willing to admit to and then the things the same
00:48:23
equally disgusting acts that they're embarrassed about where Sam little it he admits he tells police
00:48:31
and and investigators FBI that he murdered over 90 people but if you accuse him of rape he would get very
00:48:38
angry and very worked up and say I you know I I may have killed her but I didn't rape her you know he instantly
00:48:45
he's angry at the accusation that he would rape somebody all these interviews and and and confessions and cryptic
00:48:53
messages and what have you all leads up to his event ual suicide Israel Keys suicide yeah his his body was found um
00:49:03
at 5 557 a.m. December 12th 2012 and basically what happened is that they found him in his cell with a razor blade
00:49:12
that was attached to a pencil I believe and he used that to slid his wrists and he also tried to hang himself with his
00:49:21
uh with his sheets I believe there's a great article um let's see if I can find it here it's the the untold story behind
00:49:28
Israel Keys is jail house suicide and it talks about that's from the Anchorage Daily News and it it talks about how the
00:49:35
doc officer was actually removed from position after they found found the body because there was alleged that the
00:49:42
officer was reading a book only 25 feet away from keys while he committed suicide so I'd read the article because
00:49:47
it's it's super interesting but so Israel Keys had been hinting at suicide for a while during the interrogation
00:49:52
saying things like I don't need you um like I can I can do this on my own and he was getting very tired with the
00:49:59
cumbersome Pro legal process and it seems like it was more just a an opportunity where he was able to find a
00:50:07
razor a disposable razor and then eventually kill himself and what they call a ritual ritualistic suicide now
00:50:15
one of the strangest things maybe the reason that they call it a r ritualistic suicide is that he wrote in blood on his
00:50:22
cell wall and he wrote the word caracle in big letters and lot across the cell wall now this is also we've confirmed
00:50:30
this in the case File we know it's it's it's kind of been up Tob up for debate whether it was whether it was bise but
00:50:35
caracle is a spot in bise we're kind of excited because we're going to be speaking with the retired FBI profiler
00:50:43
Julia K about about a suicide note um because he also left a note that they found underneath him that was you can
00:50:50
kind of piece some of it together but some of it was erased by his blood so we're going to sit down with her and go
00:50:56
over the the suicide note and how that relates to caracle and also on October 20th we'll be at the Burkshire podcast
00:51:05
Festival so plug for you Josh um releasing a brand new piece piece of information that will be connected to
00:51:11
everything that we're super excited about but what was found in his cell so he commits suicide in his cell what do
00:51:18
he find in his cell uh basically just him there was only thing that was left in his cell was just a typical item in
00:51:27
cell and then his body with the suicide note and the writing on the wall so that's the only thing that was there was
00:51:33
no other items discovered other than the the razor that he had snuck into his cell but there is some misconception
00:51:39
around uh other materials taken from a cell prior to his suicide yes that's correct um so in July of of uh 2012 they
00:51:52
actually found 12 drawings in his cell uh 12 individual drawings 11 of them were
00:51:59
skulls that were basically finger painted in blood they each had an upside down cross on their forehead and then
00:52:06
the 12th drawing was actually a photogra a drawing of bamet with an upside down pentagram and on one of the skull
00:52:16
drawings it had the words we are one but that was not actually those drawings were not found when he committed suicide
00:52:23
those drawings were found months before and that's basically around the time that he started Ed to hint that he he
00:52:27
would just take his own life instead of going through the legal process so we have these drawings found before his
00:52:35
suicide they go into the cell they find him they find a suicide note and then a writing on the wall do we have the
00:52:42
information of what was in the suicide note and what was written on the wall yeah the suicide note has been released
00:52:48
to the public um so you can look that up online and it's more of a it's less of a
00:52:52
suicide note and more of a note about how much he hates America and Americans is is the way that
00:52:59
I view it he also he did write what the FBI is calling a suicide note or more of
00:53:05
a goodbye note uh to his family and that was recovered again as well much further
00:53:09
before much earlier before his um his actual eventual death um so this this suicide note was more of a goodbye
00:53:17
letter to his family kind of letting them know what roughly what had happened that he did do these things and then a
00:53:24
new piece of information that the FBI told is that he there were actually two separate letters so there's the goodbye
00:53:31
letter and then there's also a note that um special agent holla described as a really odd document it's in all block
00:53:38
letters and it basically starts to describe all of his victims and uh what he did to them in very graphic detail um
00:53:47
he described well let me he doesn't describe all those victims he describes six victims and they believe that he was
00:53:53
interrupted while writing this note so Unfortunately they don't have the full details of all of his crimes um but in
00:54:01
this document it's basically just goes into extreme detail and there's no evidentiary Val evidentiary value listed
00:54:08
it's really just kind of uh I don't know if it's just for his own personal use or
00:54:15
something that he was eventually going to give to the FBI what what's really telling about the um the skulls the and
00:54:21
the timing of that is you know the doc the Anchorage and the oversight within the prison was it seems like not it
00:54:32
wasn't done very well I mean a source i' I have a source um that worked for the Anchorage Doc and he told me that after
00:54:39
uh Keys was able to commit suicide that the doc re restructured how they do sweeps how they do cell sweeps and he
00:54:46
referred to some of the old protocols as archaic um he I have him quoted as saying I don't think we had the
00:54:52
infrastructure to deal with someone like Keys just the fact that he was able to you know these these skulls were
00:55:01
drawn months before his suicide meaning that Keys was able to self harm long before he actually took his own life in
00:55:09
December of 2012 this Source in the doc uh says that we would be shocked to know
00:55:15
what kind of Contraband is floating around in prisons and he he referred to describe things like drugs weapons
00:55:22
drones convection ovens pornography and the list just kind of went on and so it's not a stretch to think that Israel
00:55:29
could have gotten his hands on the items he needed to commit suicide and I think
00:55:34
that once he realized that he could gain access to those items that that's when the interrogations with the FBI started
00:55:43
to really break down and he realized that he didn't need them to be able to accomplish his goal well the FBI seems
00:55:50
to be pretty clear about their findings and their their statement to the general public
00:55:59
about these writings that were found under his body in his cell that they had to clean up because it's covered in his
00:56:06
blood at this point their statement is the FBI concluded there was no hidden code or message in the writings further
00:56:13
it was determined that the writings do not offer any investigative clues or leads as to the identity of other
00:56:20
possible victims and we we've been given a little kind of insight into some of the writings that haven't been released
00:56:28
and it sounds like that there possibly is some investigative value in that he he um is had talked about some scenery
00:56:38
at at specific locations things like that they would they would at least not maybe not identify the location you know
00:56:46
completely but it would at least give you some sort of um guide or or um bullet points to to investigate by to be
00:56:54
like you know if he describes a certain piece of scenery that you know okay you can you can eliminate some of these
00:57:02
other locations things like that so I think that there is some value in those writings do you believe the suicide was
00:57:09
just to not go through the process to not be in a cage or or was it maybe also that he knew the longer he was there the
00:57:20
more information he'd be giving law enforcement I think it's both I think that it's a control uh has everything to
00:57:27
do with control I think that he knew that he was the longer he was in there and talking to the FBI the more
00:57:33
information he would give up um also he uh at one point said that he was never planning on going to prison he
00:57:41
thought for sure that he would be killed before he was arrested also the timing of the suicide is interesting to me for
00:57:47
that reason because I want to say two weeks before he died by Suicide he was scheduled to help the FBI do a ground
00:57:55
search and Upper Lake where he claimed that he buried one of his victims he did not show up to that meeting uh so they
00:58:02
rescheduled and I I believe the date that they had rescheduled to do this search was uh would have been the day
00:58:09
after he died by Suicide so I've always been curious about whether that timing was specific and intentional a block
00:58:16
letter note um it did describe the murders of William and Lorraine C Courier and also Samantha kig so they
00:58:24
know that it was directly connected to to specific murders that he had done and as Dakota was just talking about how
00:58:31
there is some evidentiary value in them there's also a description of another uh
00:58:36
female that was taken who had a a who had a very rich grandmother and an old copper or maybe it was an old Rich
00:58:44
grandparent I could be wrong in that but no it was a a wealthy grandmother and an
00:58:49
old make car old make sedan I forget the specifics but yeah it was there were two
00:58:56
I don't know if Clues is the right word but indicators of of a victim let's let's talk possible victims let's just
00:59:04
go round the table if you had to guess how many victims do you think Israel Keys had I mean my specific opinion
00:59:13
changes all the time but I I would say I generally believe there's probably between 15 and 25 yeah I I I go all over
00:59:24
all over the place with it I don't I don't I can't land on a number really I know that you know the the FBI landed on
00:59:29
11 but they they did so in kind of an arbitrary way Keys knows that the FBI landed on 11 and then he draws 11 skulls
00:59:39
you know there's a lot of conversation or or different points of view on you know the 11 skulls and what that meant
00:59:47
you know was he just kind of trying to confirm that for the FBI and make sure that they stuck to 11 does it actually
00:59:54
represent his his full catalog of victims or um some people say it even represents his family like his you know
01:00:03
brothers and sisters and things like that you know it's very possible that he was just kind of toying with the FBI and
01:00:09
and saying yeah you landed on 11 in this kind of silly way um because he never actually said it I I don't I don't have
01:00:18
a number okay so question so is there a possibility that Israel Keys believes that they thought there's 11 and then he
01:00:26
drew the 11 skulls is that what you're stating that's always been my opinion yeah that's a high possibility and then
01:00:33
so we have 11 skulls and one pentagram basically what do you think this means the 12th picture was a picture of both
01:00:44
um the horned goat you might remember like I think it was on the cover of a Stephen King novel at one point that's I
01:00:51
think where I first saw it when I was a teenager or something like that but so people think that that represents him
01:00:58
and then the 11 skulls represent his victims and so it's very possible that he was just trying to confirm 11 with
01:01:06
the FBI yeah I kind of am sticking with 11 until we have more information I I do
01:01:13
agree with Josh though that I I think that Keys thought that they could find 11 victims on his computer so that's why
01:01:19
he's stuck with 11 but until we have more information it's hard to really it's very easy to be like oh we killed
01:01:26
tons of people you know he said things like you know uh Canadians don't count you know things like that that would
01:01:34
make you think that he killed a lot more than he did but I think the thing that is really exciting about this case is
01:01:40
that there's so much information out there that eventually we're going to get to a point where we can figure out one
01:01:46
of his patterns I think once we figure out one specific pattern I think it's just going to blow the entire case open
01:01:52
and we'll be able to really tell how many victims he really had [Music] so much more to get to so many
01:02:09
fascinating things so much to unpacked make sure you join us back here in the garage until then be good be kind and
01:02:18
don't matter [Music] now two pigeons beoning the fact you can stream Direct TV satellite free these
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