Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Gorgeous Barista vanishes from coffee stand. What happened to Samantha Koenig?

Episode Date: December 24, 2020

Video surveillance shows teen barista Samantha Koenig pulling together an order at the walk-up window of the coffee shop she works. The lights go down and Koenig is seen walking away with someone. Kid...napped and murdered, the 18-year-old falls victim to one of the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history. Israel Keyes, who later admitted to killing 11 people across the country had developed an elaborate plan to demand a ransom for the 18-year-old's return.Joining Nancy Grace today: Ashley Willcott - Judge and trial attorney, Anchor on Court TV, www.ashleywillcott.com  Bobby Chacon - Former Special Agent FBI, screenwriter on "Criminal Minds," leading the search team Dr. Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst, Beverly Hills, www.drbethanymarshall.com Sheryl McCollum - Director, Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Nicole Partin - Investigative reporter Crime Online Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A gorgeous young barista goes missing from a coffee shop, but not just any coffee shop. This coffee shop is situated in the middle of a parking lot. Have you ever seen one of those? It can be any number of businesses. It can be a Starbucks. It can be an ice cream shop. It can be any little stand up. They're not big at all. Almost the size of a shed where you drive through on one side and come out the other. But the point is, she's in the middle of a parking lot. And the coffee shop is lit up day and night. You can see straight in.
Starting point is 00:01:07 Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories with me, an all-star panel to break it down and put it back together again. First of all, Ashley Wilcott, judge and trial lawyer, Anchor Court TV. You can find her at ashleywilcott.com. Bobby Chacon, former special agent, FBI screenwriter, Criminal Minds, and worked on this case in his capacity as an FBI special agent. Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, joining us from Beverly Hills, Cheryl McCollum, director founder
Starting point is 00:01:48 of the Cold Case Research Institute and CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, Nicole Parton. I just don't understand how somebody goes missing that's sitting out in a lit up coffee shop in the middle of a parking lot. How does that happen? First of all, to Bobby Chacon, former special agent, FBI, who actually worked on this case. Bobby, I want to start by describing
Starting point is 00:02:15 the coffee shop and the location where Samantha goes missing. Because if you take a look at it, how could anybody not see it? I mean, Bobby Chacon, isn't there an intersection there? Nobody could look over and see the coffee shop? Yeah, and it's actually on a pretty busy highway. It's like a two-lane each way with a divider in the middle. I was actually at that kiosk just a few months ago. I went back up to Anchorage, and I stood at that coffee shop. Okay.
Starting point is 00:02:43 Bobby, that's a little creepy. Not that you went back. But just think about it. The next girl that works there, what's got to be going through her mind? So back to what you were just saying. You were just there. What did you observe? You know, I observed that it is only a few parking spaces away from this major highway that has, you know, two lanes running each way.
Starting point is 00:03:04 It's in a shopping center that has a gym where people work out, which means people are coming and going at all different hours of the day or night. This shop is barely big enough for two people to fit in. It's like a closet. And it's made for people to drive up or walk up to it, not to come inside, but to drive up like an old photo mat, as somebody my age would remember. And so it is out in the middle of a parking lot, as you would think. And Bobby, Chacon, if you come forward to the street from where Samantha was working in the
Starting point is 00:03:37 coffee shop, isn't there an intersection there not too far ahead of the coffee shop? There is, and there's a traffic light there where cars are, you know, obviously routinely stopped when the lights change and things like that. So there would be people, there would be cars lined up at that traffic light at different times. Yeah, that brings into a whole, a whole line of investigation because Cheryl McCollum, director of Cold Case Research Institute, I'm always mystified when a crime goes down. Okay, let's just say Tupac Shakur. That's a great, great example. Nobody saw anything. How can you not see anything? It's in the open. This girl, a teen girl is working her job at a coffee shop right there.
Starting point is 00:04:21 It's lit up at night in daytime. You can see straight in there and see her making coffee. And the fact that people stopped at the red light very often don't look either way. Right. But when you do look, this is what is imperative that people understand. When you look, people normally are only going to be attracted to something that is unusual, that shouldn't be. Somebody standing in a window of a coffee shop ordering coffee is not going to get anybody's attention. You know, it's a little freaky, Cheryl, but I understand it. Usually we think of drive-thrus. Right.
Starting point is 00:04:57 When you're at a McDonald's, let's just go with that. Or let's say Starbucks. This was not a Starbucks. It was independently owned. How often do you see somebody cut in line at McDonald's, place an order at the drive-thru, and walk up? Never. Have you ever? The only time I've seen a pedestrian in a McDonald's drive-thru
Starting point is 00:05:17 is when they were robbing or diving through the window trying to get money. Have you ever? Nancy, can I make a comment about this? Is that Bethany? This is Dr. Bethany. Bethany, please talk some sense into Cheryl McCollum. Okay, Nancy, this was in the dead of winter and there was a huge snowbank between the highway and this little kiosk. You're right. And it was dark. You know what? I was about to bring that up and I'm glad you beat me to it. Explain Bethany the significance of that. Okay. So this little parking lot and as the former guest just said, you know, there was a gym, there were other businesses, but this was nighttime.
Starting point is 00:05:56 This was not in the middle of the day, you know, the sun shining as I understand. And when people drove up the highway, you know, a kiosk is going to be located so people on the highway can see it, right? Because that's its best advertising. Okay, let's address that. To Bobby Chacon, we have skipped ahead to the weather conditions. So let's address it now. I was right in the middle of addressing the fact that, for instance, when you're at a red light, how often do you really look around? So many people are fiddling with their radio or their Sirius XM or they're talking to their children in the backseat or they're talking on the phone.
Starting point is 00:06:38 God forbid they're texting. But how often, Bobby Chacon, do people really look around and take in what they're seeing when they're parked at a red light? They don't. And, in fact, I think you hit on it right now. In our time, they're probably finishing their last text as soon as their car comes to a stop or texting out to someone. And there's a huge lack. In fact, they probably pay less attention when they're stopped because their attention, because while they're driving, their attention is on the road.
Starting point is 00:07:06 When they're not, it's probably on their phone. And so I, you know, it's not really an automatic given that someone just because they're stopped in a car, that light is going to be looking around. When you actually look at the coffee stand where Samantha went missing, Bethany's right. There's a huge snowbank around it. This happened in Anchorage. And just looking at it, that snowbank looks to be about 10 feet tall. Yeah, the night of the incident when Samantha went missing, there was a huge snowbank. This was in winter in Anchorage. Nine o'clock at night is really the middle of the night in Anchorage because of how much darkness they have up there in winter. And it was just before closing. And so many of the people that would
Starting point is 00:07:52 normally use that, the regulars know when it closes and they just don't go at night when it's about to close. So this was just before closing time. And so it was empty. The parking lot was obscured from the main road because of that huge snowbank. When they plowed that parking lot, they plowed all of the snow from the parking lot up against the berm that separates the parking lot and the main highway. There's about a 10-foot stretch there of grass, and they just piled all that snow up on that grass, which completely obscured that parking lot from the road. With me, former FBI Special Agent Bobby Chacon, screenwriter, criminal minds who worked this case.
Starting point is 00:08:39 Bobby, as I recall the photo, you have the street, then you have the parking lot with the coffee shop here, then the strip shopping center is behind it. But between the coffee shop and the strip center, that's where the snow had been shoveled so people could drive through or come up to the coffee shop. So was the actual gym and everything else behind it separated from view? The view is obscured even by them because of the snowbank. It was. And in fact, the way that I started this coffee shop and looked at it and the way the coffee shop is situated, it's on the side of the strip mall. So all those storefronts and the gym face into a parking lot. That's not where the kiosk is located. So when you first drive in, yes, the kiosk is right there, but it's actually on the side of the strip mall. So it faces this basically blank wall
Starting point is 00:09:29 of the gym that has no windows. It's actually perpendicular. So the mall faces away from the coffee shop. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. We are talking here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111 about the disappearance of a beautiful, young, 18-year-old barista working at a coffee shop until it closed that night.
Starting point is 00:10:09 Now, here's the problem. Happened in Anchorage. Not only was it in the evening near closing time, a huge snowbank had developed around, really around the coffee stand, separating it from the strip center where it was situated in front of the strip center. But not only that, they have six months daytime, six months nighttime. Remember? So it's pitch dark at the time Samantha was closing shop. Really didn't matter what time
Starting point is 00:10:43 of the day it was because it's dark. We've discussed how people pulling right up to the intersection don't look either way, don't see anything going on around them. And sadly, even the people in that strip center couldn't see through a mountain of snow, a snow bank. But then the first clue emerges. Take a listen to our friends at NBC Anchorage. Worried about her safety, the search continues tonight for a teenager kidnapped from her job at a coffee stand. We learned a few minutes ago that the family of Samantha Koenig is offering a $12,500 reward for information leading to her whereabouts. And this weekend, family and friends plan to post thousands of more flyers around Anchorage
Starting point is 00:11:27 as they intensify their search for the missing 18-year-old. Detectives now say a surveillance camera posted above the entrance to the Common Grounds Espresso Hut on Tudor and Fairbanks shows an armed man abducting Koenig on Wednesday night. Police say the two left the area on foot, and Koenig's family has not heard from her since. How in the world could he get in, overpower her, and get her to leave without her fighting and running? At first, police think this must be staged. Joining me, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter Nicole Parton. I want to talk about the way, the condition
Starting point is 00:12:07 that the coffee shop was left. Isn't it true that there was a half-made Americano cup of coffee sitting on the counter being made when she was taken? That's correct, Nancy. There was this half cup there being made. Of course, this was her job. 18-year-old Samantha had landed what her friends and family called her dream job. She had a bubbly personality, enjoyed communicating with the public, and there was this half-made coffee. So it's believed that she was in the middle of making something for a customer who had approached the coffee shop. Take a listen now to our friends at Oxygen, one of their specials in the search for Samantha. As day breaks over Anchorage, Samantha's dad calls the local police to report his only daughter missing. One of our officers contacted the owner of Common Grounds Coffee Shop and she
Starting point is 00:12:58 was able to show them video. A man came to the little kiosk window at 8 o'clock. Samantha made a coffee drink for him, turned back around, and then you can tell she's shocked. You see her body language change. She goes from someone who's just serving someone a coffee to being very nervous and very concerned. Samantha turns out the lights, and you can see the individual jumping in through the window. You can tell she's sort of going along with him because he thinks that he's going to rob the place. It just didn't come across to her
Starting point is 00:13:34 that she was in danger until he starts, you know, locking her out. Samantha and the individual leave the coffee stand and then disappear from line of sight from the camera. The next day, her dad was raising hell about this, trying to figure out where his daughter went. Use this area as a meeting place because this is where my daughter was taken from. People were just literally like, whose basement is she in? Whose door do we have to go knock down to find her? The reality is, is she dead or alive? Joining me right now, special
Starting point is 00:14:02 guest, Dr. Kendall Crowns, Deputy Medical Examiner, Travis County, Texas. That's Austin. Dr. Crowns, if she's alive and she's in the elements, the snow, how long can you live in snow like you would find in Anchorage, Alaska? Well, if the temperature is probably below zero, I would imagine, because it's Alaska, she wouldn't be able to live very long, especially if she's not dressed for the weather. I would estimate she'd probably freeze to death
Starting point is 00:14:34 within a half hour. When you freeze to death, hypothermia, what happens to your body? Well, initially you become confused, and then at some point your body tries to warm you up by dilating the vessels. And when your vessels dilate, your body has this warm sensation. So often we see people undress because they think they're getting warm right before they die. It's called paradoxical undressing.
Starting point is 00:15:06 Then after you die, your tissues, because you're mainly water, begin to freeze and you actually become as hard as a rock. Either outlook is bleak. Either she's alive and out there or she's dead. The other possibility, as you heard, is she in somebody's basement being tortured. We hear just then about her body language once that security surveillance is revealed that she was surprised, taken aback.
Starting point is 00:15:37 But now, take a listen to more from our friends at Oxygen. Just a few days into the search, police discover a promising lead. New surveillance footage captured by a neighboring business from the night of Samantha's abduction. We're able to determine that Samantha walked to a white pickup truck and then the truck drives away. They could estimate about the year that it was built. It was like a 99 to 2007 Chevrolet pickup truck white. So at that point, it's a matter of trying to track down how many of those vehicles are in the Anchorage Bowl. And there were several thousand of them. Now we're on the hunt. It's like looking for a
Starting point is 00:16:17 needle in a haystack for a white pickup. And that was only found through surveillance video of a neighboring business. So clearly to you, Cheryl McCollum, Director of Cold Case Research Institute, he parked away from where she was knowing his car would be spotted on that video, walked up, got her, walked her to his white truck that was out of view of the coffee shop surveillance and took off. You look at the surveillance video, he's walking almost like he's got his hand on her back, like they're a couple. Again, there's no struggling. She's not fighting. She's not screaming. You would not notice this. I'm just telling you, you wouldn't. It looks like it is just a couple walking to a truck. And, you know, even with the obstruction of the snow bank and the lights being out, he made her turn the lights out. So nobody's going to look at a closed coffee shop and stare at it again. This whole thing just looks like it ought to be happening. I guarantee you, joining me, Ashley Wilcott, judge, trial lawyer, Anchor Court TV.
Starting point is 00:17:32 He doesn't just have his hand on her back. I guarantee you he's got a gun in that hand. When you said, you know, why wouldn't she be fighting for her life? That's the answer to me is because when someone has a gun, we don't know how we're going to react. And that beautiful young girl probably because of the gun just did what he said and was compliant, which I would suggest a lot of people would do in that scenario. So I absolutely agree with you. There's a gun. That's how you get someone to comply and not fight for their lives. And she gets in the car. I've already drilled it into my children. Whatever you do, do not get in the vehicle.
Starting point is 00:18:28 Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace guys a disappearance of this young barista ultimately ends up bringing in the fbi take a listen to our friends at oxygen due to the growing scope of the case, local authorities contact the FBI field office. We bring manpower, we bring expertise, profilers. You know, these are things that sometimes a local police department might not have. The FBI assigns Jolene Godin as the lead investigator. Jolene's pretty well known as someone who's a top agent. And one thing Jolene excels at is
Starting point is 00:19:02 she can delve into somebody's history with the best of them. We're reviewing social media. We're reviewing phone records. We're really looking at anything we possibly can to determine, is this a personal thing with Samantha? Is the person that took her somebody that knew her? Or is this truly a stranger abduction? Then, two and a half weeks after Samantha's abduction, there's a chilling turn in the case. Her boyfriend just goes sheet white.
Starting point is 00:19:24 He's got his phone, and there's a text from her phone. Basically, it says, Connors Park, underneath Elbert Pick, ain't she pretty? Authorities race to Connors Lake Park, just five miles southwest of downtown Anchorage, not knowing what's waiting for them. When you enter that park, there's a bulletin board. And tacked was a Ziploc bag that had what ultimately was a photograph of Samantha and a ransom note.
Starting point is 00:19:48 The fact that there was a ransom note really ratchets up the tension because, okay, she's alive, and what are we going to do to get her back? And now we learn more details. Take a listen to our friends at Oxygen. Text message sent from Samantha's phone directs investigators to their biggest clue yet, a ransom note with a picture of the missing girl. In the photograph, Samantha was bound tape on her mouth, but it was obviously intentionally made fuzzier. So they took the photograph to her father for him to identify it.
Starting point is 00:20:18 He, after looking at it for a long time, said, yes, that's Samantha. But her hair was in a braid, and Samantha never wore her hair that way. In the ransom note, Samantha's kidnapper demands $30,000 be placed in her bank account. This is really our biggest break because we know that we can still potentially have contact with the person responsible for taking Samantha. Authorities work with her dad to deposit a portion of the ransom and then they wait. I told them he's going to use her debit card. If he was going to do something stupid, that was going to be the one thing he did that was
Starting point is 00:20:49 stupid because we could find him. Every parent's worst nightmare. You then get a fuzzy photo like a Polaroid sent via text and you see your daughter with her hair done in a different way. She's never done it before with a ransom note. And then the clock is ticking down. Bobby Chacon, former special agent, FBI screenwriter, Criminal Minds. Bobby, what does this tell you about her abductor? Well, this was clearly planned that this was not a run of the mill robbery. This was a premeditated scheme that they had in place. And my biggest question would be, why wait two weeks? So that would be, as an investigator, why did we wait two weeks to get this ransom demand? That's not usual in a scheme like this, but clearly there is more going on than the original video of the abduction at the coffee kiosk. So now we have a ransom man, we have a kidnapping,
Starting point is 00:21:48 and now it changes the whole tenor of this thing. She's apparently still alive somewhere, and now it ramps up the emergency to find her. Where is she being held? Can we glean anything from that photograph on where this location might be that she's held? And so it really does change the whole tenor and feeling of the investigation. Cheryl McCollum, what would you be looking for in the photo
Starting point is 00:22:11 to help identify where Samantha's being held? I would look for anything in the background. Is there any photograph on the wall? Is there a particular light? Is there a sign? Is there showing anything on the outside? The other thing that resonates for me is you're talking about two weeks, and he sent a text message first, Nancy, which means her phone is being charged.
Starting point is 00:22:31 It means he knows the principal player is in her phone. This text went to a boyfriend, not her dad. So all of this combined, and then with the odd amount of $30,000, not $50,000, not $100,000. $30,000, not 50, not 100. 30 is an unusual number. So all of these things to me are concerning because again, if you're waiting two weeks, it ain't about the money.
Starting point is 00:22:53 Well put. But then just as the FBI agent predicted, there was a slip up. Take a listen to our friends at Oxygen. They had worked out a deal with the bank so that anchorage police department and the fbi would be notified immediately when her debit card was used for anything so a few days go by and at this point we have our first atm withdrawal from samantha's account
Starting point is 00:23:16 there were three withdrawals in the city of anchorage of five hundred dollars the daily limit in all of the atm situations where he was using the debit card, as soon as the alerts came, we dispatched law enforcement there as quickly as we could. But there were literally minutes behind him. Then the account went silent. And on March 7, detectives were kind of shocked because there was a withdrawal from an ATM in Wilcox, Arizona.
Starting point is 00:23:43 Then there was another withdrawal in Lordsburg, New Mexico. The next withdrawal was March 10th in Humble, Texas. And then shortly after, there was a withdrawal in Shepherd, Texas. Each time this money was withdrawn, it was withdrawn by a person wearing a mask. So this guy is so smart.
Starting point is 00:24:02 He's using your ATM card all over the country, always wearing a mask. So this guy is so smart. He's using her ATM card all over the country, always wearing a mask. To Bobby Chacon, when you look carefully at that picture of Samantha being held in captivity, could you tell anything unusual about her eyes? Well, I couldn't, but we send those pictures normally to a forensic photography lab back at Quantico at the FBI laboratory, and they do, you know, they're able to blow it up and maybe glean some additional information from the photograph
Starting point is 00:24:35 using, you know, certain technologies that exist today. And we certainly did get some indication that, you know, that her eyes, there was something about her eyes that bothered the investigators who were looking closely at that photograph. Bobby, her eyes were sewn open, were they not? Yeah, that was the conclusion of the people that were able to really enlarge that picture and look at really minute details of that photograph. And it appeared that her eyes were artificially held open by some
Starting point is 00:25:05 kind of threading um that was there was an attempt to cover it up with makeup dr kendall crowns joining me deputy medical examiner travis county texas that's austin dr crowns how would you go about sewing someone's eyes open so you could use a thin layered suture material and then just hook the needle through the eyelid and then tuck it up and pull it through the loose eyelid skin and then just make very smooth knots almost like doing a uh an eyelid tuck for plastic surgery why are you saying that you don't think a plastic what a plastic surgeon from from Beverly Hills just tripped on over to Alaska, kidnapped this girl from a coffee shop, sent a ransom note, but she's already dead, obviously, because her eyes are sewn open. I mean, this is not a plastic surgeon. How would a regular person perform a procedure like this, obviously on a dead surgeon? How would a regular person perform a procedure like this?
Starting point is 00:26:07 Obviously on a dead body. It would be using a sewing needle and thin sewing thread. I mean it's just like doing surgery. I'm sorry I haven't shown many people's eyelids open. Did you just say you have or you have nots? I said have nots, have nots. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, this girl disappears in the middle of a parking lot from a coffee stand. Then this picture emerges of her with her hair in braids and her eyes sewn shut. The family doesn't know she's dead.
Starting point is 00:27:02 They think it's a ransom to bring her home alive. Then a screw up. The perp uses her ATM. Police rush to look at the ATM footage and he's wearing a mask. You can't see his face. To Nicole Parton, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. They outsmarted the ATM. So how did the perp get caught? Well, at this point, authorities know the type of vehicle they're looking for. They know the last transaction of the ATM card. And in a wonderful turn of events,
Starting point is 00:27:41 he was actually pulled over in Texas for a traffic violation. I'm so happy. Absolutely. What traffic violation is that? Well, it wasn't clear. It seems that he was going over the speed limit for a bit, but then when they pulled him over inside the vehicle, they found the ATM card, the mask, and enough evidence to bring him in. So at the time they pulled him over for the traffic violation, they don't know they have a killer, correct? That's correct. Okay, guys, let me go to Bobby Chacon. Bobby, I want you to take a listen to our friends at Investigation Discovery.
Starting point is 00:28:20 Keys explained to us that Ms. Koenig had already been killed when he took that ransom photograph, that he had used a needle and thread to make her eyes appear as though she might still be alive. And Keys didn't stop there. He dismembered the body, and dropped all of its parts underneath the ice of Lake Matamuska, about an hour north of Anchorage. In Alaska, you build a shelter around yourself while you ice fish. And so that's what he did.
Starting point is 00:29:03 He built a shelter. And then he pretended to ice fish while he waded down Miss Coney's body and dropped it to the bottom of the lake. Joining me, Bobby G. Cone, special agent FBI at the time. Bobby G. Cone, you were tasked with going out onto that frozen lake and trying to recover Samantha's body. Can I ask you, how did you guys figure out that he disposed of her underneath frozen ice? Well, when I got the first call, it was based on information that Keith had provided, that he actually told the investigators that she was at the bottom of that lake. And so we had an initial starting point. He said he had gone out there and posed as an ice fisherman, set up a tent.
Starting point is 00:29:58 And as they normally do, they start like little campfires or little camping stoves and had to keep warm or to eat some food or drinks and when he was finished with the several trips that it took to get her body parts out there and into the lake he burned a piece of plywood that he had used to drag her out there I don't know if he had blood on it or not but he and and that when when the initial Alaska State Trooper went out there when I got that information they dispatched somebody to run up to that lake. And they did find, in fact, a small piece of plywood half burned that had now been kind of refrozen into the lake surface because it had been, you know, several weeks since she was put there. So the lake had frozen and unfrozen and refrozen.
Starting point is 00:30:41 And so that plywood was still sticking out a little bit. So we figured that was the plywood he was talking about. So that's where we began our search. Bobby Chacon, tell me about the recovery of Samantha's body, an 18-year-old girl. So we sat up there. It was a bright, sunny day on that lake. It was blinding sun off the surface of the ice. We cut several holes in the ice.
Starting point is 00:31:02 The ice was about four feet thick. It took a while to cut through that type of ice. And so we several holes in the ice. The ice was about four feet thick. It took a while to cut through that type of ice. And so we had a lot of help. The press showed up shortly after. They were trained with long-range cameras and microphones on us. So we deployed a sonar. We deployed it. After that, we deployed a remote-operated vehicle, which is like a little mini underwater robot that has cameras on it. And then I deployed my divers. Once we saw what we were looking for on the cameras of the robot, there were five separate body parts down there on the lake bottom. And under a frozen ice, the lake is crystal clear.
Starting point is 00:31:38 The water is crystal clear because all the marine life has kind of gone dormant and is in a suspended state on the bottom. So the water was very, very clear, and the camera from the mini robot that we had under the water was pretty clear. And, you know, I deployed my divers, and they had cameras on their helmets, so I watched the entire operation as they made their way to Samantha and brought her back. You know, Bobby, I've thought many times about what you went through as you were having your divers bring up one bag after the next, after the next, and you would take
Starting point is 00:32:11 the bag knowing it held Samantha's body parts. This little girl's 18 years old dismembered body. What was that like in your mind? Well, you know, you don't deal with that at the time. And certainly this wasn't, unfortunately, our first recovery. And we had recovered children prior, and we had recovered, unfortunately, even younger children prior, some as young as four and five years old. In fact, some as young as 18 months old, but that were all victims. But so you really put that out of your mind, you focus on the job at hand. But one thing I want to correct, Nancy, that, you know, Keyes had made a demand of the investigators that we not release the particular detail that she was dismembered, that she was cut up, and he
Starting point is 00:32:57 had reasons for that. And so when we did, you're absolutely right, what we would normally do is put each part that we found separately into a separate bag and bring them up in this particular case because we knew the media was watching us and we didn't want that detail to emerge you know so we we actually i had my divers actually put all of samantha into one bag and we brought her up in one bag to make it look like the body might still be intact and then we moved that bag quickly quickly into another pop-up shelter near the hole in the ice where the medical examiners, investigators were there. That's when we transferred her to the medical examiner. I want you to hear from our friend Neil Kralinski at ABC what we learn, what Bobby Chacon and his team learn about Israel Keyes. Listen.
Starting point is 00:33:43 He told agents something they'd never heard before, that he left kill kits or caches buried in several states filled with everything he'd need to commit a murder. They were in waterproof containers or five gallon buckets and included guns and different things he could use to dispose of bodies. His strategy to grab people in remote locations like parks, campgrounds, even cemeteries. Every serial killer, including I believe Mr. Keyes, are not crazy. You cannot be that organized and deliberate and fit any legal definition of insanity. We learned that Israel Keyes got a quote high from killing to Dr. Bethany Marshall. What kind of mind crisscrosses the country, hiding kill kits in various locations, searching for prey, including in campgrounds and RV parks? What kind of mind is
Starting point is 00:34:35 that, Bethany? Well, Nancy, this kind of a mind is motivated by sex and cruelty. Those are the two basic motivations. In men, aggression and sexuality are mediated through the same neural nets. And what that means is that for sociopaths, sadism, sex, killing, all of those same drives get fused. They're all acted out at once. Stereo killers are very empty individuals. They cannot feel excitement in normal ways like holding a baby or looking at the sunshine. They can only feel excitement by inflicting cruelty and their sex drive is enormous and they spend hours thinking about who they're going to kill and all those hours driving around and preparing the kill kits. It's like a foreplay before sex. It's like the prodromal or the lead up to this very exciting event in their life. And they spend so much time searching that
Starting point is 00:35:38 often they're not prolific in their killing because the searching and the ritualized aspect leading up to the killing is more important than the act itself. Here is the good news of this scenario. Israel Keyes is dead. We may never know how many people he killed across the country because there's no logical connection, but we do know he is dead. He died behind bars. Good luck with him, Satan. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend.
Starting point is 00:36:20 This is an iHeart Podcast.

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