Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - Best of 2024: Israel Keyes Pt. 2

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

As our Best of 2024 selection, we're featuring our three-part series on notorious serial killer Israel Keyes. Over the course of six months in 2012, Israel Keyes sits down with the FBI for a series of interviews. In between toying with investigators and bargaining for what he wants, he confesses to a handful of other crimes — while alluding to a whole lot more. Keep up with us on Instagram @serialkillerspodcast! Have a story to share? Email us at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of rape, torture, kidnapping, murder, and suicide. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. If you or someone you know is feeling hopeless or struggling emotionally, visit Spotify.com slash resources for help. I know as time goes by, the longer I'm in the system, the longer the investigation goes on. you're going to keep finding things. You're going to start to connect dots.

I'm only going to give you the dots that I know you're going to eventually connect. That's Israel Keys speaking with the FBI in April 2012. More than a decade later, we still don't know how many dots there are. I'm Vanessa Richardson, and this is Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. You can find us here every Monday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at Serial Killers Podcast. And we'd love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts.

This is part two of our three-part series on Israel Keys. Last time Israel was arrested for the abduction and murder of Samantha Koenig. He's now in FBI custody, and he has a lot more to say. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Bonnie and Clyde, the lonely hearts killers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. These are infamous criminal duels.

But you don't need to break any laws to find your perfect business partner because you have Shopify. It's the commerce platform that can help you with literally everything, website design, marketing, shipping, and more. So start your business today with the best partner, Shopify, and get that. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify. This website.com slash killers. That's Shopify.com slash killers. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Whether you're hiring for a role or searching for a killer, the hunt can be exhausting. When detectives looked and searched to find any kind of evidence to find the person they were looking for, like Jack the Ripper, the Golden State Killer, the Unit Bomber. It's tedious work to find what you're looking for. So if you're hiring, I've got news for you. You can skip the lengthy investigation. and the tiresome process of sorting through hundreds of resumes,

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And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. Before we get into this story, amongst the many sources we used, we found the book American Predator by Maureen Callahan,

and our interview with Josh Hallmark, host of True Crime Bullshit, extremely helpful to our research. The audiobook edition of American Predator is available for Spotify Premium subscribers in our audiobook catalog, where you can check it out after listening to this episode. Over the course of six months in 2012, Israel Keys sits down with the FBI about 20 times. Their recorded interviews produced between 40 to 50 hours of tape, After confessing to Samantha Koenig's murder, Israel begins toying with investigators. He says he has more stories to tell and more cards to play. But in all their time together, Israel only gives officials the names of two other victims,

a married couple named Lorraine and Bill Currier from Vermont. Lorraine and Bill Currier were a middle-aged couple. You'll remember Josh Hallmark from our last episode. he's been reporting on Israel Keys for more than a decade. They just were regular people. They didn't have kids. They were described as quiet. They didn't have a huge social network or a lot of friends.

Bill spent a lot of time online. Lorraine had some pretty strong political views. But by all accounts, they were just like pretty quiet people who were, you know, great employees who lived a, mundane, unexciting life. That is until one day they disappeared from their home in Essex. It's a small bedroom community. You know, there's some big box stores. It's just off several major highways, I guess, in Vermont speak.

But yeah, it's like a wooded area on the outskirts of the Burlington suburbs. Shortly after midnight on June 9, 2011, Israel walks from his hotel room, down the road through the dark. According to Israel, he's looking for the right home. Josh says specifically a one-story house with a garage attached, no signs of kids or a dog. That's how he ends up at the courier's place. They just so happen to fit the bill.

He cuts their phone line and then waits in their backyard for the right moment to strike. There's a neighbor next door who keeps going outside to smoke cigarettes, triggering an automatic light sensor. Israel smokes cigars as he waits for the neighbor to go to bed, which finally happens around 2 a.m. Israel's dressed in all black. He wears a headlamp, leather gloves, and a backpack. He ties a cloth to hide the lower part of his face,

then begins what he calls a blitz attack. He broke into their garage and then when he felt it was safe, if he broke through the glass that connected the garage to their house and ran in. When he turns on his headlamp, he's standing in their kitchen. He races down a hallway, past a birdcage with a cover on it, into Bill and Lorraine's bedroom. And he pretty quickly subdued them, zip-tied them, and started ransacking their house. Israel says it only takes a matter of seconds. By the time he's finished, Bill and Lorraine are still waking up, still,

adjusting to their new reality, that there's a tall, masked intruder in their house pointing a gun in their direction. Israel asks the couriers if they own a firearm. Lorraine says, yes, there's a loaded handgun in her nightstand. He takes it and orders Bill and Lorraine to get on their stomachs. He asks them what else they have in the house, things he wants. He grabs two suitcases and fills them with prescription drugs, jewelry, the courier's ATM cards. He etches their pin number into the back of their cards so he can remember them later. At some point, Lorraine tries to run away by rolling herself off the bed. It makes Israel upset.

They're not taking him seriously. It says that he starts going through their stuff to get an idea of who they are. You know, where they worked, would anyone be looking for them? Israel recognizes a military insignia Bill has in his home. evidence that Bill served in the same unit as Israel, the 25th Infantry Division. Israel lets Bill know he's a military man too. After about 15 minutes go by, Israel has the couriers put on slippers. He doesn't want them stepping on broken glass and leaving a trail of blood through the house.

And he pretty quickly gets them into their car and starts driving them to a farmhouse about two miles away, which he had staked out the day before, an abandoned farmhouse. On the drive over, Bill and Lorraine tried a reason with Israel. They kept saying, like, you have the wrong people. We don't have any money. Like, we don't know anyone. There's no reason we should be abducted for a ransom. They tell Israel he can take what little they have if he just lets them go.

Their car, savings, all of it. And they won't tell anyone either. They won't call the police. Bill, they explain, has medications he needs to take. Israel tells them not to worry. He's abducting them for ransom. He's bringing them to a drop house where some accomplices are waiting. They won't be hurt if they cooperate.

They arrive at the farmhouse around 4 a.m. Passing a police car parked about 100 feet away. There's a for-sale sign in the front yard. The house is set back from the road on a hill, partially hidden by a tree. It's old and run down. A large hole runs through the roof and second floor, allowing moonlight into the living room. The walls are maybe stucco or plaster, covered in dated wallpaper. There's not much by way of furniture, an old three-cushion couch, a couple of bare mattresses on bed frames.

In addition to Lorraine and Bill, Israel brings a propane stove to the house. He took Bill in first and let him down into the farmhouse's basement, where he, zip tied him to a chair. When it came out, Lorraine had freed herself and was running down the street screaming. Israel sprints after her. He tackles her to the ground and drags her back to the farmhouse.

The escape attempt makes him mad. She had laid out a mattress upstairs in the farmhouse and tied her up. When he went back downstairs, Bill had freed himself. Things turn physical as Bill fights back. Bill actually manages to shove Israel a bit, and Israel's not sure how to handle it.

As Israel tells the FBI, he had a very specific idea of how the knight was supposed to go, and Bill was ruining it. Israel has to bludgeon Bill with a shovel more than once to knock him down. And this was kind of the pattern for that whole night. He would go back up and begin sexually assaulting Lorraine, and then hear Bill free himself again, go back downstairs, tie Bill up and this went on and on until eventually he went down and had been so frustrated by Bill that he shot him. With a 10-round magazine, the bullets hit Bill in his arm, chest, neck, and head, but he's still standing afterward.

Israel says he's never seen anything like it. Then he watches Bill fall to the ground. Dead. He shot him, I think, five times with a silencer, so he doesn't think, Lorraine knew it had happened, and then he went back upstairs and raped Lorraine repeatedly before killing her. He strangles Lorraine with a rope, his preferred method of killing. But before he does, he brings her downstairs so she can see her husband's grisly murder scene. Israel pours Drano over their hands and faces, puts them in trash bags, and leaves them in a corner of the basement. He'd planned to burn the house down using the propane stove he brought, but there's no time. The sun's already up.

So he takes what he can, forgetting the ammo shells on the floor, and drives away. He leaves their car, a green Saturn in a parking lot about a mile from their home. He parks away from any surveillance cameras, walks to his own car, and leaves the state. Israel says the whole night from start to finish is over in about six hours. In his interviews, Israel talks about the courier's murders in graphic detail. You can hear the tape in Josh's podcast, True Crime Bullshit. It's chilling to listen to. Josh describes Israel's demeanor during the confession.

Like he's reading the newspaper, or probably not even that much emotion. like he's reading like a West Elm catalog, as though it was just like some mundane task in a litany of tasks that he had to do that weekend. He laughs a few times. He talks about how he was really good to Lorraine and he wanted to make sure she was comfortable. Israel tells the FBI about the courier's murders

because in his mind, they're going to connect the dots anyway. He made mistakes. He didn't burn the house down with their bare. bodies in it. He left behind pools of Bill's blood, as well as those ammo shells. If he's going down, he might as well get something out of it. In exchange for his confession, FBI agents give Israel a cigar to smoke. From his behavior, it's clear. Israel still feels in control. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigued, ask your doctor about zebbound, terseptide, the first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep

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They remember the smell distinctly, but it wouldn't have been unusual for a small, injured. animal to wander inside and die. So then the FBI tracked all the rubble to a landfill, and they spent, I believe, eight weeks going through the landfill looking for evidence. They found a few bones and some hair, and in where the farmhouse was, they found glasses that they are fairly certain are bill couriers. The FBI is confident Israel was responsible for their deaths. Keys knew enough information about them, about items in their home, items in their garage, bills, glasses at the site that it is without a shadow of a doubt, Keyes who abducted and killed them.

But the couriers themselves have never been recovered. Israel was wrong. The FBI might never have connected him to the courier's murders if he didn't confess. And once that realization sinks in, Israel becomes less willing to talk. He only discusses a handful of the... his other crimes in any detail. He stops short of discussing any more killings, but the FBI bates him with more presents, like candy bars, Americanos, access to the internet, and, according to Maureen Callahan, the author of American Predator, a subscription to the New York Times delivered to his

cell daily. In July 2012, after a few months spent in the Alaskan penitentiary, Israel opens up about his first ever attempted murder. He was living in Mopin, Oregon at the time, and so was his family. He was 18 or 19, and grappling with violent urges and existential thoughts. He wasn't connecting with his family's religious practices, given his inner demons, what he'd later call his black heart. He thought he might identify with Satanism. He'd eventually go so far as to brand an upside-down cross on his chest and tattoo a pentagram on the back of his neck. But that summer, he selects a location along the Deshutes River for his first ever satanic ritual.

It was one of those bathrooms where the door you could block from the inside and just like single restroom and it was kind of late. So I didn't know me would be here long. That was a small bathroom. It didn't get used very much. They probably only cleaned it out. once a year or something. Like the ones you see at Forest Service Campground with a big concrete tanking around. I was waiting for someone who was pretty small because I was going to dump them down

in the tank. It was a really dark tank. I mean, they probably wouldn't have been found for a year or something. Israel knows that area of Oregon well. His family visits the river often. He staked out the bathroom ahead of time. On this particular day, he sees a young, playing in the river, trailing behind her friends. Israel hides in some bushes near a bend. Once the girl's friends turn the corner and disappear from sight, he leaps out and grabs her. The girl's white, dirty blonde, he thinks anywhere from 14 to 18. He tells the FBI he had everything planned out. He brings ropes and knives. He says he was really into knives at the time. I'd been thinking about it for years

Before that I just never actually thought I would do it And then once I left the area where I grew up And was in a new area It seemed a lot more feasible Just because it was When nobody knew me It was all strangers

Everybody was really friendly It was like one of those situations Where I just knew it would be really easy Israel makes use of the knots he learned growing up, building rafts and bridges in the woods alone. But he doesn't, as he puts it, take it to the next level. He's too disarmed by the girl's behavior. Her reaction to everything was weird. What was her reaction?

I think maybe she had either had something like that happen or thought about what she would do. She just didn't seem like everybody else. I took always seemed completely surprised like they didn't expect it. Like they had never even thought of a scenario like what they were in. With her, it didn't seem like that. It seemed like she kind of knew what to say and stuff. And so, I mean, she was scared, but I think in a lot of ways she was more calm about it than I was

because I was, you know, had a lot of adrenaline. The girl talks to Israel. She asks him questions, like where he's from, tells him he's good looking. She says she may have even gone out with him if he asked. She tells him her name, humanizes herself. Kind of pissed me off, actually, later, like, thinking about it. Then I let her get to me. For, like, two years after that, I kept telling myself I should have killed her.

And, like, really beat myself up about that. After about 30 minutes to an hour, Israel brings her back to the river. She gets back into her tube and heads back to her friends. I just raped her once. It wasn't anything really. Crazy. Did you ever see her after that? Did you ever go back to the river? Yeah.

After the assault, Israel gets paranoid about getting caught. He checks the news often to see if there are reports. If there are any, he doesn't see them. Maybe she did report it, I don't know. Like I say, she wasn't fighting, so I don't know. And I used to condom, so I don't know if there would have been, anybody would have believed her if she did. Israel learns two things from his experience that day on the Deschutes River.

First, he's not that into Satanism. For starters, bloodletting isn't practical. It leaves behind too much DNA. strangling is cleaner. That and a belief in Satan by default kind of requires a belief in the devil's counterpart. God. And Israel just can't get down with that.

He's done attempting to give his violent urges any rationale or meaning. Second and more practically... I realized I could do it and get away with it. He just need to be more careful in the future. If I was going to do that kind of stuff that had to just be complete strangers, from there on. It couldn't be anyone who knew me or who had seen me around a person or shouldn't even,

like, the whole thing that happened in Oregon freaked me out because I could almost see the beach from where I worked every day and it was just too close to home. Israel developed a travel habit. He often left for days or weeks at a time. He'd tell his parents he was visiting friends or family and go on long drives or hop on a plane. His last girlfriend traveled a lot for work, so he sometimes made use of her miles. He went to great lengths to hide his tracks. He'd book a flight to one city, then rent a car and drive for miles, often to another state, another jurisdiction. He'd turn off his phone for extended periods of time by taking it apart and removing the battery so he couldn't be traced. He'd use cash as often as possible,

and paper maps so he didn't have to connect to GPS. For accommodations, he might book more than one hotel and only use one, or check himself into multiple hotels at the same time. He'd sometimes book a stay for three days and then leave after two. And if he ever wanted to, he was comfortable living off-grid in the woods. One time, he filed for two fishing permits on the same day, one in Wyoming, one in Alaska. And for all we know, he didn't use either. It's hard to know how often Israel left home. Here's Josh again.

It's tricky to add up the total number of trips because sometimes the trips are compounded. Like you'll go from one to another and you're like, is that one or two? So I would say there are approximately 34 trips between 2001 when he left the military in 2012 when he was arrested. For like mileage on each trip, I've never done a full account, but it's a lot. I think Texas alone, he could have driven across the country three different times. The FBI believes it's possible Israel may have gone so far as to abduct victims in one state, kill them in another, and dispose of their body in a third. And his travels weren't limited to the states.

They found evidence he took trips to Canada, Mexico, and Belize as well. He may or may not have killed every time, but to make it easier for himself when the moment arose, Israel buried kill kits or caches all over the country near areas he frequented. He filled them with things he'd need, guns, knives, zip ties. Storing them meant putting time between their dates of purchase and the actual crime. He could dig them up whenever he needed. But the kill kits acted as more than just pre-crime prep. Josh says they also acted as a post-crime receptacle.

Israel would move weapons from one kit to another after using them, presumably transporting them to a new state or jurisdiction. He'd store cash he stole from homes, and maybe hid disguises in them as well. We believe there are trophies from his abductions and kills in these kits. Samantha's hair was braided and then the braid was cut off and never recovered. There are items from a few cases that we believe are keys related that disappeared. with the victim, and so we believe they are likely in kill kits. Josh spoke with experts who believe Israel likely returned to these kits to relive his crimes.

So much of Israel's life prepared him to be a killer. His childhood living off-grid taught him self-reliance, how to tie knots, how to hunt for food. People who knew him talked about his butchering skills that he could butcher a goat in minutes. His work in construction meant he could purchase a tarp and chainsaw without. raising eyebrows. He could go to Home Depot and buy a thousand zip ties and duct tape and it's not going to look strange. In the military, his peers referred to him as a super soldier. He almost joined the elite army rangers. He could make his own silencers, was adept at camouflage, and knew how to use scopes and infrared sites. Josh discusses Israel's time in the military.

It was serial killer 101 unintentionally. He even built moving targets. He even built moving targets. gets in the woods so he could practice shooting. And yet, even with all his firearm training... According to Keys, he only ever shot Bill Courier. He said occasionally the guns were used for intimidation, but I think they were also just insurance for him in case someone did get out of line. He had a gun.

That, and he always brought one with him while robbing banks. Every outfit starts with a choice. What am I wearing underneath? Something comfortable? And let's be honest. Something that keeps everything looking smooth. That's where Vanity Fair lingerie comes in. Their new smoothing wireless bra has four-way stretch fabric for all over smoothing,

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Try Activia today. Enjoying Activia twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. The fact that Israel Keyes was a burglar, bank robber, and an arsonist, in addition to a serial killer, is often treated as a footnote in stories. The FBI says Keyes admitted to burglarizing between 20 to 30 homes across America, and his arsons and bank heists may have been directly linked to his murders. The arsons, presumably to destroy evidence and burn remains, the bank robberies to fund his life and travels,

and also because it felt good. My opinion on the bank robberies is that he is using the bank robbery to sustain the high of committing the murder. The FBI has officially connected Israel to two bank robberies, one in Tupper Lake, New York in 2009, and another in Azel, Texas in 2012, shortly after murdering Samantha Koenig.

But they believe he was responsible for many more. The exact number? No one knows for sure. Israel says it was less than a dozen banks. He quotes a similar number of murder victims. This is Special Agent Jolene. Godin, one of the investigators present during his interviews. We believe there are 11 victims total, and that is based primarily on what he's told us.

When we tried to pin him down on a number, he would say it was less than 12. He was quick to correct us in interviews if we had something wrong. So there were several times where we just threw out statements like you were 11 victims or things like that, and he didn't correct us. But there's no way to know for sure. Israel could have been toying with investigators, or outright lying. He's certainly never straightforward in the interviews. They can be incredibly frustrating to listen to.

We mentioned in our last episode that Israel originally told FBI agents he wanted the death penalty taken off the table. But at some point, he does a 180. If I can't get an execution date within a year, you know, I'll tell you about everything. I'll give you plead guilty to whatever. I'll give you every single gory detail you want. But that's what I want. To die and to avoid a media circus. I want my kid to have a chance to grow up.

You know, she's in a safe place now. She's not going to see any of this. I want her to have a chance to grow up and not have all this hanging over her head. It's hard to reconcile that statement with everything else we know about Israel, how he treated other daughters and sons. It's the kind of statement

that doesn't fit neatly into our perception of serial killers. There's empathy, concern, maybe some shame as well, which is perhaps fitting because Israel, based on everything we know about his crimes, worked tirelessly to sidestep expectations. In addition to studying other serial killers, he watched a lot of CSI and criminal minds. He read books by famous FBI profilers, like Mind Hunter by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. He studied his opposition, the people who'd one day try to put him behind bars, how they worked, what they thought of people like him. And he used that to mold himself into something both old and new, something unexpected.

Maureen Callahan, the author of American Predator, said that Israel had an unprecedented MO with zero victim profile and a mode of travel that rendered him undetectable. But so much of what we know about Israel Keys and his crimes comes from his own words, and his words don't always match his actions. The same Israel, who asks to be executed, who acts unfazed by his capture,

tries to take matters into his own hands in May 2012. Our position is that at this particular juncture, That clip comes courtesy of KTUUTV. It was recorded at a hearing for the abduction and killing of Samantha Koenig. Israel attempts to escape the courtroom. He somehow breaks out of his leg irons and tries to jump over the partition behind him. Security has to stop him with a stun gun. And as much as Israel tries to present himself as an opportunistic killer who chooses his victims at random in the moment,

Josh believes there's maybe more to the story. The through line for those three crimes, the couriers and Samantha, there is very strong evidence, if not absolute proof that Keyes had encountered all three of those victims prior to their abductions. Josh says particularly with Samantha Koneg. We mentioned in our last episode, Samantha hadn't always worked at a coffee stand. She'd been working at a sports bar, which is important and strangely never makes it into the media surrounding Keys. It's important because, according to Josh, Israel was a huge Minnesota Vikings fan. And the bar that Samantha worked at was Anchorage's premier Minnesota Vikings bar. It's the only place in town where you could go watch Vikings games.

And we don't know that Keyes frequented that bar, but Army friends of his in the Seattle area said that he, while he was there, sought out the one Vikings bar in Seattle. So he could go watch games live. Not to mention. Keyes was going to the Home Depot across from her coffee stand the whole time she worked there. He was an avid coffee drinker, so it's very hard to believe that he had not gone through that coffee stand once or twice. So there's enough circumstantial evidence in multiple locations that would make it quite clear they had crossed pads. Maybe there's more to Israel's MO than he led on. He had to meet with a psychologist to basically assess that he was capable of going to trial.

And in that interview, he called himself bisexual. You know, he talked about his girlfriend finding him sending suggestive messages to men. Maybe there's more to his victimology. I may not be a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but Josh has spoken to a few in his research. Every criminal psychologist I've talked to have described him as a sexually motivated serial killer. So if you're someone who's trying to conceal your ammo or conceal victimology, it would make sense that you would target both men and women. In terms of age, I think there's a lot to hypothesize about why he targeted different people. One psychologist I talked to suspected that there were four archetypes of his.

victims, one that represented his father, one that represented his mother, one that represented his younger self, and one who represented his first female love. I've only heard one psychologist say that, and I tend to look for a little more resonance amongst the experts I talk to, but it's something we've been keeping our eyes on, and we do see a pattern in known and potential victims for that. As for what exactly Israel wanted to protect his daughter from, we can only guess. It only comes up once when he's talking about the murder of Samantha Koenig. It also comes up once in the files. Often when they're asking him to account for his crimes,

he'll be very detailed and specific until it comes to the rape itself. He won't even use the word rape more often than not. He'll just get very clumsy and shy suddenly and try to move on quickly. There's very clearly a large amount of shame around whatever took place. during these sexual assaults. You talked about Bill Curry or how he had big plans for him, and then they say, can you elaborate? And he shuts down.

It's hard to know if Israel wanted to protect his daughter from the other half of his double life, or if he wanted to protect his legacy from the acts he found shameful and embarrassing. Were his demands selfless or selfish? Similar questions come up with the relationships in his life. Were any of them loving and genuine? or were they all just convenient?

Josh talks a lot about duality on his podcast, True Crime Bullshit. He named his studio both and. While a lot of that could be motivated by like ego or narcissism, I think to him, they were pure, real feelings. It's both and. Like, he both is capable of love

and it's not anything most typical people would define as love. If you read the coverage surrounding Israel Keys, his reputation can feel sensationalized, or at the very least, a step removed from nuanced. He's been called the sui generis serial killer of the 21st century, aka in a class of his own. Headlines call him a monster, vile, unhinged, the most terrifying serial killer you've never heard of, and most of all, meticulous. But again, while all those things are true, it's not the whole story.

He was a meticulous planner, but in execution he was often quite sloppy. Israel said he learned not to commit crimes too close to home, but he abducted Samantha just two miles away from his house in Alaska, then killed her in a shed on his property. The courier's home was only about 40 miles from a cabin he owned. He made mistakes. He left behind evidence. He hired sex workers, got caught sending messages to men online. He kept tabs on his victim's cases.

He even left comments on websites discussing their disappearances, writing them under the username, Israel. You know, he got caught on camera multiple times, but he was wearing pretty good disguises. He almost got caught, according to him, during one bank robbery, but he hid out in the woods. I think it's just by chance that he was wearing. He was able to get away from many, many mistakes. Josh says that when we call people monsters, we can give them too much power. Israel Keyes was a man capable of monstrous actions.

It's both true that he got lucky from time to time, and that we're lucky he got caught. He talked about a few different plans he had for his future. He talked about moving down to Houston and chasing the hurricanes, the subtext, being that someone goes missing during a hurricane, no one's gonna assume it's anything other than a hurricane. He talked about creating some sort of H.H. Holmes bunker where he could keep someone for a longer amount of time. And then the third thing he talked about was

what seemed to be a mass shooting. He had set up targets out in the woods in the Chugash Mountains where he was trying to shoot as many targets as possible while running away from the scene. So I think he had a few different thoughts for how he was going to evolve. And fortunately for all of us, he was arrested before any of those could come to fruition. At some point during his interviews, Israel learns his name has ended up in the media, connected to the courier's disappearance. He begins stonewalling investigators.

He discusses other victims, but only in vague terms. He might mention a state like New York or Washington, but little else. That behavior pretty much continues for the remainder of their interviews, and unfortunately for the rest of his victims and their families, Israel's apparent need for control leads to an unexpected ending. Sometime before December 2, 2012, while in his prison cell, Israel paints 11 identical satanic skulls on 11 sheets of paper using his own blood. This is where the FBI take their theory that he killed 11 people and solidify it as fact.

My perception is that he's being a dick and trolling them based on the fact that they kind of decided he killed 11 people and kept telling him that, even though he never said that was true. And then that begs the question, like, well, if we knew he was capable of accessing enough of his own blood to do finger painting, then certainly they're going to. should have done a better job thereafter of facilitating the tools he was getting access to. On December 2nd, 2012, prison guards find Israel dead in his cell. He'd somehow gotten his hands on a razor blade. He leaves behind a strange, rambling note. I looked in your eyes. They were so dark, warm, and trusting, as though you had not a worry or care. The more guileless the game, the better potential. to fill up those pools with your fear.

Your face framed and dark curls like a portrait, the sun shone through highlights of red. What color, I wonder, and how straight will it turn, plastered back with the sweat of your blood? Your wet lips were a promise of a secret, unspoken, nervous laugh as it burst like a pulse of blood from your throat. There will be no more laughter here. So much of it is just like weird emo poetry, which is very generous.

You know, everyone I've talked to, all the psychologists and the FBI agents are like, it could be something, but it's probably not. It's just the ramblings of a messed up man who was at his wits end. He had no more cards to play and he had no more control. Since Israel's death, the FBI has slowed down their investigation into his victims, focusing on more pressing cases. But Josh hasn't stopped investigating. He's been working to bring closure to as many cases as he can,

with the help of many others, including Bobby Chacon, one of the officers who helped retrieve Samantha Konig's remains in Alaska. And while the FBI thinks Israel is responsible for 11 murders, Josh believes the number is higher. Probably around 20 is the most likely. This is Israel Keys talking about his final year of freedom. Look, I've, in the last year, a little over a year now, I did a lot of stuff. And I think I already mentioned that it's kind of losing control.

But, you know, it goes back a long time. So, yeah, there was a lot of stuff in the last 12, 13 months. but it goes back. 14 years, you said. There's that number again. Remember? It's how we started the last episode. How long have you been two different people?

Long time. 14 years. It's an oddly specific number, not an estimate you'd expect, like 15, or round, like 10. So what happened right before Israel Key's last, split in two. What happened 14 years ago? If you go back in time exactly 14 years before he makes that comment,

to the month a young woman named Suzanne Lyle disappears. Thanks for listening to Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. We'll be back Monday with our third episode on Israel Keys. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at Serial Killers podcast. And we'd love to hear from you. listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Once again, we'd like to give a special thanks to Josh Hallmark for lending his expertise to today's story. You can check out True Crime Bullshit, Josh's investigation into Israel Keys, which is going into its sixth season, as well as

Josh's other podcasts from studio both and on Spotify or wherever else you listen. Stay safe out there. Serial Killers is a Spotify podcast. This episode was written by Connor Sampson, researched, edited, and produced by Connor Sampson and Chelsea Wood, fact-checked by Lori Siegel, and sound designed by Alex Button. Our head of programming is Julian Borrow. Our head of production is Nick Johnson, and Spencer Howard is our post-production supervisor.

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