Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - Israel Keyes Pt. 3 (with Josh Hallmark)

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Israel Keyes died having only confessed to a handful of murders and crimes. Researchers and investigators are left piecing together evidence to solve cold cases. Special thanks to Josh Hallmark for lending his expertise to today’s episode. Check out True Crime Bullshit, Josh’s investigation into Israel Keyes, as well as his other Studio BOTH/AND podcasts on Spotify or wherever else you listen. 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, kidnapping, murder, and suicide. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. To get help on mental health and suicide, visit Spotify.com slash resources. Over the course of six months in 2012, Israel Keys gave FBI agents the names of three of his murder victims, Samantha Koenig and Bill and Lorraine Currier. He recounted the events of one of his first ever victims, a teenage girl he says he abducted and raped

along the Deschutes River in Oregon, sometime between 1996 and 1998. He claimed he intended to kill her, but didn't go through with it. The FBI has since tried to identify this survivor. If they've succeeded, they haven't released any additional information to the public, and beyond that, investigators have only been. only ever linked one other case to Israel Keys, the 2009 disappearance of a New Jersey woman named

Deborah Feldman. Deborah's remains still haven't been found, but the FBI believes she's the fourth victim of Israel Keys. The circumstances of her disappearance match statements Israel made about a victim he buried in New York, and like Samantha Koenig, her name was also found on Israel's computer. How many more victims did he have? There's only one person who knows for sure, and he ended his life in his prison cell back in December 2012. But that hasn't stopped investigators from trying to connect more cold cases and bring closure to victims' families. Today, with the help of Josh Hallmark, we're discussing three missing person cases that he believes could be connected to Israel Keys.

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 the final part of our series on Israel Keys. In our last two episodes, we discussed Israel's confessions to the murders of Samantha Koenig and Lorraine and Bill Currier. The FBI believes Israel may be responsible for more murders, but Israel's death in prison put an end to the confessions.

Now, Josh Hallmark walks us through the unsolved murders he believes have the strongest links to Israel keys. 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 duo. But you don't need to break any loss 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.com slash killers. That's Shopify.com slash killers. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter, where the 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. Just use ZipRecruiter. Try it for free at ziprecruiter.com slash killers. Because not only does ZipRecruiter have the technology to match you with potential candidates quickly, it also just added a new feature that pushes candidates who are qualified and interested in your role to the top of the list.

They can even tell you why they're interested, making it easier for you to get a sense of who they are. Cut through the standard and get to the standouts with ZipRecruiter, Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And now you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash killers. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash killers. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. This episode is brought to you by Prime.

Obsession is in session. 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. It's March 1998. Suzanne Susie Lyall is a 19-year-old college sophomore. She was a student at SUNY Albany. She had just transferred there. She'd been at another

SUNY campus in New York and decided to switch to SUNY Albany. She grew up in Ballston Spa, which is outside of Saratoga Springs. So she wanted to go back to the Albany area to be closer to her parents, but also to be closer to her boyfriend who was in the area. She was big into computers, loved writing poetry. She was really into horses. You know, even her mom said, like, she was a little bit nerdy, but just like a brilliant, really kind-hearted, thoughtful girl. Everyone I've talked to says she was just like wise beyond her years, very mature, and just a very insightful, interrogating person. She works part-time at a video game and software store called Babbage's, located at the Cross

Gates Mall in Albany. On March 2nd, she takes a bus from campus to work, finishes her shift, and Josh says this is where the timeline gets confusing. According to the New York State police, she catches a bus back to campus and a row. arrives at the Collins Circle stop at SUNY Albany around 925 p.m. She's less than a thousand feet from the campus's towering dorm buildings, and no one knows what happens to her from there. She's never seen again. But Josh isn't so sure that Susie got on the bus after work. What's frustrating about Susie's cases, we don't know where she was last seen. So she had been getting ready for midterms and so she wasn't really participating in any socializing so she took the bus to

her job at cross gates ball and she got off and she walked out what is essentially an employee's only entrance and it leads into a loading bay which is not super visible from the parking lot or the rest of the mall and what she normally would have done is from there walk to the bus depot and take the bus back to her dorm. We know for sure she left work that day, and we know for sure she exited through the normal route. They have talked to the bus driver who drives that route, and they talk to a girl on her floor in the dorm,

and they both believe they saw her that night. But Josh wonders whether they actually did see Susie that night. You know, we've talked a lot about this. She was part of their normal routines. So weeks later, if they're interviewed, it would be really challenging to say, like, yes, on this night we saw her because they saw her most nights in this exact same manner. Christopher Cuncle is a forensic psychologist and criminal investigative consultant

who's been involved in Susie's case. I went there recently with Chris Cuncle, and if she was abducted, walking from the bus stop to her dorm, it would not have gone unnoticed. It's a very short distance. It's very open. It's basically a giant circular roundabout with a lawn in between and two, I think, 10 to 12-story dorms. So highly visible short distance. It also echoes because you're in a quad, so you're in between all these buildings.

And we try to come up with a million different scenarios where she somehow gets abducted in this short distance with no one seeing, and it just nothing worked. So it is of both of our opinions that she likely never made it onto the bus afterwards. What's indisputable is that Susie never makes it back to her dorm that night. The next day, her debit card is used. $20 is taken out of her account. It's used at a convenience store about a mile, mile and a half from her school. And they don't have an ATM camera, but they have a camera in the convenience store. And they find a man who is in there around the time the transaction happened.

They call him the Nike guy because he was wearing a Nike hat. And he becomes kind of suspect number one. Not technically a suspect, a person of interest. Others are considered over the course of the investigation, including Susie's boyfriend. They track down Nike man and they can rule him out. But they interview him and ask him if he saw anyone else in there at the time. And he said something to the effect of a tall white man dressed like a farmer. So that lead dies there, and so now they're focused solely on her boyfriend and his family.

They can't rule them out, but they can't rule them in. And then when there's all this debate about whether she was abducted from campus or the mall, her Babbage's ID badge is found on campus in a place that there's no reason for her to have been there. It's an area where, and this was in the press, her boyfriend's parents would pick her up. They would pick her up in that area as opposed to near her dorm. But as we know, she had no intent of going there because she was studying for her midterms. And everyone agrees she took school very seriously and would not have strayed from that plan. And there's also no communication that indicates that the plan ever changed.

So it's odd that her ID badge is found after multiple searches in an area that was searched, but in an area that she would not have gone that night. And that's kind of where publicly at least the investigation into Susie's disappearance ends. Where Keys comes into play is, you know, I had known about Susie's disappearance before I knew about Keys. There was a lot of media surrounding it, particularly at the 10-year anniversary. So when I get the Keys files and I go through the Namus 45, I'm shocked to see Susie is on that list. You'll remember the Namus 45 from our first episode. Namus is a national database for missing people.

The FBI found photos of people of all ages, races, and backgrounds on Israel's computer, some alongside missing person flyers and news articles about disappearances. When they ran the photos and names through the Namus database and found 45 matches, Susie was one of those matches. Israel, it seemed, had taken an interest in her case. Then I start understanding. Keys. And, you know, Keyes had never been looked at because no one could connect him to the area, but his cabin is just three hours from Albany. And at the time that Susie disappeared, he was

living there full-time by himself. So there's that. And then shortly after Susie disappeared, Keyes enlisted in the military, and that kind of mirrors what happened with the Deshutes girl, as he commits this crime close to home, panics, and then leaves the area almost immediately. Then we start going through the FBI tips, and there's a very credible account of a woman who believed she encountered keys in a Marshall's parking lot as the Marshalls was closing in 1998. Susie disappeared in 1998. She said she was walking out to her car. She'd parked far away from the store entrance in an unlit area, and when she got out there,

there was a young man who looked to be in his late teens or early 20s. He was tall. her description of him, which is apt and also hilarious, is that he looked like beaker from the Muppets. The woman says the man stared at her as she put an item she purchased in her car. In an otherwise empty parking lot, he stood uncomfortably close, and he asked her strange questions. Like, does anyone know you're here?

How old are you? And that's when she was like, old enough, leave me the fuck alone or something like that. and she said that it was only when she got aggressive with him that he kind of scampered off a little bit, but she could see him watching her as she got into her car and drove off. What's strange as these questions come up over and over and over again in Keyes, tips, and encounters? He's in a parking lot or a cemetery in kind of the far end of it, and he approaches someone and starts asking weird questions, like would anyone know if you went missing today,

or if you didn't come home, would anyone notice? How old are you? So there's that, which again, doesn't add up to a lot, but then you look at the witness and she is an attorney. She has a lot to lose for making false reports to the FBI. She also is trained on remembering specifics and details. And unbeknownst to her, like Keyes was in the area at the time, Keyes was known to frequent mall parking lots.

Keys enlisted in the army directly across the street. from this marshals. So this is an area he knew well. It's in a hot spot. It's close to his house, but not so close that it's in his own backyard. And then around the same time, less than a mile away, Susie disappears from a mall parking lot or a campus parking lot. So that was kind of the most compelling evidence for me to take this seriously, in addition to her being on his computer. So then we started looking at more dates. We knew that for keys to enlist, he had to get his GED and get a social security card. He didn't get that because he was basically born off-grid. And from where he was living, he would have to do both of these things in Albany. It was the

closest location for him to do that. So we don't know exact dates, but we do know that between at least October of 97 and July of 98 when he finally enlisted, that he had to go to Albany at least three different times. And that location is, like I said, directly across from the Marshals, and you can see Sunni campus from that location. There is also a Hertz rental car directly next to the enlistment office, and we know that he was renting cars at the time from Hertz. As the coincidences piled up,

Josh found he wasn't alone in his thinking. Chris Cuncle, before Keyes was on his radar, had always believed it was a serial killer. He just said it was too clean for it to be a first, time act. And then he found out from my show that Susie's name was on Keys' computer. And so we started talking and comparing notes. And I think our cases that it was Keyes got stronger and stronger. There's also the computer element. Keys was a computer video game guy. His cabin didn't have electricity. So in order for him to play video games or use a computer, he'd have to go to a

store like Babbage's to do that. Susie, when she was at her previous SUNY campus, which was closer to Keyes' cabin, worked at Abavages there, also closer to Keyes' cabin. So again, there's a lot here that mirrors the crimes we know about. We've got the test ATM use. We've got a tall white guy who dresses like a farmer in that location at the time the card was used. That's how Keyes is often described. We've got Susie on his computer.

We've got them both being into online communication. Her working at a store, which is one of few places Keyes would be able to actually access the internet at that time. So very compelling evidence. And Josh says that something happens on the 15th anniversary of Susie's disappearance. Her name trends on Google, which isn't necessarily strange. The anniversary could explain the spike in press coverage. But of all places, Susie's name trends in Houston, Texas at a time we know Israel was in Texas. Working against the theory that Israel had a hand in Susie's disappearance is like, the fact that he once told the FBI that he didn't kill anyone until after he joined the military.

And as Josh mentioned, Susie disappeared beforehand. But then in subsequent interviews, they asked him the longest he ever went without killing someone. And he said, well, when I was in the Army. Implying, he had in fact killed before and stopped after he registered, at an enlistment office located just one mile away from Susie's campus. If you have information related to Suzanne Lyle's disappearance, contact the New York State Police at 518-783-3212 or submit an anonymous tip to your local FBI office.

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, soft lightly lined cups for a natural shape

and no wire comfort that lasts all day. All over smooth, all day comfort, vanity fair lingerie. Find yours at Target today. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigued, ask your doctor about Zepbound, terse appetite. The first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity.

Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zetbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Zetbound contains terseptitite and should not be used with other terseptit containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pins or reuse needles.

Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop zep bound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia.

If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zep bound with a sulfonel urea or insulin may cause low. low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsened kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99 or visit zepbound.lily.com. In earlier episodes, we spoke about how Israel Keys only named three victims, Samantha Koenig, and Bill and Lorraine Currier. But in interviews with the FBI, he made references to many others. He says he killed a male-female couple sometime after the military, but before 2005. He says that the remains were never recovered.

You didn't see a lot of press about them. And then he talked about details about the actual murder itself. Nothing specific, apart from a general location. He said he committed the murders in Washington and buried the remains near a valley. But the FBI believes he might have abducted the couple. from a neighboring state. What's interesting is there's only one such occurrence of an unsolved missing male-female couple

in Washington or its surrounding states between 2001 and 2005. And it's Gene, Hyatt, and Cammy Volandruff. In November 2011, Eugene, who goes by Gene and Cammy, are staying on the Oregon coast. They're teenagers, 18 and 16. Gene's family rented an Oceanfront condo for Thanksgiving.

and invited Cammy to stay with them. One morning, while Gene's father is in the shower, they tell Gene's grandparents that they're going out for a walk, heading down to Boiler Bay State Park to look at the tide pools. They leave around 10 a.m., and they never return. The local law enforcement almost immediately decided that they had been swept to see, that there was like a rogue wave that took them out to see. It wouldn't have been the only time something like that happened in the area,

Gene and Cammy were in, but Josh has since called the rogue wave theory into question. Essentially, the Coast Guard has said, and all my research into, like, wave and title patterns have said, like, it is very rare, almost unheard of for two people to be swept to see and then never seen again. Almost always what happens is title patterns are circular, so essentially they would have been swept out to see, but then very shortly thereafter, come back to shore. I've also been to this area on I think the week of the 20th anniversary of their disappearance at the same time they disappeared. And it's low tide.

And where they were purported to be is like quite high above the tide level. And there were tons of fishermen out there. And all I could think is like even if there was some rogue wave that was able to somehow at low tide drag them off an elevated viewpoint into the ocean, someone would have seen this happen because they both would have screamed and make noise and potentially get away or get back to shore. And the fact that neither of their bodies were ever recovered,

no one saw them go in, no one heard them go in, is unreasonable to me. When Josh looked into Gene and Cammy's disappearance, he started to take note of possible connections to Keys. When they disappeared from Depot Bay, Oregon, Keyes was living in Nia Bay, Washington, which is essentially along the same highway, route 101, and only, I think, like a seven-hour drive. In statements to the FBI, Israel spoke about driving long distances. He drove from Chicago to Vermont in the abduction of the couriers and once mentioned driving

more than 300 miles with a victim alive in his car. You know, for us, a seven-hour drive is quite long, but relatively speaking, for him, it's nothing. Israel appeared to have a thing for couples and told authorities he often chose smaller victims to make the abduction and disposal process easier. They were slight, they were theater kits, you know, just walking out to go look at the ocean. But from Key's perspective would be very easy victims. Jean was between 5-6 and 5-8, 140 to 150 pounds.

Cammy was 5'7 and weighed around 1.30, and when Josh visited Depot Bay, he noticed something about the route Gene and Cammy likely would have taken. What stood out to me as the pathway from their condo to this area is mostly along the highway, but there is one little area that is entirely shrouded from the parking lot, from the park, and from the highway. And it's where you would enter or exit southbound from the park in a car. So that stood out to me because when I go to these places, I always have to think about the logistics. Like, how could Keyes have done this? Like, where could he have done it where no one would have seen him? How would he have gotten back to his car?

It's all kind of boring and tedious. But here it was like this stood out to me immediately. It's like, oh, this would make sense when no one saw them there that day because they never made it there, even though it's such a short span. He could have parked his car here and they could have come up and he could have grabbed them both. After Gene and Kami disappeared, investigators and volunteers performed thorough searches of the area. The Coast Guard got involved.

No evidence is found. Then, four days later... Gene's shoe is found on a nearby beach, and this is after it's in the press that they believe they had been swept out to see. And I've seen pictures of the shoe, and again, like pictures will never do something justice, but it does not look like it's been in the water for days. Stranger still, a few days later, a friend of Camisor, family is on the beach helping another search party.

And she's exiting the outdoor bathroom, and she encounters a young man who's asking a bunch of weird questions. Like, oh, what are you all doing here? Did someone go missing? What's going on? How long have you been searching? Have you found anything? And no one knows who Keyes is at the time, but she describes him as looking exactly like

young Christian Longo, who had recently been arrested. for killing his wife and kid. And if you look at pictures of Christian Longo at that time, he looks eerily like Israel Keyes. So it's not outside the realm of possibility that Keyes would, A, return to this scene, but also B, ask a lot of questions to see he could find out about the investigation,

but also just to kind of like, I guess, taunt people. You know, he got off on emotional and psychological torture, so it would make sense. to me that he would go down and just try to toy with people. Unlike Susie Lyall, Gene and Cammy weren't found on Israel's computer, but Josh says he'd been looking into a young woman named Brooke Wilberger, who disappeared in the same area as Gene and Cammy. Israel didn't have a hand in Brooke's disappearance. The man who murdered her

later confessed, but Josh notes that the same newspapers that were covering Brooks' disappearance at the time were also covering Jean and Cammy. Tammy's case. And we know that Keyes would look into disappearances and he would search area newspapers that would be covering those cases and look for missing person. And that's how he would read about his crime. So that's kind of the connection we have there. So again, a bunch of circumstantial evidence, but it's very clear to me and many professionals

I've spoken to that they did not get swept away to see. And so either they ran away, which everyone who knows them has said, like, there's no way. or they were abducted. And it just so happens that they almost identically match Keyes' account of abducting a couple. And there's, in fact, no one else who matches that account. All these years later, there's no more certainty. There's still work to be done, more evidence that needs to be found.

And there's no telling which direction it will point. We know that Cammy was wearing a bracelet when she disappeared. I have pictures of it. And so we are trying our best to match that up to pictures of jewelry found on Keeza's property in New York, as well as the house he shared with his ex-girlfriend in Alaska. But yeah, I think that's one of those where, like, we're kind of at a dead end unless law enforcement decides that they want to play with us. Josh has spoken with some of Cammy's loved ones. He says he's gotten to know her cousin and best friend well.

They both lived with Cammy when she disappeared. And they think that Keyes makes the most sense. They haven't said this is what we think happens, but they've said, you know, this makes more sense than anything else we've heard. What they've heard is mostly what law enforcement believes. Gene and Cammy were washed out to see by a rogue wave during a storm that hit around the time they departed. Keyes talked about reading about his crimes and his victims,

and he was often surprised at what law enforcement or the media determined or hypothesized had happened. What he specifically says is, oh, presumed a boating accident, or, oh, presumed lost in the woods, or, oh, presumed lost at sea. And it's interesting that, you know, those were the three examples that he chose. If you have information about Gene or Cammy's disappearance, contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1,800-843-5678, or the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office in Oregon at 541-265-4-2-3-1.

Transport your senses with Solte Janado's limited edition perfume mist collection. At Sephora, spritz on lush notes of rainforest orchid and crisp sea breeze with hafresco paraizzo. Embrace a floral and fruity scent inspired by Rio's nude beach with chiqui bikini or capture sun-kissed bliss with limonada gelada, where zesty Brazilian lemonade accord meets coconut milk, and golden brown sugar. Don't miss Sol de Janeiro's limited edition perfume mist collection, only at Sephora. Want to support your gut health? Take Activia's gut health challenge by enjoying two Activia yogurt today for two weeks and see if you feel a difference. With billions of

probiotics and 20 years of scientific expertise, Activia is one of the easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut health ritual. 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. Israel Keys abducted Samantha Koneg on February 1st, 2012 and murders her later that night. The next morning, he travels with his girlfriend and daughter to Houston before driving to New Orleans to go on a cruise. He's weeks away from getting caught, from his house of cards coming crashing down. When the cruise finishes, Israel's girlfriend decides to go on a road trip with some friends. So Israel and his

daughter drive to the Dallas area to visit his mother and sisters. But shortly after he arrives, Israel goes on a solo trip. He's in the middle of the night basically leaves a note saying going to bury guns and disappears for three days. During that time, a 58-year-old Texas man goes missing named James, aka Jimmy Tidwell. Jimmy Tidwell was living in East Texas near the Louisiana border, and he was married to a woman named Carol. They had just bought this dilapidated house in the woods, and he was fixing it up. By all accounts was a point of contention for the couple.

It got bad enough that Carol moved in with her daughter. She didn't like being in this house because it gave her the creeps, but also. So she was a school bus driver and her daughter lived closer to her route, so it just made more sense. Jimmy worked for a manufacturing plant in Longview, Texas. What we know is he was at work, he worked the night shift, and he was headed back home around 5 a.m. He had all of his gear, his hard hat, his protective goggles, all these things he was required to wear for his job. And that's the last anyone has seen him. It's believed that Jimmy was last seen on February 15th, 2012.

But he's not reported missing until February 28th, 13 days later. Over the course of their investigation, officials questioned Jimmy's wife, Carol. She's unable to give investigators a date and time she last saw her husband. Carol's story changes a lot, which has made her, I think, a focus of people's attention. She was living there part-time. There was a lot of contention between the two, so I can understand how her memory is not great. Despite suspicions originally cast on her, Carol has been cleared by law enforcement, and Jimmy's case remains unsolved. What's compelling about this in terms of Keyes is, I would say, out of all of the cases we've looked into,

this has the most compelling circumstantial evidence. For starters, Keyes was in the area at the time. A Walmart receipt can place him about 20 miles away shortly after Tidwell is believed to have disappeared. Keyes bought a shovel, lubricant, and air freshener. Jimmy lived in a town called Mount Enterprise. Josh says Israel's mother and sisters, the ones he was visiting, were in the process of moving from the Dallas area to the town of Wells. We know that Keyes visited Wells during his trip, but what's interesting is, Mount Enterprise, is only about a 40-minute drive from there,

and Jimmy lived in a remote cabin in the woods. The kind of area Israel told the FBI he liked to stake out. Where things get interesting is the day after Jimmy disappeared, he's set a house on fire and then robbed a bank. In the video of him at the bank robbery, he's wearing a hard hat, and he has long, thin, stringy hair, which Keyes at the time had very short, thick, curly hair. When asked where he got the hair from, he said,

human hair is very easy to find. And then he said that he glued human hair inside this hard hat, so it looked like he had longer hair. So Jimmy Tidwell's hard hat is never found. We know that Keyes took Samantha's hair. And, you know, again, this could be biased. But if you look at pictures of Jimmy Tidwell and you look at the hair in Keyes' helmet, it looks like the same hair. But again, like, I'm not a hair scientist, so grain

assault. In conversations with the FBI, Israel denied killing anyone in Texas. But later, he seemingly walked back that statement without giving any specifics. He said something to the effect of, I haven't been truthful about Texas. Josh brings the conversation back to the fire Israel set the day after Jimmy disappeared. We know that Keys often would burn buildings after crimes. Our opinion is to conceal evidence from the crimes. This was a not vacant, but I guess abandoned home. Not far from the bank he robbed,

but far enough that his excuse that he did it as a diversion didn't make any sense because it's about a 20-minute drive. They're in different jurisdictions, so it wouldn't be the same police responding to both events, and the events occurred four hours apart. So it would be a very, terrible diversion. So he can't really come up with a reason for why he burned this house, except that it just needed to burn. There's no evidence of remains, but I don't know that it was

searched for remains at the time. He did a heck of a job burning it. The house was completely destroyed. In fact, I went back two years ago and like the property 10 years later still smells like fire. There's so much circumstantial evidence. It lines up with a period where Keyes is missing. He told his mom he was stuck in the mud for three days. He had turned his phone off at the time. He stopped using his credit card at the time. Jimmy disappears from an area he is in and would have reason to go back to because it's not far from where he knows his mother's about to move. Jimmy's hard hat disappears. Keys shows up with a hard hat in this bank robbery. So there's all that and that was compelling enough, but then we were cataloging items seized

from the Anchorage House Keys lived in when he was arrested. And in it there was a knife that had the name of a pipe fitting company based in Longview, Texas, company that worked with the company that Jimmy Didwell worked with. If you have any information about the disappearance of Jimmy Tidwell, you're asked to call the Rusk County Sheriff's Office at 903-657-3581. With his death, Israel Keys robbed so much. many people of closure. But experts are still trying to better understand his MO and victimology. Forensic psychologist Catherine Ramsland has suggested Israel Keys may have had a fetish for missing

persons, and investigators and researchers are still piecing together his crimes and making what could be breakthroughs. For example, Josh now believes Israel's murders were not as random or disconnected as officials once believed. If you plot all of his travels on a map along with all of his residences or familial residences, along with the name is 45, what happens is you see nine hotspots across the country where all of these places connect within 50 to 100 miles. And so you can target where he was likely committing his crimes. Josh covers this revelation in season two of his podcast, true crime bullshit in an episode called Hot Spots. And it's proof that our understanding of Israel's crimes is still evolving.

Recently, Josh says, a woman came forward who says she had a run-in with Israel sometime between Samantha Koenig's murder and Jimmy Tidwell's disappearance. She apparently knew information about Israel that hasn't been made publicly available. She was in a cemetery visiting her grandmother and she says Keys came running from the woods and tried to grab her. She got away. But what's so interesting is it's this tiny town called Viter, Texas, also near Wells. Keys would have been traveling from Houston to Lafayette, Louisiana, around that time by himself

or with his daughter, but no other adults. And then I just, I don't know why, because it seemed like there was no way, but I looked to see if there were any missing persons cases on that day. And a man disappeared while camping in Viter, Texas on that day. Another strange coincidence in a long history of others. There's a plaque on a gazebo at Madanuska Lake in Alaska, the place where the FBI found Samantha Koenig's remains, the only remains ever recovered from any of Israel Key's victims.

It reads, With remembrance and respect, this space is dedicated to the cherished loved ones who were violently taken from their lives and ours. We can only hope that one day more will be found. Thanks for listening to Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. We'll be back with a new episode on 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. To report tips about the Israel Keys case, call 1-800 call FBI or visit fbi. Pips. 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. I'm your host Vanessa Richardson. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up, getting ready for bed, is brutally beaten and killed.

Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest. and then strikes again. I'm Global News crime reporter Nancy Hicks. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat. Search for and follow the award-winning podcast Crime Beat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Do you want to hear something spooky?

Some monster, it reminded me of Bigfoot. Monsters Among Us is a weekly podcast featuring true stories of the paranormal. Mall. One of the boys started to exhibit demonic possession. Stories straight from the witnesses' mouths themselves. Something very snake-light lifted its head out of the water. Hosted by me, your guide, Derek Hayes. Somehow I lost eight whole hours.

Listen now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.