Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Modern Day Serial Killer - The Israel Keyes Story

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

Israel Keyes was an American serial killer, burglar, and arsonist who operated from 2001 until his arrest in 2012. A meticulous and methodical predator, he murdered at least eleven people across the United States, hiding “kill kits” containing weapons and supplies years in advance to use during his crimes.

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He just likes murdering people, and he's going to take out as many people as he can, and he believes that no one is going to stop him. In fact, he's such a psychopath that he starts traveling across the country and he'll hide what are known as kill kits, which are buckets filled with a pistol and some zip ties and some other things he uses to murder. And whenever he randomly feels the urge, he'll drive back to one of those spots, he'll dig up the kill kit and he'll use what's in it to murder his victims. And he does this for a while, like he murders a bunch of innocent people. And one day in 2011, he decides it's time to kill again. And so he takes a flight from Alaska to Chicago.

And there he rents a car and he drives east, from Chicago all the way to Vermont. And I don't know why he chooses Vermont, but he seems to choose these places at random. So he gets to Vermont and he checks into a hotel. Then at night, Israel walks out to a remote area where he had buried one of his kill kits. two years before. And he digs it up and he gets a pistol and some other supplies from it. And on this particular night, for whatever reason, he decides that he wants to kill a couple, any couple, I guess. So he takes a walk around the local neighborhood, looking for a house that's easy to break into. And that is when he spots one, a house belonging to a couple. So he goes up to this house

and he immediately cuts their phone line so they can't call for help. Then, boom, he breaks in through the garage. He walks through their house and he enters their bedroom. Then he wakes them up at gunpoint and he ties their wrists. Then he forces them into their own car and he drives them to an old abandoned farmhouse. Once they arrive, he takes the wife upstairs and he essays her while leaving husband tied up in the basement. Now, while the husband's tied up in the basement, he starts panicking. He's struggling with the ropes.

He's trying to free himself. And he's shouting, where's my wife? Where's my wife? Now, Israel, he hears all this shouting. And he comes downstairs, I guess to shut him up. And that's when he sees that husband is about to free himself. So Israel freaks out and he grabs a shovel nearby. And boom, he hits him with it.

But husband, he doesn't quit. He's determined to break free and rescue his wife. But Israel is not about to let that happen. So he pulls out his pistol and blam, blam, blam, blam, blam, he shoots the husband. And that, unfortunately, unalives him. Then he goes upstairs to where wife is and he eventually strangles her. And when he's done with them, he leaves. And he leaves Vermont like nothing ever happened.

And later, the husband and wife are reported missing and after interviewing some of their neighbors, police are able to come up with a composite sketch of a suspicious guy that they saw creeping around the area. That suspicious guy being Israel. And so police investigate, but the sketch doesn't lead anywhere, and unfortunately, the case goes cold. Not only that, but a short while after, the old abandoned farmhouse gets demolished, and the debris gets dumped in a local landfill, and husband and wife's bodies are never seen again. And so a few months pass. And Israel, he's back in Alaska, carrying on with his life, working his construction jobs and whatnot. And as time goes on, he starts to get the urge to kill again. And here is where the story gets even darker. Because one night, that same year, 2011, he goes out driving because he's looking for his next victim. And that is when he sees this girl, Samantha. And Samantha's 18 and she's working a shift in a local car. coffee stand alone. And so Israel parks his car and he walks up to the stand and he orders some coffee.

Then when no one's watching, boom, he pulls a gun on her and he forces her outside the stand. And Samantha, she's not having any of this. And so bam, she breaks out and she runs away. But she doesn't get far before Israel catches her and he drags her to his car and he drives her to his house. And at his house, he takes her to his shed and he locks them. inside, then he S-A's her, and he strangles her to death. And after she's unalived,

Israel decides to try and cover his tracks. He gets Samantha's phone, and he sends a message to her boyfriend, saying, I'm going on vacation. Then he just leaves her there, in his shed, and he kind of forgets about her. In fact, Israel

goes on vacation himself. He goes on a cruise in the Caribbean, with his girlfriend and his daughter, because I guess he has a daughter, all while Samantha's body is still in his shed. Meanwhile, Samantha's boyfriend gets the message that Israel sent, and he shows it to her family, and they all immediately know something is up. They know Samantha would never just disappear without saying a word, and so they contact the police, and police start investigating. And two weeks go by, and Israel finally returns from his cruise. And I don't know if the Caribbean cruise left Israel,

a little broke or what, but it's at this time that he decides he's going to extort some ransom money from Samantha's family. And so he sends a text to Samantha's boyfriend, telling him to come to a local park and look under a flyer of a missing dog. And since Samantha's boyfriend knows that Samantha disappeared with her phone, he realizes this message must be from someone who kidnapped her. So he and Samantha's family, they all rushed to the park. And And there they find a plastic bag hidden under the missing dog poster. And inside is a photo of Samantha holding up a newspaper, which was taken the day of her disappearance. So that gives them hope that she might still be alive.

She's not alive. Israel just staged the photo that way. Anyway, along with the photo, there's a note. And in it, Israel demands that $30,000 be deposited into Samantha's bank account. He has Samantha's debit cards with him, so I guess he plans to pull out the cash himself. So Samantha's dad deposits $5,000 into the account, which is, I guess, all that he has. A few hours later, Israel uses her ATM card to make a withdrawal. And of course, police are monitoring all this, because Samantha's family had tipped them off before.

And so they're able to trace the transaction, and boom, they rush to that ATM. But unfortunately, by the time they get there, Israel is... already gone. And so they just wait. They wait for him to make more withdraws. And over the next few weeks, he does. He makes a withdrawal in Arizona and another one in New Mexico. He makes a couple in Texas. So it's clear he's traveling around a lot, but they can't seem to catch him. And by this point the FBI is involved and they still can't catch him. And so it's starting to look like Israel might keep draining this bank account until it's completely empty and

and then he might just get away with it for good. Until. Now here's where Israel finally screws up. While he's in Arizona, withdrawing from one of these ATMs, a security camera spots his car, a white Ford Focus. The FBI then sends the image of that car to multiple police departments across Texas, and soon every officer in the state is on the lookout for that car.

A few days later, a state trooper notices a white Ford focus in a hotel parking lot. And eventually, Israel finally walks out of that hotel and he drives off in that car and the trooper follows him. And he ends up pulling him over for speeding and he searches the car. And in it, he finds a pistol, Samantha's ID, Samantha's debit card, and her cell phone. And so, bam, Israel gets arrested. Here's his mugshot. And a few months later, while he's in jail waiting for his trial, Israel actually unalives himself in his cell. And so to this day, the police and the FBI, they aren't really sure how many people he actually murdered.

They're thinking it was around 11 total, but it could be more.