RedHanded - Bonus - Israel Keyes: Plan of Attack

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

You asked for it – to say a huge final THANK YOU to all of you who brought us Gold in the Listeners' Choice category in this year’s BPAs, we promised you a bonus episode of your choice. And you voted in your thousands, for an episode on horrifying serial-killer scumbag, Israel Keyes.Keyes didn’t earn his place among America’s most terrifying serial killers only for his brutality, or coldness. The most horrifying thing about his tale is how comprehensively he got away with it.Travelling thousands of miles across the US, sometimes spending years researching a single kill, and with no discernible victim profile – Keyes operated completely under the radar for decades. He considered himself a master of the serial-killing craft. And in the end, even his downfall all seemed part of the plan…See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And welcome to What You Earned For Yourselves. You did. You did it all by yourselves, but kind of for us as well, I hope. Thank you.

If you don't know what we're talking about, you are getting this beautiful bonus episode on the horrible piece of shit that is Israel Keys because you are all lovely people who help us whenever we ask you by going to vote for us in the British Podcast Awards. Yes, we won it this year for the third time in a row. It was bloody incredible, to be frank. Nobody could believe that we did it because we beat a bunch of celebrities who I now find hilarious. That yesterday I was talking to the team and they told me that the very famous celebrity podcast, staying relevant to even say their name, sure. Well well one of them had been like

it's a fix that red-handed won and did a whole entire episode about it we thought it was very funny but he's dead serious about it which i'm like why would anybody fix it so we can win no one knows who we are but yes they were very upset that they didn't win they made that episode and i did think it was very funny that the team told me there have been so many comments people being like i came to listen after staying relevant said it was was a fix, and now I'm addicted. And I love run-handed. And I think that's very, very funny. But yes, we are here because of you. Thank you guys so much. You mean the world to us. And in honour of that, we let you pick the horrible forfeit that we had to do for winning, which was to go hang out in a haunted house, which

we did. We did do. Tick. You can go watch the full 45 minutes almost. Something like that, yeah. Of me and Hannah running around a haunted house with a spirit box, talking to some people, talking to some ghosts, most importantly. And I set my hair on fire. She did.

That bit scared me more than anything. And you can see the genuine terror in my face when that happens. So go check that out. It's on the Red Handed YouTube channel channel i think it's called like ghost some ghost house it's just called ghost ghost it's just us pretending to be patrick swayze i'll find it the link will be in the episode description but you guys earned it you guys earned it i think like 40 000 of you voted and like 10 000 of you watch the youtube videos so go watch it's called red haunted special colon ghost hunting at the ancient ram inn honestly it was very funny and some genuinely creepy things happened so go check that out and this is the other thing that you earned which was

we also said if we won we would give you a bonus episode of your choice and you guys picked israel keys on the 1st of february 2013 there had been record snowfall in Anchorage, Alaska. By 7.55pm, daylight was long gone, and the snowdrifts had grown to five feet. Still, for those whose nights were just beginning, the Common Grounds coffee stand was still open. 18-year-old Samantha Koenig had been working at Common Grounds coffee stand was still open. Eighteen-year-old Samantha Koenig had been working at Common Grounds for just over a month, and that day, five minutes before closing, her last customer approached the stand with a.22-caliber Taurus handgun concealed in his pocket. He placed one hand on the counter and ordered an Americano.

Samantha turned round to make the coffee, but when she turned back, she was looking down the barrel of a gun. The man was tall and bulky-looking, but that might have just been his thick hooded winter coat. He looked like he was in his thirties, but it was quite hard to tell, because what his hood didn't obscure was mostly covered by a grey ski mask. And this man told Samantha to turn off the lights. And she did, but stopped short of pressing the panic button next to the light switch.

The man had noticed that people were still milling around, and someone in a parked car seemed to be watching them. He told Samantha to keep talking, as if they were friends. Seven minutes later, the seemingly watching car pulled away. And as soon as it was out of sight, in one quick movement, the man launched himself into the coffee stand. He told Samantha to get on her knees and bound her hands with zip ties. Eventually, he got her on her feet and led her out to his car.

He held Samantha close to his side, pressing the gun into her ribcage, and he told her to act like his girlfriend. They waited at the crossing, and when the lights changed, Samantha made a break for it. She raced down the street, but the snow had already started melting underneath her feet. And before long, her captor had tackled her to the ground. He got Samantha into his passenger seat

and told her that as long as her family paid a ransom, she'd be fine. He was only after the money. Samantha breathed a sigh of relief. She and her dad were hard up, but she had no doubt that her father would find whatever money this man needed, somehow. What she didn't know was that this was no have-a-go, ransom-hungry kidnapper. The man who had taken Samantha would one day be known as one of America's most notorious, meticulous and inscrutable serial killers.

A man who could spend years researching a single kill and considered himself a master. He travelled thousands of miles across the entire US and beyond to stalk remote spots where he knew that he could take a life without alarm bells being raised. He robbed banks and started fires for, quote, variety. This was a killer without a motive, who seemed to choose his victims entirely at random, only interested in perfecting his craft and reveling in the process of each brutal kill.

But after a decade of operating completely unknown to law enforcement, he broke his own very strict rules. And Samantha Koenig would be his final victim. Why do you think Israel Keys isn't more of a quote-unquote household name? Because he killed loads of fucking people. I honestly don't know. Because I think it is a valid question to ask, name because he's killed he killed loads of fucking people i honestly don't know because i think it is a valid question to ask like why some serial killers get a lot of notoriety and why some

don't like everybody talks about dharma everybody talks about gacy ted bundy etc and i wonder if it's because bundy has like his weird charisma john wayne gacy is like a performer dharma's just like fucking out of his head bund Bundy escaped from prison. Yeah. First televised trial, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And Israel Key's like, I do wonder why he isn't a bigger name. But let's find out together. So when Samantha's boyfriend, Dwayne, arrived at the coffee stand to pick her up after her shift that night,

and she wasn't there, at first he wasn't entirely surprised. Recently, the two of them had been fighting. Samantha had been accusing Dwayne of texting other girls. And to be fair, he had. But despite this, Dwayne and Samantha had been looking to the future. He'd even moved in with her and her dad. They bought a truck together. They had plans.

Samantha was studying. She wanted to work with animals or become a nurse. And Dwayne had got a job as a dishwasher just to save up some cash. So yeah, when he arrived and Samantha wasn't at work, Dwayne thought that maybe she'd left early. So he had a quick look around, but the entire place was empty. And not wanting to accidentally trip the alarm or something, Dwayne left and went home.

Then, at 11.30pm, a text came from Samantha's phone to Dwayne that confirmed his suspicions that she was just pissed at him. And this is what it read. F you, arsehole. I know what you did. I'm going to spend a couple of days with friends. Need time to think. Plan acting weird.

Let my dad know. So he's like, yeah, okay, she's just punishing me. Then, at 3am, Dwayne heard a noise outside his house. So he went outside to investigate. And there he found a man in a ski mask going through his truck. Dwayne panicked and went back inside to get help, which is the right thing to do. In every other case, I feel like he'd have gone out and been like,

hey, what are you doing? And then ends up getting murdered. But he does the non-horror movie thing, but the correct thing to do, which is go back inside the house and call the fucking police. He doesn't do that. He just goes back in. But within minutes, the man was gone anyway. So I guess do that. He just goes back in. But within minutes,

the man was gone anyway. So I guess Dwayne's just like, phew. Samantha was reported missing the next morning by the next barista on shift at Common Grounds. Cash was missing from the register. Important things were out of place. And remember, Samantha's only 18. She was close to her dad and had never just vanished before. It's the definition of like a high risk missing person. It's like this person doesn't typically act like this. They've left no word with anybody apart from that weird cryptic text to Dwayne. But still, some of the decisions made next are odd. And so, the case was assigned to Detective Monique Dole. After ten years in narcotics, including four undercover with the DEA, this was Monique's first day on the homicide team.

The FBI were also made aware of Samantha's case. Specifically, FBI Special Agent Steve Payne. Payne was a perfectionist, who obsessed over the details of every case that came across his desk. So much so that it cost him his first marriage. And we did find out some other things about FBI Agent Stephen Payne during the research.

Why this kept coming up, I have absolutely no idea. Stephen Payne was, like you said, a very specific man, obsessed with details. And I have his coffee order here would you like to know what it is hannah because it's fucking disgusting okay unhinged is the word i want to use it is a 20 ounce skinny peppermint mocha with whipped cream that he fbi special agent Stephen Payne called a frou-frou. 20 ounces is over a pint. That's fucking horrendous. A pint of peppermint mocha whatever with skinny cream. Oh my god, I feel sick. I feel like any peppermint coffee combo is just coffee for children. Like menthol cigarettes, cigarettes for children.

Disgusting. It's all disgusting. It's all so disgusting. No, no, no, no. Thank you very much. Gross. He was hip hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose,

it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom. But I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is the Rise and Fall of Diddy. Listen to the Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery+.

I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery+. In Season 2 two I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met but a couple of years ago I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him.

This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me, and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha

exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. However, whatever we might think about Steve Payne's coffee order, Monique and Stephen Payne were both highly capable officers. The Anchorage police, on the other hand, we can't say the same thing.

The coffee kiosk from which Samantha had gone missing hadn't even been cordoned off. In fact, Common Grounds carried on serving customers all day, straight out of a crime scene. And the problem could be that we're in Alaska in the winter here it's an endless stretch of dark freezing roads sounds like my absolute worst nightmare the sun started setting at 6 30 now and I'm already on death row and as we have said before on the show Alaska Anchorage in particular people go missing all the time I feel like it's the kind of place you go to if you are on the run and it's also the place that therefore a lot of people go missing from because there's a lot of people there on the run. So by and large, Samantha's case, although odd and out of character, was considered quite low priority.

She was seen as just another runaway teen. Which is so weird because it's like they had so many things to point to the fact that that wasn't probably the case. Until they got the CCTV. So the camera captured the inside of the kiosk and showed Samantha serving the mysterious customer. Two minutes into their interaction, she suddenly turns off the lights. Because remember, he told her to. A shadowy figure is then visible outside, holding what is clearly a gun. Samantha's hands go up, and she gets on her knees.

The man leaps in, shuts the window, and ties Samantha up. For ten full minutes, they just stay there. And then, the pair of them leave. After seeing this, the police knew that the situation was serious. But for some inexplicable reason, they made the strange assumption that Samantha and her attacker knew each other. So they know she's been attacked, and they know she's been taken away, perhaps against her will. But they make the strange assumption that they know each other. I mean, what kind of friend doesn't make you stare down the barrel of a gun?

Quite. Not a good one, that's for sure. And another strange decision that the Anchorage police made at this point was also to keep all of this information about the case from the press. Why? Why is that your decision? Now, Samantha's father, James, obviously wasn't happy about any of this, and he took matters into his own hands. He spread flyers everywhere, and the community rallied. Within two days, Samantha's disappearance had gone from being not being mentioned by any press to being national news. There was a candlelit vigil of hundreds of people in the town square where she vanished, and messages started pouring in from across the world.

And then, a bittersweet flicker of hope. A text came from Samantha's phone. And it read this. Connor Park. Signed under pick of Albert. Ain't she pretty. Gross. Yeah. Duane and James

shared the news with police and raced to Connors Bog Park. They found a bulletin board with a missing poster for a dog named Albert. And under pick of Albert, as the text said, was a Ziploc bag. Inside was a ransom note and pictures of Samantha Koenig. She was looking at the camera, wearing make-up.

Her armpits were shaved and her hair was braided. Her skin looked healthy. In one image, a male arm was in shot, holding a copy of the Anchorage Daily News from a few days before. The note was riddled with basic spelling errors, though it was quickly theorised by investigators that that was intentional. It read that this man had taken Samantha out of Anchorage and that she had almost got away twice, with the kidnapper writing, The note also said that if $30,000 was transferred to Samantha's debit card, she would be freed in six months.

The community had already been raising funds for Samantha's return effort, so James Koenig sent what he could, $5,000 to his daughter's account. And now all they had to do was keep an eye on that card. And four hours later, minutes before midnight, Samantha's debit card was used. Someone had tried to withdraw $600 in cash from an ATM. It was denied. And whoever had done this, realising that the $600 amount they were trying to take out exceeded the credit limit,

Samantha's captor drove to the next bank and withdrew this time $500. So I don't mean the credit limit of what's in her card. It's like what they're allowed to take out in one go. Incredibly, after the police had confirmation that this person had used Samantha's car to withdraw $500 from an ATM, it took two days to get surveillance stills from the ATM to the FBI. On the 7th of March, the ATM card was used again, this time in Wilcox, Arizona. The FBI wasted no time.

They phoned local police and within the hour, they were at the bank. But again, it's just a little bit too late because an hour later, the person's gone and also because it was

a small local bank, they had no local database for CCTV. So it took another full day to retrieve the footage. And these things were no mistake by the perpetrator. Because with this perpetrator, as you are going to discover, nothing happens by chance. He had purposefully picked the banks that he had picked because he knew how long it would take the FBI to be able to get footage of him. Just as he had planned every single bit of every one of his crimes.

And just as he'd planned to extort money from Samantha's family and to stage those photos. Because, and this is one of the worst things that I have ever come across in the world of true crime, because those proof of life Polaroids that had been left in that Ziploc bag in the Bog Dog Park were taken 17 days after Samantha's death. The makeup had been applied to her face to mask the advancing decomposition. Her eyes had been sewn open to look at the camera. Her hair had been braided and her armpits had been shaved to make her look like she was being treated well.

And just before the photographs were taken, Samantha's frozen body had been defiled. Now, this picture that was in the Ziploc bag is public. You can easily go find it online if you want to. But fair warning, especially after everything I have just told you about that photo, there is no way it's not going to haunt you if you do go and look at it. And it's very convincing. It's honestly, it's very convincing. The first time I looked at it, I didn't know that she was dead. Yeah, that's why it's so shocking when you find out she's been dead for 17 days by the time that picture is taken. So who was this man, so organised and so depraved in apparently equal

measure? His name was, of course, Israel Keyes. Let's go back to the heavy snow on the 1st of February 2012. Israel Keyes took the licence plate off his white pickup truck and removed the toolboxes and ladder rack. He put two heaters in his shed and stretched a tarp over the floor. He drove to the Common Grounds coffee stand. He'd chosen it because it stayed open later than other ones did, and he'd driven down there the past few nights to monitor how busy it got. And just before 8pm, listening to a traffic scanner he'd bought from Radio Shack, he heard them mention something big happening on the other side of Anchorage. Perfect, he thought.

It would draw the police away from what he was about to do. Keyes pulled on a ski mask and took the battery out of his phone and walked up to the booth with a handgun in his pocket. From this point, he still didn't know how far he would go that night. He knew he wanted to rob the stand, but the rest, that would depend. As he ordered his coffee and pulled out his gun, though, he started to make up his mind. The girl at the coffee stand was following his orders, and he liked it. He felt a rush of power. He would later tell detectives, there was just something about her,

like the way she reacted, that made me just want to keep going with it. On the drive back, Israel Keyes used Samantha's phone to send two texts, one to her boyfriend Dwayne and one to the coffee stand owner. They both suggested that she'd had enough and was leaving for the weekend. Keyes then drove to his house. Keeping quiet so as not to disturb his sleeping girlfriend and daughter, Keyes took Samantha into his shed. He told her that he would kill her if she screamed. He then said he had errands to run, but that he'd be listening to the police scanner. And if he heard any hint of a disturbance near his house, he'd be back long before the cops made it to her. He turned on the radio in the shed and blared music to cover any

noise. Then, using information he'd got from Samantha, he to her house at 2 30 a.m and broke into her truck to steal her wallet and this is of course what Dwayne saw when he saw the guy with the ski mask breaking into the truck and Keyes ran off from the truck situation after he'd got Samantha's debit card and he went straight to an ATM to test the pin that she had given him. When he returned to his house, Keyes poured himself a glass of wine. He crept up to where his girlfriend was sleeping and pulled a purple handkerchief out of the drawer next to her. He put on a head torch and went back to the shed. Samantha was still there, sitting on a bucket, right where he had left her.

Her hands were tied and she had a noose around her neck. He told her to lie on the floor. He untied her from the wall and ran two pieces of rope through the cable ties in her hands. He pinned her legs down, stuffed the purple handkerchief in her mouth

and cut off her clothes. Before he assaulted the 18-year-old Samantha, he put on a condom. Nothing was left to chance. When he was finished, he pulled on one of the ropes, elevating her legs and choking her. And then he watched the life drain from Samantha's body. Israel Keyes picked himself up, went back into the house and woke up his daughter for school. He then fed his dogs and finished packing his bags for a holiday he was due to go on with his family. He returned to the shed, untied Samantha's body and wrapped it tightly in a tarp. He then stuffed it in a cabinet sure that the minus 6 temperature

would preserve her body until he returned from his little trip away he and his daughter then took a cab to the airport flew to Seattle and then on to Houston where they rented a car

and drove to New Orleans his girlfriend the one who had been asleep in the house when he'd brought Samantha back flew out to meet them and then the whole happy family his girlfriend, the one who had been asleep in the house when he'd brought Samantha back, flew out to meet them. And then the whole happy family went on a five-day cruise around Mexico. So how did we get here?

I am going to tell you. Israel Keyes was born on January 7th, 1978, in Cove, Utah, 100 miles west of Salt Lake City. And what do we find in rural Utah? Cerruti's favourite. Mormons! Yes.

Key's parents were strict fundamentalist Mormons. His father, John Geoffrey Keyes, did occasional labouring jobs. His mother, Heidi, stayed at home, being generally batshit and raising ten children. Key's mother's beliefs were intense and they would change from month to month, but it was always strict and always eschewed most of the trappings of modern life. For the first few years of Key's life, the entire family, all twelve of them, lived in a tent. Then they moved to Colville, Washington, where his father single-handedly built them a cabin in the woods to live in.

They had no electricity, and the only source of heat was a small indoor wooden stove. On Heidi Keyes' latest religious whim, the family joined the Ark, a Christian sect whose main calling cards are racism, anti-Semitism and white nationalism. And the Ark is part of a movement known as British Israel. British Israel is a cult movement, which believes that the people of the British Isles are

genetically, racially and linguistically the direct descendants of the ten lost tribes of ancient Israel. So they have obviously not been here. And if that sounds familiar, then yes, it's basically exactly the same as the Mormons' philosophy, but British people instead of Americans. And British Israel believe that they, not the Jews, are God's chosen people. They consider white people to be genetically superior and Jews to be descendants of Lucifer, who stole the claim to oppress Gentiles. Still, as interesting as that all is, and while it does give you an idea of Keyes' far-from-normal upbringing, interestingly, the racism element doesn't really come up again. It never translates into a victim profile or any sort of racist mission of serial killing,

but remember that because it's going to come up again. When Keyes was 10, he began breaking into houses to start fires. And get your serial killer bingo cards ready. Because by 14, he was torturing household pets. Ding, ding, ding. Yeah. Interestingly, I did watch while I was doing the LISC research, an interview with a lady named Dr. Catherine Ramsland, who is a professor of criminology. I haven't got my notes in front of me, so I can't tell you exactly where, but she's a big name. She's a big dog. She worked for like the BAU, etc, etc, FBI, like she's a big name. And she is actually the one who also wrote the book on BTKk with btk himself oh i bet he loved that oh he he fucking loves it absolutely loves it and you know she's very open about the fact she's like yes

i did have to go speak to him all the time i did have to be nice to him i have to negotiate that in order to write this book which is a really really useful learning tool for people in law enforcement yeah to get it from his perspective as much as is possible because obviously she's not stupid she's aware that he's also withholding lying manipulating etc but back to my point dr katherine ramsland in this interview i was watching as she talked about how in her opinion the mcdonald triad is nonsense right and she was saying it's because if you look at the three key things that people talk about when they talk about the mcdonald triad and we've talked about it before and lots of people

talk about it but i thought it was interesting she says if you look at bed wetting fire starting and torturing animals bed wetting and fire starting loads of kids do it yeah she's like loads of kids do that it is in no way an indicator like if your child is doing those things it is in no way an indicator that they're going to doing those things it is in no way an indicator that they're going to grow up to be a serial killer yeah and she also talked about which we have actually mentioned before on the show that actually bedwetting can be a sign that the child is being abused like it can be a red flag and an indicator in the moment that something is amiss and obviously here i'm talking about children that should be well past that stage not talking about

babies i don't know when do kids stop pissing the bed. I actually don't know. But the animal torture side, she was like, obviously that is incredibly problematic. But she said to put the three together and to look at that, linking it with serial killing. Obviously, you're going to see those things in serial killers because a lot of them have had abusive childhoods and a lot of them do lack empathy. So they torture animals but if you look at that across the wider population loads of people would do those things anyway interesting so she's saying they show up in the serial killing population but you'd find them if you looked outside as well interesting so she was like it isn't really indicative of anything which i thought was interesting I saw something the other

day that was like if you prefer to hang out in your bedroom rather than in the living room it's because your parents didn't give you a safe space oh that's interesting that's interesting and also I lived in house shares for a long time oh that's that's also a big big indicator of that situation for sure if anyone's ever done a house share uh no thanks but yes serial killer bingo cards out at the ready anyway because by 14 as you can probably all guess israel keys was torturing household pets and there is one particular story that we managed to find from his childhood which describes him going out into the woods with a friend and tying a cat to a tree with a long cord and it's about to get very graphic here we don't normally give any sort of warning but people get very upset when

we don't when we're about to talk about animal torture because he then shot the cat in the stomach he laughed as it ran in circles around the tree short shortening the cord, and eventually running into the trunk. His friend, who was with Keyes at the time, was horrified and actually threw up. But Keyes just seemed to find the whole thing hysterical. Word eventually got to Israel Keyes' father, who said that his son was no longer allowed to take friends into the woods. Seems like quite a light punishment. Yeah, I think it is a denial.

So years later, Israel Keyes would say that this is when his personality split. He said it was now that he started to distinguish between the version of himself that was acceptable to society and the real him, known only to which i think probably most killers most serial killers go through that stage if they aren't you know totally psychotic they will realize that there is the way in which they need to present themselves and who they really are i just think it's interesting that he is aware of this and he talks about it because this is a direct quote from ms rilke he says i've known since I was 14 that there were things that I thought were normal and that were okay, but no one else seemed to think they were normal and okay. I just started being a loner. I got in

trouble a few times around that age as people found out about some of the stuff. That's when I just started doing stuff by myself pretty much exclusively. What's something from your childhood that you thought was normal and now think that is not normal? How I said the word cassette. I used to say cassette. Your brother told me that you used to say jewelry. Oh yeah, I said loads of words wrong. The joys of being a child who didn't learn to speak English properly until they were six or seven. So yes, cassette, cassette.

What about you? Only, this is so embarrassing. I only recently learned that it's okay to wash your hands with warm water. Excuse me? So I thought this is so embarrassing. What? For some reason. You only recently learned it's okay yeah to wash your hands yeah i always used to do it with cold water i would say it's isn't it strongly encouraged that you

wash your hands i mean it's not in my house not in this economy i just remember so it's in like northumberland or something like freezing freezing freezing and I went into a like a service station and I was washing my hands and the tap was only warm and I was like what is this oh my comfort oh my god this is amazing that's hilarious and then I stopped doing it until I was like 30. That is, but look, every day is a school day in our world when we're learning about each other. Tune into my hit podcast, What Else Don't I Know? I love it. Do you know what, actually, the other day I went for dinner with some of my friends and the conversation around the table turned to what is a weird thing that you do now as an adult?

What is like a strange thing about you and acd face was there so he quickly very quickly without missing a beat started to reel off oh he's got oh he's got loads but he started to reel them off about me and uh one of the ones that uh everybody decided was particularly strange is i have to i have to sniff all of the crockery and cutlery and cups that are going to be used before a meal is placed on them. Yeah, I've seen you do that. It grosses me out beyond belief when, and I don't know, it was a very split consensus around the table, but I feel grossed out beyond belief because for me

sometimes plates and cutlery and cups can linger with this kind of weird eggy wet dog smell yeah it makes me want to throw everything out of the window and i can't eat off it and i also can't eat off it if somebody sat next to me and their plate smells like that so when we have dinner he's like i got all the plates and the cutlery and the cups out. Do you want to sniff everything before I serve? And I'm like, yes, I do. And then we go through a 30 second charade while I sniff everything. So apparently that's not normal.

No. And there you go. Now everybody knows. Anyway, back to this. Back to Israel Keyes and away from various states of washing things. As a part of his Into the Wild upbringing, Israel Keyes had known how to hunt from a very young age. And he'd learned a whole string of practical skills as well. He built his first cabin at 16 and shortly after, he started working as a contractor.

But soon, the family moved, again, to Maine. To farm maple syrup, which I thought they only did in Canada, but again, to Maine, to farm maple syrup, which I thought they only did in Canada, but again, what else don't I know? So, displaced again, and now in a predominantly Amish community, Keyes retreated even further into himself. He started hunting, in his words, anything with a heartbeat, and breaking into more houses to steal guns. He sunk into a deep depression, and then he came out to his parents.

No, he wasn't gay. It was much worse. He was an atheist. Remember his incredibly Mormon family and his mental religious mother. Yes, super Mormons. British Israelis. So, to Mother Keys, this was just about the worst thing Israel could possibly say to her. He was immediately kicked out of the family home and his siblings were forbidden from ever speaking to him again, which they probably weren't too devastated about. So now we have a 20-year-old homeless Israel Keyes.

And he went to New Jersey and took the next natural step for someone with no direction and no house. He enlisted in the army. And Keyes thrived there on the discipline and the routine. And while in the army, he developed two main interests, sinking bottles of bourbon and the insane clown posse which i don't think if you didn't know this story i don't think anyone had it on their calling card of things that were going to show up in this particular episode i'm obsessed with the icp well let's talk about them for those

of you who don't know the icp are a horror core rap duo founded on the Psychopathic Records label. Their followers are known as Juggalos. They wear black and white clown makeup and generally come together over a shared love of hating mainstream culture. Hannah, what's that drink they drink? Faygo. Faygo, that's it. Didn't we go to, in Portland, they had it in our-

It was in Michigan. In Michigan, in Michigan. Yeah, because when Hannah and I were on tour earlier this year in the US, obviously we have like a very basic rider of like popcorn, Skittles, fruits, ranch dressing and various vegetables to dip in it and drinks. And in Michigan, we actually turned up and they had Faygo in our fridge, which was hilarious. They had a whole fridge of it. It was so funny.

Apparently it's because it's made in Michigan and it's very, very cheap, which is why Juggalos drink it. But it's like an iconography within Juggaloism to be drinking Faygo. So I didn't drink any. What is it? A beer?

It's just like Fanta. Oh, Fanta. So soft drink. Oh, okay. There you go. So yeah, drinking Faygo, hating mainstream culture. And there's also a lot of like hatchet and murder symbolism involved in it. Now, maybe Ezra O'Kees was drawn to the IC of the juggalos or something. Basically, once a year, I don't know if they still do it, but they used to do like a big festival

where all the juggalos would get together and like fuck each other. It's on YouTube and it will tell you everything you need to know. So in any case, the ICP era of Keyes' life didn't last that long. So we're going to move on. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration

with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America.

But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudian Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe

and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. Now while with the army, Key served at Fort Lewis, Washington, Fort Hood, Texas, and was even stationed in Cairo, Egypt for a while. He was trained in guncraft and conflict, but also was known for keeping his cool in high-stress situations, like locating and neutralising landmines. It was also during his time in the army that Keyes carried out his first planned attack. Between 1997 and 1998, Keyes abducted a teenage girl and raped her. When he was eventually caught years and years later, he told investigators

that he had planned on killing this girl, but she convinced him to let her leave. He said of the incident, I wasn't violent enough. I made up my mind I was never going to let that happen again. But we're getting ahead of ourselves, so let's jump back. In 2001, Keyes was honorably discharged from the army. He moved to a remote part of Washington state called Neah Bay to be with his then-girlfriend, Tammy Hawkins. A few months earlier, 29-year-old Tammy Hawkins had called a dating chat line that she'd found in the newspaper. In case you need reminding, this is 2001.

We are barely out of the 90s. And she had a message that was clearly intended to be a direct voicemail message, but the caller had accidentally recorded over his original chat line greeting. You'd be so pissed, like you're paying for that shit and you've just recorded over your actual greeting message. Finding the mistake quite endearing, Tammy rang the guy to tell him what he had done. And then Tammy and Israel Keyes spoke for five hours until 4am. Tammy's father hadn't been around and her mother was an alcoholic. Tammy herself had struggled with alcohol addiction from the age of 16, but she was trying to quit. She and Keyes bonded over their very different but equally atypical childhoods.

Keyes quickly got Tammy back on the source, and things were rocky at best. But not long after they got together, Tammy discovered that she was pregnant. And Keyes wasn't exactly keen. Initially, he told Tammy to get an abortion, but she refused, saying that she would keep the baby. And if he wanted, he should just leave and get on with his life. So that's exactly what he did, briefly rejoining the army. But soon, Israel Keyes changed his mind, and decided that he did want in on dad life after all. So he returned to Washington to be with Tammy and their new daughter, Sarah. He joined them on the Native American reservation that Tammy had moved to. And he got a plum job with the Parks and Recreation Commission.

Can you just imagine an episode? I was waiting for you to say that. Starring Israel fucking Keys. So for the next six years, as far as anyone can tell, Keys was quietly getting on with life. He was an orderly, resourceful worker and a good dad. That is, until Tammy had a car accident that resulted in a string of health issues, money troubles and her slipping back into addiction. And you will be shocked, I'm sure, to find out that Israel Keyses didn't stick around. He announced he was

moving to Anchorage, Alaska to be with his new secret internet girlfriend, Kimberly. And despite his earlier bullshit about not wanting a daughter, he now said he was going to take Sarah with him. Now there was a custody battle, but due to Tammy's rocky history and her problems with addiction, compared to Keyes' squeaky clean record at the time, Keyes won custody. So, little Sarah spent the majority of her early years up in Anchorage with her father. And up in Anchorage, Israel founded Keyes Construction and worked as a contractor.

He was hardworking and dedicated and grew a loyal customer base, probably because there's about five people in fucking Anchorage. He spent the rest of his time diligently raising his daughter with Kimberley. And as far as the community were concerned, there was nothing the least bit suspicious about Israel Keyes. They didn't know, of course, that during this time, on his frequent trips away, Keyes was indulging his darker side. He had in fact become a cold-blooded, practiced serial killer. He would research remote areas, seeking out towns with little to no crime rate. He'd make a note of the roads in and out of the town, traffic trends, hotels, and then he would draw up a meticulous plan. Once he got to these remote places, Keyes

would scout for victims on trails, in parks, in cemeteries, or on quiet roads in the middle of the night. And to Keyes, it didn't matter who he found. Men, women, children, old people. Everyone was fair game to him. He would even leave kill caches around the country, buried waterproof buckets filled with things like guns, ammunition, shovels, zip ties, money, and Drano for getting rid of bodies. I believe Drano is like just a super, super corrosive liquid. Yeah, I think it's like Mr. Muscle on crack is my understanding. I don't think we can get it here. No, probably not. So yeah, I think it's very easy to tell from all of this that Israel Keyes was obsessive and he had absolutely no problem playing the long game. I think that's one of the things that's quite interesting about Israel Keyes is with a lot of

other serial killers, you obviously have the cooling off period between kills, but you usually see that get shorter and shorter and shorter as they start to kind of look for that bigger and bigger thrill every time and they start to sort of unravel a bit but Israel Keyes you kind of don't really see yeah he plays the long game continuously and you can tell the planning the checking the roads the picking the area it's all part of the fantasy for him it's all part of the thrill and the payoff I wonder if that's why he's not a household name. Because I think with like the classic household names, you do see the period getting shorter and shorter and shorter and the community are scared because they're like, oh, there's someone on the loose. That's very true.

There's no community here because he's killing completely at random and all over the country. So you're right, actually, that's a really good point it's not like um ted bundy who was terrorizing one specific community one specific set of people one specific group within florida and so everyone was terrified there nobody even knows as a serial killer because he goes all over the fucking place and he loved it for example in june 2011 which again this feels like a pasto crime it feels like something that was happening alongside Ted Bundy. I'd left school. And Ed Kemper. I'm halfway through my degree. I'm ready to graduate. It's nuts. So yeah, Keyes flew in 2011 from Alaska to Chicago, rented a car and drove

almost a thousand miles to Essex, Vermont. He'd been working on the plan for almost two years. And on the way, he stopped by one of his cachets and retrieved his kit. Now all he needed was a victim. So he started stalking neighborhoods. And eventually he found Bill and Lorraine Currier. The Curriers had no children and no dog and they lived near an abandoned farmhouse that Keyes had already identified. On the 8th of June, Keyes drove to their house and cut the phone line outside. He then snuck into their garage

and broke the window in the inside door. Once in their bedroom, Keyes woke the terrified couple up, bound them and brought them down to his car. He then took the couriers to the farmhouse nearby and when Bill got aggressive, Keyes shot him dead. He then raped Lorraine before strangling her with a zip tie. He dismembered them both and left their remains in bags in the farmhouse basement. When the couriers both didn't turn up for work, local police were alerted. But there was just nothing to go on. There was no sign of a robbery or a struggle. Dishes were stacked in

the sink and Bill's medication sat on the kitchen table ready to be taken. The exotic birds they kept in cages were still covered from the night before. A week after their death, Keyes drove to Chicago and flew back to Anchorage. The courier's mysterious disappearance remained a mystery and the case went cold for years. And so, like this, Keyes killed at leisure, with no remains found and no possible way to connect any of the disappearing people to each other, let alone to him. He's like a drifter killer who's not a drifter. Yeah. I mean, it is how you do it. This is how you get away with it.

Yeah. And this is the thing. People often ask us, you know, like we would have the answer. But people often ask us, you know, like, oh, do you think there'll be another big serial killer, like a Bundy or whatever? And I'm like, in many ways, it's very difficult to repeatedly terrorize one community like those killers did. But if anyone is going to do it, this is how it would probably happen. So then in February 2011, Keys went on a family cruise with Samantha Koenig's frozen corpse laying in a tarp in his cupboard. So we've come full circle back to Samantha, who he abducted from the coffee shop. And remember, he just left her body in his shed and has gone on a fucking cruise to Mexico. So when the cruise arrived back in New Orleans, Keys' girlfriend and daughter caught a plane home, but he rented a car.

Keyes drove thousands of miles in just a few days, in which time he burgled and burnt down a house and robbed a bank in Texas. On the 19th of February, he returned home. Again, the balls to just be like, you guys go home, even though you know there is the body of a murdered girl in your shed but yeah he gets back and he went straight out to his shed removed samantha's body and then i we've written here had sex with it is i feel like we often wonder this yeah what is it he he defiled it i think he defiled it so I think is what we can say. So there you go. He commits an act of necrophilia. And then he put together the ransom note and the sick photographs that he had sent to her family. And a few days later, cut up Samantha's body, sawed a hole in the ice at the

nearby Mantanuska Lake and dumped Samantha's remains. The FBI, remember, were keeping a close eye on Samantha's debit card and they had received word that it had been used in Wilcox, Alabama. It had been more than a month since Samantha had disappeared and this was their only lead. And it was a good one because, as we all know, the debit card user was, of course, Israel Keyes himself. In early March, Keyes went on another of his wild trips. He flew to Las Vegas, rented a car, drove through Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. That's fucking far.

And he withdrew $400 in Wilcox wearing a ski mask. He tried again an hour later in Lordsburg, New Mexico, but was stopped by that pesky $500 a day credit limit. That doesn't seem like very much. Anyway, detectives were aware of each transaction, and they knew they were getting closer. FBI Special Agent Steve Payne put out a bolo, which was vague at best. It told local officers to look out for an unknown male,

last seen in a light-coloured hoodie, driving a newish light-coloured vehicle, maybe continuing east towards El Paso. So yeah, not loads to go on, but the bolo also included three pictures. Grainy surveillance images of the suspect and his vehicle. And hoping against hope, a picture of Samantha, who was still considered a missing person. A few days later, Samantha's debit card was used again in Texas.

By this time, the FBI had made out that the person using the card was driving a white Ford Focus, likely a rental. And the debit card was revealing an increasingly clear direction of travel. So police around Lufkin, Texas, were put on high alert. Texas Highway Patrolman Brian Henry spent the morning of the 12th of March driving around local hotel parking lots.

And outside the Quality Inn, he saw a white Ford Focus and quickly called for backup. Approaching the car, Henry saw a barcode on the rear window, showing that it was indeed a rental. As he ran the plates, he noticed a man standing on a balcony, staring down at him. Henry returned to his car. A minute later, the man on the balcony

left the hotel, packed his car and drove off. On the phone to FBI agents, Henry was told not to lose that car. He had to find a reason, any reason, to pull him over. Henry tailed the man for a while but the Focus was driving impeccably. But then, at a traffic light, it pulled out a little bit too fast, three miles over the speed limit. Henry saw his chance, turned on his emergency lights and pulled the car over. He asked the driver for his licence and saw that his name was Israel Keyes. He also saw that that licence was issued in Alaska. And when he pulled up the licence record, it was squeaky clean.

Again, it just speaks to Israel Keyes' discipline. That, you know, very other few killers would have nothing on record for them. And he's just, yeah, like you say, squeaky clean. No records, no warrants, not even a solitary parking ticket. He said that he was in town for his sister's wedding. He started over-talking, embellishing his story in ways that he didn't need to,

which is what people do when they're lying, like that guy who hit us in California. And Henry, like us, knew that Israel Keyes was lying. FYI, Hannah means hit us in his car, not hit us physically. Although when Ben got out of the car, he was very sure to stand six foot back from the angry man. Anyway, a routine search of the car turned up a dye-stained roll of bills, a ski mask and a gun. We are in Texas, so that's not loads to go on. And officers still ran the risk of not having probable cause to bring him in. But they did arrest Israel Keyes and they flew him back to Anchorage. So now he was under arrest. Police could conduct a more thorough search. And this time they found porn DVDs, flight logs, and a digital camera. And in Israel Keyes' wallet was Samantha Koenig's driving licence and her debit card,

with its pin scratched in the surface. At first, Keyes refused to talk. Quick point. Uh-huh. This guy is so meticulous, he can't remember a four-digit code. I know, I know. So yeah, after he's arrested, at first, Keyes refused to talk. When police said that his truck had been seen at the crime scene, he called their bluff, saying, if they had that, they would have already talked to me. And the debit card? He said that a few weeks ago,

someone had randomly dumped a Ziploc bag on the front seat of his truck. He said that he'd assumed the card and the phone inside were left as payment for someone that owed him money for a job. Okay. Is that how we're paying people now? His Ziploc bag?

I mean, fucking probably. And throughout his interrogation with the police, Keyes was cryptic and invasive. He knew exactly what they had on him. But eventually, he broke down and started to talk. And on the 31st of March, weeks after his arrest, he finally admitted to abducting Samantha from the coffee stand. He alluded to more crimes, including murders, He finally admitted to abducting Samantha from the coffee stand.

He alluded to more crimes, including murders, but said that he'd only give details if they could be kept from the press. Keyes said that he didn't want his daughter to read about all the things he'd done to Samantha. Come off it. Honestly, he's so fucking insufferable. At one point, he tells the detectives off for digging up a road near the crime scene because it might make people twig that it was him.

I think the fact that you're in police custody, my friend, might also point to that issue. He's very much like, my privacy must be respected at all costs while you investigate these murders I've committed. Still, eventually, he finally gave the police the answers that they were dreading. Samantha was indeed dead. Days later, an FBI dive team sawed a hole in the Manitouska Lake, dove into the freezing water and recovered her remains. Keyes was indicted for kidnapping and murder. In May, Keyes appeared before a US district judge in a federal court to set a trial date.

And part of the way through, Keyes broke free from his steel shackles and jumped over the railing into the first row of seats in the gallery area as if he's Jesus in the fucking temple. You've turned this house of God into a den of thieves. Turning tables over. Anyway, just like happened to Jesus, deputies and rabbis, no, rabbis didn't do anything.

Deputies tackled him and they tased him and they returned him to custody. After that, Israel Keyes finally started to reveal more and more about his past decade of wanton murders. He was clearly enjoying toying with the officers, building his legends, a la Ed Kemper. He very obviously thought of himself as a highly skilled serial killer, the best to ever do it. And he couldn't help but start bragging about how great he was. After all, he had kept this side of himself entirely secret for so long, and now he wanted the credit for it. Yeah, I think there is that side to serial killers, isn't there? Because Israel Keyes was very successful because of the tactics that he employed, like driving all over the country.

And therefore, the flip side of that is that you don't have a community that is terrorized, and that is absolutely living in fear. So nobody even knows that you're there. I wonder how much that irked him over the years that nobody knew how good he was at what he was doing probably quite a lot still though he wasn't going to make the police's job easy in the fbi notes special agent jolene godine come off it jolene godine wow there's just a lot of great names in this. I think you're forgetting about Monique Dole. Of course, yeah.

Monique Dole and Jolene Godin. It really does seem like a 2011 revamp of Cagney and Lacey. Dole and Godin hit the streets of... Where the fuck are they? Anchorage? I don't know. There. That's it. Print it. Okay, this is what Jolene Godine has to say for herself. His crimes were meticulously planned and our interviews with him

were the same, in a way. I never got the sense that he accidentally told us something or got angry and something flew out of his mouth. He always knew what he was going to give us. Keys claimed that his first murder had been in 2001, while he lived in Washington with Tammy.

His explanation for his first kill? Near Bay is a boring town. That I don't doubt, but I would imagine the murder rate is probably quite low. He also revealed that he had killed four more people in Washington State between 2001 and 2007, including a couple. Keyes said that he'd spent a lot of time out by himself in the dense forest of the Olympic Peninsula, and while there he would select victims. And Keyes said that when he realized the number of disappearances in that one particular area might start to draw some

attention, he decided to kill elsewhere. He admitted to kidnapping a woman on the East Coast in April 2009, taking her across state lines and burying her in upstate New York. And this confession was linked to the disappearance of 49-year-old Deborah Feldman of Hackensack, New Jersey. Deborah was last seen in April 2009, while Keyes was known to be in the area. And this is another problem that the police faced in trying to kind of figure out patterns, because, you know, typically with a serial killer, once you get them, you could look at other missing

persons who had gone from that area, other people who maybe fit that victimology who look the same. No, there was never any consistent victim profile or any consistent motive at all besides Keyes' own excitement. So to create any kind of pattern using missing persons is impossible. And in the interviews, like we said, Keyes is insufferable. He's smug, proud and willfully difficult. He's laughing all the way through and even jokes about costing the taxpayer money in finding the bodies, saying, I almost feel guilty.

But more than anything, Keyes was growing bored. Now that he'd been caught, he wanted to avoid the tedium of lengthy trials and a long jail time. He wanted the death penalty as soon as he could get it. In late November, he met with investigators once more, but seemed a bit distracted.

He said that he might be willing to open up the following week and give more details about the murders. But on the 2nd of December, at 5.57am, a prison guard was performing a routine security check when he noticed a red streak across the floor of cell 3. Israel Keyes was lying face down on the floor of his cell, covered in blood. He'd slit his wrist with a razor blade attached to a pencil. Even in his own death, he was meticulous. He had lain on his stomach and tied a bedsheet around his neck, and the other end he tied around his left ankle.

And this made sure that as Israel Keyes lost consciousness, the force of his leg lowering would tighten the noose and strangle him. He left a four-page suicide note written on a yellow legal pad. At first, the pad was so saturated with his blood that officers couldn't make anything out, but the FBI were able to restore most of it. But it is almost entirely self-aggrandising dramatic nonsense. It starts with where will you go, you clever little worm If you bleed your host dry And it ends with Okay, talk is over

Words are placid and weak Back it with actions Or it will all come off as cheap Watch close while I work now Feel the electric shock of my touch Open your trembling flower Or your petals I'll crush. I'm upset.

Yeah. I mean, the only thing worse is BTK's poems. We'll get to that one day, maybe. So it was determined that there was no hidden code or secret message in this note. And it gave investigators next to no information about his crimes. The only hint was a drawing of 11 skulls, which the FBI believes signifies 11 victims. It seems a bit of a reach, but it does kind of tally with Israel Keyes' stories and other hints that he gave. I don't know. I don't think he even probably knew at the end how many people he had

killed. But it would make sense that he wanted one final chance to own the crimes that he was so proud of. Keyes only definitively talked about seven or eight victims in his interviews. He said the murders occurred in fewer than 10 states, though he didn't say which ones. And what makes it even harder is that Israel Keyes would often abduct, kill and dispose of victims all in different states. The fact is we'll never know how many victims he had or the locations of the bodies that are hidden across the US. The cold cases that only Israel Keyes could solve will most likely now stay cold for good. And I wonder if that's another reason that he's not a household name and never made it to trial.

That's also a good point, yeah. In August 2013, the FBI released a load of information to the public in the hope of identifying more victims. It includes videos of his interviews in jail, and an amazing interactive map which details his movements between 1997 and 2011. The map shows Israel Keyes moving around constantly, especially in the period between 2006 to 2008. He really does cover the whole of the US, as well as parts of Mexico and Canada. And if you count the military travels as

well, he went to Belize, El Salvador and Egypt. There's obviously some controversy over his ability to kill himself. A corrections officer was fired, but he had been on a scheduled break at the time. Keyes had even been caught with a sharpened pencil and a noose in the months before he killed himself. And then he was put into a suicide cell, but eventually he was returned to a regular cell. And why did that happen? Well, prison notes reveal that, quote, there's been a deal made and he's moved where he wants to be so that he will tell his story to the federal marshals.

And as for how he obtained the razor, no one knows, but they're not particularly difficult to get hold of in prison. So there's no doubt, despite the fact that he's not a household name, that Israel Keyes is a particularly terrifying brand of serial killer. And that likely has a lot to do with the fact that no one was safe from him. And also just how calculated and careful he was. I think that's the thing is, right? one was safe if he came across you you were just as good a victim as anybody and it's the stalking it's the like meticulous planning it's the cutting of the power line it's all of that stuff that the build-up to it that also makes him so so scary as a killer

I think you know we're not trying to like glorify Israel Keyes in any way, shape or form, but I think it would be a lie to deny that he put in a terrifying amount of dedication and showed a huge amount of versatility in terms of how he carried out his kills. And absolutely, how he managed to evade law enforcement for so long was travel. It was his secret weapon. He knew that the police tend to look locally. And he also had no connection whatsoever to his victims. And they had no connection to each other in terms of victimology. He bought supplies, including weapons, months or years in advance. Again, such an important part of his routine.

The fact that he had those buried caches, so the police couldn't even be like, oh okay this person was murdered with a fucking saw, let's go look at who bought a saw in the local area. No, you'd have had to look at who bought a saw in another state 20 years ago. It's bonkers. Keyes also told police that if he hadn't been caught he would have absolutely carried on and I 100% believe him. With Samantha Koenig, he was only stopped because he broke his own rules. After 10 years crisscrossing the country to evade any suspicion, he targeted someone in his own hometown. Even the ransom note that he left was incredibly atypical for Keyes, and using Samantha's debit card so soon after it was paid seems like an uncharacteristic

risk for him to have taken. In state too. Yeah. So why would he suddenly take such big risks? Well, perhaps he just got a bit cocky and thought he would still be able to get away with it. Or perhaps he was bored and just wanted to push his luck. But also, he may just have given in to his desire to kill. He was driven by domination and by sex. And as we know, for this kind of killer, the high does diminish each time. So was this Israel Keyes' attempt at a quick fix? Uncharacteristic, but it's not impossible. In his own words, quote,

Back when I was smart, I would let them come to me. As we've seen many times before, the very things that make someone uniquely capable of carrying out multiple murders, impulsivity, excitement, and coldness, often do lead to their arrest. And we have no real reason to think that if he hadn't made this mistake, Israel Keyes wouldn't still be out there undetected. Now his childhood, of course, was noteworthy. You know, he was raised in basically a fucking cabin with no amenities whatsoever. Pretty much completely off the grid and with that kind of very intense isolated religious mania that was going on.

And studies have shown that extreme social isolation in children can absolutely affect the neuron connection in the prefrontal cortex. That's the part of the brain involved in planning, problem solving, self-control and long-term goals. Though obviously he really maxes out on the planning later in life. And Israel Keyes also had nine siblings, but he still lived an extremely detached life. It's kind of indicative of how unusual he was starting from a very young age. And in some cases that adaptation can lead to abnormal emotional responses and an inability to inhibit some critical impulses. But most tellingly, Israel Keyes does show many of the classic telltale signs of definitely having some form of antisocial personality disorder. Again, we are not mental health experts,

but I also think maybe some sort of like schizoid situation going on because he is so detached from everybody that he meets and is able to spend so long just on his own driving around doing what he's doing we'll never know but you know he he is a very archetypal serial killer exactly he's got all of the typical warning signs cat killing stealing fire starting all of that and not to mention his full detachment between the superficial regular joe facade and his real self. Keyes said himself that his religious upbringing was part of his motivation to kill.

He said that he had rejected religion because he couldn't square the existence of God with all of the pain and suffering in the world. But we're not going to take that as an excuse. In philosophy, that's called the problem of evil. And it's debated for blah, blah, blah. And what the Christians want you to believe is that God created evil so that we could have free will. So we could choose to not be evil,

which is a very weak argument if I ever heard one. Israel Keyes killed because he wanted to kill. He was completely lacking in remorse, shame or empathy and only interested in pursuing excitement in the moment. And all that combined with his admittedly higher than average levels of intelligence kept him beyond suspicion for a long time. He enjoyed the process, the planning and the execution. There was no sense of any kind of like righteous justice. Keyes said he admired killers such as Bundy and Robert Hansen. Also Anchorage.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And actually, when we were doing this case, he really reminds me in many ways of Robert Hansen, who, if you guys don't remember, the butcher baker of Alaska, we covered that case like donkeys years ago. You can definitely find it in our back catalogue. But at the same time, Keyes wanted to make it clear that his plans were his own. He wasn't some copycat just ripping off another killer. Keyes knew that he would be caught one day, though his expectations were a little grander, I think. He thought that he'd be taken down in a hail of gunfire

or in some dramatic shootout with cops. So finally, as we wrap up this episode, we have to hand the final word over to Detective Monique Dahl, taking a break from starring in her brand new TV show. And that is, quote, Israel Keyes didn't kidnap and kill people because he was crazy, or because his deity told him to,

or because he had a bad childhood. He did this because he got an immense amount of enjoyment out of it. Much like an addict gets an immense amount of enjoyment out of drugs, he was addicted gets an immense amount of enjoyment out of drugs he was addicted to the feeling he got when he was doing this and i think that pretty much sums up everything you need to know this is why like hannah and i aren't like mad on covering serial killers all the time because you can dig into their childhoods you can look at their motivation

you can look at the little reasons that they give and yes like i'm not saying they're uninteresting but it always comes down to they just do it because they fucking love it and that's actually why i find the one-off killers more interesting yeah because an ordinary person who's never shown that tendency to violence or the thrill of murder doing it for other motivations and then trying to get away with it is for me infinitely more interesting these guys just do it because they're fucking bored and they love doing it. So in the end, a small funeral service was held for Israel Keyes in Deer Park, Washington. Tammy Hawkins refused to accept his body for burial and attendance was slim.

Only Keyes' mother, four of his siblings and a few of their partners went to his funeral. And then his body was buried in an undisclosed place, and many of his family members still live an isolated, cult-like religious existence, far from the mainstream of society. So there you go, guys. That's it. That is Israel Keyes. We've done it. Thank you guys again so much for voting for us in the British Podcast Awards.

This was, of course, your bonus episode to say a big thank you for getting us that hat trick. You voted for it. There you go. Done. Tick. Israel Keyes. Terrifying guy, but we've done him now, so we can forget about it. Yeah. Suck my dick, Sam Thompson. And if you guys are yet to go check out our ghost hunt that we did at the Ram Inn, please do head on over to the Red Handed YouTube page where you can watch that in all its glory. I promise you it's worth it and the link will be in the episode description.

So thank you and bye. Goodbye. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness.

And inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of thexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry.

But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.