EP32: Coffee, Candy, and Killing (Part 2)
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If you only knew what we've been going through. Guys, we need you to love this case. Yeah. If you don't love this case...

What are we doing here? We're hanging it up. And just to give you a little insight, it's not because the case is so good, even though it is great. It's part two of the Israel Keys saga that we got taken through in part one. But since we have been here recording, Cash is here. I have to note that because that's an important piece of information that I just feel like people would want to know. Of course. He's so chill and he's so cool and he's so loving and affectionate and amazing that

But he did throw up on the floor. That was strike one. Yeah, strike one, which came actually after strike two, which is just chronologically not great. But anyway, we recorded the whole episode and then the card was not working. It was corrupt. Technology failed us. The file was corrupted. So we've been victims of a crime as well. Yeah.

We're going to do an episode on this. And this is our second time or third time? Second time, but it feels like the 86th time. And I had to go back and rework in different pop quizzes. True. Right? Because you had already heard the original ones. Yeah. Can't have that. Hey, it is what it is. What are you going to do? It's okay. Listen, the show must go on. The show must go on. We are super committed to you. And as always, rate, review, subscribe.

Rate it. 5,000 stars. 5 million dimes, please, if you don't mind. No, we're having a good time. Listen, this is just one of those things that kind of happens when you're operating at a super high level like this. Yeah, it's okay. It's okay. You're going to run into problems. It's okay.

If you are not getting enough of what you think you need from us publicly, we do have a secret group where you can become a semen demon. Patreon.com slash psychopedia pod. You'll get content, info, merch updates when that comes, ticket access when that comes, as well as Psychopedia Unhinged, which is this podcast.

On meth. It's tank on meth. Tank on meth. Is what it is. I get shabiznest all the way out. No limits, no nothing. And just to remind us of how much we love these people, because they are our family, these semen demons. I'm just going to read off a couple of names. If you don't mind, just really quick, I think they deserve it. They deserve the recognition. And there are some great names in here that I want to say out loud. Okay? Let's hear it. So, Patreon Sunchild.

Love it. Hippie. Jeremy Marcoux. Jessica Shokin. Kristen LaRange. Duck. Emily Pate. Goose. Flora Collins. Just a lot of great names. Amber Griffith. Taylor Richter. Fiona Allen, who has a crush on both of us. Ooh, Fiona. What up, girl? I see you in those DMs. Hey, sis.

Reagan, Aubrey VanWheel, and to end things off, Tattoos, True Crime Tacos, who is fucking loves us. We love, we love her. I think she's a tattoo artist or her husband is a tattoo artist. And she said that she donates or dedicates, donates, it sounds like, her charity, the extra money that she makes in tips.

two Patreons that she loves. Oh my God. I know. That's incredible. Thank you. Yeah, it's really nice. I want to get to know this person. When we hit 500 patrons, we are going to have somebody come record with us in studio and every 500, not just at 500, every 500. And we also got to set a goal.

for when you're able to quit your job. Yeah, I know that's your goal, to get me to quit my job. Your family's going to hate me. I know. I was thinking that. I'm like, maybe don't come to the next family gathering that I invite you to at my house. Yeah, no, I know. I think about what I would be able to do. Oh, my God. Content-wise, true crime-wise.

If I had the full-time availability to do it. Well, let's not forget, okay? Because I don't think it gets mentioned enough. Let's not forget that you have a full-time job. Which I love. At a law firm. Yes. I'm not a lawyer. You're an investigator. Correct. That's why we call you Investigator Slater. Right. It could... I mean, with the amount of fucking stuff we could be doing, true crime-wise, if you didn't have a job, hey, I'm just saying, no pressure to join the Patreon, but...

We got a goal and we got to get her out of there. Sorry, Slaters. I don't mean to steal your daughter, sister, employee backbone of your workforce, but I actually kind of do. Yeah, I would be able to pump out a lot more than, and maybe not have to wake up at, did I tell you how I woke up at 3.30 the other day? Ew, what do you have, a boar's head route? What?

Ew. That is hilarious.

Oh my God. And do not have a full-dress head route. 3.30 is... I have a full-time job, two children, and this podcast. But listen, I'm not complaining. I'm grateful for everything I just mentioned. And if it takes getting up at 3.30 in the morning to bang this out, then that's what I'm doing. You know what I was doing at 3.30 this morning? Catching some Zs. Ripping a bagel apart and scooping butter out of the fucking... What happened to Cheez-Its and peanut butter? That's old news. Oh. I was going to die. Yeah. I had to quit that. Yeah.

For those of you who don't know, I used to chew Cheez-Its, crunch them up in my mouth, put peanut butter in my mouth, waited till it turned into almost concrete in the back of my throat, then was only saved by the effervescence and citricity of a Coke Zero to the face, a whole one. It's a fucking freak.

And I did that every day for like two months. Yeah. That's not even the worst of it, but I'm not going to get into my nighttime eating habits. I think maybe on Hinged you will. Oh, that's a great idea. Yeah, because I think this is interesting. I like to get a little insight into your... Oh, it's interesting. I just know what they're here for. Right. Okay, so maybe we get on with it. They're here to hear. Hear, hear. Israel Keys Part 2 and...

I think what would be beneficial, I'm sure you have it built in already, is like a recap. Yes, for sure. Because I did the episode and I don't remember almost anything, except for the fact that there was a girl who had her eyelids sewn open with fishing line. Right. And I touched upon it just a little bit in the intro, but I'm going to circle back to it now. Okay. Quentin Tarantino style. All right. So without further ado.

Adieu. There it is. Before we dive right in. Before we dive right in, though, I do want to encourage everyone to listen to part one if you haven't, because we lay a pretty solid foundation, some important background information regarding Israel Keys and some of what has led up to what we're going to talk about now in part two.

But I will provide a little summary in case people like Tank have forgotten some of the important stuff. But that is by no means a substitution for the real deal. No, sir, it is not. Okay. All right. So let's get into the recap and then the finale. In part one, we discussed Israel Key's isolated upbringing marked by exposure to white supremacist and anti-Semitic beliefs. A real peach.

During his childhood, he displayed troubling behaviors. A real peach of shit. Yeah, there it is. Sorry, I was a little delayed on that one. Yeah, it's okay. It took me a second to remember. During his childhood, he displayed troubling behaviors, including animal cruelty, close your ears, Cash, fascination with serial killers, and an interest in FBI profiling. He developed narcissistic traits and nurtured fantasies of committing perfect crimes.

Despite his dislike for the country, he served in the military and had a dual personality, switching between a loving father and a ruthless, calculated killer. And he didn't just serve in the military. He was an army ranger, which is like military deluxe. He was very, very good at what he did. I'm sure. The guy's probably good at everything. He just chose the wrong thing. Yes, he did.

Keyes traveled across the country targeting random victims for sexual assault and murder while adhering to the strict rule of never committing crimes locally or in the same place twice. He prepared kill kits in advance, engaged in abductions, sexual assaults, and murders, strategically disposing of victims' remains in different states from where he perpetrated the crimes.

He financed his crimes through bank robberies and was meticulous about not leaving one shred of DNA evidence behind. Bank robberies. This guy was like a full-blown criminal. Oh my God. And he did everything so well. Did he have a job?

Yes, he was a carpenter. He had his own construction business called Keys Construction, and he was very, very good at what he did. I'm sure he was. I would let him build my house. I wouldn't let him do anything else. No, I wouldn't let him, like, in your house. He probably buried kill kits all over those properties. He may have.

Fuck, that's where he got all the Home Depot buckets from. Right. Well, a lot of what he did definitely was sort of able to be pawned off as being related to what he was doing for a living. What, like having tools and rope? Exactly, exactly. For over a decade, he remained elusive to law enforcement.

At this point in the case, we've arrived at a highly significant point of the story, which is where we started episode one, part one of this series. To jog your memory, the date of the significant point in the case was February 1st, 2012, and it's when 18-year-old Samantha Koenig disappeared. Samantha marked the final victim of Israel's horrific series of crimes.

Samantha's boyfriend, Dwayne, and her father, James, received a text message from Samantha's phone on February 24th after she'd been missing for 23 days already. Yeah, let's not miss that point. The fact that she was gone for 23 days and then they got a text from her phone. I mean, the amount of relief they must have felt at that point. Yep. And we talked about this in part one. They were eating dinner together, the boyfriend and father, and just

bolted out of the restaurant with all of this hope. They had been waiting for that moment. They were spending time with each other, trying to feel close to her? Yeah, they'd been spending a lot of time together. They had apparently distributed 25,000 flyers trying to find her, making public pleas for her safe return. I mean, they were dedicated to finding her.

If you guys hear Cash snoring or whatever, you know, it's a podcast. It's going to happen. Right. I'm trying. You see me over here, Tank? I'm trying to wake him up a little to stop snoring and he ain't budging. It's part of the podcast. Yes, it is. Okay. So the text message that Dwayne, Samantha's boyfriend, received on his phone instructed him to locate a photograph of a missing dog, Albert the Golden Doodle, in an Anchorage, Alaska park. Okay.

As mentioned in the introduction of part one, beneath this photograph was a Ziploc bag containing a black and white photocopied image of Samantha holding a newspaper, presumably intended to serve as a proof of life photo and evidence of her still being alive. And on the back of that photo was a ransom demand for $30,000. But they'd still keep her for six months after. Right, right, yeah. Not much of a ransom. No, no.

Such a bizarre thing. Put a down payment on your daughter. Yeah, basically. Fuck off, dude. So now we are going to find out exactly what happened to Samantha and learn how her case is ultimately the one that brought Israel Keys down. Samantha was an 18-year-old high school student and had been working part-time as a barista at a tiny little coffee kiosk called Common Grounds, located in a desolate area of a parking lot on Tudor Road in Anchorage.

And these freestanding little kiosks are apparently pretty common in Alaska. It's like about the size of a shed. It almost looks like a concession stand, like where we used to play Little League as a kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just this freestanding little wooden thing. It was like tiny. Yeah.

I wonder why they don't have like strip malls or something. Well, I think that they can pepper them all over the place. Oh, yeah. Cars can drive up to it to get coffee or you can walk up to the window. Yeah. Very user-friendly. Do you know what happens or what they do in Alaska? No, I've been to Alaska. You've been to Alaska? Yeah. Tell us about that. Wow, you are dumbfounded. I am. I want to go there so bad. It's incredible. Now, I went like 15 years ago when there were still glaciers.

There's still glaciers. I know, but it was... I don't know that helicopters are landing on them anymore. Oh, really? Yeah. So we took a helicopter directly onto a glacier, which was incredible. We went whitewater rafting. We did everything. Wow. It was amazing. So I saw this video, this little mini documentary that said that there's this town in Alaska. Everyone in this town leaves their car doors open. Huh.

And their home doors open because if you see a polar bear, you need to get somewhere fast or get mauled. Really? Yeah. Polar bears or brown bears? Polar bears. Interesting. Polar bears are fucking nasty. Oh, they're so cute. They are. They will eat you so fast without even thinking about it. They're so cute doing it. I don't know. Have you ever seen videos of polar bears doing what they do? No, Tank. I don't sit and watch videos of polar bears doing...

digesting and mauling other animals. It's pretty, I mean, they are huge polar bears. Grizzly bears are big. Polar bears are like 30% bigger. They're fucking gigantic. Is this like an unspoken rule? It's a courtesy slash rule. I don't know if it's a law, but

But in this video, it said basically that the reason that they leave their car doors open is because polar bear sightings are pretty common. And if you see one that's 500 feet away and there's a car that's 100 feet away, you don't want to run to that car and be pulling on the fucking handle. Oh, my God. You want to get in the car. Yeah. And the polar bear, for the most part, they're not going to like demolish the car. Right. They'll just move on to an easier target. Target, yeah. Yeah.

On the night of February 1st, 2012, Samantha was in the process of closing the kiosk at 8 p.m. when at 7.55 p.m., a man wearing a ski mask arrived and ordered an Americano. This man turned out, of course, to be Israel Keys. And she probably didn't think anything of the ski mask because they're in Alaska. There were five-foot snowdrifts on that night, and it was about 30 degrees outside. You would be invisible in those.

Oh, you are so funny. Slash I would be. Investigator Slater's gone. Samantha briefly turned away from Israel Keyes to prepare his coffee. And when she turned around to face him again to hand over the drink, she was taken aback by the sight of Keyes pointing a .22 pistol directly at her face. Yeah, obviously she was taken aback. That's fucking terrifying. He uttered the chilling words, this is a robbery. Okay.

Now, okay, Israel. Well, I mean, that must have been scary, though. Yeah, but fuck you, dude. Yeah, fuck him. Yeah. Now, there's CCTV footage of this, and you can see Samantha taking a startled step back while raising her hands in surrender. Keys then instructed Samantha to turn off the lights and surrender all the money from the cash register over to him.

So she does. She kills the light. And as the screen goes dark, it becomes harder to discern the ongoing events. But the chilling nature of the situation is still evident. Yeah. I've watched it. I've seen it. Oh, you've seen it? Sure. It's accessible. You can see it as well. I don't recommend it because knowing where it leads to, it's especially heartbreaking to witness. Yeah. But you see her complying initially, as I feel most people would. Yeah. You want to just get out of the situation alive. But then...

Israel launches his body through the open window of the kiosk, binds Samantha's hands together, gags her with napkins, and is suddenly forcefully leading her out of the kiosk. So it becomes evident as the viewer watching this footage, and I'm sure to Samantha, exactly, this is not just a robbery. This is now an abduction.

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LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. While walking away from the kiosk, Israel indicated to Samantha that he had a police scanner in his ear, which was actually true, and that if he heard any police being dispatched to their area, he'd kill her.

And he did this to demonstrate to her that in case she attempted to escape or raise an alarm or attract any public attention, given that they were in a somewhat public area, there was an IHOP across the street and a Home Depot, that he would be keenly aware if anybody notified the police and he would kill her immediately. Which...

In retrospect and from the outside looking in is probably not true. But when you're her, you're just like, all right, yeah. Most people in a situation like that, according to my research, will comply. Yeah. Israel walked Samantha through the parking lot and placed her in the back of his own car, which was against one of his sort of policies. Rule. Right, right.

So, the reason he did this is because when they walked out of the kiosk, he said to Samantha, take me to your car. She didn't have a car. Yeah. So, rather than like jumping ship and aborting the mission, he pivoted. Yeah. And he put her into his car, which was a white Chevy Silverado pickup. And it was parked across the street near the IHOP.

At one point, Samantha actually managed to break free from his grasp and made a run for it in spite of his earlier threat not to do that. Good for her though. Yeah. But Israel caught up with her, tackled her to the ground, pressed the gun into her side and said, this .22 is loaded with very quiet ammo. It will kill you. So don't make me do it.

Samantha nodded as Israel put the fear of God into her and instructed her to lean on him while they continued to walk to his car and to act like she was drunk. And the reason he did this is because it allowed him to keep like a tight grip on her. And it also looked perhaps to onlookers that she was inebriated. And the reason why he was half dragging her was because she couldn't hold herself up. This guy really thinks of everything. I'm telling you, if he put any half of this energy into,

into something productive, he could probably, you know, feed the world. Change the world. Yes, exactly. Israel spent a few hours driving around with Samantha in his pickup, securely bound in the backseat. At one point, they pulled up alongside a police car at a traffic light. But,

But Samantha was so afraid that Israel already knew about the cop car being there since he was wearing a police scanner in his ear that she remained silent in the backseat and didn't cry out for help. Which is obviously heartbreaking, but understandable. Completely understandable. You don't know if the windows are tinted. You don't know if the cop...

He's going to hear you, so you don't want to make a scene, go yell and bang on the window and then not be heard. There's nothing more embarrassing, by the way, than pulling up next to somebody that you know, trying to get their attention, and they don't see you. How about waving in a public place sometimes?

Same concept. Yeah, yeah. And they're not waving back? Well, you pull up, you wave, you honk, and then it's like, fuck you. I don't want to say hi anyway. Fine. It is. It's so embarrassing. But it does happen. Like that's, you know, she's 18 years old. She has enough life experience to know that there's a chance he doesn't hear her. Yeah, I got really emotional during this part of the research because I put myself in her shoes and I was thinking of...

Everything she had to go through, all the decision-making she had to make in like a five-second window. Under extreme duress. Exactly. And then to make the decision to not do anything. Yeah. You know, and at this point, we can look back in hindsight, which of course is always 2020, and say, if she had alerted the police car, would she still be alive? It's just excruciating to think about. Yeah. Yeah.

So at this point in the abduction, Israel notified Samantha that he intended to hold her for ransom and that that was the point of the abduction.

To which Samantha replied, my family has no money. Israel then demanded that Samantha hand over her cell phone and her debit card. To which Samantha replied, my cell phone is back at the coffee kiosk and my debit card is in my boyfriend's car. Yeah, I didn't grab my belongings when you abducted me. Sorry. But so far, this whole experience unfolding was...

Unlike anything Israel was ever accustomed to because he's usually so well thought out, so meticulous. He is just breaking every single one of his rules here. Yeah, but you got to assume after a period of time, which is probably why these people wind up getting caught, variables are going to present themselves and you're not going to be able to call the perfect audible every time. Absolutely.

Leaving Samantha tied up in his truck and underneath a tarp, Israel drove 10 minutes back to the kiosk to grab her cell phone and to straighten up the mess that was caused during her abduction. Then, at 11 p.m., Israel sent text messages from Samantha's phone to both her boss and her boyfriend—as if he was Samantha, of course—

and indicated that she'd be going away for a couple of days, presumably, I guess, obviously, to throw them off the fact that she was missing. Like, that's not suspicious. Right. You know what I mean? So this guy's getting dumber. Agreed. Yeah. He removed the battery from the phone and felt that he covered his tracks. So you, yeah, so imagine this. First of all, those 10 minutes under the tarp must have been absolute torture. Yeah. While she's sitting there waiting, probably felt like 20 years later.

Second of all, you send a text like that and then you rip out the SIM card and the battery. So if you got a call from somebody or a text from, you hadn't heard from somebody, then all of a sudden you get a text saying, Hey,

I'm going away. What are you going to do? You're going to call that person? Of course. I'm going to talk to everyone in her network and be like, what the fuck is happening? Yeah. She's going away. Where is she going? Did you know? Did you know? Did you know? You know what I mean? She's going to Juneau? It actually raises more questions than if no text had gone through. Listen, I just made a geography joke and you missed it. Oh.

You're going to Juneau, you son? Nice. Oh, she's going to Juneau. Okay, got it. Sorry, it's not that far from Anchorage. You're so excited that you know about a place in Alaska. That could be as far as New York City to LA for all I know. Right. Alaska's huge. But yeah, I mean, that's just a sloppy, stupid move. Yes. And he is just one in a line of many. Yeah. By midnight, Keyes had taken Samantha back to his home and

Wow.

What a guy. He tied her hands in front of her body so that she could smoke if she wanted to while securing a rope around her neck before bolting it to the wall. Did she smoke cigarettes? So he was allowing her to smoke some of his cigars. Ew. Listen, I smoke cigars. The one thing that I know about cigars is that non-cigar smokers hate them. Yeah.

They hate the way it smells when they're recording podcasts. She wants to sit there and smoke cigars? Well, so she was at times taking him up on the offer. And I read a psychological analysis of that was perhaps she was trying to connect, exactly connect with him and relate, which is heartbreaking, of course, in and of itself.

So after bolting a rope to a wall that was connected to her neck, Keyes then left her in the shed to go drive to her boyfriend's house where he stole Samantha's debit card out of his car.

So this man just went from being the most meticulous and organized perpetrator that the FBI had ever encountered. The FBI. Right. Yeah. To driving around all willy-nilly like, breaking into the coffee kiosk, breaking into the car, all out in the public's eye. Yeah. Right? In fact, Samantha's boyfriend, Dwayne, saw Israel breaking into his car, but

but saw that Israel was holding a knife and decided to go back inside of his house. Yeah, just take the shit. Little did he know that the man he assumed was just breaking into his car had in fact abducted his girlfriend and would wind up doing the unthinkable. Yeah. Have you heard from the boyfriend if he blames himself for...

No, I have. Yeah, it's funny. I don't know if he ever blamed himself for not taking action, but I've read some sources that let him off the hook as you're doing right now. Just saying like, you know, obviously hindsight's 2020 and he had no idea. And that moment as an 18 year old, which is still very much a kid in many ways. On the off chance you hear this brother, it's not your fault. Yeah. Like,

In any way, shape, or form. I just had a goodwill hunting. It's not your fault. I will say it's not your fault for three minutes straight until you start crying. I mean, it'll happen. Samantha repeatedly inquired about the progress of the ransom because she's still under the impression that that's why she's there. Yeah. Holding on to the hope that she might be released if things went smoothly.

Israel, in response, would continue to provide her with small morsels of hope to maintain her compliance. And this was obviously an incredibly cruel and manipulative tactic, yet unfortunately quite effective. Did he actually want money? I mean, he would have taken it, obviously, but his main goal was to... He indicated to the FBI that his...

main reason for holding up the kiosk that night was to conduct a robbery and that he really did want that debit card. I mean, obviously he went back for it and he really did plan on robbing her.

But then once he had her in his grasp, if you will, he even admits that the adrenaline started kicking up. Yeah. And he got that sort of itch that I believe we touched upon in part one. Yeah. To do the most horrible things you can possibly think about, which I will tell you, and had to escalate from there. I think we touched upon that itch in all episodes. Yeah, well, it's... It's a big part of it. It's a big part of it. It's what drives so many of these perpetrators to just...

move forward with. Like you said, do the unthinkable. Right. Really.

But then Israel dropped the charade. The song and dance was over as he no longer needed to keep Samantha calm and obedient. That reminds me of the Bone Breaker case a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. He was showing him baseball cards and like getting him and talking about people that they knew in common and then boom. And then he switched. It was over. Yeah. Israel now had Samantha exactly where he wanted her. He had her debit card.

He had her cell phone, and she had no way out. Yeah. He tied her up with more complicated and secure knots, and in that moment, according to Israel, Samantha knew that she was going to die. Horrible feeling. I can't even imagine. As heavy metal music blasted at a deafening level in that shed, amid the pungent scent of cigar smoke, urine, and sweat, Keyes proceeded to rape Samantha twice. Mm-hmm.

Then he put on a pair of leather gloves as he'd done with Lorraine Currier and strangled her to death. After that, he stabbed her in the back beneath her right shoulder blade for no apparent reason. Though in my own analysis, I believe that it was an extension of the sexual assault because stabbing is often considered a penetrative act, right? And it's

Sexual in nature, many people feel that way. Many analysts feel that way. So in my opinion, stabbing her in the shoulder was a continuation of the assault. Why? Is stabbing often associated with crimes of passion or something? It's just often considered sexual in nature. So it can be a substitute for some perpetrators. That's how they get their sexual benefit, by stabbing with a knife. Yeah.

Oh, he's just chilling now. What? Nope.

He was leaving for New Orleans to embark upon a two-week cruise. Oh, he's going to have some fun. Hours later. With his family? No. By himself? Yes.

Still weird. So keeping Samantha's body hanging in the shed where he knew it would stay cold in the Alaska weather. Wait, he would... Okay, so he leaves her in the shed knowing that her body will stay cold and not rot. Yep. But his wife and daughter are in the house the whole time. Because it's similar to Jerry Brudos. They knew not to go into his shed. I think I just miscommunicated and I apologize. He didn't leave her body hanging in the open when he left for his trip. He actually...

stuffed her body into a wooden cabinet that he had in the shed. So it was concealed. Yeah. That said, yes, he still left a dead body in a shed for two weeks. How are you going to go have fun on a cruise? Eat, drink, party, dance, sunbathe, swim in a pool, splash around, maybe splash a kid for fun.

knowing that there's a body in your shed. How are you going to breathe air after doing that? Yeah, how do you not just kill yourself? How do you do this? That ability to live that duality is, I can't fathom it. It's obviously a disorder. Yes, it is. You're right. Maybe I should be grateful that I can't imagine it. Yeah, we don't have it. Right. You don't have it. You don't have it.

So when he came back from his two-week cruise on February 21st... Fat and tan. Fat and tan. He took action to dispose of Samantha's remains. But before attending to that, what did Israel first do? Our first pop quiz. Our first pop quiz. All right.

A, send another text message to Samantha's boyfriend breaking up with him and telling him that she was skipping town. That won't raise suspicion. B, attend parent-teacher conferences at his daughter's school. C, masturbate, eat a Snickers bar, and smoke a cigar.

B. Yeah. Because that's the worst one. Although, what's even worse than that is that you wrote C. I sure did. What did you do? Masturbate, eat a Snickers bar, and... Smoke a cigar. Smoke a cigar. Sounds like a fun dime. Oh, man. I love Snickers. This motherfucker... Yeah. ...kills a girl, goes on vacation for two weeks, comes back...

Plays dad of the year. Exactly. He's getting ready to do what I'm going to tell you he does. But before that, goes to PTC, parent-teacher conferences. Wait, he does something worse than kill her? No, but what he goes on to do at this point in the case is horrific. Okay. Upon his return from parent-teacher conferences...

Israel goes back into the shed, rolls Samantha out of the cabinet that he stashed her in before leaving for the cruise, and uses a hairdryer to thaw her out a little bit. Oh my God, dude. Then he raped her corpse. No. Yeah. That is worse. It's not, listen, yes. It's different. It's fucking bizarre. It's heinous on another level. He thawed her out with a hairdryer.

Just enough to rape her again. Yeah. Oh, my God. Following engaging in necrophilia, he went back inside the main part of his house to do homework with his daughter. That is fucking... I think we might have to stop. I know. I know. He then had dinner, went to bed for a few hours, woke up at 2 a.m., returned back to the shed...

burned all of Samantha's clothing, and scrubbed the floor and walls with bleach. That, what you just said, is like Junko Furuta level heinous. Yeah, really. It's incomprehensible. When they were shoving firecrackers inside of her? Yes. I mean, that's fucking horrible. What you just described, though, is... Horrendous. It's just... And I've had time to sit with this information, but...

Let me just tell you. When you found that out. When I found this out, I was like, walk away. Yeah. Just walk away.

The next morning, Keyes made breakfast for his daughter and got her off to school. Then he went out to purchase large tote bags from Home Depot, paper for a typewriter, a sewing kit, and a 10-pound fishing line. He also retrieved a copy of the Anchorage Daily News dated February 13, 2012 from a dumpster behind a supermarket. Worth noting, 10-pound fishing line is very thin. Okay, that is good to know, actually. Yeah. And it makes a lot of sense because I'm sure...

I'm sure you realize what he used that fishing line for. Yeah. And the fact that it was pretty much imperceptible. Yeah. In the photo. Super, super thin, like almost invisible. Right. And I know that because I'm an incredible fisherman. Yeah. You like to murder innocent creatures of the sea. I'm sorry, but you do. It's a sport. I know. I know.

Keys also purchased makeup from Walmart and got to work staging Samantha's body for the fake proof of life photo that he later left in a park for Samantha's father and boyfriend to discover after he sent them a text message from Samantha's phone telling them where to find it. And we have come full circle.

He intentionally made the photo blurry. Oh. Yeah. He spent hours positioning Samantha's body for this ransom photo, and obviously he was struggling to do it given the fact that she was not alive. Frozen and rigor mortis. He tried using super glue on Samantha's forehead to make the sagging, decaying skin appear more taut. Oh my God. But it didn't work.

This is when he decided to take a curved sewing needle with a fishing line to sew through her brow and along her nose cartilage under the skin to make her look alive and alert. Keyes then braided Samantha's hair the same way he'd braid his daughter's hair and did her makeup. It took between three and five hours to prepare Samantha for the photo and to type out the ransom note.

After taking the ransom photo and typing the ransom note, Israel Keyes then hung Samantha's body up by her wrists and bolted the rope to a wall. He then dismembered her and discarded her remains in the Matanuska Lake. Now, before we go on, I'd like to pay tribute to Samantha and to remember who she was as a person and not just a victim.

Samantha attended West High School and Avail High School. She loved animals, relatable, friends, fishing, playing music, photography, writing music and poetry, camping, and playing Call of Duty with her boyfriend, Dwayne. Samantha was full of life and had a very big personality. Her smile was said to light up a room. Samantha had a contagious laugh, an infectious charm, and a brilliant sarcastic wit.

Her desire was to work with animals, whether in the equestrian field or the wild animal kingdom. She was considering enlisting in the Navy to become a nurse and build a lucrative career from there. Her family never stopped looking for her, and her father, who called Samantha Honey Bunny, has indicated that he will always be proud of her and will never stop seeing her in his dreams. That's... Heartbreaking. Yeah.

So, how did Israel Keyes, the guy who thought he'd always be able to get away with murder, get caught?

Really? By making a rookie mistake. Yeah. First, there were three withdrawals made from Samantha's bank account from ATMs around Anchorage. Each time a withdrawal was made, law enforcement was notified. Oh, good. But each time, the person who made the withdrawal was gone by the time they arrived. Then, on March 10th, Israel...

Israel used Samantha's debit card at an ATM in Humble and Shepherd, Texas, which alerted law enforcement to both the vehicle he was driving as well as his location because his vehicle was caught on CCTV near the bank.

On March 13th, a Texas highway patrolman was able to identify his vehicle after he made a minor traffic infraction. All this state highway patrolman knew was that there was a lookout for this car. He had taken the license plate off of the car. So this highway patrolman didn't even have that to scan. But he was keenly aware of the type of vehicle that was on notice. Yeah.

A search of the car after pulling him over yielded Samantha's identification, her debit card, her cell phone, a firearm, and the disguise seen worn by the individual in the ATM security photo. Yeah. Do you want to know what his disguise was? What? A fake beard. Like Dwight Shurt's brother? Yes.

Exactly. Wait, so what was he doing in Texas? Do we know? He was actually there for a wedding, is my understanding, a family wedding. And still using her debit card? He's a fucking idiot. Yeah. It turns out that Israel Keyes was indeed human, just as his asshole serial killing predecessors had been before him. Nice. And he got his pathetic ass caught, just as his asshole serial killing predecessors had done before him. That's a fucking banger.

He was not special. He was not better than they were. No. He was just a different side of the same coin. Yeah. No, he thought he was going to be better. I'm going to do it better. I'm going to do it right. I'm going to do it perfect. Bro, no, you're not. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. I love that at the end of the day, first and foremost, that he was caught and he couldn't hurt anybody else after this.

But I just love that he had to find out that he was no better than the pieces of shit that came before him. And everyone knows who Ted Bundy is. No one knows who this guy is. Well, that's exactly right. Oh, that must bother him a lot. Well, we're going to go on to hear everything. Okay. Following his arrest, Keyes consented to being interviewed by investigators approximately seven months later. Laughing to the FBI, Keyes stated...

You have your monster. You have to see, by the way, the interrogations and you can see them. They're available. Yeah. He is such a prick. He has this condescending, almost flippant laugh that it's constant. Yeah. It's constant. Anytime he's talking about the murders, the

or holding back information that he knows that the investigators really need and want. Yeah. He giggles like a fucking schoolgirl. He's disgusting. Yeah.

And it's a very difficult interview to watch. And I'll tell you why. And, you know, we're going to go into the interrogation tactics that were used in a little bit, but I will just tell you offhand, very difficult to watch these interviews because law enforcement were essentially giving him what he wanted and what he needed. And they were doing it, of course, as part of their master plan to get information from him. Yeah. But when you're watching these interviews, it looks like a bunch of friends hanging out. Yeah. It like makes your skin crawl. Well, they were playing a part. Right. Exactly. Exactly.

As the lead investigators would soon discover, Keyes had devised an unprecedented modus operandi. He would fly into major cities, rent a car, dig up concealed kill kits that he had buried across the nation years prior, select a victim, commit acts of abduction, sexual assault, and murder, frequently

frequently leaving the victim's remains in a different state before putting substantial distances between himself and the crime scene. During these travels, he'd exclusively use cash and dismantle his cell phone by removing the battery while ensuring never to leave any DNA evidence behind.

Even the most seasoned criminal profilers at the FBI conceded that they had never encountered a killer with such a unique, well-thought-out, and executed, meticulous approach before.

The events that transpired in that interrogation room was a masterclass in criminal interrogation. And I just touched upon why. It was expertly orchestrated in Anchorage by a detective named Monique Dahl, who went by the nickname Mickey, whose demeanor and ability to extract information from this cold-blooded serial killer was badass.

So a woman led the charge on this interrogation, right? Fuck yeah. It takes a woman sometimes. Sometimes? I meant to say always. Thank you, sir. So this detective recognized the importance of maintaining humility, offering apologies for any interruptions she made, and exhibiting an almost reserved respect for

for Israel. So he was getting off on that too. The narcissistic little fucker that he was, was eating this up. Have you ever heard of the choose a token thing in customer service? No. It reminds me of this a little bit. What is it? Basically, if there's a problem in a customer service interaction, whichever side of the token you choose, the person will choose a different side.

So if you order three salads at some fucking restaurant for takeout and there's only two and you go, hey, there's only two in here and they go, whatever, I don't know, just, you know, go with the two salads, then you become enraged. Whereas if they go, oh my God, I'm so sorry, I can't believe that happened, blah, blah, blah, then you make it not a big deal. So in customer service, you're always supposed to choose that I'm going to make it a big deal. Interesting. Yeah. I learned a lot on TikTok. Yeah.

God, that's pretty hearty. I was impressed. Even when confronted with the most horrifying acts explained by this ruthless perpetrator, Mickey's response would simply be something along the lines of, gotcha. Which, sorry, the reason I bring that up is because had she come at him arrogant, tough, hard, bad cop, she probably would have gotten nowhere and she knew that. And that is why this was a master class. Yeah.

She mimicked his phrasing and matched his body language. Wow. If her subject found something to laugh about, she would join in, regardless of any personal revulsion that she might have felt.

He's hinted to investigators during his interrogation that he murdered men and women of all ages and that most of his homicides never caught the attention of the media. He's taunted officials by telling them that with his computer, they would slowly find things out and start to connect the dots, but that he could save them time and money if they abided by his demands. With his computer?

With his computer, you said? Yeah. So he was saying like, eventually you'll come around to realizing everything I've done. Yeah. It's going to take you a long time, a lot of money to get there. I can save you all of that, but you're going to have to give me what I want. And what did he want? I'm going to tell you.

During these interviews, he was choosy with what he shared and elusive regarding the details he divulged, careful to conceal certain information. He agreed to answer questions under his terms and typically in exchange for an Americano coffee, a Snickers bar, and of course a cigar. Really? Yep. So for cigars, coffee, and candy, you could get him to sing.

Is he a child that smokes cigars? What is he, a cigar-smoking eight-year-old? He's a fucking control freak. Yeah, yep.

Over 25 hours of interviewing occurred, during which Keyes would often chuckle at the memory of his crimes and tease investigators about what he knew. Oh, this guy sucks. But would refuse to give up anything unless they met every single one of his demands. And aside from coffee, candy, and smokes, Israel had one major demand that he insisted be met if he was going to provide the bulk of what investigators wanted to know.

Pop quiz. What did Israel Keyes demand in exchange for him revealing crucial information to aid in the investigation? I'm going to get this one. A, a book written about him. B, one hour a day with his daughter. C, an execution date within a year. Oh my God. Maybe I'm not going to get this one. A book written about him, an hour a day with his daughter, or an execution date within a year.

Oh, my God. I mean, they're all good. You did good with this one. Thank you, sir. I feel like one of them is too easy. An execution date? Yes. Yes, Tank. You can't throw me off your trail. Wow, well done. Yeah. Yeah, he wanted an execution date within a year. And he wanted this so that his young daughter would not have to grow up with her father in prison. What a guy, again.

Now, it's essential to emphasize that the exact count of his victims and the specific methods used in each case is unclear. It is believed, however, that Keyes killed 11 people between the years of 2001 and 2012, though only three of his victims have been identified. Oh, so it's not more than 12, probably. Right. Okay. So, Samantha Koenig...

and Bill and Lorraine Currier. Those are the only three that have definitively been linked to Israel Keyes. He robbed several banks between 2001 and 2012 to finance his various travel arrangements so he could continue killing random victims in remote locations. Oh, that's also what he did for work. Yeah. I was thinking, A, how does he take so much time off and not get in trouble? B, how does he have so much money to be able to do this? Oh, that's why you were asking that. Yeah, he robs banks. Right.

Keyes' preferred method of killing was strangulation, as he claimed to experience intense excitement and pleasure as his victim struggled and lost consciousness. He only used guns if he felt he had no other choice and had on one occasion been forced to beat his victim to death. That was Bill, right? Well, he shot Bill, if you recall, ten times. That's right. He killed another couple. We touched upon it in part one, a man and a woman. The woman he strangled and the man he beat to death. That's right.

While he started out as a socially awkward loner, Keyes developed into a charming and friendly individual who blended seamlessly into society. Quick question. If you know, why were the man and woman who were killed not identified?

Because law enforcement exactly could never find remains. Oh, so they found Bill, his wife, and Samantha? They found Samantha, yes. They ended up finding her body in the lake. They had to break through something like 25 inches of ice. Oh my God. But they did indeed find her remains. And Bill and Lorraine, they never ever found their remains. But during this interrogation, to prove that he was the perpetrator, he told them where they could find two guns.

one belonging to Israel that he buried and one that had belonged to Lorraine that he took from her house.

So he told law enforcement where they could find these two weapons. Obviously, this is something presumably only the killer would know. Yeah. So when law enforcement found these two weapons exactly where he said they'd be, they knew that he was responsible for their killings. Yeah. But the remains were never found because the farmhouse was demolished. Construction workers actually did recall the smell of decay coming from the farmhouse, but it's a very big hunting area around there. So they assumed it was an animal. Yeah.

Keyes was a sexually motivated killer without a particular victim profile, though he did refuse to kill children and supposedly he refused to kill mothers as well. He killed for the pleasure of killing, making him a hedonistic thrill serial killer.

A psychological evaluation conducted to determine his fitness for trial found Israel Keyes at higher than average intelligence and was antisocial, a personality trait that could cause him to likely be impulsive and hostile, according to Ronald Roche, PhD, who prepared the report. But Roche found no mental health issues or impairments that would prevent Keyes from going to trial.

In my non-professional opinion, because I am not a mental health practitioner... You are very smart, though. Wow, thank you for that. You just threw me a bone. Yeah.

In addition to having antisocial personality disorder traits, I believe he also exhibited characteristics of primary psychopathy as well as being a sadist. He was manipulative, lacked remorse and empathy, and had criminal versatility, meaning he would engage in multiple types of crimes over a period of time. Yeah. He robbed banks. He also set houses on fire. He killed people. Sexual assault.

And I just learned this, by the way, when I said that I believe that he had characteristics of primary psychopathy. So primary psychopaths exhibit callous and manipulative behavior, superficial relations, lack of empathy, and a lack of negative affect such as guilt, fear, or anxiety. They plan their behavior and socially rank themselves higher than others. Yeah. He ticks every box there, in my opinion.

Additionally, I suspect that he may have displayed certain traits of schizoid personality disorder or possibly one of the other personality disorders characterized under Cluster A personality disorders, which is characterized by eccentric and odd behaviors. This suspicion arises from his intense immersion in his fantasies because he used to fantasize about pulling off the perfect murder, his tendency to be emotionally distant and

His isolated way of life, the fact that he was withdrawn and detached.

It's also worth noting that sadistic psychopaths with antisocial personality disorder and comorbidities of cluster A, particularly schizoid and paranoid personality disorders, are frequently found among serial killers. Yeah. And by the way, antisocial personality disorder is the clinical term. People throw around the term antisocial like it's fun and cute. Totally. And I just looked it up. It's a mental health disorder characterized by disregard for

for other people. That's you not wanting to go out at night is not you being antisocial. Awesome point to make. Just so you know. Yeah. Just so we're clear. Unless you have a disregard for other people and you're going to kill people. And that's why you're staying home from the movies. I just don't want to kill anybody. Yeah. No, it's good to point that out.

So this is a little bit of my own analysis as well as the actual psychological evaluation he had conducted to determine whether or not he was fit to stand trial. But Israel Keyes would never make it to trial because between 10.12 and 10.24 p.m. on December 1st, 2012...

Israel Keyes committed suicide in his Alaska jail cell by embedding a disposable razor blade into a pencil and slitting his wrist and using bedding material to strangle himself by tying one end around his neck and the other end around his left foot.

So he slid his wrist. And he strangled himself. Wow. Evidence left behind in his jail cell included a suicide note, drawings of 11 skulls, a drawing of the baphomet, an inscription of Corazal on the cell's wall. All of this, by the way, written in his own blood. Wow.

Wow. What is Baphomet? Yeah, I'm going to tell you right now. So the 11 skulls are believed to represent his 11 victims with the words, we are one written beneath one of the skulls. Baphomet, and I may be mispronouncing it, B-A-P-H-O-M-E-T.

is a deity that is half human and half animal, half male, half female, half good, half evil. Again, supporting his own admission of feeling that he was two people in one living a life of duality. And Corozal is a town in Belize where he was confirmed to have traveled and possibly killed in.

Keyes also left behind a suicide note or an ode to murder soaked in blood in which he referred to his victims as my, quote, dark moth princess and my pretty captive butterfly. In his suicide note, he also shit-talked the United States, a country that he once served, but for which he harbored a near lifelong deep-seated hatred. He wrote, land of the free, land of the lie, land if the scheme Americanize.

A poet he was not. Some believe that Israel Keyes took his life to condemn what he saw as the ridiculousness of the American justice system. Others believe it was his final act of exerting control.

which is the camp I'm in. Yeah, probably. And this is what I'm going to leave off on. When Israel Keyes engaged in the FBI interrogation, he was reluctant to divulge too much information. When asked why he was holding back so many cards, he responded with this.

My concern, the problem nowadays, the more stuff my name is attached to, the more likely it is that somebody's going to try to do some kind of stupid freaking TV special. Or, you know, you know how it is nowadays, like with all this true crime bullshit that people are obsessed with. Yeah.

And as he foresaw the future, so it happened. Little did he know. So here you are, motherfucker, being talked about on a true crime podcast, and I hope it hurts. And not in a flattering way. No, sir. No, because he probably only wanted to be known for how meticulous and well-planned out he was. Mm-hmm. And revered and ooh and ah'd over. Who's going to revere you, dude? You're a fucking piece of shit. Hardly anybody fucking knows his name. Yeah, which is probably even worse. Yeah. He's dead. He's dead and gone.

And that is the case of Israel Keys. So the buildup was good. The thing he did after she died was one of the worst things I've ever heard in my life. Yeah. It's bad. It's really bad. Froze her, went on a cruise, came home, thought her out.

had sex with her. Yeah. Like, bro, just fucking... Dismembered her. Dumped her in a lake. That's like... Fucked with her family. I mean, that's nothing compared to him unthawing her with a hairdryer and having sex with her. While his daughter, by the way, had breakfast with him 10 minutes later. Yeah. There's just so many layers. People are sick. Some people are really sick. Some are sicker than others. This guy is sicker than others. Agreed. Yeah, he's sicker than sickies. Sicker than your average.

I couldn't resist. Papa Twist Cabbage off instinct. Yeah, that's a biggie line. Obviously, people know that's a biggie line. Yeah, sorry. Are you proud of me, though, for dropping it? Of course, yeah. I'm proud of you, Investigator Slater. Are you happy now? I needed to hear it. I'll leave off with this. Okay. Do you know what I was listening to yesterday? Um, Psychopedia? No. I don't know. Nas. Oh!

I don't know who you are right now and it's scaring me. King's Disease 3, his most recent album. Pretty good. Guys, I need our listeners to understand how significant this is. There's no way they could possibly come. I'm going to just touch upon it for a second. Yeah. Tank has always maintained a deep-seated, visceral...

contempt for Nas. Yes. You even ran into him on an airplane and just was like, fuck off. Ignored him. Yeah. For like a minute straight while we were walking down the corridor. All because he's not Jay-Z? The only thing I could think of to say to him was...

I know people like you. I just don't. I like Jay-Z better. A lot better. That's all I could think of to say. Is it possible to like both? Yeah. Listen, I don't... The only... I don't like Nas yet. I'm amazed that you're allowing the possibility to invite him into your life. I've said that about everybody forever. Ever since I discovered the Beatles...

At 28 years old, I discovered the Beatles. You did? I put them on the map. Wow. Yeah. I'm going to go shake your hand. Well, this was a fucking doozy. Yes, sir, it was. Sure. And I hope our listeners feel the same way because when I say it's a doozy, I mean it's a goody. Yeah, I hope you guys were fascinated by that case in much of the same way that I was doing the research. And I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you.

And if you did, write us a message. Let us know. Yeah. PsychopediaPod at Gmail. Obviously needs serious validation. PsychopediaPod at Gmail. PsychopediaPod on Instagram. Patreon.com slash PsychopediaPod for unhinged episodes of Psychopedia. Investigator Slater's address is... But she does have a dog that's super sweet, but will rip your face off. Don't mess with his mama. Don't mess with his mama. Don't mess with his anything.

All right. Well, thank you for listening. Thank you for all that work you did to put this case together. It was fantastic. It was amazing. I loved it. It's the best case we've ever done. My pleasure. Thank you for that. Laying it on so thick. And we will see you guys next episode. Bye, everyone. Bye.