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All right, welcome back to another episode of Psychopedia. I am your co-host, Hank Sinatra, here with my partner in crime. Investigators later. Almost said co-host. I saw that. It was so close. You almost fumbled. It's just a habit. It's a habit, and it's been built up over time. Trying to undo it, not for any other reason, but I like the way partner in crime sounds, and it's more accurate. Agreed. And it's kind of kitschy. It's cute. Taylor Kitsch. You know who that is? No. It's an actor. He's the man.
Oh, so obviously I would have no idea who he is. Is he like pop culture-y? He's not Ryan Gosling. Oh, no one is. If I'm not mistaken, I may just be saying his name wrong. He's in a new series called Painkiller on Netflix. Yeah, we talked about Painkiller. Oh, yeah. He's the main guy. He was also in Lone Survivor. Oh, not Varsity Blues. Friday Night Live? Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. I don't know. I'm just completely...
agreeing with you because I truly do not know. Okay. I don't think Friday Night Lights is a movie or a series? Series. Series, okay. But I think it was a movie also. It might have been. Yeah. They're just doing whatever they want in Hollywood now. They don't fucking know what's going on. Did they ever? They have no idea.
Hulk is, Hulk's jacked. No, he's small. No, he's small, then he's jacked. It's a series. It's a movie. It's a movie within a movie. What am I seeing right now? Me just going through the, I mean, Hollywood has been terrible the last 10 years. It's just Avengers and Hulk and Spider-Man and Captain America and all different variations thereof.
all of them together, none of them together. One of them has their own movie, but then a special one makes a guest appearance. It's like, dude, get this out of here. What would you like to see in Hollywood? Barbie one, Barbie two, Barbie three, Barbie four.
I set myself up for that. I'll be honest with you. I didn't even know that was coming out. It just, it was like, oh, I do know the answer because I didn't know. And then I was like, wait, I do know. No, I don't know. There's a lot of good movies out, but there's nothing like this fucking psychopedia pod. Oh my God. Can you imagine if we made a movie one day? I can imagine it. Yeah. We can and we will. We can and we will. I love that mentality. Sky's the limit for us. Let's go. We're talking about books, touring, merch,
real life experiential pop-ups where you show up, you get murdered. We talk about it. Yeah. Like where did, there's no limits on this thing. I am excited. I said the quiet part out loud right there. I wasn't going to say that people get murdered. It's more of like a thing maybe that you walk through. That's kind of scary. Like us. Escape room. Escape room. Right. Yeah. But for murders. Yeah. I don't know. I shouldn't be saying any of this publicly because I don't know what, what's going to happen, but yeah,
Here's what I do know. Our fucking listeners, really, I'm not just saying this. They are like, you know, incredible. Lifeblood. And I feel like when we say that, they're like, oh yeah, okay, sure, yeah. I've never had an experience like this before where I launched something and people went this hard for it. The way that you love us and wait for us
We love you and wait for you. And you wait for different things. You wait for an episode or a post on Instagram. We wait for DMs and emails and reviews, but we're all waiting for each other. Yeah. You know? And we always show up, all of us. Yes. I love it. Daddy always comes back.
Oh, I say that all the time to Cash. Mommy always comes back and then he eats a hole in my wall. Yeah. I thought you were never coming back. Sorry. So yeah, the best thing you can do to support us right now, obviously, if you have reached the end of the Psychopedia universe on Apple and Spotify, you can head over to Patreon, patreon.com slash psychopedia pod, where we do unhinged episodes and post some other stuff that maybe you're into, maybe you're not, you know, and we're getting...
really close. Not that close, but like closer every day to the goal of 500 Patreons, at which point we're going to have one of those little semen demons come and sit with us. Sit right there, probably. Yeah. Like... Front row. I can see where you're going to sit. You're not going to say anything because we don't know you that well. I don't want you to throw the chemistry off, but you are going to watch.
And maybe if you have something to contribute, we'll throw you a mic and you can ask a question or something. And that'll be like a really fucking fun thing to do. Oh, God, yeah. Come on, guys. Bring us to 500. I want this to happen. By the time this is out, we might be at 500. We might be choosing somebody. I hope so. And it's not just at 500. It's every 500. Which I just learned.
And I'm very excited about. Yeah, we're going to bring somebody out every 500 from wherever, you know, who knows? We'll put a fucking, we'll close our eyes and scroll through and pick somebody. Love it. You're all equally worthy of coming to sit here. Absolutely. Yeah. Really quick announcement slash break slash Patreon shout out because we haven't done it and these people are our family and I feel like I've left them behind and I don't want to do that. So I'm just going to give a couple of shout outs.
And by a couple, I mean 200. Just kidding. Courtney, where knee is spelled knee, K-N-E-E. What's up, Courtney? Julia Stoner, pothead.
Alex Cooper, KCP, Kelly. Kelly, you gave us more information. I would have said your last name, but you just said Kelly. Camila Jaramillo, which I was beyond excited to say. You nailed it. Camila Jaramillo. Camila Jaramillo. Martha Amo, Austin Rodriguez, Musical Symphony. That's a great name. Junko Romero. Ooh.
Oh, I wonder if there's a connection. I was thinking of Junko Furuta as well. Sean Stewart, Trevor Thomas, WH, and Hillbilly Honey. Yeah. That's the one I'm going to end on. We love you, Seam and Demons. Thank you. You little Seam and Demon freaks. You're in our family, and I'm so sorry that we've left you behind for a couple of episodes, but we are back on track now. All right, so I hope you like hearing your names, you little freaks, because I want to give you that pleasure.
Real quick, I want to read a review because this one, it just made me laugh. I thought it was very funny. One part in particular. So it's my new besties from, I don't know, S-J-E-L-F-J-J-S-Y-B-E. S-J-E-L-F-J-J-J-S-Y-B-E. Jiffy Lube. I started binging on True Crime Podcast when I was stuck at home with the spicy cough a couple of years ago.
Why is it spicy? I gave them all a chance, but I only have a few that I subscribe to and follow because I'm kind of a true crime snob.
Hello. There's probably something very wrong with me as I've fallen asleep to forensic files and unsolved mysteries since I was a kid. Relatable. And I'm no spring chicken. I love the dynamic between Tank and Investigator Slater, and this is the only podcast I support on Patreon. Oh, I didn't even see that part before. Pretty sure we are best friends. You're right. They just don't know it. LOL. Keep killing it with love. Underscore Nick. So, what's up, Nick?
With love. Yeah, my new besties. Fucking right. You're all our best friends. It's not a fucking, I'm not just saying it to be funny. I know. We put ourselves out there. You, I mean, Investigator Slater really carries the fucking, she's the backbone of this podcast. I'm the arms and legs, I guess. I don't know. And you know what? All are important. All are important. I'm also the head. I'm the brains of the operation. Yeah, man, you're the heart. It just works. You're the lungs because you have asthma. Yeah.
I hope not. They don't work so well. And the listeners are, I don't know, just the best really. And truly. So what I was going to say before, this is what happens in my fucking brain. I really truly meant to say something before. The best way you can support us is just by telling your little fucking freak friends that you found a new podcast that they might like and then telling their friends to tell their friends. It's like a pyramid scheme, but nobody has to buy anything. Yes. Right. Yeah. Hi,
Hi, Mama. I know it's been a while since we spoke in high school, but there's this great new true crime podcast that I want you to listen to. Would you want to have financial freedom for the first time in your life? Shut up. So without further ado...
From what I understand, we're about to embark on quite a journey. And this is what I would have referred to three to four months ago as a doozy. Yes, sir. It's also going to be another two-parter because there's a lot going on in this case. Some of you may have heard of the individual that we are speaking about today. Can you let me do my intro? Okay.
I was up till 2.30 last night. Up at 5. And then up again at 5. So let me have my intro. Yeah? Sure. She's shot. Thank you. So yeah, it's going to be a two-parter. And the first part, which obviously we're doing right now, will be the foundation. And the second part will be getting into the weeds of the psychology and some FBI interrogations and some fallout that happened later on AIRPLANET.
after what we're going to talk about happening today. Okay. So we're going to do the foundation first, find out what happened, and then we're going to just judge it and rip it apart in part two. Yes, sir. Yeah. All right, great. I'm very excited to hear what you have. This is amazing. I feel like in the beginning when we were doing Psychopedia, you were like...
I don't know. All right, I guess start. All right. Okay, now you're like, I'm excited. Go. I've just, I've been taking acting classes and lying classes. You're an asshole. All right, Dick, you ready? Yeah, I'm ready.
On the evening of February 24th, 2012, an 18-year-old young man named Dwayne Tortolani was eating at a Golden Corral restaurant in Anchorage, Alaska, with his girlfriend Samantha's father, James. At precisely 7.56 p.m., Dwayne's phone received an unusual text message from Samantha's cell phone that said the following, Connor Park sign, under pick of Albert, ain't she purdy.
18-year-old young man is at a Golden Corral restaurant, gross, with his girlfriend's father and they get a pic that is meant to be confusing. They
They get a text message. I'm sorry, a text message that's meant to be confusing. Right. Nobody's supposed to understand what that means, right? Right. And it was unquestionably odd, but it carried a certain sense of relief considering the troubling fact that Samantha had not been heard from or seen in 23 days. The text was from Samantha? Yep, came from her cell phone. Can you read the text one more time? Yes.
Connor Park sign, under pick of Albert, ain't she purdy. Connor Park sign, under pick of Albert, ain't she purdy. Yes. That's going to be a t-shirt. Pfft.
No. What does that mean? No, it will not be a t-shirt. We're going to find out. Receiving a message, presumably from Samantha, after 23 days of silence brought immense excitement to Dwayne and James. They promptly departed from the restaurant and headed over to Connor Park, all the while contacting the Anchorage Police Department to inform them of the text message and its instructions on where to meet.
Oh. Oh, geez. That would make sense. Yeah. It's supposed to be a little confusing. Okay. I'll be honest with you. You said Alaska and you said Albert and I thought Alberta because I thought we were in Canada. Yeah.
But we're not. No. It's not the same thing. It's not. Okay.
Inside the bag, they discovered a black and white photocopied proof-of-life photograph featuring Samantha holding a copy of the Anchorage Daily News from February 13, 2012. The photograph clearly aimed to convey that she had been alive as recently as that date. Furthermore, on the reverse side of the photograph was a demand stipulating the immediate deposit of $30,000 into Samantha and Dwayne's joint bank account.
The note went on to state that if this, along with the other demands were met, Samantha would be released in six months. Jeez. Now, this was a good sign, surely, as the photograph and ransom note suggested that Samantha, albeit clearly abducted, was still alive and that her abductor was seeking a financial transaction in exchange for her safe return. Yeah. And after not hearing from her or seeing her for 23 days, this was hope.
but something about his daughter's face in the photo seemed off. Granted, duct tape covered Samantha's mouth, rendering it almost impossible to discern her complete expression. Additionally, a hand on a muscular arm seemed to be supporting her head, with her eyes fixed in an unnaturally wide-open gaze. Samantha's hair was also braided, which was not typically her style, and she had eyeliner on as well.
With all of this considered, the haunting truth began to loom larger, and that truth was that the supposed proof-of-life photo depicting Samantha Koenig was staged. We will certainly be delving deeply into this disturbing aspect, along with numerous other chilling details related to this photograph and, of course, the subject, Samantha. But for now, I'll tell you this. The reason why Samantha's eyes stared back at them in an unnatural way in the photograph was
was because her eyelids had been meticulously sewn open with fishing line, which of course begs the questions, where was Samantha and what the hell happened to her? I can assure you that the answer to these questions will leave you utterly stunned and sick to your stomach. Oh, great. For they delve into the twisted depths of brutality, perversion, and heartbreak that you cannot even begin to imagine in your worst nightmare.
The FBI have indicated that the subject of today's case, the perpetrator, was unlike anyone they had ever encountered until that point and was one of the most terrifying people they'd ever come across. This is the case of a controlled, meticulous, patient, disciplined, nomadic American serial killer, serial rapist, serial arsonist, abductor, and bank robber.
Today, I am introducing you to none other than Israel Keys. No clue, but he sounds like a bad guy. Serial killer, serial rapist, serial... Arsonist. Arsonist. Fuck, guy setting fires and killing people and robbing banks. Mm-hmm. He's just a fucking criminal, thoroughbred. Quite the resume. Thoroughbred criminal.
And while Israel Keyes may not be a trending household name like Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy, he has nonetheless been called one of the most ambitious and terrifying serial killers in modern history. And I'm not surprised that you haven't heard of him. He managed to keep himself off the radar for over a decade.
The reign of terror that he had over the course of those years went completely unnoticed. How? I guess we'll find out. I'm going to tell you. Yeah, I mean, I wanted to ask it anyway. I knew the answer to it.
I just want to know right now. I want to know everything. I want to download it into my brain so I can just know like Jason Bourne. Or Trinity from The Matrix. I'm a man. Okay. Trinity is, yeah, she's cool. Trinity is cool. I dressed up as Trinity for Halloween more than once. Really? Yeah. I love her. She's a badass. She is.
Born on January 7, 1978 in Richmond, Utah, Israel Keyes was brought into the world by his mother, Heidi, who was a third-generation American with Swedish heritage, and his father, Jeffrey, who earned a living as a maintenance worker. When Israel was born, both Heidi and Jeffrey were Mormons who soon began to affiliate with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while adhering to stringent beliefs.
Israel, being the second eldest of their ten children, spent his earliest years steeped in these rigorous principles while having little exposure to anything else.
Some of the names of Israel's siblings include Isaac, Hosanna, Charity, and Sunshine. Just adding that in for interesting. Hosanna in the highest. Oh, I was going to sing Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna. No? Jesus Christ Superstar? No? Hosanna, Zendaya. Zendaya.
Early on, Israel was taught by his parents to imbibe a deep distrust for the public school system, the government, and modern medical practices. As such, he and all of his siblings were home birthed and lacked birth certificates and social security numbers.
The entire family lived in a one-bedroom wooden cabin while a portion of the children, including Israel, took themselves off to live in a tent in the woods. Wow. So they were living in an isolated tent in an already isolated environment. Yeah. All the kids helped to generate income by chopping firewood and assisting on farms nearby. Wow.
In 1983, the Keys family left Utah and made a new home in Washington State. There, they continued to live in relative isolation without access to basic amenities like running water and electricity. This was 1983. I know. Can you imagine moving 10 kids, by the way? No, I can't even imagine taking two on vacation. Yeah. Fuck.
Now, during this time, Heidi and Jeffrey, I think his real name, by the way, was John Jeffrey Keyes, decided to lead the Mormon faith in favor of joining a fundamentalist Christian identity church called the ARC. The ideology of Christian identity is conspiratorial in nature and propagates anti-Semitism, racism, and intense anti-government sentiments. So it's a hate group. Yeah. Yeah.
Obviously. Jesus would have loved that. Well, it's actually not an organized religion, nor is it affiliated with specific Christian denominations. It's a theology that entails a racial interpretation of Christianity with military-based white supremacist values.
Essentially, Christian identity promotes the notion that individuals who are not of pure European lineage will either face annihilation or be subjected to enslavement to serve the white race in a new heavenly kingdom on earth,
and that only those considered white can attain salvation and gain entry into paradise. So they're Nazis. Yes. Yeah, okay. Right. Jewish people are considered biologically satanic and are cursed by God. Biologically satanic? And non-white individuals are labeled mud peoples and they're thought to lack souls. Oh my God. Horrendous. Fucking dumb. Okay.
I mean. And despite its limited following, Christian identity manages to exert considerable influence on nearly all white supremacists and radical anti-government movements. They claim to hold themselves to God's laws, not man's laws, which is why many do not feel bound to a government and or other entities that they do not trust and that they think Jewish people are running. Oh.
Are they one of those people who get pulled over and they're like, I'm a sovereign citizen and I don't abide by your laws. I don't sound like it. You can't arrest me. Have you ever seen those videos? No. Oh man, these people are so out of their minds. They get pulled over and they're like, I don't subscribe to the nation of the United States. I'm a sovereign citizen.
Dude, you're going to jail. Yeah, man. Yeah. You broke the damn law. Sorry. Just because you don't like the law or you think it doesn't apply to you? Can you imagine if it was that easy? You sound like a four-year-old. Right. Yeah. And Israel Keyes was exposed to this rhetoric and little else during his formative years.
Though interestingly, there was no obvious evidence of a racist or anti-Semitic motive in any of his future killings. That being said, being brought up in accordance with these hateful, violent, and aggressive principles undoubtedly played a significant role in shaping his psyche. And unfortunately, obviously, not for the better. Sure.
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It was at the Ark where Israel met and befriended two other boys who lived half a mile down the road who had been inculcated into the white supremacy beliefs as well. And these boys, who were brothers, were none other than Chevy and Shane Kehoe. I don't know if you've heard of them, Tank.
They are a convicted murderer, Chevy, and an attempted murderer, convicted, Shane, respectively, in the 1990s, who also had links to Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. No, I've never heard of them. So the Kehoe family, they were bad, okay? They had a history of engaging in illicit activities, including the illegal sale of firearms on the black market, among many other transgressions.
Additionally, in 1997, the Kehoe brothers, affiliated with the Aryan Nation and harboring intentions to destabilize the U.S. government and ignite a race war, triggered a nationwide pursuit following a violent encounter with law enforcement during a routine traffic stop. The authorities discovered a cache of heavy weaponry, along with 4,000 rounds of ammunition stashed in the brothers' SUV.
Long story short with the Kehoe brothers, in 1997, Shane Kehoe was sent to prison for 24 years for attempted murder, and Chevy was sentenced to life in prison for torturing and murdering an entire family, which included an eight-year-old girl. Piece of shit. So these were Israel Kehoe's friends. Those were his boys. Those were his homies. And literally, those two and no one else. Ooh, yeah. Yeah.
By age 14, Israel started stealing and shooting guns, building pipe bombs, and blowing the locks off of doors to carry out home burglaries. And what he would do, he'd break into the homes just to steal more weapons. Like he's playing a video game. There really wasn't anything else in those parts to steal anyway. But yeah, like he was playing a video game, exactly. He also started spending a significant amount of time alone in the woods where he'd watch and stalk people from afar. Many of the people he'd seen in the video game
Many serial killers, including Ted Bundy and BTK, honed their criminal skills as peeping toms during their teen and early adult years.
So it's often considered to be part of a maturation process for a burgeoning serial killer to gain a sense of power and control by putting victims in their sights and watching them in secret. And while they may not be quite ready to kill, as was the case with Israel at this point, they developed their confidence and a sense of empowerment by engaging in this voyeuristic, quietly intrusive act. When you
When you said it was quietly intrusive, that sounded a little scary. Creepy. Well, it's just like a way for them to wield power over somebody without actually having to do it. But they're having the experience, the adrenaline rush, all of that of doing something they're not supposed to be doing, but the other person doesn't even know. Right. And that's such a good way to put it, that they're experiencing that adrenaline rush because what it becomes from that point on is an escalation because they don't get the same rush anymore.
The fifth time they do it. So they need to one-up it. Yeah. So they one-up it and then they don't get the same rush from that experience. So they one-up it. Yeah. And that's how they wind up becoming Israel Keys. When you keep one-upping by the time, you know, you're 21 ups. Exactly. Killing people. It's not good. It's usually a progression, right? Correct. Yeah. Pop quiz numero uno. Cool. What happened when Israel was 14 that was a clear indicator of more troubling behavior to come?
A. He killed a cat. B. He started to regularly wet the bed. C. He attacked a young girl and then kept a used band-aid from her elbow. D. All of the above. D. No. Oh, come on. I'm sorry.
He beat the girl and then kept the elbow. No. That's very specific. I know. I think I need help. He started wetting the bed? Nope. He killed a cat? Yes. By the way, I don't hate cats. Well, you may have implied otherwise. Oh, I know. In our last episode. I saw the messages. Actually, I will say, in your defense, and I don't know if this is a defense, you were not...
shit-talking cats. You were shit-talking their parents. Oh, that's worse. Is that better? No, that's worse. I have a thing with cats where...
Like I've said this to you before, cats are just, they don't give a shit about you, in my opinion. And I'm saying you mean me, like the proverbial you. I've never had a cat that was like, oh, wow, that cat's really warm and makes me feel like they love me. To the point where we were driving out of my parents' neighborhood. I think I've told you this before. And we saw an animal moving across the street. And I was like, oh my God, it's a dog. We have to stop our...
plans and do nothing except save this dog. That's what was going on in my head. It was a cat. I was like, oh, it'll be fine. Is that true? Yes. I know a lot less about cats, obviously, than I do about dogs, but I have tried to trap and release cats before when I see that they're like scrawny and hungry. No, this was like a neighborhood cat that was just an outside cat. And that's a thing. Of course. Right. But there's no such thing as an outside dog.
No, no, no, no. I have been eight months pregnant in a blizzard, pulling my car over, chasing a dog that's roaming free and loose. You see a cat on the street, you don't think twice. You see a dog, you're like, where are your parents? I do think twice. I've put tuna and water out
So Israel killed his sister's cat. Joined by a friend and another one of his sisters, Israel tied the poor defenseless cat to a tree with a bungee cord, shot the cat in the stomach with his .22 revolver, and laughed as the cat suffered and deliriously ran circles around a tree while vomiting and dying a slow, painful death.
I don't like that at all. Meanwhile, Israel's friend was off puking in the woods completely in distress while all of this was happening because he was not a psychopath like his compadre, Israel. Years later, Keyes also indicated that he'd gutted a deer around this time as well while it was still alive. And guess what else Israel Keyes liked to do in the woods growing up, just for good measure? What?
Start fires. Oh, serial arsonist. That's right. But what does this mean, Tank? What does this mean? McDonald Triad. Yes. Yeah, the Burger King Triad. Very good. He was exhibiting two out of three factors of the McDonald Triad. Oh, three of them. No, he wasn't wetting the bed. In 1997, the Keys family relocated yet again, this time to Oregon, to a place called Mopin. Mopin.
At this time, Israel began rebelling against his parents and their fundamentalist beliefs and openly expressed to their shock and horror that he was an atheist. Consequently, Israel was kicked out of the family house and his parents instructed his siblings to cut off all contact with him.
Subsequently, the rest of the Keyes family relocated to Maine and became part of an Amish community. Maine? Yeah. That's fucking far. Yeah. And look at what they're doing. They start out just in terms of Israel's life in the course of his life alone. Forget about what they may or may not have been involved in prior to his birth.
They started out as devout Mormons. Then they went over to Christian identity, which is hate. Exactly right. They just moved from one cult-like religion to another. And this is his upbringing. Well, Mormons, I don't want to call a cult. I don't want to refer to them. A lot of people will refer to them as a cult. I won't. I'm with you on that. Yeah. These Christian arc fuckers. Yeah, man. Get a dick. Yeah.
So they had him in one very, very strict religion, abandoned that, went to a literal cult, a white hate group cult, went from Utah to Washington to Oregon to fucking Maine. Yep. That's like a, I mean, that's just, who knows what was going on behind closed doors in the house.
So the entire Keyes family, except for Israel, moved to Maine. And Israel stays behind in Oregon. And while he's still in Oregon, he... By himself? By himself. Like no siblings, no nothing. That's correct. Oh, that's... He pursued his newfound interest, which happened to be Satanism. And at first I thought to myself, how can he be an atheist but also believe in Satanism? So it turns out that Satanists can broadly be divided into two groups. Satanism is a group of people
the atheists or rationalists for whom Satan is a symbol of values they wish to champion and the supernaturalists who perceive Satan as being that literal, you know, figure to worship. Yeah. So I thought that was interesting. So I wanted to share.
Israel wholeheartedly embraced this new satanic ideology and mirrored the fervor with which he'd seen his parents throw themselves into various religions in the past. Initially, as we said, they followed Mormonism, then embraced Christian identity, ultimately became Amish, and here we now have Israel as a Satanist. Amish? Yeah. Oh my God, I missed that part. Holy crap.
What's next for these people? In a display of his commitment to Satanism, Israel inked himself up with some statement tattoos, including an upside-down cross on his chest and a pentagram on the base of his neck. That's a lot. Because nothing says forever like a chest piece. Yeah. However, even more noteworthy than his foray into Satanism and the accompanying tattoos...
Israel started to realize a profound disparity between himself and the rest of the world. He became increasingly aware that he differed from others in nearly every aspect, including his thoughts, emotions, actions, and reactions. His natural inclinations led him on a path that he eventually understood was starkly different from the path taken by most others. He also developed some very specific interests that bordered on obsession.
Pop quiz. He was into giving pop quizzes. What were these specific interests? No, but there are a couple of scarily relatable aspects to Israel's personality that I found myself worried about. For you. For me. And
Oh, shit. Okay. So what were his specific interests? A, serial killers and nu metal music. B, sex workers and horror movies. C, auto asphyxiation and public masturbation.
Ooh, serial killers and what was it? New metal music. New metal music. Let's not blame it on Marilyn Manson. Sex workers and cars? Horror movies. Horror movies. Or auto asphyxiation and public masturbation. I'm going to go with, and I'll tell you why afterwards. See. Auto asphyxiation and public masturbation. Yeah. No. No.
B. No. This is the tank we know and love. Ugh. A? A. A. Stupid. So he became a serial killer enthusiast who got sucked in by the romanticized portrayal of these vicious murderers.
He delved into a thorough and comprehensive study of serial killers, their modus operandi, their personal histories, and he found himself connected to them, idolizing them, and wanting to be them. He was particularly enthralled with and intensely captivated by the enigma of Ted Bundy,
Bundy's skill in maintaining a double life not only intrigued Israel, but motivated him to fantasize about achieving the same life. Let me tell you why I chose B and C. Okay. I feel like it's important. Because you mentioned he was a peeping Tom, right? So I read this book called Out of the Shadows by Patrick Karn. Have you ever heard of it? Yes, I have.
Really? Finally. What do you mean finally? I typically don't know. I haven't heard of it. Maybe you've heard of it because of the work you do? That's what I'm thinking. Go into it a little bit. So basically, he wrote this book on like sexual addiction, but all the different layers of it from cyber sex. He wrote it in like the 90s. So like cyber sex was still like, oh, don't, you know, whatever. Yeah.
That was like online dating. Yeah. Yeah. Chat rooms, stuff like that. So he said there was like level one was like porn, chat rooms, sex workers, massage parlors, like the stuff that like people think is obviously not great, but like it's still level one. Level two was peeping Tom, public exposure. That was like,
So way less people do that, but it's a step in the wrong direction. And also lumped into the same category. Exactly. So looking and being seen. And then level three is like rape, child molestation, like the really fucking heinous crimes. So he laid out like there's a progression and Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer. I think I've said this on the podcast before. If I did, I'm sorry. If I haven't, I want to. And I can't remember if it was Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer, but he interviewed a
multiple serial killers in prison and traced all of their roots back to seeing porn at a young age. Interesting. This is a topic we have talked about before. Yeah. The destruction of pornography, particularly when young eyes land on it. Yeah. And how traumatizing that is. Yeah. I remember seeing my friend, I'm not going to say his name, but he pulled out this...
magazine when we were like fucking six years old. Was it as dad's even creepier? I don't know, but it was like black and white. Yeah. Fuck it. And I saw this naked woman and my stomach, I got like sick. It was so jarring to me. Yeah. And what I've heard, I don't know if this is true or not. This may be like Christian propaganda or like far right Christian propaganda, but
but basically when you see porn at a young age, your brain is rewired to an extent, meaning stronger connections get made in the back of the brain, the reptilian part, rather than the prefrontal cortex, and your brain development gets a little out of whack. That is so interesting. I don't know if it's true. I'm not a scientist. Right, right. I've heard it. It makes sense. Once again, Tank, I must applaud you for your knowledge in, I'm not going to call it
Oh, yeah. I'm not going to call it an obscure topic. No. Nope. Too far. Okay. But I fucking love talking to you. Yeah. That's it. I'm going to leave it at that. Cool. All right. So Israel immersed himself not only in the land of serial killers, but also in books on FBI profiling.
The psychology of serial killers, what they did and crucially what they did wrong. Yeah. Contemporaneously while growing a pretty solid foundational knowledge of serial killers. Contemporaneously. Profiling. Do you need me to spell it for you? I could probably spell it. I don't know what it means though. Do it. C-O-N-T-E-M-P-O-R-A-E-L.
wait, A-C-O-N-T-E-M-P-E-R-O-N contemporaneous. No. Stop, I got it. No, you saw my face already when I shook it when you made an error. No, I got twisted in my head. C-O-N-T-E-M-P-O-R-A-N-E-O-U-S-L-Y. Correct. Yeah, I'm a sick speller. You get a star, you fucking weirdo. Okay, don't make me start spelling shit.
Can you use it in a sentence? No, I don't know what it means. I will. If you fucking let me. I tried. Contemporaneously, or simultaneously, as you would perhaps prefer I say, while growing a pretty solid foundational knowledge on serial killers, profiling, and the do's and don'ts of committing crimes, Israel Keyes also began to display clear signs of narcissistic personality disorder,
He'd spend hours envisioning himself as a perfected version of the killers he idolized, seeing so clearly in his mind's eye his ability to never be caught and to flawlessly avoid the pitfalls that had led his predecessors to discovery. He knew that he would be able to commit perfect, meticulous, and completely untraceable crimes. And for a substantial period of time, this was precisely, unfortunately,
And regarding his fascination with nu metal music, okay, let's circle back to the pop quiz option for a moment. Do you have any band names? Of course I do. And Israel got down to them a lot. So I just want to tell our listeners because you are a musical guru, right? But I had to look up what nu metal was. So nu metal is a genre that emerged in the 90s and blended elements of heavy metal, hip hop, industrial grunge, and hardcore punk.
The lyrics in nu metal songs typically carry themes of anger and nihilism and delve into subjects like pain, angst, abandonment, betrayal, and personal alienation, much like the themes explored in grunge music, but it combines other elements. Yeah, it's angry or grunge. So what I'd like to do is slap you with another pop quiz. I'm going to nail this one. What were Israel's favorite nu metal bands? Okay. A, Deftones and Korn.
B, Godsmack and Evanescence. C, Slipknot and Cold Chamber.
Oh, Deftones and... Korn. Korn. Deftones and Korn. No. Fuck, I was just saying the name. Godsmack and Evanescence or Slipknot and Cold Chamber? Mm-hmm. Slipknot and Cold Chamber? Yeah. I was afraid to tell you that because... I recently discovered Slipknot and it's all I've been listening to. You rediscovered Slipknot. No, not rediscovered. I thought you used to listen to them. Never. Never.
Oh, so for our listeners, Tank is like into records now, vinyl. So a couple weeks back, he was so pumped to show me his new toy, which was a vinyl Slipknot record. I got Iowa and Slipknot. Yeah. Are you still listening? To Slipknot? Yeah. It's all I do. Oh.
So I'm going to make you feel maybe a little bit better. Slipknot rejects the label Nu Metal. Yes. No, they're not Nu Metal. Right. I thought you were going to say like Limp Bizkit or something. Oh, no, no. Limp Bizkit is like the consummate Nu Metal band. That's like when people say Nu Metal, that's what they think of. I think Linkin Park is also a popular Nu Metal. Yeah, because it combines rap and Nu Metal. Right, right. I happen to love...
every single band on the list that I included in the pop quiz. Yeah. Every single one. I don't, Hot Smack, no. Evanescence, they have their songs, but I've never made it a point to listen to them. I actually tried learning Evanescence on the piano. Wow. We're going to move on from that. Maybe we're going to edit that out. Maybe we'll see it on the Patreon. Maybe. So let's shine a quick summarizing light on what we're seeing so far by this point in terms of Israel Keys.
socially isolated, exposed to horrendous racist and anti-Semitic teachings and little to nothing else.
developed narcissistic personality traits while simultaneously idolizing serial killers, and developed a growing desire to rage against the machine with a not-so-healthy outlook of fuck establishment, fuck the world, fuck most of humanity. Nice work trying to bring rage against the machine into the new metal conversation, by the way. Oh, yeah, you like that? Yeah. It's part of the vibe. Yeah. To the best of our knowledge, Israel Keyes did not experience physical or sexual abuse or neglect during his upbringing, and
But damn, he had a rough start. I think it's really important what you said, that he was exposed to these ideas and nothing else. That's exactly it. Nothing to balance it out. He was homeschooled on top of that. So he quite literally was only able to digest and form opinions on what he was exposed to, which was what his parents who... He's like a North Korean citizen in a home. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, I do. Of course I do. Yeah.
I don't know. You say, I know a lot. You kind of know a lot, too. There was my first eye roll. Yeah, that was... And the listeners couldn't see it, but you did. Really powerful. No, I remember learning about North Korea and finding out that they literally think Kim Jong-un is like God. When Israel was about 18 years old, he is believed to have killed his first victim. Oh. And I say believed to have...
because he never copped up to this particular murder during FBI interrogation years later, and they were never able to officially link it to him. And this is a common theme which makes investigating this story a little tricky. Israel Keyes' timeline is not exactly linear. So when he was ultimately captured, which is no secret...
He would give bits and pieces of information as he felt like it. It was another way for him to control. So a lot of what we have in terms of his rap sheet, if you will, is based on like the little crumbs that he would throw investigators during interrogations. And it's also, of course, based on what law enforcement suspected he was involved in. So I just want to lay that out there. We haven't even gotten to his crimes yet. No, we're on our way, though.
So the FBI believes that he was responsible for this next crime I'm about to explain. He's the primary suspect, the one most likely responsible for it. And this is the death of a 13-year-old girl in 1996 named Julie Marie Harris, who was a double amputee champion skier that competed in the prosthetics division of the Special Olympics in
She went missing while she was waiting for a ride to a local church in Colville, Washington. One month later, her prosthetic feet were discovered in the Colville River. Her prosthetic feet. Right. And two weeks after that, her skeletal remains were discovered by a group of kids in a wooded area. Cause of death was never determined. And Keyes, who was 18 years old at that time and living in the area, neither confirmed nor denied being the culprit when he was questioned about it years and years later.
Israel Keyes, like many other serial killers, including Jeffrey Dahmer, Ed Kemper, and Henry Lee Lucas, began his reign of terror, as we mentioned, first by harming animals. And then he proceeded to choose his first human victim, who was a child, following a pattern similar to other serial killers like Richard Ramirez, who's the Night Stalker, and Ted Bundy, who predominantly targeted young women and girls. Why is this?
Why do these serial killers begin by targeting defenseless children? Well, it's largely understood or believed that a significant number of serial killers experience some form of emotional abandonment from their parents, whether real or perceived, during childhood. Instead of directing their aggression towards the ones who rejected them, they'll often victimize someone weaker, frequently beginning with animals and then progressing towards someone that they identify as being weak,
a child, a sex worker, somebody elderly, for example. Yeah. Also, they know that they're going to be more likely to be successful in their endeavor of harming the victim if the victim is weaker. Yeah, well, they want to kill. And they want it to be successful. Yeah. They don't want to challenge these cowards. But to that point, a lot of serial killers will deny their first killings of children because it doesn't give them any street cred to say that
that they killed a child. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's likely what happened here with Israel. That's like when I got my first motorcycle, I got a motorcycle that was too small for me. Like,
Like, so you could manhandle it? No, just so, like, because I didn't know how to handle it. And then, like, two days into riding, and I was like, I need a bigger motorcycle. So what did you do, trade it? No, I still have it. Is that the one I see you on? Yeah. It doesn't look too small. But it's not strong. I'm just saying, like, I'm trying to, I don't know why I'm trying to relate to this fucking psycho, but. You won't have to try very hard. You're going to hear some things. The train of thought is obviously, like, you do something to get your feet wet, but then once you graduate, you're embarrassed by your previous, you know,
You know, I don't want to say accomplishments, but deaths, murders, whatever. That's like when I look at the makeup I used to wear. Yeah. And at the time I felt obviously pretty fly. Yeah. And I look at it and I'm like, what is that lip liner? Well, the fact that you said fly just is very indicative. Fuck off. I look pretty fly. Not going to lie. Yeah.
I am not cool, like intrinsically. Obviously. Or maybe I am because I don't give a fuck. Yeah. You know? Maybe. Maybe you're the coolest. Maybe. Ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely, and invest with your guardrails in place. Parents can send instant money transfers, automate allowance, and more.
Okay, you can do this. I know, I know. Carvana makes it so convenient to sell your car. It's just hard to let go.
My car and I have been through so much together. But look, you already have a great offer from Carvana. That was fast. Well, I know my license plate and Vin by heart, and those questions were easy. You're almost there. Now to just accept the offer and schedule a pickup or drop-off. How'd you do it? How are you so strong in letting go of your car? Well, I already made up my mind, and Carvana's so easy. Yeah, true.
And sold. Go to Carvana.com to sell your car the convenient way. In the summer of either 1997 or 1998, when Keyes was approximately 19 or 20 years old, he committed an unreported sexual assault against an unidentified young woman near the Deschutes River in Oregon. The
Fucking terrible. Yeah.
He subjected her to a very violent sexual assault at knife point in a nearby abandoned outhouse and was actually planning to kill her as part of a satanic ritual. However, during the attack, this clever, clever girl had been intentionally very vocal and used flattery as a way of keeping keys from escalating into deeper violence.
It was an incredibly smart tactic to employ, especially for someone so young. She said things like, you're so handsome, I'd have probably dated you anyway. Like, really appealing to his narcissistic side. Yeah. And whether her words distracted him, agitated him, appealed to his narcissistic nature, or just threw him off his game, the strategy was effective because Keyes found himself unable to kill her. Now, I bring this up for the following reason. This
This incident was pivotal in forming the golden rule that Keyes would follow for the rest of his murderous career.
So basically, when he reflects back on that incident, he has called himself, quote, timid and not violent enough in that moment to go through with what he planned. And he said it was a combination of a few things. But what he recalls most is being afraid that he was going to be caught. She had friends nearby. It wasn't terribly isolated. Thereafter, whenever Israel Keyes spoke of that incident, he spoke about it in
the sense of shame and regret and disappointment. And this is when he developed his unwritten rule, which he would follow to a T in his future murderous endeavors. And this was the rule. He would never, ever kill close to home and he would never kill in the same area twice. The rest of his career in terms of being a serial killer, he stuck to that except for one, which we will come back to.
But before implementing his new rule, what did Israel Keyes do on July 9th, 1998? Pop quiz. A, enlist in the U.S. Army. B, begin a paramilitary wing of the anti-government movement. C, detonate explosives at the Oregon State Capitol. C. No. That's what I was saying. It wasn't.
That's like your new tactic here. Yeah. He started a paramilitary group. Nope. Joined the army. Yeah. Idiot. In spite of being anti-government and unapologetically anti-American, and despite not having a birth certificate or a social security number, he enlisted. Yeah. Yeah.
He was a specialist in the Alpha Company. Now, some sources indicate that he did this as a fuck you to his parents. Other sources say that he joined the army so he could become a trained killer. Both of those make sense. Totally. Whatever his motive was to join, Keyes did manage to pass a rigorous month-long preliminary course for U.S. Army Rangers training and went to serve at Fort Lewis in Washington and Fort Hood in Texas. He became an Army Ranger? Yeah, as well as abroad in Sinai, Egypt.
Fancy. Yeah. While serving, Israel was tasked with identifying and neutralizing landmines, a role that demanded exceptional composure in high-stress situations. And this experience not only honed his ability to stay calm, but also refined his skills in being thorough, detail-oriented, and exceptionally meticulous. These qualities, which he cultivated during his military service, would later be applied to his less honorable activities.
Following a DUI that he got, he was discharged from the army on July 8th, 2001. But prior to his discharge, Israel joined a local singles chat line while he was stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington. And this was a dating service through the phone.
He connected with a woman named Tammy Hawkins, who was nine years his senior. Tammy was of Native American descent, specifically from the Makah tribe, and came from a somewhat broken family with a father who was largely absent and a mother who struggled with alcoholism. Israel and Tammy initiated a relationship, drank a lot of alcohol, had a lot of sex, and unintentionally conceived a child. When Tammy informed Israel of her pregnancy during one of his deployments, Israel encouraged her to terminate the pregnancy.
Tammy refused to do so, but assured Israel that he didn't have to have anything to do with her or the baby, who was born in or around 2001. I know somebody who was at Fort Hood around that time in the army. Really? Yeah, I wonder if... Find out. I am, gonna. Cool. Terrible. Yeah, awful.
After his release from the army, though, Israel had some time to more closely consider the situation. And driven by this newfound determination to start a family, he made it his mission to locate Tammy, to reach out, and to express his desire to be part of her life and to be a father to their daughter, Sarah. So they decided to forge a life on the Makkah reservation, and Israel secured a pretty solid job with the Parks and Recreations Department with the tribal authority.
He was actually said to be an excellent father to Sarah.
and remained attentive, responsible, and very involved in her day-to-day care. This certainly might suggest that he was emulating his idol, Ted Bundy, and living that double life, or Jerry Brudos, like we've talked about before. People actually use this, the fact that he was a good father, as a case for why he did not have psychopathy, because of his ability to empathize and love and all that.
and I'm not a psychologist, right? But I did a little research into this. My understanding is
again, as a non-mental health professional, is that psychopaths see their own children as extensions of themselves. And that does not negate psychopathy or antisocial personality disorder. And same is true of narcissists. So I don't think that his relationship with his daughter confirms or doesn't confirm him being a psychopath. We will explore this more though in part two. Because it's an extension of him. Right. But while he was a doting and loving father to his baby at home,
He became a calculated, homicidal beast on the loose out in the world. Police suspected that Keyes committed a murder in Neah Bay, Washington sometime between July and October 2001.
Keyes later claimed to have disposed of a victim's body during that time frame, either by burial or submersion in a lake, but this was never officially confirmed or denied. Although a body was indeed discovered floating in the lake during that period, it had been initially deemed an accidental death and could not be linked to Keyes. And there were other murders between 2001 and 2006 that he did stake claim to. He said that he murdered...
two people with Tanto folding blade that he purchased at a Walmart and
He alleged that he murdered a couple in Washington state by beating the man to death and strangling the woman. But these victims were never identified or discovered, so they could never sort of formally be linked to him. Yeah, sure. Meanwhile, I cannot stress this enough, that amidst all of these suspected murders, Israel Keyes continued to maintain the facade of a responsible partner to Tammy and a devoted father to Sarah.
This duality in his life persisted with vigor. According to his own admission during FBI interrogations, Keyes grappled with a split personality. He told FBI investigators the following, "...there is no one who knows me or who has ever known me that knows anything about me, really. Others will tell you something that doesn't line up with anything I tell you because I'm two different people, basically."
The only person who knows what I'm telling you, the kind of things I'm telling you, is me. Psycho. Formal diagnosis. Eventually, after allegedly committing the aforementioned five murders that I just quickly touched upon, Tammy and Israel broke up, partly because Tammy became addicted to pain medication and partly, likely, largely because Israel was a closet psychopathic serial killer. I mean, who knows why they broke up, but...
You know, it's so hard to tell. Yeah. It's so hard to know who to blame. You put a drug addict and a serial killer together, you're going to have fireworks. No bueno. Not the good kind. So Israel, who's now 29 at this point in the case, took Sarah and moved to Anchorage, Alaska. Oh, he took the daughter? Yep. Because... She was on drugs. She was addicted, right? But he's a serial killer. Right. Imagine being in court like, no, you don't understand. Yeah.
I do drugs, but this guy, he's fucking, he's really bad. It's a real pick your poison situation, sadly. Oh, drug addicts. I mean, 100%. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. So it's 2007, okay? And they're in Anchorage. And Israel began a pretty successful construction business called Keys Construction, which
while also beginning a new relationship with a woman he'd met online called Kimberly Anderson. And for a little while, Keyes laid low and kept his black heart on a short leash.
But that all too familiar itch to kill started to intensify with each passing day and that irresistible urge to scratch it consumed him. Take some Benadryl, bro. I don't know, Tank, because that phrasing I have taken from you. I know. When you talk about addiction and so it just, it made me think of. Well, it's from Lovely Bones. Oh, it's not yours. Okay. Well,
Well, so just a 30 second thing. The only way that I've ever been able to describe addiction to somebody is if they have had poison ivy. Because poison ivy, oh my God. I've never had it. When you scratch it-
It is the best feeling you could possibly ever imagine. Better than a mosquito bite? A mosquito bite. What that shit is fucking satisfying to scratch. No, when you have poison ivy, let's say you get it on your arm, right? Here's the problem. You know you're not supposed to scratch it. Obviously, you're going to spread it. But it itches so bad that...
It itches so bad that when you finally scratch it, it's like you've never felt anything that good before in your entire life. So you scratch the shit out of it. Before you know it, your arm is bloody. Not only is it bloody, it's all over your arm now. And you put it on your face and your fucking anywhere else you touch. So now it's all over. Now you have full body poison ivy and it's just like,
Oh, it feels so good, but it's so bad. Yeah. Itching poison ivy is, I mean, there's nothing like it. I might go outside. I kind of want to rub up against a poison ivy leaf real quick. No, it's bad. I have a friend who has it right now and it's like ruining his life. Actually, I have a coworker who has it right now. It was like creeping up his neck. You could see it under his collar. I felt so bad for him. Sucks. So Israel has this itch to kill and a serious desire to scratch. Yeah. Yeah.
He felt that as long as he abided by his rules of never killing locally and never killing in the same location twice, that he could proceed with horrific acts without ever being caught. What could go wrong? And that was his only concern of getting caught. Because why? Because he wanted to one-up the serial killers that he idolized. Obviously, he didn't want to go to prison either. But really, he was such a narcissist that he needed to pull these murders off seamlessly to...
show that he could. I'm so glad I'm not a serial killer. Yeah, me too. That makes two of us. So...
Israel Keyes set out on a quest to locate random, and that was important, victims in the 48 states geographically beneath Alaska. He knew by reading all of the FBI profiling books years earlier that serial killers often got caught by targeting the same type of victim over and over again. So by selecting victims at random, he knew that he'd avoid detection. Random to him. Yeah.
Right. Yeah. Well, random meaning black, white, tall, short, male, female, young, old, really... So deliberately different. Correct. Yeah. Pop quiz. Okay. Besides selecting places to commit future murders during his travels around the country in the 48 below, the 48 states below Alaska, what other activities did Keyes engage in along his journey?
A, spray painting hate phrases all over prominent buildings. B, stealing pets from people's homes before killing them and staging them for the families to find. C, planting kill kits around the country containing items to be used in future crimes. Or D, taking selfies with a Canon camera that he'd get developed in a dark room.
He's a narcissist. Oh, um, B would be the worst. It would be the worst and it's not what he did. So you came up with that. Cause I figured you, I thought you would pick it.
Because I'd be very unlikely to bring animals into this fake scenario. But you did. You broke one of your golden rules. Yeah, and you fell for it. So D. Nope. Fuck. I don't know. What's the answer? I'm already shit out of luck here. He would plant kill kits around the country that contained items to use in future crimes. And this is something that Israel Keyes has become known for. Oh. He'd travel all around the country, bury
burying five-gallon plastic buckets filled with weapons, ammunition, rope, wire, zip ties, flashlights, money, and tools for dismembering, decomposing, and disposing of bodies during future crimes. Who's got the time? Right? Who's got the time? Who's got the money? Well, I can tell you where he got the money. Where? He robbed...
Oh, that's right. Jesus. What day is it? How long have you been in here for? You okay? He would hide these kill kits years in advance. Oh my God. What a fucking psycho. He admitted to the FBI that he had murder kits planted in New York, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming with the final tally being around a dozen. Wow.
He also conducted a significant amount of research to identify prime human hunting grounds. He'd begin by seeking out and studying small remote towns with minimal crime rates and would thoroughly study them. He paid close attention to details such as the numbers of roads leading in and out of the town, traffic patterns, available hotels, and other relevant factors before making his final decision on where to proceed. This is all pre-internet?
Pretty much? Yeah, I mean, it wasn't, yeah. This guy was using photos. He wasn't Googling.
Internet came out. Internet was out. This was in the early 2000s. Oh, okay. Yeah. He would fly to certain locations, then rent a car and continue driving the rest of the way before picking a victim. That's how strategic and meticulous and careful he was. He didn't want to get caught. At selecting his victims. While traveling, he'd remove the battery from his cell phone to avoid being traced and would pay for everything he needed in cash.
He would often appear at the scene of natural disasters, masquerading as a helper engaged in reconstruction and recovery efforts. However, his true intent, of course, was to exploit the confusion and vulnerability that typically follows such disasters, and he'd prey on those who were lost, disoriented, or displaced. He was organized, if nothing else, meticulous, well thought out, crafty, and lethal.
On April 8th, 2009, Keyes was suspected of abducting another innocent victim, this time a 48-year-old sex worker named Deborah Feldman from Hackensack, New Jersey. Investigators suspect that Keyes abducted Deborah, killed her, and then crossed state lines to bury her near Tupper Lake, New York. Federal.
Nicely done. On May 28th, 2011, Israel Keyes is suspected to have abducted and killed 20-year-old Madison Geraldine Scott at a remote campsite in Canada, which was a 33-hour drive from where Keyes was living. Wow. When FBI investigators asked Keyes about whether or not he killed Madison Scott or anyone in Canada, what did he say in response? Pop quiz. A.
The only thing I ever killed in Canada was a Tim Hortons coffee. Nice. B, Canadians don't count. C, nah, Canadians are too nice to kill. This psycho said, I mean, B would be like a movie line.
Canadians don't count? Yeah. Is that your choice? Yes. You are correct, sir. Really? Yeah, nicely done. Yeah. That's fucking scary. Yeah. Well, he doesn't see people as people on a... anyway. Canadians don't... And then Canadians don't count. Why Canadians don't count in his book...
A 33-hour drive to go kill somebody is a lot. Well, what his typical MO was, was to book plane tickets, fly somewhere else completely out of the area, rent a car, and then drive. Oh, okay. And that was his, like, typical routine. Also, getting abducted from a remote campsite is absolutely horrifying. It's what every horror movie is based on. This fucking piece of shit made a real-life horror movie. Yeah. I hate it. I hate it so much. Yeah.
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that have undeniably been connected to Israel Keyes. Because remember, we're getting a lot of this information about his past transgressions based on interviews that he provided to the FBI. Some of the crimes he alleged that he committed and there's no proof. Other crimes the FBI strongly suspect that he was responsible for, but he wouldn't confess to. Gotcha. But these two murders that I'm about to explain have undeniably been connected to him. He's both confessed...
and the FBI have, I guess, indicated accuracy. And there's geographical evidence, him renting a car in that area, DNA or something. Yeah, never DNA.
He never, ever left DNA behind. But what he ultimately did was during FBI interrogation was indicated that two of the weapons that were involved in this homicide, not necessarily ones that he used, but ones that were present, which I'll go on to explain in a minute. He let FBI know where those weapons could be found and the FBI located them. So only the killer would know that. That's incriminating. Did we talk about Blackbird yet?
The show on Apple? You know what? Not on this episode, but we have. Have you watched it yet? No. Our boy is in it. Which one? We have so many. Taron Egerton. Our boy. And he is in it. I mean, shirtless, ripped. Damn. Yeah, he's in it hardcore. Shirtless and ripped. I mean, there's a scene where he spills milkshake on himself because he gets raided by the police.
And I'm like, I would. Was it a vanilla milkshake? It was. That's very sexual. Yeah. I was like, I still want the milkshake. Even more. Yeah. Just kidding. Not gay, but for him, I would be. And Ryan Gosling. All right. Quick pop quiz. Yeah. Who would you choose? Who was your favorite child? Not choosing.
When he later admitted to committing these murders, the double murder that I was just speaking about to the FBI, Israel displayed visible signs of excitement as he enthusiastically described what he'd done. He's displayed an eager demeanor, repeatedly bouncing his knees up and down while his shackles would clink.
and fervently rubbing the armrests of his chairs with evident pleasure as he recounted in gruesome detail his appalling actions. Yeah, that leg shaking thing sounds like something I would do. Well, I'm doing it always. I'm always in meetings shaking my legs, bouncing the conference table. This distinctive physical response that he had, though, became a recognizable behavioral indicator during interviews, essentially becoming his tell. Wow. Yes.
and it proved invaluable to investigators as a reliable gauge of his truthfulness. Wow, interesting. Here's what Israel Keyes happily divulged to investigators regarding the double homicide. In June of 2011, Keyes flew from Anchorage to Chicago, rented a car, and then drove 1,000 miles to Burlington, Vermont. He spent a few days vacationing in the area, during which he even acquired a fishing license, all the while carefully studying the terrain.
Then, on the rainy night of June 8, 2011, Keyes retrieved a kill kit that he had planted two years earlier, which contained a headlamp, duct tape, cable ties, and a blindfold.
He also wore a backpack holding a pan, water bottles, 50 feet of coiled nylon rope, duct tape, latex gloves, and a small propane stove. Jeez. I mean, just go be good at something else. I know, because he happens to be very detail-oriented, very meticulous, very patient. The amount of planning. I mean, if this guy put half that energy into something good...
we'd be looking at a superstar. Yeah. Entrepreneur type or athlete or something, anything. Yeah. I mean, the amount of mental energy this guy expends on killing. I don't know if I've ever worked that hard over anything. You worked that hard on the podcast. What am I saying? Yeah.
I never have. I know for a fact. I have not. Working out? I do the bare minimum. I'm just jacked. I'm just a big Irish. You just wake up and look that way? I'm just fucking jacked. Yeah. Out of my mind. Are you German also? A little bit, yeah. My last name is German, but I'm mainly Irish. But I'm like, you know, I'm not a bare minimum type of guy. I can put in work. Yeah. Never to this, to that extent where it's like years and years of just, I
I go in sprints. So anyway, I might be able to kill somebody once, but I wouldn't be able to like go somewhere, gather a kit, carry it, go back home, wait two years, go out, scout the terrain. It's a commitment, man. I mean, just go be good at something else. Yeah, I'm with you. So after identifying a random isolated home that was devoid of dogs or children, because two reasons for that. One, he did have one rule, which was he would never kill children. Oh.
Okay. And he never wanted to go after somebody that had a dog because he didn't want to deal with the fallout that may happen. Like what? Like the dog attacking him or barking and alerting.
So he finds this house without children or a dog, and he broke in the garage window by removing the AC unit on the night of June 8th. He severed the phone lines to eliminate the possibility of calls being made out for assistance and to disable any active security alarms. How the fuck do you do that? I don't know. How do you even know how to do that? Listen, he has a middle to above average IQ. Yeah.
Yeah. And you have to keep in mind, right? He studies. He studies location. He studies everything. He's a well thought out, calculated killer. Yeah. Glad they found him. Does his homework.
After waiting for a couple of hours, he was ready to strike. Armed with the gun from his kill kit and utilizing a crowbar from the garage, Keyes broke a window connecting the garage to the house, gaining entry. Inside the home slept a married couple, 49-year-old Bill Currier and his wife, 55-year-old Lorraine Currier. Keyes made his way into the couple's bedroom within five to six seconds, executing what he described as a blitz attack.
He proceeded to tie them up and force them into the garage and into their own vehicle, which was a Saturn sedan.
Keyes never used his own car for abductions, which was smart. He then embarked upon a four-hour journey with the terrified couple tied up, Lorraine in the front seat and Bill in the back, before ultimately arriving at an abandoned farmhouse that he'd previously chosen to be the location for what comes next. Prior to arriving at the farmhouse, he made a brief stop at his hotel, which was called the Handy Suites.
to retrieve a shovel, trash bags, and two gallons of Drano. I wish we were doing video because then everyone could have seen what a kick you got out of that hotel name. You mean the Handy Sweets? Where are you staying? The Handy Sweets. That's pretty good. Room 304. It's pretty fucking handy. So he puts all of these materials into his trunk, okay? And Lorraine and Bill are still in the car.
When I was doing the research for this, I thought to myself, I just pray that Bill and Lorraine did not see what Israel was carrying out of the hotel. Can you imagine the terror of being tied up in this maniac's car and you see him coming back with a shovel, trash bags, and Trano? Oh, absolute sheer terror.
But knowing Israel Keyes, as we kind of do by this point, he probably made sure that they did see it because he derived immense satisfaction from the couple's primal reactions to fear.
the rush of adrenaline surging through their veins, the dilation of their pupils in terror, the gradual drain of color from their faces with every minute that passed. Yeah. He relished in being the catalyst behind these responses and prolonged their distress for as long as he could lap it up. Ugh. Sick. Yeah. Now, once at the farmhouse...
Good for her. Yeah.
Not good for her. While Keyes was securing Lorraine to the mattress, he could hear Bill fumbling around in the dark basement, clearly having gotten himself loose while shouting, where's my wife? Where's my wife? Keyes was enraged that Bill somehow freed himself and had the audacity to think that he could foil Israel's plan. So he went back into the basement, picked up his shovel, smashed Bill over the head with it twice, and
and then unloaded a 10-round magazine of a .22 caliber gun into Bill's arms, head, neck, and chest. At least it's over for him. Well, incredibly, Bill remained standing for a few seconds.
which further infuriated Israel, who viewed this as another act of defiance. Good, fuck him. Get mad, dude. Yeah, well, Bill put up a hell of a fight. So did his wife. So did his wife. And Israel thought, and he confessed to this during his interrogation, that when he targeted Bill...
Bill and Lorraine, he felt, oh, I've got this like somewhat older couple. Like this is going to be cake. No adrenaline. Both of that. They're not 85, 49 and 55. Right. I'll fuck somebody up that tries to kill me or my wife. Yeah, man.
Eventually, of course, sadly, Bill fell to the ground and he died. Okay. Now, Israel's plan had not been to kill Bill with a gun. Really? His intention was to sexually assault Bill before killing him in a more gruesome, drawn-out, intimate manner, such as strangulation. Ugh. But having been confronted by Bill's pushback and refusal to go down without a fight, Israel took the easy way out, if you will, because at the end of the day, this fucker is a weak little weasel. I think so.
I thought you were going to call him a bitch, which I was all about, all on board for. I mean, this weak little bitch. Yeah. There you go. Thank you. After shooting Bill, Israel went outside to smoke a cigar. Then he went back inside the farmhouse to address Lorraine. A cigar? He took like an hour break? I mean, maybe he took a few puffs or maybe he took an hour break. He probably took an hour break because he was probably getting off on thinking about two things. One, the dead body that he just made happen. Yeah. And the terrified woman on the second floor. Ugh.
So he cut Lorraine's clothing off her body with a knife when he returned to the house, gagged her with paper towels and duct tape, and raped her twice. During the second assault, Keyes choked Lorraine until she lost consciousness, a way for him to reassert his dominance after Bill had emasculated him by getting free and refusing to die. Then, after Lorraine came to...
Israel dragged her down into the basement to see her dead husband. Once there, Israel put on a pair of leather gloves, stationed himself behind Lorraine, and strangled her to death with a rope. So the last thing she saw was her dead husband. Yeah.
Cool, Israel. The psychological torment is incomprehensible. This is very bad. I'll be honest with you. It started off a little slow. Okay, here we go. I was waiting. It started off a little slow. For you to knock me down a peg. But now, that right there, that line, but that's what you wait for in a movie. You wait for the fucking, the climax of the movie.
Keys then placed the bodies of Lorraine and Bill Currier inside 52-gallon trash bags, moved them to the southeast corner of the basement, doused their hands and faces with Drano to expedite the decomposition process.
and then covered the trash bags with wood and garbage. Wait, does Drano kickstart decomposition from the hands and the feet? Anywhere you put it, it's a chemical. Yeah. So it dissolves. So he wants them to be less traceable should they be discovered. Oh, unidentifiable. Right. I thought the hands and the feet were just where decomposition started.
Now it's where the fingerprints and dental recognition comes into play. Okay. The entire awful incident had taken Israel Keyes six hours start to finish. Once he buried their bodies in trash bags and debris, Israel then got back into the courier Saturn and drove to a Rite Aid where he'd left his rental car earlier.
He then left the state and drove to Maine before eventually taking a flight back home to Anchorage. And just like that, he was gone without a trace. So Anchorage to Chicago, Chicago to Vermont, Vermont to Maine, Maine to Anchorage. Yeah. All that fucking work for six hours of what he considers to be pleasure. Yeah. But that strategy was unfortunately very effective. Yeah, true. The Currier's disappearance remained a mystery until Keyes ultimately confessed years later.
Oh. So that's that. It's awful. Yeah. I just want to take a minute to talk about the victims.
Bill worked as an animal hospital technician at the University of Vermont. I love that. I do. And Lorraine worked at Fletcher Allen Healthcare. Both Bill and Lorraine have been described as kind, decent, peaceful people who had family that loved them and that had made public appearances in an effort to find them after they went missing.
Bill's sister, Diana, went in front of cameras and said, They didn't know. Crushing. Yeah. Upon Keyes' return to Anchorage after the murders, Israel seamlessly resumed his ordinary activities.
However, eight months later, he would perpetrate an exceptionally abhorrent and depraved crime, as hinted at in the introduction when I mentioned an 18-year-old girl named Samantha whose family was sent a photograph of her in which her eyelids had been sewn open with a fishing line. Yeah, I remember that. As horrific as this crime was, it would fortunately lead Israel Keys to murder.
and be discovered. Good. And that's where I'm going to leave off part one. Ooh, cliffhanger. Yeah. Yeah, this is where actually in the case it really picks up. Yeah. And you really see him unravel and you see him make some mistakes and you see this cold calculated meticulous killer reveal that he is in fact human. So we're going to get to the crime that brought him to authorities in part two. Correct. All right. Well, I'm sorry, folks, that she's doing this to us.
But I'm in just as much pain as you are right now. So at least you have that to think of. And listen, if you found part one to be, I don't know, how would you describe it? How did you just describe it? Amazing, fantastic, the best. Amazing and fantastic. Excellent. I love to hear that. But it was a little bit of a slow burn because you have to understand the background.
the background that went into the person that the FBI has labeled the most terrifying person they had ever encountered. Yeah, I'm not, I don't, I don't think people, myself included, want to just hear, I don't want to read a newspaper article that's 80 words that just list the, it's not a sports page where we're reading statistics. Like, I'm way more interested in
in what makes these people the way they are. Yeah. Then what they did, what they did. I'm in the same boat as you, but I do want to let you know that part two is a little gruesome and definitely, yeah. And we do get into way more of a psychological breakdown. We go into obviously what happened to Israel keys. Yeah. It's fascinating and horrible all at once. All right, good. Well, that's what we're here for. That's why we have a true crime podcast.
fascinating and horrible. So thanks for listening. I would rarely say this, but subscribe on Apple and Spotify so that you get the notification and turn your notifications on so you don't miss the episode. Cause we may drop this on,
I don't know, as a bonus, part two. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because I don't know if I can handle my heart feeling the feels that it's going to feel making people wait a week. I don't like doing that. I love our listeners so much. I just want to give them everything we have all at once. So we'll see. We'll see when we put this out. But there you go. There's part one of Israel Keys. And we'll see you guys next episode. Thanks, everyone. Bye.
