Episode 194 - Secret Bunker - The Keller Family Murders
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The opinions expressed in the following episode do not necessarily reflect those of the Minds of Madness podcast. Listener discretion is advised. Everett Paul was trying to find the perfect spot to propose to his girlfriend. It had to be just right. A place they'd both remember forever.

So in the spring of 2012, he went out looking for it, hiking the Cascade Mountains east of Seattle, Washington. He chose the Rattlesnake Ledge Trail in the town of North Bend, setting off in high hopes of finding the ideal setting.

He'd never been on this trail before, but hoped he'd find what he was looking for. As Everett wandered through the woods, he saw a man sunbathing in a peaceful spot, and he seemed perfectly in sync with the surroundings. It turned out to be a local who knew the area surprisingly well.

When Everett asked if the man knew any good places for a marriage proposal, he immediately began pointing out all the hidden gems in the area. The next day, Everett and his girlfriend hiked up to one of those spots, and just as he planned, he pulled out the ring and popped the question.

A few days later, while Everett was reading the news, he came across a story about a massive local manhunt for a fugitive who'd done the unthinkable. When he saw the man's photo, a chill went down his spine. It was the helpful stranger in the woods, and here he was now, the most wanted man in the state of Washington.

Join me now as we examine the horrific case of the Keller family massacre, a family annihilation with no easy answers. You'll hear the strange story of a doomsday prepper and a family man who spent eight years digging an elaborate underground bunker into the side of a mountain. A bunker with only one purpose, his own survival.

Over the past few years, there's been a growing trend on YouTube called geolocating. Using clues from a single photograph, geodetectives deduce the exact location almost any photo was taken, from anywhere in the world.

With a keen eye for detail and analytic abilities, they'd be able to figure out a location by simply using Google, common sense, a whole lot of time, and even more persistence. In theory, the process is fairly straightforward.

use context clues to narrow down the search, even if it's just identifying the correct hemisphere the photo was taken. And right off the bat, they've eliminated half the globe. From there, geodetectives latch onto any potentially useful clues, like street signs, what language is on the sign, are the trees or plants indicative to a specific region?

Are there any buildings, bridges, roads, rivers, reflections, or even shadows? They're all clues, making the potential search area increasingly narrower, until they pinpointed the precise location.

On YouTube, it's all fun and games, with channel subscribers submitting their own obscure photos to test the host's capabilities. But this same skill has also been employed by police detectives in real-life situations. In April 2012, it was used by detectives to find a place in North Bend, Washington,

A place never meant to be found, an underground doomsday bunker dug into the side of a mountain, completely camouflaged, hidden beneath a dense canopy of pine, fir, and spruce trees. In the Cascade Mountains,

The bunker in the woods was the brainchild of 41-year-old Peter Keller, a project he started eight years earlier in 2004 when he was 32 years old. By that point, Peter had already been married to his wife Lynette for over a decade, tying the knot shortly after high school. A couple of years later, in 1993, they welcomed their daughter Kayleen into the world.

Not long after she was born, Peter and Lynette moved their growing family from Portland, Oregon to North Bend, Washington, a beautiful small mountain town 30 minutes east of downtown Seattle. With a population of just 7,500, North Bend is perhaps best known for being the captivating backdrop for the 1990s hit TV show, Twin Peaks.

Two of its most famous landmarks, Mount Sai and the majestic Snoqualmie Falls, are both featured in the show's opening credits sequence. Surrounded on all sides by a stunning mountain wilderness, North Bend is the access point to a vast network of hiking and biking trails that attract outdoor recreationalists from all over the region.

And it was the perfect place for someone like Peter, who loved nothing more than hitting the trails and exploring the great outdoors. By day, Peter was employed at a high-tech computer refurbishing store in the neighboring town of Preston, where he was known to be an incredibly reliable employee and always on time.

After finishing work, Peter usually set off to the mountains, spending hours hiking and biking before finally heading home. On weekends, he'd often spend both days off in the wilderness somewhere, but never told anyone exactly where he was going, not even his wife or daughter.

No one knows for sure when the idea first came to Peter to build his secret fort in the woods, which he referred to as Camp Keller, or even how he chose the location. Perhaps he stumbled across the perfect spot during the countless hours he'd spent exploring the area.

Located approximately 1,300 feet up the side of Rattlesnake Mountain, Camp Keller was a grueling 30-minute hike away from the nearest trail. And the only way another person might discover it was if they'd gotten lost or decided to do some extremely random bushwhacking. Even if you knew exactly where to look, it was still painfully difficult to access.

Regardless, Peter Keller had started video documenting this progress, taking photos of the construction process, and storing it all in a hard drive. One of my projects today is to take all this wood that I've cut up recently and stack it up, pull it down, pull it more out of the way, hidden, so if somebody stumbles out here, it's not as noticeable.

I just haven't been able to do it because it's been so wet and nasty. But today is a good day. Nice and sunny. Little by little, piece by piece, Peter began constructing Camp Keller with his bare hands. Using every available opportunity to take trips out into the woods, Peter poured his blood, sweat, and tears into the project. And what started out as a hobby soon evolved into a complete obsession.

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Inside the hole, Peter constructed a two and a half story log cabin using trees he cut down from the surrounding mountainside. This winter has been, you know, just to show just how brutal it was. We had a big ice storm. This is one of the trees that's fallen down over the trail. Kind of another one over there. Just a lot of damage. Branches down everywhere. Makes it a little more difficult to get through, but...

I don't want to move it. I'd like to keep it as hard to get through here so nobody will come out here.

The process of cutting down trees, stripping the bark, and hewing the boards by hand was incredibly difficult and time-consuming. And because he had no one to help him, Peter rigged up a series of pulleys and ropes into the surrounding trees to help him move his finished logs into place. It was an impressive feat of DYI craftsmanship, but building the timber shell inside the bunker was just one phase of the construction.

The bunker's base was solid concrete, a testament to Peter's unwavering dedication, tirelessly making numerous strenuous trips up the mountainside, lugging 50-pound bags of concrete. Strategically positioning the site close to a nearby stream, Peter used a water pump and PVC piping to cleverly connect his bunker to a fresh water supply.

For heat, he fashioned a wood-burning stove out of a metal trash can and installed it on the lowest floor. A 20-foot tall stovepipe then carried the smoke up and out of the bunker. Eventually, Peter was able to install a generator and wired the inside of the bunker with electricity and lights, which was necessary because the bunker was completely underground.

To get inside, Peter installed several camouflaged hatches with ladders leading down. Even if somebody accidentally came across the location, they'd be hard-pressed to even notice it was there.

After eight long years, Peter's Ford in the woods had morphed into an elaborate bunker. An underground, multi-storied, 250-square-foot log cabin about the size of a small New York City studio apartment.

Both his wife Lynette and daughter Kayleen were aware Peter was spending the bulk of his free time building some sort of fort out in the woods. But it's not believed they knew where it was or if they'd actually ever seen it. But hey, every parent has their hobbies, right?

Lynette was no different, with her passion taking the form of scrapbooking and crafting. So much so, she spent a significant amount of her time and attention to connecting with fellow enthusiasts through her YouTube channel. Hi everyone, this is my YouTube video of my scrapbooking room. And I got a lot of crafts. I got my sewing table and my dress room over there and...

And my jewelry stand my husband made me. So when I sell my jewelry, it's just so nice. I love it. My husband got me this table, this table, that table over there, and then this big shelf. I mean, I just love this stuff. He got me all that furniture, and then he put my shelves up for me. Such a great husband.

In the fall of 2011, Lynette was 41 years old when she began uploading her scrapbooking videos to YouTube. And within only a few weeks, she began gaining subscribers and connecting with an extremely supportive online community. Along with her crafting tutorials, Lynette swapped scrapbooking supplies with her followers and did numerous giveaways.

I got into crafts, well scrapbooking about 10-11 years ago. Crafts overall I've been doing ever since I was little. I think a lot of us have. I used to sell jewelry when my daughter was about 3 years old. I remember doing the crafts and you know all those market things. A lot of work. Can't really do that right now because of my back injury that I got about 4 and a half years ago and I end up getting nerve damage from it so

Lynette never really gets into the circumstances of how she hurt her back or where she was working when it happened. But what we do know is that she was getting a monthly state disability check. If you ever see a post of mine that I'm just looking horrible and

You know, not doing too good, it's because I'm probably having a really bad pain day. But these crafts really help push through the pain. It's therapy. I mean, I still have the pain, but this is like focused on something else, you know. Because of her openness and tight-knit nature of her crafting community, Lynette quickly made a whole new circle of friends online.

In her videos, she often also spoke of her husband Peter, expressing how well he treated her. Hi everyone, happy Valentine's Day. I hope you're gonna have a great day today. So this is what my honey got for me. I'm gonna turn my webcam. Look at those flowers. Oh my gosh. I just love these flowers.

So he got me a bunch because he says he knows I'm going to want to split them up and put some in my scrapbooking room and leave some out here. So I'm so excited. Those are my favorite, favorite flowers. I just love them. There's so many. I counted them last night and there's like seven different types of flowers and then you got all the leaves and so I'm just really excited.

These were the kinds of personal touches that made subscribers feel connected with Lynette. And anytime her pet puppy Dino made an appearance, usually by resting his head next to Lynette on her crafting table, her followers in the comment section always let her know they loved her little dog too.

I wanted to show you my little doggy. He just loves to play in the snow. And now he's making yellow snow. Good job, little boy. Come on. He acts like a kid. Let me see if I can take him in here. Come on, baby. Lynette also mentioned her daughter Kayleen frequently in her videos.

Yeah, and I have a daughter who's going to be 19 pretty soon. She's in college. She's going for her gaming certificate. And I've been married in April. I've been married for 20 years. Let's see what else about me.

Kayleen Keller was an 18-year-old college student living at home with her parents while attending Bellevue Community College nearby. Kayleen was bright, popular, and surrounded by an extended family that adored her. Her boyfriend, Carson, seemed to be a perfect match for her.

The two loved playing video games together, with their typical dates often involving Carson bringing his computer monitor over to the Keller house so they could play together. But their interest in video games extended beyond just simply playing them. They were also genuinely captivated by video game design, artwork and storytelling, with dreams of crafting their own games.

Whenever Kayleen played, her favorite characters tended to be stealthy rogue types who liked to work alone, which given who her father was, might not come as a surprise.

By the end of 2011, Kaling had decided to pursue her passion as a career and made plans to enroll at the DigiPen Institute of Technology in nearby Redmond, Washington, the first college in the world to offer a bachelor's degree in video game technology and development.

From the outside looking in, the Keller household appeared to be a perfectly happy, healthy, and stable environment. Not once in their 20 years of marriage had anyone witnessed any violence between Peter and Lynette.

In fact, those closest to them say the couple never fought at all. Peter, Lynette, and Kayleen were all pursuing their passions and hobbies in ways that seemed productive and fulfilling. Peter had his hand-built bunker in the woods, Lynette had her scrapbooking channel, and Kayleen had a career in video game design ahead of her.

But there was one distinct and important difference about Peter's hobby compared to his wife and daughters. A difference that would ultimately prove to be fatal. Lynette and Kayleen's hobbies helped connect them socially to the world around them.

Kaylin's gaming introduced her to active online communities and gave her a sense of purpose and direction. In the same way, Lynette's scrapbooking channel had become a way for her to connect with people, with every new subscriber becoming a new potential friend.

Peter's hobby, however, had the exact opposite. The more time he spent in the woods, the more antisocial he became. And the more antisocial he became, the more disillusioned he became about the world around him.

Knowing he could simply run off to the woods and live completely off-grid caused Peter to resent the minor annoyances of life, like bills, taxes, and the day-to-day responsibilities of being a father and husband. Outside of work, Peter's colleagues didn't really know much about him. Sure, they knew he was a bit of a survivalist, buying tactical military gear, collecting guns, and spending most of his free time out in the woods.

But that's pretty much the extent of it. Lynette's family also noticed Peter wasn't very sociable, describing him as reclusive. Whenever they'd come around, Peter would happily cook dinner and play host. But after the meals, instead of chatting and visiting with everyone, he'd usually take a nap. But that was Peter.

So while most people knew Peter was a bit antisocial, what nobody knew was that Peter was preparing to reject society altogether. By the time winter had given way to spring in 2012, Peter was already planning to move into his bunker full time. - Today's probably the nicest day it's been in a long time. As you can see, I have about three loads left before the final.

Been doing pretty good lately, getting about two loads up a week. About 100 pounds each week now of supplies and material. It looks like it's getting better, starting to switch over. Can finally get everything up here and finish this off, finally do what I have to do and get it out of the way.

The final phase of his bunker construction was stockpiling the shelves full of supplies. - Today we got probably about a 55 pound pack. Today we're hauling up a 55 pound pack. Basically a big bottle full of beans that's about 45 pounds and some wine making stuff and then just the weight of the gun and the pack. So a little lighter than what I have been doing.

Doing pretty good. Really got a lot of stuff up. I mean, basically I can last months up here without ever leaving. I've got propane, gasoline, food, soap, all supplies. So really set right now.

Peter lined the shelves with food, candy, bottles of soda, and boxes of ammunition. He planned on making the bunker his new permanent home. Looking into the camera, Peter explains what drove him to that point. Getting to the point where just trying to live...

and pay bills and live as a civilian and go to work. It just freaks me out. Peter then begins to reveal a more sinister side to his plans. It's actually more comfortable for me to think about living out here, robbing banks, pharmacies, just taking what I want for as long as I can. At least it'll be exciting. It won't be boring. And I don't have to worry about Lynette or Kayleen.

and everything will be taken care of. It'll just be me. - From the very beginning, Peter had clearly never intended on sharing this space with anyone else. He'd spent eight years building his own private underground Taj Mahal, but with only a small sleeping loft for one person. - At this point, I don't know what's gonna happen. I may get caught right away. Basically, if I get caught, I'm just gonna shoot myself.

So, I mean, I could basically be dead in two weeks or three weeks. I don't know. It's all up to chance at this point. So I don't think anyone knows where I'm at, but if they put it together, who knows? At this point, I have to take that chance. So it's just going to be a point of, you know, go as far as I can. I do have my escape, and that's death. I can always shoot myself, and I'm okay with that.

Fully committed to his plan, Peter recorded a final video diary where you can hear him not quite knowing how to spit out what he's trying to say, stopping and restarting several times. Well, it's about two weeks before the end. This is going to be my last video probably before until after that. That's terrible.

Well, it's about two weeks before I finally drop out of society and start this project. Well, it's about two weeks before we finally drop out of society and fully commit to this. It's probably going to be my last video until after that. I just wanted to get one last video in before that time. So far, I've come to terms with it. I'm doing okay.

starting to accept it. It doesn't really freak me out anymore like it did sometimes. Before signing off, Peter gives some final thoughts about the actions he's about to take. Well, before, you know, a while ago, I used to sit here and think, you know, this whole thing is just crazy at times, and then I'd think about it, and it would make sense, and it's like, okay, this is what I've got to do. But, you know, now, I guess with time,

I just think that way all the time, that this is what I got to do. I don't even question it anymore. It just seems like everything makes so much sense now. You know, just the more I've thought about it, the more I understand it. I don't really feel bad about it. It's just the way it is.

Tragically, this incomplete and cryptic explanation is all anybody would ever have to explain the horrific and unthinkable acts that would follow just days after Peter and Lynette celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary.

Sunday, April 22, 2012. It was a neighbor who first noticed the smoke billowing up from the roof of the Keller house at 8.43 in the morning. The sheer volume of smoke made it clear this wasn't a simple case of someone burning their breakfast bacon, and so without hesitation, the neighbor called 911.

Within eight minutes, the fire department was on the scene, attempting to go inside the home, but it was barricaded by a couch and some stereo equipment. To get inside, firefighters had to completely break down the door. Once they got in, firefighters found the kitchen completely ablaze, with the roof already collapsing.

By that point, the fire had spread to the second floor, but hadn't taken over the entire house completely. Searching for survivors, firefighters found Lynette on her bed in the master bedroom and Kayleen in the top bunk in her bedroom. Both women were completely unresponsive. When firefighters brought them outside, the initial thought was to try and resuscitate them.

But after taking a closer look, it was clear these women hadn't suffered from smoke inhalation. They'd both been shot in the head at close range. Firefighters eventually made another gruesome discovery. The family's cat under the dining room table and their dog Dino on the couch. Both of them had been shot as well.

This was now unquestionably a homicide, with the house becoming an active and fiery crime scene.

The fire department did its best to keep the flames at bay while police rushed through the home collecting anything that might be valuable to their investigation: computers, laptops, cell phones and hard drives. During their search, they found a safe with the door unlocked and wide open. Sitting on the shelf was an external hard drive. That's when they also noticed something rather alarming.

Also inside the safe was a pipe bomb. They'd soon discover that the entire house had seemingly been booby-trapped.

Early that morning, before Lynette and Kayleen had woken up, Peter Keller attached a silencer to a .22 caliber Walther handgun. He then murdered them in cold blood, planning to disappear forever to his secret mountainside bunker. He'd been extremely careful for the past eight years, not letting a solitary soul know the location of his bunker.

On Peter's computers and hard drives, he'd store photos of the bunker. But now it was time to destroy them all in a fiery blaze.

Grabbing a red plastic gasoline can, Peter set it on the electric stovetop and cranked the burner to high, then strategically positioned six more gas cans throughout the house, anticipating a fiery eruption as the flames spread. To make sure his precious hard drive was destroyed, he placed a pipe bomb beside it in the safe.

any evidence of the bunker or where it was located was supposed to be gone forever. Arson investigators estimated that it would have taken approximately 30 minutes for the electric stove to melt through the plastic and ignite the first can of gasoline. When it did explode, it created a fireball that set the kitchen cabinets on fire, making its way up through the roof.

When the fire reached the second floor, another gas can exploded and spread flames even further. But Peter hadn't counted on the neighbor being so quick to call 911 or the fire department responding in record time. Firefighters came across the five other unlit gas cans scattered throughout the house.

The heat from the fire had swollen them nearly to the brink of failure, just moments away from bursting into flames. If the 911 call had been made even minutes later, Peter's plan probably would have gone off without a hitch, with everything destroyed.

But as lead detective Robin Cleary would later state, he didn't research arson as well as he did the bunker. Peter's poorly researched plan had failed, and the fire never reached the pipe bomb in the open safe. As police collected evidence and firefighters put out the inferno, the big question on everyone's mind was, where was Peter Keller?

His car wasn't in the driveway, his body wasn't in the house, and by that point, they didn't know if he was a potential victim or a suspect. Either way, they needed to find him. A few hours later, police located Peter's car, parked outside the town library with its doors unlocked and the keys still in the ignition. But still, there was no sign of the man himself.

At the beginning of the investigation, police hardly knew anything about Peter Keller. But as they began speaking with friends, family, and coworkers, an alarming portrait began to emerge. Peter's coworkers told police that Peter had been acting rather strange that week, taking three days off work.

When they asked Peter if he'd be going to work at all the following week, Peter told them he might never come back at all. Peter's coworkers also told police about his survivalist hobby and how he'd spend all his free time out in the woods.

They also told them about the large collection of handguns he owned, high-powered rifles, body armor, and other tactical gear. But perhaps the most revealing detail was the knowledge that Peter had acquired silencers for his weapons, and interestingly, had confided he'd kept it a secret from Lynette because they were so expensive.

Then when detectives interviewed Kaling's boyfriend, Carson, even more pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place when he verified the existence of Peter's extensive gun collection in the house, having seen it firsthand. But then he told detectives something new that Kaling had told him. Peter had been building a secret fort up in the woods where he constantly took supplies, stockpiling them in the mountains.

According to Kaling, Peter said he was preparing for the end of the world. Doing the math, detectives felt the most likely explanation for Peter's disappearance was that he'd murdered his family and was now hiding in the woods, in a secret fort well-stocked with supplies. But that wasn't all.

Despite learning about Peter's extensive weapons collection, not a single firearm had been discovered inside the Keller house. Which could only mean one thing: Peter's Ford wasn't just stocked with food. He'd taken his entire high-powered arsenal along with him as well. Wherever he was, he was armed to the teeth. Finding Peter Keller ASAP became job number one for local police.

They were pretty sure he was hiding in the woods, but where exactly seemed like an impossible question to answer. The town of North Bend is completely surrounded by mountains, and behind those mountains are even more mountains. This wasn't searching for a needle in a haystack. It was searching for a needle in a field of haystacks.

Unknowingly, the very next day after the murders, Everett Paul, the guy looking for a spot to propose to his girlfriend, stumbled across Peter relaxing in the forest. He wouldn't understand the significance of that moment before it was too late.

Police caught their first big break when a computer analyst was able to access the information on the hard drive Peter had failed to destroy. The hard drive contained a series of photos Peter had taken of Camp Keller documenting his construction progress. And for the first time since beginning their investigation, police realized that calling this a Ford was an incredible understatement.

What they were looking at was a fortified, defensible, and completely camouflaged underground bunker. But there was one photo that wasn't like the others. It wasn't a photo of the bunker. It was a photo from the bunker, looking outward, showing the view. If they could reverse engineer where the photo was taken, they might be able to zero in on its location.

The photo itself was blurry and out of focus. At first glance, it might have seemed completely worthless, just a sea of green without any identifiable landmarks. But since it was their only real clue, a computer forensics expert with the Kings County Sheriff's Department set to work attempting to enhance the image. Eventually,

the tiniest clues began to reveal themselves. A single power line and what appeared to be a building on the valley floor. And now, the photographic geolocation began. An expert was able to positively identify the building in the photo as the North Bend Outlet Mall.

She was able to make out a few pillars and was even able to calculate their angles to estimate how high the photo had been taken. Using the mall and the power lines as clues, detectives now had a general direction of where Peter's bunker might be, somewhere west of town, halfway up the mountain, with a view of the town itself.

Police reached out to the community to narrow their search even further, asking anyone who'd seen Peter's car parked near the trailhead any time during the past year to come forward. And almost anyone who'd seen it said the same thing. They'd seen his truck at the trailhead of Rattlesnake Mountain. Police believed they'd found their haystack, but to find the needle, they'd need boots on the ground.

On Thursday, April 26th, two detectives hit the trail on foot looking for any signs of Peter or his bunker. They knew the risk they were taking, searching for a murderous madman in possession of high-powered rifles, body armor, and sniper scopes. The detectives decided their best form of camouflage was to look like they weren't trying to hide at all.

They clothed themselves with bright backpacks and techie hiking gear. If Peter was staring at them through his rifle scope, they prayed he'd believe they were simply outdoor enthusiasts casually strolling through the woods. To keep up the charade, the detectives made sure to carry on as if they were enjoying a simple hike, talking, chatting, having fun.

Sure enough, they soon found a spot where someone had clearly veered off the trail and into the brush. The tracks were fresh and led up to the side of a creek where no normal hiker would usually go. Using a cell phone, the detectives relayed what they discovered. They made sure not to use a radio, believing it was likely Peter was monitoring police channels.

At 5 o'clock the next morning, Saturday, April 25th, SWAT teams descended on the mountain. Helicopters roared through the air, making over 40 trips to deploy units on Rattlesnake Ridge.

For nearly seven hours, police combed the side of the mountain. The terrain was practically impenetrable, making the effort so brutal that several officers had to receive intravenous treatment for dehydration. Police knew Peter's bunker was somewhere nearby, but it wasn't until someone on the valley floor spotted a faint tuft of smoke that they were finally able to locate it precisely.

It was smoke from the stove in Peter's cabin, and before long, he was completely surrounded. For the next 23 hours, police engaged in a standoff outside Peter's bunker. They knew he was inside because of the smoke rising out of the stovepipe. First they called out to amusing bullhorns, but never got a response. Then they pumped tear gas into the bunker, but it seemed to have no effect.

Officers believed it was likely that the survivalist had probably gotten his hands on his own gas mask. Throughout the night, police reported being able to see the lights being turned on and off at different times through a small window. The next morning, police felt they had no choice but to become more aggressive and used an explosive expert to blow the top off the bunker. After repeatedly giving Peter warnings to come out,

When police were finally able to get inside the bunker, they discovered the lifeless body of Peter Kaller lying on the bottom floor with blood all around him. It appeared that sometime during the siege, he'd taken a handgun and committed suicide.

As police searched the bunker, they couldn't believe the amount of supplies Peter had stockpiled. Shelves stacked with boxes of ammunition and enough food to last for months. They also found stacks of cash, a lot of them, tens of thousands of dollars worth, but the exact total has never been made public.

Among everything else, police were also able to find and positively identify the exact gun used to murder Peter's wife and daughter. There was no longer any doubt or mystery about who committed the murder. The only mystery was why. The double homicide inside the Keller house and the ensuing standoff at the bunker left the entire community of North Bend scratching their heads.

There was simply no one who could have imagined Peter doing something like this. Sure, he was a reclusive survivalist, but outside of that, everyone knew him to be a loving and devoted family man. According to Lynette's twin brother Gene, nobody had any idea. It would be like you being killed tomorrow by a random stranger. It was completely sudden.

Jean had even spoken with Lynette that same week. She seemed incredibly happy and gave zero indications that anything whatsoever might be wrong between her and Peter.

Lynette's family, along with the police, held out hope they might discover some piece of evidence that could explain what had happened and why. But the closest they ever got were the video diaries Peter recorded about two weeks before the murders found inside the bunker. The same clips we've played throughout this episode...

Other than expressing his general disillusionment with society at large, Peter never gave any reasons for doing what he was about to do, and certainly never gave any explanation for murdering his wife and daughter.

The videos do make one thing abundantly clear: by the time Peter hit record, he'd already decided to carry out this horrific tragedy. But the question still remains: had Peter Keller planned it all from the very beginning? The harsh reality is that we'll probably never know. Whatever the motivation was, Peter took it with him to the grave.

A grave he carved 20 feet deep into the side of a mountain.

In the wake of these incomprehensible murders, Lynette and Kylene's family resolved to honor their memories in a way they hoped would make both of them proud. Using the Kellers' assets, including the tens of thousands recovered from the bunker, the Kylene Keller Memorial Scholarship was created. A scholarship for female students interested in studying video game technology at the DigiPen Institute of Technology.

They hope the scholarship will enable young women to pursue their dreams. The same dream Kayleen had. For Lynette's sister Kimberly, her memory still lives on through the many crafts, books, cards, and scrapbooks she left behind. Kimberly told the press that, in the end, what you leave behind is your memories. What we have of Lyn are the memories she created.

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