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I am your Norwegian host, Thomas Viborg Thun. Tonight, I bring to you a fresh new Serial Killer Exposé. This will be a stand-alone episode, so it can be devoured right away, instead of waiting until all parts are released, as some of you do. I understood some of you preferred it this way.
So, this episode is for you. We stay in the United States of America, but we are no longer in the stylish late 1940s. This episode takes a closer look at a very recent serial killer case, one ending in 2012, only seven years ago. So, turn your nose northwards with me, dear listener.
as we travel to the great state of Alaska and its largest city, Anchorage. Here, a rapist and serial killer, hid very much like a wolf among sheep. He is believed to have killed perhaps as many as eleven, but at least three human beings. His name was Israel Keyes, and this is his saga.
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Lorraine was shorter than Bill, had red hair, an easy smile and looked happy in photographs. They didn't know Israel Keyes. He didn't know them. On the 2nd of June 2011, Keyes flew from Alaska to Chicago. He later told investigators his purpose was to kidnap and murder someone, anyone. In Chicago, he rented a car and headed east.
Five days later, Israel Keyes checked into the Handy Suites on Susie Wilson Road in Essex Junction, Vermont. The Handy Suites is still in operation. It's a fairly low-cost place with a rather imposing entrance area. The building is green-gray with a red-brick foundation. In his simple but adequate room, he planned his attack meticulously. The next night, he began scouting for a victim.
He told police he zeroed in on the couriers because their house had an attached garage. There were no cars in the drive, and no sign of children in the home. They didn't have a dog. Keyes, a seasoned construction worker and carpenter, also felt he could accurately guess the home's floor plan and predict the location of the bedroom. He was right.
By his own account, Keyes was on the couriers within ten seconds of breaking in. They awakened to a stranger, wearing a headlamp, carrying a gun, and bearing zip ties. He took them to an abandoned farmhouse nearby. Keyes took Bill Currier into the basement of the house and tied him to a stool. Upon returning to the car, Keyes saw that Lorraine had broken free from the zip ties that had previously bound her hands and feet.
Keyes then saw Lorraine running towards Main Street. He tackled her, brought her to the second floor of the farmhouse, and rebound her hands and feet. Upon returning to the basement, Keyes found that Bill had broken the stool on which he was bound, and repeatedly shouted, "'Where's my wife?' In an attempt to subdue Bill, Keyes hit him with a shovel."
But when Keyes realized that Bill was not going to cooperate, he retrieved the gun and silencer and shot Bill Carrier to death. Just having heard the fatal struggle ending with her husband's murder, Lorraine was then forcefully raped by Israel Keyes. When he had finished, he was already laying on top of her. He put his gun away and wrapped his hands around her throat.
slowly squeezing her life out of her. As I've mentioned in earlier episodes, strangulation is a terrible way to die. It's slow, very painful as tissue often tear inside the esophagus and causes extreme trauma to the victim as they watch their killer straighten the face as he is killing them. Keyes said he hid Bill and Lorraine Currier's corpses under the abandoned farmhouse.
However, police have yet to recover their bodies. But before we continue, let us take a closer look at who Israel Keyes really was. He was born in Richmond, Utah, in 1978. He's one of the few serial killers I have covered that actually did not have a middle name. For some reason, most serial killers have at least three names—
Theodore Robert Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Leonard Thomas Lake, Dennis Lynn Rader. The list goes on. But it's not applicable to Israel Keyes. He was raised in a Mormon family and was homeschooled. His family moved to the Aladdin Road area, north of Colville, Washington, where they became neighbors and friends with the family of Cheve Kehoe.
and occasionally they attended a Christian identity church. As you might know, Chevy O'Brien Kehoe is an American self-proclaimed white supremacist and convicted murderer, so it is not unreasonable to say that he was not a very wholesome influence on young Israels.
However, when Israel Keyes was 20 years old, he enrolled in the U.S. Army from 1998 through 2001 at Fort Lewis, Fort Hood, and in Egypt. While at Fort Lewis, Keyes served on a mortar team in the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division.
According to his military records, Keyes entered the army in Albany, New York, on the 9th of July, 1998, and was discharged from Fort Lewis on the 8th of July, 2001, at the rank of a specialist. Records indicate Keyes was awarded the following decorations and awards. Army Achievement Medal
Army service ribbon, marksman badge with rifle bar, expert infantryman badge, and air assault badge. Former army friends of Key's have noted his quiet demeanor that he typically kept to himself. On weekends, however, he was reported to have drunk heavily, consuming entire bottles of his favorite drink, wild turkey bourbon.
He was also heavily into the music group Insane Clown Posse, and had several large posters hanging in his barracks room. In other words, he was perhaps what is known as a juggalo. The only verified serial killer juggalo I know of, actually. Keyes apparently fell away from his strong Christian upbringing, and according to his now defunct MySpace page,
He described himself as an atheist. He looked like a regular guy. He was on the tall side, about 6'2", and in good shape. He was a white guy with brown hair and dark eyes. Up until his arrest, he lived at a stable address with a woman and her child. In 2006, he placed 129th in a marathon in Olympia, Washington.
Very decent result considering several hundred participants. When he was arrested, he had his own construction business in Anchorage, Alaska, called Keys Construction. Here he did jobs as a handyman, contractor and construction worker. He charged, and here I quote, as low as $35 an hour, depending on when the job was done.
Israel Keyes' first victims were in Washington State in the late 1990s. Keyes admitted to investigators that he killed four people in Washington State, claims which are the subject of an active investigation by the FBI, as well as police in that state.
The problem with these murders is that Keyes, as is typical of serial killers who enjoy controlling what information they feed their captors with, never gave any details about these four murders. He simply said that he killed them. He did not mention the victim's gender, age, or how he went about murdering them. He also confessed to killing one person in New York. But again, he only said he killed a person.
He did not give any details about his victim. What is known is that he lived in many places in the U.S. before finally settling down in Anchorage. Since we know he murdered a couple in Vermont, one person in New York, and at least four people in Washington State, the entire U.S. could have been Israel Key's hunting ground.
Samantha Koenig was a pretty, blonde, 18-year-old woman who lived in Anchorage. There, she worked as a barista at Common Grounds Coffee Stand. It is a small shack, kind in color. It looks really cozy. Prior to the 1st of February in 2012, Keyes had selected the Common Grounds Coffee Stand located on Tudor Road for the site of the abduction.
He did this after considering other coffee stands, but chose Common Grounds because of its location and because it was open later than other coffee stands. Keyes had never met or seen Samantha Koenig before. He approached the coffee stand just prior to closing time. He was wearing a ski mask and ordered a coffee. Samantha made the coffee and handed it to Keyes. He then pulled out a gun and demanded money.
Samantha complied, and then Keyes forced himself inside. Inside the coffee stand, he tied up Samantha's hands with zip ties. He asked her, where is your car? And she told him that she did not have a vehicle. Keyes then forcibly walked her out of the coffee stand toward Tudor Road.
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Real Noom user compensated to provide their story. In four weeks, the typical Noom user can expect to lose one to two pounds per week. Individual results may vary. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. As a family man with three kids, I know firsthand how extremely difficult it is to make time for self-care. But it's good to have some things that are non-negotiable. For some, that could be a night out with the boys, chugging beers and having a laugh.
For others, it might be an eating night. For me, one non-negotiable activity is researching psychopathic serial killers and making this podcast. Even when we know what makes us happy, it's often near impossible to make time for it. But when you feel like you have no time for yourself, non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever.
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Visit betterhelp.com slash serialkiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash serialkiller. Samantha broke away from keys and tried to run away.
Keyes chased her and tackled her to the ground. He put one arm around her and pointed a gun at her body with the other hand, telling her that she needed to cooperate, that the gun had very quiet ammo and that she should not do anything to make him kill her. They walked across Tudor Road into the parking lot between the IHOP restaurant and Dairy Queen, where Keyes' white truck was parked.
Keyes had previously prepared a truck for the abduction by taking the mounted toolboxes off the bed of the truck, as well as removing the license plates. Keyes then bound Samantha in the truck and drove away. Keyes drove around town, explaining to Samantha that this was a kidnapping for ransom. Samantha told Keyes that her family did not have much money, and that Keyes was not likely to get much in ransom.
Keyes explained that they will raise money for the ransom by simply seeking the public's help. Keyes convinced Samantha that if she cooperated, she would be returned to her family unharmed. She believed Keyes and tried to talk to him in an effort to convince him to release her. At some point on the drive,
Keyes realized that Samantha did not have her cell phone, which was necessary for his plan to demand ransom money by sending a text message from her phone. He drove back to Common Grounds and re-entered the coffee stand, leaving Samantha bound in his truck. He retrieved the cell phone and got back into the truck and drove away. He drove to another part of town, where he sent two text messages from Samantha's phone.
The first message was to Samantha's boyfriend, and the second to the owner of Common Grounds. The text messages made it appear that Samantha had just had a bad day and was leaving town for the weekend. Keyes then took the battery out of Samantha's phone. He asked Samantha for her debit card. She told him that she shared the bank account with her boyfriend and that his ATM card was in the truck that they shared.
Samantha told Keyes where her house was and gave him the PIN number to the ATM card. Keyes put Samantha in the shed in front of his house, bound her, and turned the radio up in the shed so no one would hear if she screamed. He also told her that he had a police scanner and would know if she attempted to alert neighbors. He then drove to Samantha's house and retrieved the ATM card from her truck.
While he was at Samantha's, he was confronted by her boyfriend, who yelled at him and then went back in the house to get help. Keyes ran back to his truck and left the area before he could be found. He drove to an ATM machine to test the PIN number provided by Samantha. It worked. He then returned to his shed. Samantha was on the floor. The door was ripped open and there was Keyes. He closed it behind him.
and went to her. He ripped off Samantha's pants and proceeded to rape her. Again, after he had finished, he proceeded to slowly strangle her, looking into her eyes as she died. He left her in that shed, and then went back inside his house, where he packed for a pre-planned cruise that he was taking from New Orleans. He left early that morning, the 2nd of February, for that cruise.
Keyes returned to Anchorage on the 17th of February 2012. He then began preparing a ransom note that demanded money be placed in the account connected with the ATM card. He went into the shed and retrieved Samantha's body. He took steps to make it appear that she was still alive, and took a Polaroid picture of her tied up.
The photo also showed Key's arm holding the Anchorage Daily News from the 13th of February, 2012. He photocopied the photo and, using a manual typewriter he had purchased, typed a ransom demand for $30,000 on the back of the photo. After preparing the note and the photo, he placed it in Connors Bog Park under a memorial flyer of a dog named Albert.
Then, using Samantha's cell phone, he texted her boyfriend. That message, in short, said that the ransom note was under Albert in Connersbog Park. The note was recovered by the Anchorage Police Department. In the days that followed, Keyes dismembered Samantha's body and drove out to Matanuska Lake.
There, he cut a hole in the ice and put her body into the dark waters of that lake. Meanwhile, Samantha's father, James Koenig, deposited reward money, which had been generously donated by members of the community, into the account connected with Samantha's ATM card. The plan was to attempt to catch the perpetrator by tracking any withdrawals.
ATM withdrawals were made in Anchorage, and then in Arizona, New Mexico, and finally Texas. Authorities were able to determine that the perpetrator of these withdrawals was driving a white Ford Focus. The FBI and the Texas Rangers tracked the ATM withdrawals as they occurred. Ultimately,
Corporal Brian Henry of the Texas Highway Patrol pulled over a white Ford Focus matching the description. Keyes was driving. Henry, along with Texas Ranger Steve Rayburn, obtained enough information during the traffic stop to search the Ford Focus. Samantha's cellular telephone was found in the car, and the ATM card was found in Keyes' wallet. He was promptly arrested and
and Israel Keyes was subsequently extradited to Alaska, where he confessed to Koenig's murder. There are several unsolved murder and missing persons cases where Israel Keyes remained a suspect. A few that really stand out are the following: Maura Murray. Maura vanished from a snowy rural New Hampshire road in February 2004 and remains missing to this day.
Israel Keyes likely knew the back roads of upstate New York, and his attack on the couriers in Vermont may indicate he was familiar with parts of New England as well. There's a chance that Maura had an unlucky encounter with him on that mysterious winter's day. However, author James Renner, who runs a blog about Maura's case, doesn't think she fell prey to Keyes, writing, and I quote,
It is extremely unlikely that Keyes happened to be driving by the scene of Maura's incident. In rural New Hampshire, in the seven minutes she was alone and decided to abduct her, in clear view of three homes. It would be too much of a coincidence in timing. Also, Keyes had no control of that scene. End quote. Stefan Haugen, Jeanette Baumann, and Haugen's dog Cesar.
Haugen, Baumann and Caesar were found shot to death in the Willamette Forest near Oak Ridge, Oregon, on the 1st of July 2005. Their killer took license plates and perhaps some fishing gear from the scene. The remote location, as well as the practical step of stealing the plates, may suggest Keyes as the culprit. Lindsay Cutchall and Jason Allen
The unsolved murders of Cutshall and Allen on a remote northern California beach in August 2004 drive both amateur and professional sleuths to distraction. The Christian camp counselors didn't have an enemy in the world and were in a nominally safe area, just camping for the night. At some point, someone shot them as they slept.
Aside from the isolated location and proximity to some of Keyes' likely kill zones, an odd bit of evidence mentioned in some reports about the crime stands out. A bottle of Carmo beer was found near the scene. Carmo has chiefly been sold in Texas, Illinois, Utah, California, and Vermont. Susanna Stodden and Mary Cooper...
Stodden and her mother, Mary Cooper, were slain while hiking near Pinnacle Lake in Washington in 2006. They may be the most likely Keyes' victims among this selection of unsolved cases. They were in his favorite sort of remote location, in Keyes' home state of Washington, and a thin timeline of Keyes' movements has him in the West's
and Alaska for most of 2006. Keyes, organized as he was, could also seize opportunities, even saying in a recorded interview that he let his victims come to him. It's easy to imagine Stodden and Cooper encountering the outwardly quiet and normal-seeming Keyes on the trail, not realizing what he was about to do to them.
until it was too late. Israel Keyes was facing a March 2013 trial on federal murder charges in the kidnapping and death of 18-year-old Samantha Koenig. He was locked up in Anchorage Correctional Facility. He readily confessed to several of his crimes, and when asked for a motive, he famously said, and I quote, "'Why not?'
After making several confessions, instead of facing the justice that awaited him, he used a makeshift shank or a piece of metal to open up his own artery on his wrist. As the blood was pumping out of his artery, he put the noose he had made of his bedsheets around his neck, and with the other end of the bedding secured at the steel bed frame,
He sat down heavily, causing him to strangulate as well as bleed to death. To make switching to the new Boost Mobile risk-free, we're offering a 30-day money-back guarantee. So why wouldn't you switch from Verizon or T-Mobile? Because you have nothing to lose. Boost Mobile is offering a 30-day money-back guarantee. No, I asked why wouldn't you switch from Verizon or T-Mobile. Oh. Wouldn't. Uh, because you love wasting money as a way to punish yourself because your mother never showed you enough love as a child? Whoa, easy there. Yeah.
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And with Warby Parker's free home try-on program, you can order five pairs to try at home for free. Shipping is free both ways, too. Go to warbyparker.com slash covered to try five pairs of frames at home for free. warbyparker.com slash covered. And so ends the story of the somewhat unknown serial killer known as Israel Keys. Next week...
I will bring to you a more known name among serial killer aficionados. So, as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned. I have been your host, Thomas Warburg Thun, and this podcast would not be possible if it had not been for my dear patrons, who pledge their hard-earned money every month. There are especially a few of those patrons I would like to thank in person.
These patrons are my 18 most loyal patrons. They have contributed for the last 18 episodes. And their names are... Russell and Troy.
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Thank you. Good night.