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Wherever you listen to podcasts, subscribe where you're listening to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. On June 3, 1993, a trucker stopped to relieve himself on the westbound side of California State Route 152 on mountainous Pacheco Pass east of Merced in Santa Clara County. Of all the spots in the world the big rig driver could have picked to pee. He picked the truck turnout with a decomposing body lying down the hill off the roadside. The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office arrived and observed the corpse. It appeared to be a woman. Her head was pointed downhill and wedged under a rock. She was wearing all blue in a conservative collared jacket secured with a large white button, a blue shirt and blue jeans. Deputies at the scene could not immediately determine what had killed this woman and indeed, after an autopsy, the Santa Clara County Medical examiner classified her cause of death as undetermined. He gathered that she was white, she stood about 5 foot 3 and she weighed 130 pounds. She was between 30 and 40 years old. She had medium length brown hair and brown eyes. There was no evidence that she'd born children, which was erroneous, but she had a 5 inch scar on her stomach from gallbladder surgery. She had formerly had dental care, but her teeth had deteriorated and it was evident she hadn't taken care of them for some time. Police also released that she had apparent needle track marks on her body. As I said, the Jane Doe was wearing a blue jacket with a large button, a blue shirt and jeans. She was also wearing white Hanes underwear, a white bra, white Nike socks with blue stripes, and brown tennis shoes. She'd been dead for an estimated one week or so, and based on the fact that she was found off a truck turnout, was suspected to have been killed elsewhere and dumped where she was found. She had no identification on her anywhere. A plastic yellow and black flashlight was found near the body, but that information was not released at the time. Santa Clara authorities did their best to identify Blue Pacheco as she became known, her moniker an homage to her attire and location. They compared her vital statistics to missing persons reports, but learned of none that matched up. I am not clear on whether Blue Pacheco was eventually buried. The investigator that worked this case for Santa Clara, Sergeant Shannon Catalano, was not available to speak with me. But samples were collected from the woman's remains for future DNA testing. And it didn't take long before someone took credit for her murder. Keith Hunter Jesperson was a long haul trucker who lived in Oregon and drove long distances away from home on his trucking routes. In 1990, he met a woman named Tanya Bennett at a Portland bar. He took her back to his place and struck her in an argument. He hit her and strangled her until he killed her, something he later said he meant to do. Then he dumped her body and went about his business. After the details of Tanya's unsolved murder were publicized, a Portland woman named Laverne Pavlinik came forward and told police that her boyfriend, John Sosnowski, had killed Tanya and and forced her to hold the rope that strangled Tanya while he raped her. Laverne provided details she had gleaned from newspaper articles, but also went so far as to produce for detectives a purse she claimed belonged to Tanya and a piece of cloth cut from the fly of the jeans she said Tonya was wearing. Laverne actually had nothing to do with the crime, and neither did John. Her rationale for making up the story is unclear. She may have wanted to get revenge against John for breaking up with her. Other reports indicate that the relationship was abusive and she wanted to get out of it. Either way, both Laverne and John were convicted of the crime and sent to prison after John pleaded no contest to felony murder and rape to avoid the Death penalty. Laverne had tried to recant her story, but too late. Well, none of this sat well with the man who had actually killed Tanya, Keith Jesperson. He did not appreciate others taking credit for his kill and the vast amount of media attention they received after confessing. So he did something about it. He went into a Livingston, Montana Greyhound bus station bathroom and defaced the walls with graffiti, confessing to the rape and murder of Tonya Bennett. He wrote, I killed Tanya Bennett Jan. 21, 1990, in Portland, Oregon. I beat her to death, raped her and loved it. Yes, I'm sick, but I enjoy myself, too. People took the blame and I'm free. He signed the message with a smiley face. Jesperson left another graffitied message in an Umatillo truck stop bathroom two months later, writing, killed Tanya Bennett in Portland. Two people got the blame so I can kill again. Cut button off jeans. Proof. Nothing happened after he wrote these messages. In 1994, a letter came to the Washington County Courthouse. According to the book the Happy Face Murderer by Jack Smith, the note detailed where Tanya Bennett's body had been dumped, the exact wound she had, how she'd been tied up, where her Walkman and purse could be found, the position she was in, and the fact that the buttons were cut off her jeans. It read in part, quote, I killed Ms. Bennet January 20, 1990, and left her one and a half miles east of Latourell Falls on a switchback. There was no media coverage of this letter, so Jesperson sent a second letter to the Oregonian newspaper and a third. Some of the letters indicated he had five victims in several west coast states and others. None of them were solved. The Tanya Bennett case was a false conviction. Details of the dump sites and the crimes matched Jesperson's claims, and some of the details in the letters were not publicly available information. For example, it was not released to the public that Tanya Bennett had been left facing downhill with the buttons of her jeans cut off. Jesperson also wrote that he would kill again. One of the letters written to the Oregonian said, it all started when I wondered what it would be like to kill someone. And I found out what a nightmare. All were signed with a smiley face. According to a series of articles in The Oregonian From 1994, the handwriting in the letters matched the handwriting in the two messages in the truck stop bathrooms. It was at this point that the investigators began to recognize that they had a serial killer on their hands. He was not afraid and was not going to stop. Jesperson later said he did not want to get caught but that he started to get thrills from killing and dumping the bodies rather than risking capture and loving the game. In March 1995 though, he finally slipped up and killed someone who could be linked to him, 41 year old Julie Ann Winnington in Washington State, who was Jesperson's girlfriend at the time. Among Julie's possessions were found documents signed by Jesperson. Clark County Sheriff's Office Detective Rick Buckner pulled Jesperson in for a six hour interview, photographed him and took fingerprints and blood samples. But Jesperson denied strangling Julie, saying they had an argument and she left. Buckner was extremely suspicious because Jesperson did not react normally to the news of his fiance's death and didn't even ask how she died. But he had no choice but to let Jesperson go. According to Jack Smith's book, back in his truck he tried to take his own life at a truck stop by consuming pain pills. But Jesperson was 6 foot 6 and 250 to 300 pounds. The pills failed to kill him, so he called up the Clark county detectives and the reporter who had coined the Happy Face Killer namesake Phil Stanford from the Oregonian, and confessed to Julie's murder. He was arrested on March 30, 1995 and would never see the light of day again after police learned that he was the Happy Face Killer.
