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This guy. I hate when I have to sit down and try and think how to describe a human being like this one. Obviously we talk about so many terrible, terrible people. And I sit down and I'm like, okay, how do I intro this? How do I prepare you guys for the gruesome details you're about to hear? And there's never a correct word. I think we just have to make one up at this point because there's not a word in the English language that could amount to the kind of person that this guy is in the most horrible way you can think of. There's one part of this that's so gruesome and unbelievable. You hear it and you think it's straight out of a scary movie. And that specifically made me want to cover this case. But when looking into it, I was like, baffled, jaw on the floor, could not imagine. Everything that I was reading happened in real life. I also wonder if I sound out of breath when I sit down and talk to you guys, because usually I read through my entire script. Obviously I write these things down. I can't hold, hold. I don't have enough memory space to remember everything. So I write everything down. And usually when I sit down to record, I'll reread it over again just to refresh my memory because I'm looking up so many cases every single day. There's so many people I read about, so much information, and I think that I probably sound out of breath when I sit down to record because I reread it, I remember again every single detail and I just get this like rush of adrenaline because it makes me so angry. This guy specifically makes me so angry. So let's just get into it. Welcome to episode 19 of I Wish you were here. This is the story of Israel Keys. On February 1st of 2012, a local man in Anchorage, Alaska walked toward the Common Grounds coffee shop just before 8pm Common Grounds was like a coffee shop, but not in the way that you're probably picturing it. It was like its own little kiosk, almost a coffee stand. More so than a big building. It was pretty small. Small enough that they only needed to have one employee there at a time, really. And that 18 year old Samantha Koenig was the person working the closing shift. The shop closed at 8pm, but it being Alaska in February, it was already pitch black outside. And as Samantha was working on getting the shop closed, doing her closing duties, this man, the last customer of the night, approached to the window to order a coffee. Samantha greeted him, took his order Turned around to start making his drink. And when she turned back around to go and hand him his coffee, she was caught so off guard, and I can imagine immediately felt a rush of panic all over her body. There's CCTV footage of this, by the way, and if you're not watching the video version of this, I'll try my best to describe it. But she turns around to hand him his drink and immediately when she looks at him, her reflexes are to take a step back and put her hands in the air. This man was now standing extremely close to the window. He was wearing a hoodie and he had it up. I think he was wearing a mask as well. And he was now pointing a gun straight at Samantha. He tells her to turn off all the lights and she does. She doesn't know what else to do, she's just complying, hoping that this man spits, spares her her life. So now it's even darker in the kiosk. And then the man climbs in through the window, forcing himself inside. He orders Samantha to sit on the floor, which she does. And then he ties her hands with zip ties. The man asks her where her car is, but Samantha explained that she didn't have one. She told him that her boyfriend was supposed to be the person picking her up when she was done with her shift, as he had done many times before. And this man begins just looking through the kiosk, looking so scary, presumably searching for money or things to see, to steal. But there obviously wasn't much there to steal. There was only the cash register that only had the money from that day. But he wanted more. He starts demanding. Samantha gives him whatever she has on her, her purse, her wallet, her cards, but she doesn't have anything on her. Her wallet was inside of her purse. Her purse was inside of her boyfriend's truck and that was currently at his house, parked in the driveway. Samantha is pleading with this man, trying to keep calm as best as she can, trying to comply so she doesn't make him angrier because he already has a gun on him. He' already pointing it at her. And she's terrified. Please don't hurt me. Please don't hurt me. I'll give you anything you want. I'll tell you where my boyfriend lives so you can go break into his truck. Get my purse, get my wallet. I'll even give you the PIN number to my car. Just please don't hurt me. This man grabs Samantha. He guides her out of the kiosk into the parking lot, walking towards his vehicle. And at some point, Samantha manages to quickly slip her hands out of the zip ties and book it. She ran as fast as she could, understanding that that this was likely her one and only chance to escape. But she wouldn't be able to. The man was faster than her. And this is one of my biggest fears. Like, someone chasing you in the dark is terrifying, as it is even scarier when you realize that this man was Israel Keys. But he catches up to her. He tackles her to the ground, holding her down with one arm and holding the gun, pointing it at her body with the other. He tells her that she better cooperate or else he's going to kill her. And within minutes, she was back inside of his truck, tied up, and Israel turned on the truck and drove away. In that moment, Samantha may have thought that this was kind of random, that this was kind of a situation of I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that was not necessarily true. I mean, she was in the wrong place at a wrong time to an extent. But the attack wasn't entirely random. It had been planned. The man kidnapping Samantha Koenig was Israel Keys. He was local to the area, and prior to February 1st, he had been roaming around the kiosk watching it. And he knew that he was going to be kidnapping someone. He didn't know exactly who at first, but he knew that he was planning on kidnapping them and then killing them. And to Israel Keys, it was never about who. It was always about where. And prior to that night, he had decided that Common Grounds was the perfect place for more than one reason. It was somewhat isolated. There wasn't really anything directly to it. It wasn't inside of a big building. It was kind of its own little kiosk, coffee stand. It was pretty quiet, especially at night, since it got dark early. And because he had been watching it, he knew that it was usually when it was closing down at the closing shift, it was usually just one employee, one girl by herself, alone, defenseless. It was perfect. At least that's how Israel saw it in his own eyes. And compared to some of his prior victims, in his eyes, Samantha was also proving to be one that he was satisfied with. Not because she did not put up a fight. Don't get me wrong, she tried so hard to fight for her life. She tried to run away. And she did make him angry. Israel did not like that, but the fact that it was so easy for him to overpower her. He did like that because Israel, something about him that you need to know that you're going to understand. Throughout the course of this video is that he loved control. It was the thing that he valued the most. And in the last decade of him being a serial killer, control was still the number one thing that gave him the rush of adrenaline that he very much craved. 18 year old Samantha Kodnik would be dead by the end of the night and Israel Keys would go on to begin playing a sick game of cat mouths with authorities. But to understand the way that he operates, the way that his mind works, we have to go back to the very beginning. Israel Keys was born in Richmond, Utah on January 7th of 1978 to his parents, John and Heidi. He was one of ten children. He was the second oldest, so he had a lot of siblings and, and the kids were being raised to be devout Mormons. That's because John and Heidi were Mormons and they were raising their kids to believe the same thing that they believed. But when Israel was around five years old, his parents actually made the decision to leave the LDS Church altogether. They left the church and shortly after they left Utah altogether and made the move to Colville, Washington. And the life that they lived there was a very isolated one. Even though they had 10 kids, they lived in a one bedroom cabin. One. Oftentimes some of the kids had to sleep in a tent outside because there was such limited space. They lived with no electricity, no running water, not much of anything to be honest, but that's how they liked it. It was by choice they liked to live this life, this very much off the grid lifestyle, if you will. Israel Keys later described this time of his life as living in an Amish sort of lifestyle. The kids were also homeschooled. They did a lot of outdoor work in places such as local farms to help out the family, to make money for the family and, and the family would also hunt for their food, which is pretty significant in my opinion because that means that hunting and killing was something that Israel grew to be very comfortable with at a very young age. It was what he was used to. He had grown up all around it. He learned how to do it when he was a child. He himself actually, in his own words, has described himself as someone who haunted, quote, anything with a heartbeat, end quote. Which sends a shiver down my spine knowing what he goes on to do. And even though when they were growing up, the kids, they were extremely isolated, they didn't really talk to anyone outside of their family often, but when they did, kids that met Israel found him to be very weird, very odd, not necessarily because of the way that he was raised. Because he was raised differently than others, and the way that his family lived was different, but because there was something just so eerie about this guy, especially when it came to hunting. I guess the way he talked about it was in a very exciting manner, in the way that almost made people believe that he enjoyed the killing aspect of it, which is really strange. A girl who met him back then, I believe around the same age as he was, said that when she met him, something about him just made her skin crawl in her own words. By the time that Israel was in his early teenage years, he was already very much so, displaying disturbing behavior. And everything that he liked to do for fun were things that were bad, for a lack of a better word, either because they were illegal or violent or aggressive or just flat out ethically wrong. At 14 years old, to give you an idea, he started breaking into people's houses. He liked to steal guns, weapons, and then he would use the stolen weapons, like the guns, to go and shoot houses for fun, which is so alarming. And then he would get in trouble for doing that by his parents. And. But the thing about this guy is that his brain doesn't operate in the normal way that a human brain does. So when he would get in trouble for doing something bad, instead of thinking, oh, wow, what I'm doing is wrong and I should probably stop that, he didn't think that way. He thought, oh, the things that I like to do, other people don't like. But instead of changing my behavior, I'm just gonna keep doing what I like to do, but just keep things a secret, keep everything to myself. This is a direct quote from him. Quote. I've known since I was 14 that the things that I thought were normal and okay, no one else seemed to think that they were normal and okay. So that's when I just started being a loner. People found out about some of the stuff that I did. Like my parents and the parents of other kids who would hang out with me. They would find out about the stuff that I did. And that's when I just started doing stuff by myself exclusively, end quote. By the age of 18 years old, Israel Keys decided that he was kind of over his family. He was tired of his parents telling him what he could or couldn't do. And because his parents did have a lot of house rules, for example, the kids were not allowed to watch tv. They weren't really allowed to socialize with people outside of their family unless there were people that they knew from church. And Israel just grew to be kind of bored he also began to realize that he didn't have the same beliefs as his parents. He didn't believe in the same God that they did. Actually, he kind of started to realize that he didn't believe in anything at all. And one day he approached his parents and told them that he was now an atheist. His parents, furious. They were so angry about this, because his parents were very religious. Even though they did change their religion once or twice within the time that Israel was growing up, they were really religious. And when Israel came out and said that he was an atheist, they were so angry. There was a massive argument. Israel was kicked out. His siblings were ordered never to speak to him again. From that day on, his father never spoke to him again. And that was that. He left. He moved out. And now he was 18 years old, alone in the world. He ended up moving to Oregon, which feels quite random. But at this point of his life, he was just trying to figure out what he did and didn't like. He was kind of discovering who he was, I guess you could say, without his parents. Which is also around the same time that he realized just how much he was into Satanism. And Satanism became a pretty big part of his identity. He loved everything about it. And I think that Satanism can mean very different things, depending on who's using it or how you view it. I guess, yes, things can change for different people. But for Israel, one thing that he liked and related to Satanism that he found a really big interest in were ritualistic sacrifices or ritualistic murders. And now, at the age of 19 or 20 years old, Israel Keys set a goal for himself to commit his own. Like I mentioned, he was living in Oregon at the time. And one summer day, he found himself at the. I think I'm pronouncing this correctly. Deschutes. He found himself at the Deschutes River. And this river was a popular area. It was popular amongst kids, young teenagers, young adults. A lot of people would go there to go tubing, especially in the summertime. And there were a lot of people who just hang out around there, but also a lot of quiet areas because it was a river right at the end of the day. So people were not everywhere surrounding the river. Everywhere up and down the river, there were more. So just groups of people tubing in the river. But a lot of the surrounding areas were just grassy areas that were quite isolated and quite quiet. Israel Keys had been watching. He had been paying attention to this river, paying attention to the groups of people that were there that day. And he was Paying attention when he noticed a teenage girl with her group of friends. He watched her from a tree line, waiting for the perfect opportunity to take her. And as soon as he noticed that she was kind of falling behind her friend group, that no one in her friend group was particularly paying attention to her, he launched at her, he jumped in the river, he grabbed her, dragged her out and into a grassy area where they wouldn't be. SCENE he had a knife on him and he used that to threaten the girl, even though it was completely obvious solely the size of them, their size difference, like he was more than capable of overpowering her. But he did so. And then he violently and brutally essayed this teenage girl. His intentions were that after that he was going to kill her and leave her body hiding somewhere as part of his first satanic ritual. But the girl actually ended up completely catching him off guard, which props to her. It always amuses me when people can think in such a time of panic, when they can think clearly. But this girl, instead of trying to fight him back, knowing that she couldn't because he was like twice her size, instead of trying to fight him off, she was trying to talk to him like a human being, which was very smart on her part because she probably knew that her best bet to making it out of this attack was to remain as calm as she could in this situation. She was pleading for her life, of course, but she was talking to him like a human being, saying, please listen to me, you don't have to do this. It doesn't have to be like this. And Israel did not like that. Remember, deep down, the thing that he loves the most is control. But ultimately, luckily for this girl, it worked. Her remaining calm, pleading for her life, Israel decided to let her go. Instead of going through with his original plan of ending her life, he let her go. And immediately after, seconds after, maybe minutes after, he felt like an absolute fool after it sunk in that he failed to do what he set out to do, and he didn't like to one, fail, and he didn't like to lose control, and that both of those things is what he had done in that situation. So from that moment on, he decided that he was never going to let that happen again. Years later, when describing this attack, he says, quote, I was too timid. I was not violent enough. I made up my mind I was never going to let that happen again, end quote. That girl unfortunately never reported the attack to the police. In July of 1998, Israel Keys decided to enlist in the United States Army. And throughout his time There he was there. He was part of the army for three years. Some of the guys that he befriended were put off with him, a little bit put off by him, but he didn't do anything too alarming. Honestly, during that time period, he actually surprisingly kind of just kept his head down and minded his own business. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think he did make some uncomfortable comments that made people kind of look at him twice, but he was kind of fine. Which may have something to do with the fact that he had a girlfriend now and they had a kid together. Yeah. Yep. Yes, Israel Keys was a father to a baby girl. I hate that. But a few years after joining the army In July of 2001, now at 23 years old, Israel was honorably discharged and he relocated to Washington, where he lived with his girlfriend and his daughter. And now this is when Israel decides to act on these violent urges that he had felt inside of him for years, pretty much his entire life. During the day, he was a boyfriend, he was a father, and I believe rather normal. But at night or whenever he had a long time, Israel began working on a plan to do what he had wanted to do for a very long time, which was killing people. And the way that he went about it, do I think that he's smart? I don't know. I. I just think he's sick and twisted. But I will say that he did put a lot of thought into this. A lot of time dedicated to making sure that if he was going to do this, he was going to do it what in what he thought was the right way, because he knew that he wanted to do it, he knew that he was going to enjoy doing it, and he knew that after he did it once, he was likely going to want to keep doing it again and again. And to be able to keep doing it, he needed to make sure that he minimized his chances of getting caught as much as he possibly could. So in order to go undetected, Israel decided that he one was not going to have a victim type. He didn't want to have any pattern whatsoever at all. Remember, in his own words, he wanted to kill, quote, anything with a heartbeat, end quote. The only thing that was off limits to him were children. But everything else, everything and everyone else was fair game in his eyes. His second rule was that he was going to kill in different states and never in the state that he lived in. He wanted to spread out his murders as much as he could as far away from each other as possible so they wouldn't be Connected, but also he wanted to distance himself as much as he could from his crime scenes so that it would not be able to get traced back to him, even if police did discover that they had a serial killer on their hands. And to further ensure that he would get away with it, this meant that he did a lot of traveling. So a lot of times when he was going to set up to kill, he would get on a plane, he would get on a train, he would then rent a car. With his attention again being adding so many modes of transportation and making his moves as confusing as he could so that authorities would not be able to track him down. And his third rule was making sure that his murders were organized in the exact way that he wanted them to be. Which brings us to his kill kids. And by the way, to be able to fund this messed up lifestyle, to be able to fund everything that he did, all, everything in his kill kids, all of his supplies, the travel, everything that he, he had to do to hide his murders, he would rob banks in his free time. So there's that he was a boyfriend and a father who also happened to kill people in his spare time. And when he did have free time, he would rob banks and he would get away with it, unfortunately for years. But anyway, we now know that he liked to plan, he liked control, he loved to be organized. Meaning that Israel Keys would prematurely pick out the areas in which he would want to kill in. Prior to doing so, he would choose an area in any state really that was either isolated, quiet or remote. Anywhere that he knew would make it easier for him to be able to get away with it. And once he had the area picked out, he would dig up a little area on the ground and hide one of his kill kids, or what some people have referred to as his murder kids. Because more oftentimes than not, Israel, like I said, was traveling for his murders. And he couldn't necessarily pack a bag and get on a plane with a bag full of weapons and cleanings supplies, right? But when the day came that he was ready to kill, he also didn't care to spend any extra time in this place. He just flew and traveled probably hours for he didn't really want to prepare for the crime then. He wanted to already have everything that he could possibly need there waiting for him. So he created these kill kits. There were buckets filled with anything he could possibly need. A lot of tools, cords, ropes, restraints, also weapons like knives or sometimes guns and ammunition, cleaning supplies such as plastic sheets and chemicals, disguises that he might need like hoodies or ski masks, to be able to hide himself when he did attack, and then cash. All of these things he would collect, he would put inside of a bucket. He would bury it underground where no one would be able to find them until he returned, sometimes years later, most of the time, I think years later. And then he would dig them up and put them to use. Israel Keys took his first life that we know of, in 2001. And not much is known about that murder, to be honest with you, other than the fact that we do know that he disposed of that body in a lake. A year later, we know that he murdered a couple. He strangled the girl until she was gone, and then murdered the guy by beating him up. Months later, he killed somebody else. Also disposed of that body in the lake, and. And not long after that, he did it again, also disposing of that body in the lake. His M.O. was to tie weights or something heavy to the body so they would sink to the bottom of the lake. And it was working out for him, unfortunately. And there is no way to say for sure the details of those murders, because everything that I'm telling you, we know from his own words. Israel would later, years from now, sit in a police station confessing to his crimes. But we will get to that when we get to that. By 2007, Israel was either 29 or 30 years old, and his relationship with his longtime girlfriend began to fizzle out. They ended up separating. They broke up. He got up and moved to Alaska, Anchorage, Alaska, with his daughter. And eventually, not long after, he found another girlfriend, and she ended up moving in with them, too. So it was now the three of them, this little family living together, Israel, his new girlfriend, and his daughter the entire time. He's still operating as a serial killer, under the radar, but presenting himself to be as normal family man to the world. In June of 2011, Israel Keys flew from Alaska to Chicago and then rented a car to drive 1,000 miles to Vermont. And I guess, by the way, he would just tell his family that he was going on vacation for work. I couldn't find much on how long he would be gone for. Like, I would say, my best guess, two or three days at a time. But he worked in construction. He did have a daytime job. So I really wonder what he would tell his family. Like, hey, I'm gonna go. Disappear for however many days. See you later. And then he would go and commit murder, come back home and tuck his daughter into bed, which is actually insanity anyway. In Vermont two years prior, Israel had dug up and left one of his kill kits ready for him to use whenever he wanted to. And, and now was the time that he wanted to. He arrived in Vermont and he began searching for a house that he thought would be a good fit. So an isolated, quiet house with no signs of kids running around. Which is when he found the House of 49 year old Bill Currier and 55 year old Lorraine Currier. Israel broke into their house in the middle of the night just after midnight. He entered by smashing a window of the garage. And the first thing that he did when he got inside of the garage was cut the phone lines. He then made his way inside and he attacked the couple while they were sleeping at their most vulnerable state in their bedroom. He had a gun with him and that's what he used to threaten them. And then he tied both of them up, he drove them over to an abandoned farmhouse, which is where he shot Bill to death so many times, all over him, head, back, neck, everywhere. Ending his life before then returning to give his attention to Lorraine, saing her and afterwards strangling her to death. Bill and Lorraine put up a fight. At one point, Lorraine had managed to escape her restraints and she attempted to make a run for it, but unfortunately Israel was faster. He caught up to her, he tied her right back up to the bed and he ended her life. Lorraine and Bill did not make it easy for Israel, but sadly, neither of them would live to see another day. However, Bill and Lorraine putting up a fight meant that it took Israel a lot more time to carry out these murders than he had originally planned for. So by the time that he was finished, the sun was starting to rise and before anybody could see him or see any movement inside of the abandoned farmhouse whatsoever, he fled. His original plan had been to take the bodies and dispose of them in a lake like he often did. But he couldn't do that in broad daylight. So instead he used drain cleaner on their faces and on their hands, I guess, to try and make them unrecognizable for when they were found. And then he put the bodies in a trash bag, put the trash bag in the corner of the farmhouse and that was that. He left his bodies there and just left, eventually landing back in Alaska, greeting his girlfriend and his daughter as if nothing ever happened. Israel Keys next murder would be his last. And ultimately, the one time he decided to break his own rule would be the time that would lead to his capture. By 2012, Israel had been committing murders completely undetected for over a decade. Which is insane, but I Guess he either got too cocky, thinking that he was always going to get away with it, or he just got frankly tired of traveling on a plane and on a car and whatever. He didn't feel like doing all of that anymore. And he decided that it was time to kill in his own town of Anchorage, Alaska. And that brings us to where the story started off. February 1st of 2012 at Common Grounds Coffee Shop just before 8pm Like I mentioned, he had been watching that coffee kiosk for some time. He had been seeing 18 year old Samantha Koenig routinely working the closing shift on her own. And that night in February, he decided to act out his plan of kidnapping her and murdering her. He crawled into the coffee shop, he tied up Samantha, he demanded that she hand over all of her belongings, only to realize that she didn't have any of them on her. And then he tied her up, put her inside of his truck, and drove off into the night. What Israel did next is so out of the ordinary for him because he drove Samantha back to his house. Israel Keys pulled into his driveway. He left Samantha in his truck before going inside of his house to make sure that his girlfriend and his 10 year old daughter were sound asleep. As soon as he made sure of that, he returned back to his truck. He pulled Samantha out and he dragged her over to a little shed that he had in his backyard. This shed he had prepped as he does, knowing that it would be put to use. He had laid out a plastic tarp on the floor and he also kept a radio in there with the volume turned on to draw out the sound. Once they were inside of the shed, Israel tied up Samantha by her neck. He left her there. While he left to drive over all the way to Samantha's boyfriend's house to break into his truck in the driveway, steal Samantha's cards out of her purse, out of her wallet in the truck and. And then he returned back to the shed. He poured a glass of wine for himself and he started talking to Samantha as if this was the most casual thing in the world. He got her to tell him her PIN number for her card and he engraved it in the back of her card so that he wouldn't forget it. And then he told Samantha that he wasn't going to kill her. He told her that all he was going to do is hold her for a few days, hold her for ransom. But of course, he was lying. Using the rope that he had already used to tie Samantha around her neck, Israel Keys tightened it and strangled Samantha until she was dead. Afterwards, he left her body in the shed. He went back inside of his house and finished packing up not only his suitcase, but also his daughter's. And by 5am in the morning, he was calling a taxi to go to the airport with his girlfriend and his daughter to leave for a two week cruise ship. Is that not the most insane thing you've ever heard? It does not. It never fails to blow my mind how people like him can basically turn a switch on and off serial killer mode and then normal family guy mode. It's sickening. Like, what do you actually mean? And as far he left her body there, right? But as far as it decomposing, I mean, it was Alaska, it was freezing outside. I assume that's why she stayed somewhat in okay shape while he was gone for two weeks. But if you remember, Samantha's boyfriend was supposed to be the person picking up Samantha after her shift. She didn't have a car with her. And for whatever reason, another idiotic move on Israel's end, which is great for us. Before Israel killed Samantha, before they even got to his house, while they were both sitting in his truck, he had grabbed her phone and texted Samantha's dad, her boyfriend and her boss off of her phone, pretending to be her. I don't know exactly what he said in the messages, but pretending to be Samantha, he said something along the lines of, I'm having a hard time, I need to go away for a little bit, please don't come looking for me. Those messages obviously did the complete opposite of what Israel had intended for them to do. Because as soon as her boyfriend and her father and her boss read those messages, they knew that something was wrong. And by that same night they had one reported Samantha missing and two began searching for her. They were so extremely concerned and so panicked because they knew that Samantha would not be the kind of person to send those messages in the first place. It could not be further out from her character. And also her boyfriend was supposed to pick her up from work. So it just, it was out of nowhere. They knew it was in Samantha. So while Israel was on the two week cruise with his girlfriend and his daughter, Samantha's family back in Alaska had been doing everything in their power to find her and bring her home safely. Heartbreakingly, she had already been killed the same night that she disappeared. But nobody apart from Israel knew that. For three weeks, Samantha's family heard nothing. They got nowhere in the search. They hadn't given up. Of course not. They were going to try and do everything in their power to find her until they did. But three weeks had passed, and they still had no idea where she could have gone, what could have happened to her. Nothing. So for those two weeks following her disappearance, Israel had been out on vacation with his family. But by the third week, he was back, and he was ready to play some sick mind games, not only with the police, but also with Samantha's loved ones. Israel decided that he was going to end up demanding a ransom after all. And he could do this because nobody apart from him knew that Samantha was already gone. So his plan was to text her boyfriend from her phone. And he did. On February 24, he sent a message from her phone to her boyfriend that read, quote, connor park, sign under Pick of Albert. Ain't she Purdy? End quote. As soon as the boyfriend got the message, he rushed over to Connor park with the police. And looking at the bulletin board, they found a poster of a missing dog named Albert. Right below it, there was a folded envelope thing with papers that were very obviously left behind by the kidnapper for them to find. They opened it up and looked to see what was inside, and they found a picture of Samantha. She was photographed. Her body was up against a wall. She was holding a very recent newspaper with the date on it, because that photo of her was supposed to be it. Clearly, it was supposed to be a proof of life photo. The next thing they found in the envelope was a ransom note demanding that her family members needed to transfer $30,000 into Samantha's bank account. So her boyfriend, her family members, along with the police, and they think, oh, my goodness, great, she's. She's still alive. Well, not great, obviously. Actually very horrible. The worst thing that could happen, right? But seeing that picture to them meant that she was at least still alive and there was still a reason to hold on to hope and think that she might be able to come home safely. Her family did not want to give in $30,000 to this criminal that stole their daughter. But in the meantime, since this was honestly the first real lead that they had, while they were working on figuring out what it meant, her family did come up with $5,000. And they did transfer that into Samantha's bank account just to sort of get. Give the kidnapper something in hopes that he would. Would keep Samantha alive until they could eventually find her. And you might be confused as to how there was a proof of life photo of Samantha, because we know that, sadly, by this point, she had been deceased for weeks. This is the gruesome part. Okay? Israel Keys needed to make it look like Samantha was still alive in order to be able to demand the money. So in order to take that picture, he had one brushed her hair, braided her hair to make her look more put together, I guess. This is brutal. He also then applied makeup to her face to make her look lively, because she wasn't. He put makeup on her face to bring back the color to her face a little bit. And then he sewed her eyelids open with fishing line to make it looked like she was still alive. Then he propped her up on the wall so she would stay sitting up. He placed the newspaper on her with the recent date. He took that picture, printed it out, and placed it in the envelope with the ransom note. It is so incredibly sad to know that she had been killed the night that she disappeared. But her loved ones were still being let on weeks later, thinking that there was a was any kind of hope left. While her loved ones work with the police and the FBI on following this new lead, Israel Keys now having access to $5,000 from Samantha's bank account. He set off on a road trip of sorts to go to different states, to go to many different ATMs to be able to take out that money in cash. And I'm sure you are all aware that ATMs more oftentimes than not have cameras. And even though Israel was driving through different stories states trying to put distance between him and authorities and disguising himself with a hoodie and a ski mask, anytime that he approached an atm, there was one thing that he did not account for because authorities obviously could track his movements, right? And they were, they would, they were getting alerts from Samantha's bank account anytime that money would be withdrawn from her account. So they knew where he was going. But Israel wasn't too worried about it because he figured that by the time that they would figure out where he was, he would have already been gone and onto the next atm. However, big mistake, because in the ATM CCTV footage, not only obviously could you see him approaching the atm, he was dressed with a disguise, but in the background you could see his car. And it was always the same car, this car, a white Ford Focus. So authorities didn't know who they were looking for. But now authorities knew what kind of car. And an alert was set out to officers in different states to keep an eye out for this specific vehicle. And on March 13th of 2012, a Texas state trooper in the town of shepherd spotted the white Ford Focus parked in a hotel parking lot. The officer, that officer, that trooper was well aware that officers in Alaska were searching for this vehicle in relation to a missing person. So he stuck around and waited for the driver to appear. Israel Keys walked out and into his car, and the officer followed him. He didn't have a reason to pull him over quite yet, but he continued to slowly drive behind him, just waiting for an opportunity. And as soon as Israel went just barely over the speed limit, the trooper pulled him over straight away. And when he searched his car, the trooper found Samantha Koenig's ATM card with her PIN number engraved on it, her cell phone, and the same disguise worn by the man captured on all the ATM cameras where Samantha's card had been used. He also saw that Israel's license was from Alaska, where Samantha disappeared. And he knew immediately that he had the right guy. Mind you, he did not know that Israel Keys was a serial killer. Nobody had a clue. All they suspected of him thus far was the kidnapping of Samantha Koenig. They did not even know if she was still alive or not. He was arrested and taken into the station for questioning. And there, yet again, he played more games with authorities. He wanted to negotiate, I guess, with the police. There are videos of this questioning online, and you should watch them, because it makes you sick. Honestly, it's kind of unbelievable, but for every piece of information that he gave, he wanted them to give him something in return. Whether it was coffee, a snack, a cigar. He would ask for something, and when he got it, only then would he give them a piece of the puzzle that they were trying to put together. And it was then, after going back and forth and back and forth, that Israel Keys informed police that Samantha had been dead this entire time. And as you can imagine, they were shocked because the picture that they have seen of her, Israel had printed it out. He had printed it in black and white. And he messed with it in a way that it really did fool everyone, and it really did make everyone think that she was still alive. But he confessed. He told them about the kidnapping in detail. He told them about the murder, about sewing her eyes open to make it look like she was still alive. About how he then dismembered her body inside of that shed and then disposed of it in a lake. He disposed of Samantha's body in the lake, right immediately after dumping human remains inside of the lake of the girl that he just murdered and dismembered. He went fishing. He went fishing. Like, I'm talking immediately after. Like, body dumped. Okay, grab the fishing. What's it called? Fishing rod. Goes fishing, catches fish, takes them home to cook for dinner for his girlfriend. And his daughter. Baffling, baffling. Samantha's family members, upon hearing the news, were absolutely distraught. My heart breaks for them. It's horrible. It's so sickening. Her body was eventually found, but still, it's so vile. For days throughout this questioning interviewing period, Israel played games with the police. He was trying to bargain with them to tell his many stories of his many victims on his terms. He was confessing to little things here and there, trying to make it as difficult as possible for the investigators to put pieces of his sick puzzle together, to try and figure out exactly what he was responsible for for the last over a decade and exactly how many lives he had claimed using the information that he did give is how we know everything that I told you about in this video. But Israel was awful. Of course he was. He wanted to do everything on his own terms. And because of that, we won't ever really know for sure how many victims he had. And remember his daughter, right? Israel had a daughter. He was a father. One of his many attempted bargains with police officers was that he wanted his name to be kept out of the press because he did not want his daughter to find out the monster that he really was. So again, he would give out little pieces of information. He never flat out told the story from beginning to end with all the details. It was always kind of like a. It was just a mind game, right? He would give them information and he would want them to figure it out, but he wanted them to make a deal with him that they would keep his name out of the press. And if so, then he would reveal more information and he would reveal more about his victims and everything that he did. Well, eventually his name got out of the press, and in his mind, Israel thought, oh, officers are not putting up their end of the deal, which means that I'm not going to cooperate either. And then he stopped talking. He didn't talk again. And on December 2nd of 2012, Israel Keys managed to get a hold of a razor blade in his jail cell while he was being held in custody in Alaska awaiting trial. And he used that to take his own life. He was found deceased in his cell, and right next to him was a piece of paper. Israel had left behind a message written out on that piece of paper. He wrote it with his own blood. It was 11 skulls drawn with his own blood labeled We Are One. Because of that, authorities believe that his total victim count was 11. However, some people, a lot of people, including an investigation investigator who worked directly on the case, believe that if you were to put all of the pieces, all the bits and pieces of information together to actually try to make find out how many victims he did have. It adds up to more than 11. But it's so frustrating that we just don't know. There will be no way to know because he took all of his secrets to the grave so all of those families will never ever get justice for their loved ones. It's awful. Makes me ill this guy. Like I said, you guys should watch the interrogation videos because it's unfathomable just how irritating and frustrating and snobby this guy is. He just sucks all the way all, all around. Awful, terrible guy. The worst. But that is all I have on Israel Keys. Let me know if you guys have heard of this. I'm very curious. Let me know what your thoughts are on it. And yeah, I will see you in next week's episode. I hope you guys are having the best day. If not, go do something to make it the best day. Make somebody happy. And I will see you in my next video. Massive kiss on the forehead to every single one of you. Thank you guys so much for tuning into this episode of I wish you were here. As a reminder, you can listen to this podcast any way you get your podcast video version also available on YouTube. Love you.