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- [00:00]
Vanessa Richardson
Foreign.
- [00:07]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
This is Crime House.
- [00:11]
Vanessa Richardson
Everyone has a dark side. That part of our personalities that's a little meaner, pettier, or more selfish than we'd like to admit. Most of us are able to keep those aspects of ourselves under control or find healthy ways to express them through therapy, exercise, or even just blowing off steam with our friends. But some people have dark sides they can't control. People like Keith Jesperson. Throughout his life, Keith felt terrible impulses. To hurt, to maim, to kill. For a while, he managed to control these urges. But when his life started to unravel, Keith couldn't repress those feelings any longer. And although he became known as the Happy Face Killer, he only left terror in his wake. The human mind is powerful. It shapes how we think, feel, love and hate. But sometimes it drives people to commit the unthinkable. This is Killer Minds, a Crime House original. I'm Vanessa Richardson.
- [01:32]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
And I'm Dr. Tristan Ingalls. Every Monday and Thursday, we uncover the darkest minds in history. Analyzing what makes a killer Crime House.
- [01:42]
Vanessa Richardson
Is made possible by you. Please rate, review and follow Killer Minds to enhance your listening experience with ad free early access to each two part series and and bonus content. Subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. A warning. This episode contains discussions of child abuse, animal abuse, sexual assault and murder. Listener discretion is advised. This is the first of two episodes on Keith Hunter Jesperson, otherwise known as the Happy Face Killer. In the early 1990s, he committed a string of brutal murders across the United States, using his job as a long haul trucker as the perfect cover. Along the way, he left behind a trail of bodies and happy faces scrawled in truck stop bathrooms.
- [02:34]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
As Vanessa takes you through the story, I'll be talking about things like why some people have violent urges they can't control, the dark side of having an overactive imagination as a child, and whether we all truly do have good sides and bad sides, or if that's just a myth.
- [02:52]
Vanessa Richardson
And as always, we'll be asking the question, what makes a killer?
- [03:01]
Kristen Bell
Hi, I'm Kristen Bell, and if you know my husband Dax, then you also know he loves shopping for a car. Selling a car, not so much.
- [03:07]
Ryan Reynolds
We're really doing this, huh?
- [03:09]
Kristen Bell
Thankfully, Carvana makes it easy. Answer a few questions, put in your VIN or license and done. We sold ours in minutes this morning and they'll come pick it up and pay us this afternoon.
- [03:20]
Vanessa Richardson
Bye bye Truckee.
- [03:21]
Kristen Bell
Of course, we kept the favorite.
- [03:25]
Vanessa Richardson
Hello other Truckee.
- [03:26]
Kristen Bell
Sell your car with Carvana today. Terms and conditions apply.
- [03:30]
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- [04:05]
Vanessa Richardson
Keith Hunter Jesperson says he wasn't born a serial killer, but he sometimes wonders if his childhood turned him into one. He was born on April 6, 1955 in Chilliwack, British Columbia, a rural Canadian community of farmland, orchards and hard working people. It was the kind of place where self sufficiency was key. Keith's family lived in a house his father built himself on land that had belonged to the Jespersons for generations. Keith was the third of five kids. He had two brothers and two sisters. As the middle child, he felt like the black sheep of the family. His father doted on his brothers and his mom on his sisters, while Keith ended up feeling overlooked and unloved. Keith was an easily distracted daydreamer, a kid who tried to be obedient but found it hard. There were stories about him getting repeatedly lost. When the Jespersons went on camping trips, the phrase Where's Keith? Became a running family joke. It's ironic that Keith was so easy to lose track of because physically he was huge. As an adult, he would stand 6 foot 6 and weigh over 220 pounds. Even as a child, he was always much larger than his classmates. It made him stand out, and not in a good way. Kids at school would tease Keith by calling him names like Igor, Tiny, Tubby, Sloth, and Monster Man. All the ridicule made Keith feel even more isolated. He spent most of his time playing by himself, pretending he was someone heroic, a great hunter or a war hero. Keith always had a vivid imagination and escaping into his fantasies became a kind of refuge for him. He even had a name for his fantasyland. He called it Keith's World.
- [06:01]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
So let's talk about this fantasy land because on its own it's really not alarming, but it's actually quite normal for children developmentally. This kind of imaginative coping can be adaptive and it can help form a child's creativity, problem solving and social Skills. Overall, if a child feels rejected, bullied, or powerless in home or school, retreating into a fantasy land can help them cope those painful emotions and that they don't even have the cognitive ability to understand. So it also gives them a sense of control over that. With Keith, he was putting himself in heroic roles in this fantasy land. And by envisioning himself as powerful, admired, or strong, he was attempting to compensate for feelings of inadequacy or humiliation. And those feelings were coming from both home and school. So that means he has two emotionally compromised environments. So with no other environment where he felt welcomed or even accept it, it would make sense why he would be creating a fantasy world as a way of coping with that.
- [07:05]
Vanessa Richardson
I've always heard that daydreaming is good for kids. Is there a point when spending too much time fantasizing can become problematic for a child?
- [07:13]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
Yes, absolutely. As psychologists, it becomes concerning and unhealthy. If the fantasies become rigid, excessive, fixated on harmful scenarios, or disconnected from reality, especially as the child grows, that can indicate that the child is struggling to integrate those difficult emotions in a healthier or more functional way. Another cause for concern would be if their fantasizing begins to severely impact their daily functioning. So, for example, if they are spending more time in their fantasy world than they are learning and that's adversely affecting their academic achievement, that's a problem. Or if they fail to show interest in interacting socially with peers, that would also warrant further evaluation.
- [07:59]
Vanessa Richardson
Well, as you said, Dr. Engels, Keith wasn't just using his imagination to escape the torment he faced at school. It was also a refuge from the many problems he had at home, specifically with his dad, Leslie, or Les Jesperson. Les was a hard man and a complicated one. He grew up on the Canadian frontier, the son of a poor blacksmith whose idea of discipline was to beat him with a leather strap. But despite Les brutal upbringing, he grew up to be creative and resourceful. With no formal schooling, he taught himself Morse code, advanced mathematics, mechanical engineering, and even how to play the accordion. He invented machines to help pull logs and make roof tiles. He made art out of scrap metal that was so good, it was displayed in a museum. And Les was so well liked around Chilliwack, he was even elected to some local government positions. But behind his friendly public facade, Les was a cruel, unforgiving man. He was supposedly constantly insulting his wife and children with sarcastic comments and wisecracks. For instance, he told his kids he was only with their mom because she cooked for him. He was also a hardcore alcoholic who by his own admission, was drunk by 10am most days. But worst of all, he was physically abusive, especially to Keith. Continuing the family tradition, Les would use a belt to beat Keith for breaking even the smallest rule. Sometimes he'd beat Keith for no good reason at all. Les also took pleasure in tormenting Keith in more elaborate ways. Once, when Keith was a little kid, he asked his dad how to tell if an electric fence was turned on. Les told his young son to pee on it. Keith didn't know any better, so he did, then shrieked in pain as the current carried back up to him. Meanwhile, Les howled with cruel laughter. He told Keith to see it as a learning experience. Keith hated Les for being so cruel to him. Yet at the same time, he idolized his dad. To Keith, it seemed like his dad knew everything. As an adult, Keith once told an interviewer, quote, I love my dad and I hate my dad. He's so overpowering.
- [10:21]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
Clearly, Keith is being emotionally abused by his father and physically abused. And the electric fence incident is a pretty extreme example of that because it's very sadistic behavior. It's not just causing physical pain, but psychological, and it's an intentional betrayal of a child's trust. Abusive behavior is learned. So this is a behavior that is being modeled by Les, and it is significant in shaping who Keith would become. Despite this, Les is still his primary attachment figure. Children are dependent on their caregivers for survival, safety, and identity. So even when that caregiver or parent is cruel, the child may still desperately seek their approval and love. And his father, Less was a source of both fear and comfort, which are conflicting or inconsistent behaviors. And that's what typically forms what we call a disorganized or fearful avoidant attachment style. This inconsistent behavior from Less can create an internal conflict that can lead to issues like low self worth, chronic anxiety, difficulty trusting others, problems with emotional regulation, and sometimes even distorted beliefs about what love and power really look like. So when Keith says, I love my dad and I hate my dad, that's actually a very psychologically accurate reflection of the double bind many abused children experience. It's heartbreaking, but sadly, it's not rare.
- [11:48]
Vanessa Richardson
Despite all the abuse he suffered, Keith was still desperate for Les approval. And one of the few ways he got it was by killing gophers. On the Jespersons land, Keith and his brothers allegedly killed gophers by the hundreds, sometimes shooting them, sometimes catching them and clubbing them to death. Les loved seeing his boys come home splattered in gopher blood so much that he once took a Home video of them. He would proudly show it to people, calling his sons natural born killers.
- [12:20]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
His glamorizing violence.
- [12:22]
Vanessa Richardson
Absolutely. This positive reinforcement seemed to have a big impact on Keith. Too soon, he wasn't just taking out gophers. He was killing other small animals like cats and enjoying the act. As Keith got older, he found that he took an almost sexual pleasure in inflicting pain and death. These dark, violent urges were usually taken out on animals, but not always. When Keith was about 10, he got into an altercation with another boy his age named Martin. Martin. According to Keith, Martin kept getting in trouble and blaming him, which would result in Keith getting punished by his dad. So eventually, Keith hunted Martin down, cornered him, and started beating him. If Keith's dad hadn't rushed in and pulled him away, Keith says, he would have killed Martin. Keith later spoke of this attack as a watershed moment in his life, saying, quote, that's when I began to think of myself as two people, one watching the other. I can honestly say that the person that beat Martin was not the real me. I would never hurt another kid. But that day I just kind of stepped aside and let the bad side take over. It was the same with the women I killed.
- [13:37]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
So this description of good and bad versions of the self is actually another common experience and not necessarily cause for concern in the majority of cases, especially especially for children under the age of seven, because they tend to look at the world in black and white. It's a central concept in objects relations theory. And over time, as children develop cognitively, they learn the concept of object constancy, which is the idea that people can hold two opposing truths. And examples of this are, I can be in trouble and still be loved, or I can mess up and still be a good person. For some individuals, especially those with histories of trauma or abuse, this type of splitting can be a way of coping with overwhelming feelings like guilt, shame, or even rage. Most people have many competing impulses like empathy, anger, fear, and compassion. But generally, integration is the goal. They learn to regulate and integrate those feelings to one. But when that integration breaks down, whether it's due to trauma, personality pathology, or other factors, they then externalize their harmful behavior as coming from a, quote, part of themselves that's separate, and that's when it's abnormal. This is especially common among violent offenders. Now, to be clear, what you are describing is very different from dissociative identity disorder, which is formerly known as multiple personality disorder. Dissociative identity disorder, or DID Involves the presence of more than one distinct identity states that recurrently take control of a person's behavior, Often with amnesia or gaps in memory. What keith is describing is very different. He's not having an identity taking over his behavior, and he is also fully aware of what he is doing. There is no evidence of amnesia or gaps in memory related to that. Instead, what this is, it appears to be a way of compartmentalizing or splitting his egos. It's still a form of dissociation, but it's much milder and in his case, is more meant for ego preservation.
- [15:39]
Vanessa Richardson
So is what keith's saying Just a way to give permission for his bad behavior, or is there more to it?
- [15:45]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
If keith believes that the, quote, bad part is responsible, Then he can convince himself that the good keith Isn't fully accountable. He's emotionally distanced from what he has done. And often, especially in forensic settings, People use this narrative to minimize responsibility after the fact. And it's important to identify, at least for us professionally, because it helps us to understand how they've come to organize their thinking well.
- [16:10]
Vanessa Richardson
Keith's life became even more complicated in 1967, when he was 12. That year, Les moved their family 250 miles south to Clo, Washington. He'd gotten a job designing machinery for the hops growing industry. Although keith's life wasn't easy in chilliwack, he hated the move. At least in canada, life was predictable. In america, he felt more like an outsider than ever before. Middle school and high school were especially hard for keith. He was socially awkward and bad at making friends. His classmates remember keith as a nice but weird kid. He'd be overly kind and generous one minute, Then mean and stingy the next. One classmate said it sometimes seemed like Keith wasn't in control of his brain. Things were just as challenging when it came to dating. In high school, Keith wanted to go out with girls, but he was terrible at talking to them. After a few fumbling attempts, he eventually gave up on it altogether. These sexual frustrations added fuel to the dark, violent urges Keith had felt since childhood. As soon as he got his driver's license, he started driving out into the wilderness by himself to kill any animals he could find. He wasn't just slaughtering gophers and cats anymore. He moved up to bigger creatures like coyotes, deer, and even cows. And it wasn't enough just to shoot them. Keith liked to maim his prey so he could watch them slowly die. But keith couldn't spend the rest of his life alone in the woods. After graduating high school in 1973, he had to Figure out what to do with himself. College was off the table. Though Keith had terrible grades. With no other prospects, he did the last thing he wanted. He started working for his dad. Les planned to build a trailer park on their property and hired Keith to help him. To Les's surprise, Keith was a quick learner when it came to operating heavy machinery like backhoes and dust dump trucks. Keith was happy to finally be getting some positive attention from his dad and threw himself into the job. Things were starting to look up for him and in the fall of 1974 when Keith was 19, something surprising happened. He met a girl who actually seemed to like him. Her name was Rose Pernick. She was a pretty dark haired 17 year old waitress who worked at a diner called the Lariat Barbecue. Keith stopped in one night and ordered a burger but it came out with no meat between the buns. Keith and Rose laughed about the mix up and got to talking. Soon they were dating. But while Keith was glad to finally have a girlfriend, he didn't know if he actually cared for Rose all that much. But Les told Keith that he was lucky to have found someone at all. There was no telling if Keith would ever find another girlfriend. If he wanted a lifelong partner, he should lock clock Rose down as soon as possible. Keith, as usual, listened to his dad. Within a year, he and Rose were engaged. The relationship was doomed from the start and Keith's disturbing urges were getting stronger by the day. As much as he wanted to contain them, he knew it was only a matter of time until they erupted into something terrible.
- [19:44]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
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- [20:44]
Vanessa Richardson
On August 2, 1975, Keith Jesperson and Rose Pernick were married in a Catholic church in Moxie, Washington. Keith was 20 and Rose was 18. It should have been a happy day. But Keith never really felt good about the marriage. He wasn't sure that he actually loved Rose. And if she actually loved him, he thought she just saw him as a ticket out of her chaotic house where she lived with her mother and three brothers. But when Keith told his dad he was having second thoughts, Les told him they'd already paid for the venue. He couldn't back out now. The rehearsal dinner was at a Denny's, and Keith spent the whole night wishing he could run off with the maid of honor instead of Rose. The unhappily married couple moved into a mobile home in the trailer park Keith was helping his dad build. Keith was miserable and felt stifled by both his dad and his new wife. To relieve his stress, Keith volunteered to be the trailer park's on site exterminator, giving him a perfect excuse to sadistically murder any animals he found on the lot. He was so enthusiastic about his job, he even killed a few residents. Pets.
- [21:56]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
Keith has a history of violence toward animals, so let's talk about that. When he first started harming animals as a child, it was to gain his father's approval and to bond with him, which is modeling and conditioning at work. So, for example, if a child grows up in an environment where cruelty is normalized or glamorized, even rewarded, they can start to associate violence with acceptance, power, or love. And in Keith's case, his father was both abusive and overpowering. Then, as Keith gets older and experiences bullying and isolation at school, the violence shifts from being about his father's approval to being about emotional regulation and control. Keith was lacking feelings of acceptance or safety and ultimately control in his home and school environments, causing him to seek other ways of getting that control. And sadly, beyond his fantasy world, that led him to exerting control over vulnerable animals. It's a way of discharging anger, frustration, or helplessness in a context where the victim is the vulnerable, defenseless one, not him. Now that he is married, he's once again using animal cruelty as a way to vent his frustrations, making it a much more established behavior. And at this point, we would consider this kind of animal violence and this pattern of behavior as a maladaptive coping mechanism. And from a forensic standpoint, this is highly concerning because we know that early patterns of cruelty to animals, especially when it escalates and serves multiple psychological functions, is a known and widely documented risk factor in the development of more serious violence later on.
- [23:34]
Vanessa Richardson
On this show, we've profiled a few killers who had a Fascination with dead animals. Can you compare Keith to people, Jeffrey Dahmer, who was more interested in dissection and not actually killing them himself, or like the Golden State Killer, Joseph d', Angelo, who seemed to like hunting as a way to break rules?
- [23:51]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
Yes, absolutely. Honestly, as you were taking us through the story, the first thing that came to mind were the similarities between Keith and Jeffrey Dahmer. I was drawing the parallels in my mind because like Keith, Dahmer also had a difficult home environment and was rejected by his peers. Dahmer, like Keith, also bonded with his father over animals. And in Dahmer's case, it was their dissection of them. They both used animals as a way of connecting with their fathers and both of them escalated into using this as a maladaptive coping mechanism. But similar to both Dahmer and even Joseph d', Angelo, they all were particularly sadistic and their violence toward animals was an early manifestation of those sadistic impulses. And all of them, as we well know later, became serial killers. Like you said, we've done episodes on both Dahmer, which was actually our first, first, our four part series, and d'. Angelo. So anyone listening who hasn't heard those, you should definitely check them out to see these parallels for yourself.
- [24:53]
Vanessa Richardson
To Keith's dismay, his new gig didn't last long. After only two years, the mobile home park hit financial trouble and Les sold it. Needing a new job, Keith took a job as a driver for a local trucking company. And to his surprise, Keith loved it. He enjoyed the solitude of his long drives and controlling a huge 16 wheel big rig gave him a rush of power. But most of all, he loved the freedom. Keith had spent his whole life feeling bullied and controlled by others, physically, mentally and emotionally. But in his truck, he could go where he wanted when he wanted and no one could bother him. His improved mood seems to have helped his marriage. Keith and Rose grew closer and started having more fun. He even brought her on trucking trips with him sometimes. Then in 1979, when Keith was 24, he became a father for the first time to a baby girl named Melissa. A year later, Rose gave birth to their son Jason. And in 1983, they had another daughter named Carrie, making them a family of five. Keith was determined to be a better father than Les. He swore he would never hit his kids or let their grandpa lay a finger on them either. He was genuinely sweet, gentle and kind with his children. Keith's kids all have happy memories of rushing to him whenever he came home from his trucking halls. Searching in his pockets for the coins and the little gifts he'd always bring them. And yet they also remember that something was a little off about their father. A darkness just below his good dad facade. Keith did strange things, sometimes mean things. When Jason was a toddler, Keith would knock down his block towers. He said later that it made him feel good to see his son frustrated. And Keith couldn't hide his favorite hobby from his kids. One time he strangled a cat in front of his daughter Melissa and some other children. She remembers. He had a strange look on his face of enjoyment. Wow.
- [27:05]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
So. So Keith's ability to hide his dark side speaks to his antisocial tendencies. I mean, he was hiding it for the most part, I should say. People with antisocial tendencies don't feel the normal guilt, empathy, or remorse or discomfort that would typically stop a pro social individual from harming others or animals. Instead, they actually get pleasure, as Keith did, from the suffering or frustration of others, even their own children, even their children's friends. But they also recognize that openly displaying this enjoyment is socially unacceptable. So they learn to put on what we call the mask of sanity when it serves them. And we've talked about this in other episodes. But this ability to manipulate their outward presentation allows them to become chameleons. As a result, they navigate relationships, they maintain employment, and they avoid consequences for longer periods, even as their darker behaviors escalated in private or controlled settings. And of course, they're skilled at manipulation and deception, which certainly helps them be more convincing in blending in. And this is how Keith was able to hold that in a little bit more and pretend to be this good dad.
- [28:15]
Vanessa Richardson
On a psychological level, how do people with violent sadistic urges keep their feelings or urges at bay like that?
- [28:23]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
Yeah, for starters, many individuals with sadistic urges have some degree of impulse control when it's in their self interest. And what I mean is they know that acting on these urges every time they have them, like in public or in certain contexts, would bring consequences. And because of that, their able to practice some degree of self control or restraint. Otherwise of course, they'd be caught far sooner. And of course there are always outliers. But impulse control deficits are not a core component of sadism. Second, they compartmentalize. They mentally separate their violent urges from the rest of their lives. As I mentioned, they put on that mask of sanity and they can engage in work, family, or hobbies while privately maintaining these fantasies, behaviors, or secret routines that feed that darker side. And Keith has been priming him for this since he was a child. First with his fantasy world and then with the splitting of his egos, the good side versus the bad. This kind of duality is an established pattern for him. And third, they engage in detailed fantasies that help temporarily satisfy the urge without immediate consequences. Over time, however, they can become desensitized to that meaning. The fantasy loses its intensity or effectiveness. So they begin to test new boundaries, often through more risky, aggressive or controlling behaviors. This can lead to escalation as they seek to gain that emotional high that they once got from their fantasies or even earlier acts of violence. In some cases, individuals may try to find replacement behaviors to fulfill the same underlying urge, but these substitutions are temporary, especially if the compulsion is deeply rooted. And for sexually motivated serial killers, that could include engaging in certain sexual acts with their wife or another person. In general. The reality is, there is almost always a threshold moment, though, where certain life events stressors whether they're frustrated or humiliated occur, and that lowers the degree of control. And that's typically when the behavior becomes lethal.
- [30:22]
Vanessa Richardson
Keith may have been a good dad to his kids when he wasn't killing cats in front of them, but before long, he went back to being a lousy husband to Rose. His long haul trucking kept him away from home for weeks at a time, leaving Rose to raise their three kids alone while also trying to work odd jobs to help pay the bills. But things weren't any easier when Keith was around, particularly when it came to sex. Keith had an incredibly high libido and claimed he'd have sex three times a day if he could, but that was too much for Rose to get out his sexual urges. Keith would flirt with women he met along his trucking route, then masturbate alone in his truck while fantasizing about them. These fantasies would often involve violence and sexual assault assault.
- [31:08]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
And this is an example of a possible replacement behavior to maintain some of that control that I talked about earlier.
- [31:15]
Vanessa Richardson
But while Keith fantasized and flirted a lot, he didn't actually cheat on Rose. At least not until Christmas 1986, when Keith was 31. Some old friends of his, who we'll call Joe and Georgia, invited Keith to come over to their place, then revealed they were swingers. Keith ended up having regular threesomes with them for a while until eventually Joe got jealous of the relationship that was developing between Keith and Georgia, and they all stopped seeing each other. But Keith had gotten a taste for infidelity, and he wasn't going to stop. Keith started cheating every chance he could, sleeping with women he met along his truck routes it wasn't long until he was hiring sex workers too. But even then, he still wasn't satisfied. Keith's sex drive was insatiable, and his dark fantasies were becoming harder for him to ignore. One night, while Keith was driving his truck through a rainstorm, he spotted a 15 year old girl walking her bicycle on the side of the road. Keith offered to give her a ride and she hopped in his cab. After driving for a few minutes, Keith pulled over. Over? He wanted to have sex with her with or without her consent. But as soon as he reached for her, the girl bolted out the door and ran off into the darkness. Keith threw her bike out of the truck and sped off. For weeks afterward, he worried that the girl would report him to the police. But nothing happened. Keith decided it was too risky to try something like that again. But he still needed an outlet for his violent urges. So he tried to channel them in a variety of ways. Ways he set wildfires and took pleasure in watching the fire crews struggle to put them out. He also ran people off the road with his truck. Keith estimates he caused at least five crashes. And he still liked to find animals to kill whenever he got the chance. But Keith knew he could only distract himself for so long. He needed more.
- [33:20]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
Yeah, this urge goes beyond simple impulse or momentary poor judgment. We're talking about a compulsion where the urge to harm, dominate or destroy becomes increasingly difficult to suppress psychologically. This can be explained in a few ways. It's related to a schedule of reinforcement. Every time Keith acted on one of his urges, whether it was setting the fires, running people off the road, killing animals, he got a psychological payoff. It was excitement, it was power, it was thrill, maybe even a sense of control. And that reward strengthens the behavior, reinforcing it like a behavioral loop. The more he engages in it, the stronger it becomes. He's also desensitized and escalating over time. As I already outlined, the same behavior stop providing the same level of satisfaction or response. So what once thrilled him, like killing animals, starts to lose its intensity. So he seeks bigger, riskier, more extreme acts to get the same psychological payoff. Third, it's impaired internal regulation. People with this kind of pathology often lack empathy, guilt, or remorse. Those are basic human experiences that would normally prevent someone from acting on violent impulses. Even if they know intellectually that something is wrong or dangerous. That cognitive awareness isn't enough to override the compulsion once that urge reaches a certain intensity. And finally, that step, fantasy building. It's something he started as a child. Individuals like Keith Often spend a great deal of time fantasizing about violence, which further fuels that urge. The fantasy becomes more vivid, more elaborate, and eventually it becomes actualized.
- [34:56]
Vanessa Richardson
Why is it that some urges are easy for us to ignore, While other urges become so powerful they even make us do things we know are wrong? And do different kinds of urges actually come from different parts of the brain?
- [35:08]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
So the difference often comes down to how emotionally charged the urge is, how it's wired into their reward system, and how well developed their impulse control is. Some urges, like craving a cook cookie, Might activate mild reward circuits, but they're relatively easy to override with a little willpower because the stakes are low and the emotional charge is minimal. But with urges tied to strong emotions, in this case anger, fear, arousal, or power, the brain's reward system can get highly activated, Flooding the brain with dopamine and other chemicals that make the behavior feel incredibly good or compelling. And at the same time, the brain's prefrontal cortex, the part responsible for judgment and reasoning, has to work even harder to suppress that urge. And in people like Keith, who have deficits in emotional regulation, empathy, or remorse already, that system isn't working as it should. So the urge can override judgment Even when they know that the behavior is wrong.
- [36:08]
Vanessa Richardson
When he wasn't causing mayhem on the highways, Keith was still hitting on women. In 1988, the 33 year old was at a truck stop near the town of Weed, California, when he met someone who we'll call Debbie. They hit it off right away. Away. Keith liked that Debbie could keep up with his insane sex drive. Before long, he was taking her with him on his trucking routes, and they began to think of themselves as a couple. At that point, Keith was still married, but his relationship with Rose had reached a breaking point. One night, as they lay in bed together, Keith told Rose he wanted a divorce. That seemed to be fine with her. She simply rolled over and went to sleep. The next day, Rose left and took the kids. She left a note for Keith saying they'd gone to live with her mother after 13 years together. That was it. Even though it hadn't been a happy marriage and Keith asked for the divorce himself. He says that he cried after reading the letter. He was still eager to move on, though. Shortly after, Keith and Debbie moved into a house in Portland, Oregon. But their relationship relationship quickly turned sour. Debbie was a troubled woman who even Keith's dad seemed to be a little afraid of. Les called her, quote, tougher than banjo strings with turpentine sauce. Keith and Debbie gave it a go. But it wasn't long before they drifted apart. In January of 1990, 35 year old Keith got a collect call from Debbie. She was leaving him for another trucker and wanted Keith out of the house house. Before she came back to Portland, Keith's life seemed to have hit rock bottom. He'd lost his family and now he'd even lost his girlfriend. He was poor, depressed and alone. He was angry at the world and he was angry at women in particular. Keith's violent urges began to feel overwhelming. He lured a stray cat into his house and killed it. But it wasn't enough. He needed more to satisfy the darkness inside inside him.
- [38:12]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
So this is an example of what I've been describing. Early on, killing animals may have provided him with a strong sense of release, power, or even pleasure. But over time, the same act stops giving him the same psychological payoff.
- [38:26]
Vanessa Richardson
On the cold gray morning of January 21, 1990, with these dark feelings swirling inside him, Keith left his house and headed to a bar. According to him, he just wanted to put play some pool and let off some steam. But Keith was about to do a lot more than that. He was going to kill his first human being.
- [38:54]
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Dr. Tristan Ingalls
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Dr. Tristan Ingalls
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- [40:40]
Vanessa Richardson
Tanya Bennett had to be one of the friendliest people in Washington State. She'd walk right up to strangers and throw her arms around them to introduce herself. In January 1990, Tanya was 23 years old, old, petite and pretty with dark brown hair. She loved Madonna and often carried a Walkman so she could listen to music all day. But despite her sunny personality, Tanya's life hadn't been easy. She had mild mental disabilities due to oxygen deprivation during her birth. She dropped out of high school for behavioral issues and by 1990 had fallen into alcoholism and drug addiction. She spent her nights hanging out at bars around Northeast Portland. Sadly, her overly trusting nature often made her an easy target for men with bad intentions. Men like Keith Jesperson. On the afternoon of January 21, 1990, Keith and Tanya crossed paths for the first time at a seedy bar in a rough part of Portland called the B and I Tavern. Keith first noticed Tanya playing pool with a couple of guys he thought she looked like his ex wife Rose, only prettier. When Tonya noticed Keith staring at her, she did her usual move, ran right to him and gave him a hug. Keith was intrigued. He hung out and chatted with Tonya and her buddies for a while. He thought she liked him. But when he asked the bartender about her, they told him he shouldn't feel too flattered. She was mentally disabled and was nice to everyone. Keith left the bar and went back home alone. He was depressed and angry. His girlfriend had dumped him. His kids were far away. His thoughts kept returning to Tanya. So, as he often did, Keith began to fantasize. His thoughts were dark, violent, and disturbing. The fact that Tanya was mentally disabled was especially exciting to Keith. It meant he could have total control over her. Finally, Keith made a decision. It was time to act on his fantasies, so he went back to the bar. When Keith arrived back at the BNI Tavern, Tanya happened to be walking out. He followed her into the parking lot, his mind already spinning about what he would do next. Keith approached Tanya and asked if she would like to go get a bite to eat with him, maybe play more pool later. Ever trusting, Tanya happily agreed and climbed into Keith's car. He told her he needed to stop by his house first to grab Some money. Keith drove Tanya to his place, then invited her inside. She followed him, and he closed the door behind them. Then he attacked Keith, sexually assaulted Tanya, before beating her and strangling her to death. Death. He'd finally crossed a line he never thought he would. He'd committed murder, and he'd loved it.
- [43:46]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
When someone like Keith finally crosses that line from fantasy into actualizing, several things happen. Psychologically. The anticipatory fear collapses. Prior to that, there may have been anxiety or fear of the consequences. But once the act is complete, and especially if it's successful, that fear gets replaced by a sense of mastery or even invincibility. Which brings us back to the reinforcement loop that I've outlined, because that becomes even more amplified. The pleasure he felt now links directly to the act of killing, making future acts not only easier, but something he actively craves. Also, the internal narrative shifts. Up until this point, Keith may have still seen himself as someone with violent fantasies that he could manage, or that he is the good Keith still. But after this murder, his self perception changes. He might start identifying with this dark part of himself. That shift in identity is often what separates fantasizers from serial offenders. Keith methodically built himself toward this. He spent years living in fantasy, testing limits, experimenting with different forms of violence, and managing his urges in different ways. Until murder became not just possible, but also gratifying.
- [45:03]
Vanessa Richardson
After Keith came down from the high of committing his first murder murder, he realized he had a big problem. He needed to get rid of Tanya's body and clean up the bloody crime scene before his ex girlfriend Debbie got home. First, Keith cut the fly off Tanya's jeans in case the buttons might have his fingerprints on them, then put her clothes back on her. He then tied a white rope around her neck and used it to drag her out to his car, a Chevy Nova sedan. Dan. He propped her up in the passenger seat, hoping that anyone who saw her would think she was sleeping or drunk. Once Tanya's body was secure, Keith drove out of Portland and into the wild pine forest surrounding the city. As he looked for a place to dispose of her, Keith says he talked to Tanya's body as though she were alive, asking her where she'd like to sleep that night. Finally, Keith pulled over at a spot near the Columbia river gorge. He hauled Tanya's body about 60ft feet from the road down a steep embankment covered in brush. He dropped her with her head pointing downhill. Then, panicking that he might be seen, he scrambled back to his car and sped off. A little later, Keith threw Tanya's Walkman out the window on a bridge and tossed her purse in some BlackBerry bushes. Then he went to a 24 hour truck stop and hung out for the rest of the night, making sure he was seen by plenty of people to establish an alibi. In the morning, Keith went back to the house and meticulously cleaned up the crime scene. He even steamed the carpet. There were some blood spots on the ceiling he couldn't quite get rid of, so he painted over them. Finally, after the house was totally clean, Keith went car shopping. He didn't actually buy one, but he figured no one would believe a murderer would do something so mundane the day after killing someone. With his tracks now covered, Keith started to come down from the high of his murder and the weight of what he'd done began to sink in. He started to feel guilty and confused about why he'd even killed Tanya. Images from the murder kept flashing in his head and he began to worry he was a monster. He considered suing suicide, but decided against it because he knew it would dishonor the Jesperson name and anger his dad. Keith tried to cope with his guilt by telling himself someone else had done the murder. The bad Keith had taken over and the real Keith was still innocent. But finally, Keith simply had to admit the truth to himself. He'd committed murder because he wanted to. He said, quote, killing that girl came straight from my fantasy.
- [47:53]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
He's self identifying. Keith has now integrated the good and bad parts of himself. He's admitting that the act was intentional, it was desired, and it was in alignment with his fantasies. So in essence, he's taking full ownership, but not in a way that's redeemable, obviously, because instead this is a confession of pleasure. He's allowing himself to accept what he knows to be true, that this is something he enjoys. And now that he has committed his first murder and recognize that he enjoyed it, it's reinforced that behavior and becomes part of that highly addictive cycle. It's also reduced his internal conflict because until this point, he tried to rationalize or compartmentalize his urges. He looked for replacements for them as well. But now aligning his identity with them, there's no more inner struggle. And this is not a case of him losing control, it's a case of him exercising it. So when he says, says, quote, killing that girl came straight from my fantasies, he's telling us that this wasn't a fluke, it wasn't an accident, and that this was the moment when Keith went from fantasizer to fully actualized killer, and at this point there is very little stopping him from doing it again.
- [49:06]
Vanessa Richardson
Well, after a few days, Keith's feelings of guilt turned into fear. Tanya's body was found on January 22, the day after he killed her. It was all over the news and Keith was terrified that he'd be caught. He read the newspaper every day for any updates on the case. Finally, after about eight weeks, the police made a shocking announcement. They knew who had killed Tanya and it wasn't Keith. They'd arrested a couple, a 57 year old grandmother named Laverne Pavlonak and her 39 year old boyfriend, John Sosnovsky. Laverne had confessed in detail to helping John murder Tanya. She knew about the fly that had been cut off of Tanya's jeans and she was even able to accurately point out where Tanya's body had been found. Keith didn't understand. Why were these random people taking the blame for his killing and how did they know so much about it? He couldn't make heads or tails of it, but one thing was for sure, this meant Keith had gotten away with murder. He suddenly felt invincible, even godlike, like he could unleash his violent fantasies upon women whenever he wanted and face no repercussions. Keith's dark side had finally won and now he was about to go on one of the most horrific killing sprees in American history. Thanks so much for listening. Come back next time as we finish our deep dive on Keith Jesperson.
- [50:56]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
Killer Minds is a Crime House Original Powered by by Pave Studios Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on all social media rimehouse and don't forget to rate, review and follow Killer Minds wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference and.
- [51:18]
Vanessa Richardson
To enhance your listening experience, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode of Killer Mind Minds ad free along with early access to each thrilling two part series and exciting bonus content. Killer Minds is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson and Dr. Tristan Engels and is a Crime House original. Powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Killer Minds team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Lori Marinelli, Natalie Pertzovsky, Sarah Camp, Dan Merk, Sarah Tardiff and Carrie Murphy. Thank you for listening.