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11 Skulls /// Israel Keyes /// Part 1
00:55:51
11 Skulls /// Israel Keyes /// Part 1 Episode: 788 Part 1 of 4 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com Israel Keyes was an American serial killer. Keyes is now deceased but when he died he took many of his deep dark secrets with him. He truly was a predator with no boundaries. He killed in several states and is suspected to have done so in others. That is the mystery of Israel Keyes. It’s not just about how many victims but where and when. Questions that the F.B.I. are still working on years after Keyes’ death. The Garage is a podcast with no boundaries. We called upon Keyes experts from across the country to talk about the mysteries that Keyes left behind. This week we are joined by Josh Hallmark from the True Crime Bullsh** (bullshit) podcast. Also joining us is Dakota and Josh from the Somewhere in the Pines podcast. Episodes 3 & 4 will be available very soon on our guests’ podcast feeds. Episode #3 - True Crime Bullsh** - season 6 coming back from the break Episode #4 - Somew...
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- [00:01]
Joshua Ash
Twisted mind of a serial killer.
- [00:04]
Dakota
Israel Keys left investigators stunned by telling them he's a serial killer. Textbook serial killer. He took pleasure in the act of taking a life.
- [00:21]
Host/Moderator
There is nothing probably greater than holding the power and control of someone's life
- [00:27]
Josh Hallmark
and looking them in the eye and being able to control all that is intentional intoxicating.
- [00:33]
Joshua Ash
The serial killers.
- [00:35]
Dakota
Textbook serial killer, Israel Keys.
- [00:40]
Joshua Ash
So just can you describe the status of the case and the interest in Israel Keys right now?
- [00:44]
Captain/Nick
Yeah, so it's, it's an ongoing case. Obviously, after Keys killed himself, that kind of changed everything for us. There's no longer a defendant, there's no longer crimes per se to investigate like we would in a traditional case. But we have unsolved homicides that we're trying to solve. So it's remained open. Recognizing that he took so many secrets with him when he died, we've really reached out to the public in various projects and news media type things, trying to get tips, people that might remember seeing him or things like that. The caches, we've usually talked about the caches in most of these media things because we do think that they potentially hold clues to some of his past victims. So that's an ongoing type strategy of ours, is to hopefully make people aware that these caches are out there and to, you know, if they come across something they think might be one of his caches, contact law enforcement immediately. Don't touch it. Don't contaminate the DNA that might be in there. That might be helpful to us.
- [01:53]
Host/Moderator
Today we have a True Crime Garage roundtable on tap for all of you, Nick and the captain with you, of course. But joining us, we have Josh Hallmark, who is the host and creator of the True Crime Podcast, an investigative podcast aimed at identifying the missing Israel Keys victims. And also joining us, we have Dakota and Joshua from the Somewhere in the Pines podcast, which is dedicated to locating the hidden caches, weapons and kill kits of American serial killer, Israel Keys. Israel Keys is a deceased serial killer. We know that he killed at least three people. He committed several other known attacks, and when he died in 2012, he left behind a huge mystery with potential additional murder victims. In fact, there is much evidence to suggest that these three victims were not the only victims of Israel Keys and that there are other kill kids out there hidden and buried across the country that can still be found. We asked Josh, Dakota and Joshua to join us to discuss the mystery of Keys and to talk about a lot of the evidence in this case suggesting that there are, in fact, additional victims tying Keys to other murders, will close out some other cases. How many? Well, that remains to be determined at this moment. Let's go around the room and introduce ourselves to the beautiful listeners. Josh Hallmark, why don't you tell everybody about your podcast?
- [03:25]
Josh Hallmark
Hey, everyone, this is Josh Hallmark. I started investigating Israel Keys in 2014 and launched True Crime Bullshit in 2018. It was intended to just be a one season exploration of Israel Keys, and now, six years later, it's just a deep dive investigation into all things Keys with a specific focus on trying to identify his unknown victims.
- [03:51]
Host/Moderator
And how about the Somewhere in the Pines guys?
- [03:54]
Dakota
How's it going, everyone? My name is Dakota. I work with Joshua Ash on the show Somewhere in the Pines. And our focus is to locate the hidden caches of Israel Keys to hopefully help identify his unknown victims.
- [04:08]
Joshua Ash
And hey, everyone, this is Joshua Ash. We've been researching for the past three years and physically searching for about the last year and a half all throughout the Olympic Peninsula, trying to locate any sort of signs or landmarks that Israel could have used to help identify where a cache would be.
- [04:25]
Host/Moderator
Well, gentlemen, we are forced to reverse engineer this case. Keys is caught, and then this mystery starts to unfold for investigators and the FBI in particular. So we need to start with how did Israel Keyes get apprehended and what for?
- [04:40]
Josh Hallmark
Yeah. So Keyes's apprehension is funny because the whole mythology surrounding Keys is he's the most meticulous, thoughtful serial killer ever. And he actually got caught being pretty reckless and stupid. He was arrested on March 13th of 2012 in Lufkin, Texas, after he had used a missing woman named Samantha Koenig's debit card at ATMs in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas while he was traveling from Las Vegas to his sister's wedding in Wells, Texas. Essentially, the cops were able to pull ATM video from one of the ATM transactions, found his rental car and the license plate, were able to look it up, and tracked him to a motel in Lufkin, Texas. They waited for him to leave and then pulled him over. I think he was going. I think he ran a red light. So they used that to pull him over and then immediately apprehended him. They searched and seized items from his car, and in those items they found Samantha Coney debit card, cell phone, and other evidence from her abduction.
- [05:47]
Host/Moderator
And so at the time, they suspect him of this one abduction and murder. But once they learn more about Israel Keys and some of the things he starts to tell them, we find out that there is much more beneath the surface here than just this one murder that he appeared to be on the run from.
- [06:05]
Josh Hallmark
Yeah, pretty quickly. You know, Keyes had said, I think in his second interview following his arrest, alluded to the fact that there were many more crimes and that Samantha Koenig was just the tip of the iceberg. And the agents who were seizing his stuff and interviewing him were not surprised by that. It was clear to them that this was someone who had been committing crimes with efficiency for quite some time. Throughout the course of several interviews, Keyes let on that there were other victims. And he finally gave up the names of two in April. So just a month and a half later. And those victims were Bill and Lorraine Currier, who had disappeared from Essex, Vermont on June 8th of 2011. From there, Keyes would eventually insinuate that there were at least 11 other victims. In my opinion, there are many more than that.
- [07:00]
Host/Moderator
So to put this in perspective for our listeners here, for the folks that are not familiar with this case, we have his first known victim, which was taken from Alaska. Correct.
- [07:14]
Josh Hallmark
Keys abducted her from a drive through coffee stand the day before he and his family left to go on a cruise in Anchorage, Alaska.
- [07:22]
Host/Moderator
She's working alone. And then I believe he kept her captive on his property for some time.
- [07:28]
Josh Hallmark
Well, he kept her on his property for some time. He abducted her and essentially drove around Anchorage with her in his car for, I think, two to three hours while he was waiting for his family to go to sleep. When he felt like the coast was clear, he took her back to a shed in his driveway where he tied her up and assaulted her. Eventually realized that in the haste of abducting her, he had not gotten some of her items that he needed, specifically a debit card. So he drove back to her house, went through her car, got her debit card returned, got the PIN number from her to use at a later date. As far as we can tell, he kept Samantha alive in that shed for about four hours and then killed her. Immediately went into his house, showered, and took his kid to the airport so they could take this family cruise. But he kept Samantha in the shed in his driveway for weeks while he was traveling in Texas, Louisiana and the Caribbean.
- [08:33]
Host/Moderator
This attack and abduction and murder takes place in Alaska, where he's living. And then after apprehension, hundreds of miles away in the state of Texas, he's confessing to a double homicide that took place the year prior hundreds of miles away from Texas in Vermont. And so I wanted to make that clear to all the listeners there. The how expansive his crimes and crime scenes and victims that he's left behind could be already trailing from Alaska all the way out to Vermont.
- [09:05]
Interviewer/Guest
And, Josh, could you break down what is known about his confessions and his interviews after he gets caught?
- [09:13]
Josh Hallmark
Yeah. So, you know, he only ever confessed to Samantha Koenig's murder and the murders of Bill and Lorraine Currier. But like I had previously mentioned, he did insinuate or actually state that there were other victims. And it's interesting because I think you could take these interviews in many different ways. One could be bragging. But what he said that has always stuck with me is this is the first time I'm able to talk about these things. So I think while trying to not give them too much information, he was also very excited to talk about this other life that he had been living for 14 years. It became abundantly clear that Keys had rules about abducting and killing people, and he didn't always stay true to those rules. The first one was never abduct or kill someone from your own backyard, which he obviously did with Samantha Koenig. And I think that's a big reason he got caught eventually. So you would see, as the FBI started talking to him and going through his travel records, that he had traveled extensively in the 14 years that he claimed to be active. So 98 to 2012. In that time, he traveled to almost every single state, multiple countries, and he, in addition to just traveling away from his home base to commit crimes, he would go to great lengths to muddy his travels. So, for example, when he abducted the couriers, he flew into Chicago, rented a car, drove from Chicago to Vermont, abducted them, and then immediately left the area. He drove to Maine. So this became his M.O. it's something he bragged about to the FBI. However, we don't believe that this M.O. was consistent across all crimes. I've talked to multiple criminal psychologists, and the general consensus is there were, you know, crimes of desire and opportunity and then crimes that took place because he couldn't have the right victim or the right circumstance, but was primed to kill. So, you know, a lot of the mythology surrounding Keys is he was super meticulous and he only lived by these rules. And while they were rules he wanted to commit crimes by, they were often the exception and not the rule.
- [11:30]
Interviewer/Guest
So let me just wrap my head around this. He confesses, he's caught for a crime that took place in 2012, and then he confesses to crimes that took place in 2011. But you say that there was a 14 year period. So during one of these interviews, he's alluding to the idea that he started 14 years prior.
- [11:51]
Josh Hallmark
What he says verbatim is when asked how long he's been two different people, he says 14 years. You know, unfortunately, the language is a little bit muddy here, but they ask, you know, how long he's gone in between crimes, I believe. And he says three years while he was in the Army. And he enlisted in the army in 98, which again corroborates that 14 year period. Now, there's some confusion about what he means by that. Whether the crime he committed in 98 was a murder or just an assault, which he does go into pretty specific, detailed accounts regarding an assault he committed, he believes in 97 or 98. So, you know, there isn't clarity around when he began killing people. But the, the two lines of thinking are either 98 or 2001, so active across the entire country for 12 to 14 years. And the thing about Keys is he was sexually motivated, he was bisexual. He said that once his daughter was born, he stopped targeting children. But essentially any American could be a Keys victim because he targeted men and women and occasionally children, and traveled the
- [13:05]
Host/Moderator
entire country with the Bill and Lorraine Currier homicides out in Vermont. What do we learn about that? Because when you say he flies into Chicago, rents a car, and then goes off driving several states away and finds two victims there, were these two targeted? We, we know that he had a murder kit, that it's believed that he had a murder kit there that he had hidden months or years prior. So do we know for certain if these two victims were. Were chosen and watched for any period of time, or was he simply going to go to this area, retrieve the kill kit, and then go find a victim?
- [13:50]
Josh Hallmark
That is a great question. And I'll start with what we know for sure. He buried a kill kit about half a mile from their house two years prior to abducting them. He told the FBI that they were chosen basically because of the house that they lived in. That he had not chosen them as victims, but was looking for a specific type of house to break into and to abduct someone from. And then there are a few lines of thinking. One is that he's telling the truth. I believe that he had actually targeted this couple for some period of time prior to abducting them. Lorraine Currier had told a friend that a man had been watching her in the weeks leading up to her disappearance. There are multiple sightings placing Keys in the area of their home in the weeks and months leading up to their disappearance. There is some reason to believe that Keys and Bill Currier may have digitally crossed paths prior to the abduction. So, you know, I don't want to say positively that they were previously selected by Keys, and I, I know that at least Josh from somewhere in the Pines does not necessarily agree with that. But I think there's enough compelling circumstantial evidence to consider that he might have, not just in this case, but in several others, pre selected and then targeted a victim for some time prior to abducting them.
- [15:17]
Host/Moderator
We'll give Joshua a chance to weigh in here in a second, but back to if he was telling the truth, that he was selecting a particular home, fill us in on why that is it. Didn't it have something to do with his, his work history, his. What he did for a living, his expertise?
- [15:33]
Josh Hallmark
Possibly. And I, I don't, you know, there's a lot of content. I don't have it all by heart, but I don't recall him ever making that distinction. But he did say that he was looking for single story ranch style homes with a single car garage and no other cars in the driveway. He said that they were easier to get in and out of. It was more likely that there were fewer people in a home if there was only a single car, and that he wanted an attached garage so he could move the abductees from their home into their car and leave the premises as quickly as possible without anyone witnessing him.
- [16:13]
Host/Moderator
He would have a good guess at the layout of the building or the house as well.
- [16:18]
Josh Hallmark
Yeah, that too. And, you know, going back to my theory or hypothesis that he had pre chosen this couple, he said that he walked from his motel essentially to their house, and this was the first house that matched that desired description. I've walked it many times and there are many houses like that between his hotel and the courier's home.
- [16:38]
Interviewer/Guest
One of the things that's fascinating about Israel Keys, it. It seems like you were saying he has this list of rules that he tries to follow. So at some point, obviously he understood that he had these urges to kill. And obviously then maybe he then goes on to study other killers. Do we have a definitive list of these rules that he tried to follow?
- [17:06]
Josh Hallmark
Ish. You know, I. He never pulled up an Excel spreadsheet and put together his rules. But yeah, you know, he, he said never commit crimes in your own backyard. Immediately leave the area once you've committed the crime. One rule, which we actually have no evidence that he ever followed was abduct a victim from one state, assault them and or murder them in a second state, and then bury them In a third state. Another was to plan his crimes in conjunction with travels. So it looked like he would be too busy to commit these crimes. You know, a great example is, like I had mentioned, he abducted Samantha Koenig just hours before he went on a family cruise in out of Louisiana with the couriers. He visited his mother days before he abducted them in Indiana, and then visited his brothers immediately following his murder of them in Maine. So, you know, he did follow the rules most of the time. He would turn off his phone, he would stop using credit cards, or he would use credit cards in a way to place him somewhere he actually wasn't. He would often book several hotels in different areas for the same night. So, you know, it was. It was more of an ideology than a rule book. But again, the thing about Keys is he was more meticulous in his planning than he was in the actual execution of his crimes.
- [18:33]
Joshua Ash
Yeah, the. So the one thing about the stalking. Stalking victims, I think when Israel describes finding the house for the couriers, that a lot of that makes sense in my eyes. I'm also a contractor. Dakota is also a contractor, and Israel Keys was a contractor. And you've worked in these home. We've worked in this style home so many times over the years that it's very easy to identify the layout of the house from just the exterior. Even, like where the bath, maybe there's a difference of where the bathroom may be, but you can even identify that by the roof. So I think the way that he describes it makes a lot of sense. Like a typical serial killer that would go and have like the trolling phase and the stalking phase. I think he mainly did that more towards locations than towards specific people. Just trying to find. He said before that he's always driving around looking for good places to do stuff. And I think that's really what his main focus was, was to try to identify a good. Something that he feels familiar with as a spot to abduct someone. And then. So we've reached out. We've been lucky enough to reach out to Special Agent Ted Halla from the FBI, and we asked him specifically if there has been any. Any evidence that Israel has stalked any victims. And they said they've had zero evidence for any victims. And then we also spoke with Julia Cowley from the consult. She's a retired FBI profiler. And they talk a little bit about this in one episode that they also feel that he did not stalk victims. They covered the courier case and the Samantha Coney case separately as two separate cases. Not even Realizing that they're tied together, and they still said that they don't think there's any real connection, any stalking between them. So that's kind of where I get my point of view from. And I think that probably one of the cool things about teaming up with Josh and his team has been that we've been able to share these different perspectives over a group of people that are very familiar with the case. So we're coming up with, like, new ideas all the time. It's been, I think, a really good process, having people challenge your ideas back and forth.
- [20:42]
Interviewer/Guest
Well, like you said, he sometimes follows rules and sometimes doesn't, so. But it seems what you guys are saying is he studied these locations, and that was probably more important to him than the actual victim.
- [20:56]
Joshua Ash
Yeah, I'm sure he. The ideal situation is he could have his. His perfect victim. But I think the. The overarching thing is finding a location where he would feel safe and comfortable to abduct somebody. And, you know, a lot of things that Josh had just said about the garage having window access. There's a fan in the window, so he had access to the garage very easily. He had a spot in the backyard where he could hide. And I think just walking around the house, he was able to identify that this was an older couple, what bedroom they were staying in because they had a fan on. It was a really muggy night, I guess, really humid night. So I think it was. I guess another thing that was really important is the location where he found the victims compared to the location where he was going to take them. It was just three right hand turns, very quick access to get out of that neighborhood on the highway and to the farmhouse, where he eventually sexually assaulted
- [21:45]
Josh Hallmark
them and then murdered them.
- [21:47]
Host/Moderator
And that was an abandoned old house, Correct, where he took the victims?
- [21:53]
Josh Hallmark
Yeah, yeah, he said that he had. I believe it was for sale at the time. And if I recall correctly, he had seen a listing for it in a real estate magazine.
- [22:02]
Host/Moderator
And his. His one form of torture he was going to use during that those assaults and the murders was the having one victim witness the other victim.
- [22:15]
Josh Hallmark
He never specifically said that, but that's kind of my opinion. I believe that's a general consensus. I'll let Joshua and Dakota weigh in on their thoughts.
- [22:25]
Joshua Ash
This. This is something that I think I find, like, super fascinating because the two times that he speaks about having couples, one male and one female, in both situations, the male is killed premature of the actual plan that he had in place. There's a couple that he took in Washington that he ended up hitting the male over the head with a. With a shovel to quiet them down or to hopefully just take them out for a minute, but it ended up killing them. And then with Bill Currier, as he was assaulting his wife Lorraine, he came downstairs. Bill Currier was trying to get loose and trying to fight back, and Israel eventually came down and shot him with a silencer just because he was too unruly during. During that time period. So I'm really fascinated by what the actual plan was. And he didn't really get into detail of that. Yeah, I don't know. I'm just super fascinated by what the possibilities are there and why each time that he described it, both male victims were killed before the actual event.
- [23:22]
Interviewer/Guest
So Israel Keys has these rules that he's trying to follow, and I think that makes him fascinating. But the other thing that's really fascinating about Israel Keys is these hidden murder kits. Can somebody explain these?
- [23:37]
Dakota
Well, I think it's important to, just in case people don't know, to briefly explain what a cache is, because I don't think that everyone knows this. A cache is a stored container of goods hidden to be retrieved and used at a later date. So you usually relate this to survivalists caching food or a kind of like guerrilla wartime tactic of caching weapons and ammo. In this case, we have a serial killer that's caching items used for abduction and murder, and he's caching these items all across the United States for him to retrieve at a later date. The cash, for example, that was buried in Essex, Vermont, that was used in the courier abduction and murder. That was that they were abducted in 2011. It was placed two years earlier, and we believe it coincides with another murder back in April of 2009. It was buried within the Essex City limits, very close to a highway, very close to apartments and hotels and, you know, big box stores, things like that. So it's, it's. These things aren't way off in the wilderness somewhere. They're somewhere very accessible for him to retrieve and use in a. In a very convenient way. He left this kit in Essex there for two years, came back for it. And although it was the, the actual kit, the. The. The container was never recovered by the FBI. But Keys gave a lot of details on, on this cache and how he used it, which was really important for our research and figuring out how he used these things and what exactly they role they played in his crimes. So we have a ton of information about this cache and how he used it. And we were able to kind of look at. So there was three caches that were recovered by the FBI. And so we were able to look at the three caches and kind of identify markers and landmarks that were similar in each, each situation. And so when we talk about the kill kits, these, these caches have items for, like I said, abduction and murder. So we're talking about weapons, knives, guns, ammunition. Then you have binding materials like zip ties, rope, duct tape, things like that. And that would be considered the kill kit. I think that one thing that we kind of learned about this kid in particular was that the kid in Essex in particular was that it was in a wooden box. And I'm not sure if, I think. I kind of feel like this shows his evolution a little bit when it comes to strategy is that when he came back to get this box that had guns and ammunition in it, and it had been in this kind of wetland along the river for two years, his guns were damaged a little bit, they were rusty. And so he had to take them back to his hotel, which was only like a 5 minute walk or a 10 minute walk away. And so this cache was extremely accessible. It was right in the city. And so he had to go and clean up his guns before he approached whatever house or person he was going to approach to abduct. And so after the courier abduction, he reburied this cache in a new container in another location. And that new container was a five gallon bucket with a sealed lid. And so I'm not sure if the box was just a container of opportunity at the time, back in 2009, maybe it's the only container that he could come up with at that moment. Or maybe this shows a bit of evolution where he realized, oh, I need a better container to protect my, these materials so that when I get back to him, I know they're going to be in working order, but. So he reburies this cash after the courier abduction and murder in a five gallon bucket in upstate New York. One thing that Josh and I, Joshua and I have noticed is that this, there's not only one type of cash, but we can get to that a little bit later if you guys want.
- [27:54]
Host/Moderator
Well, and man cannot control Mother Nature, so those wetlands may not have been so wet when he first put those items there to start with. And then he learned along the way. It's. It's interesting to go back and retrospectively watch and learn how these guys learn and adapt what it is that they are doing to try to achieve their horrific goals with him being Locked up. So he gets caught. And we're kind of. They're really hoping to pull a lot of information out of Israel Keys. They do kind of. It sounds like, to me, they did like, a very mindhunter sort of thing where they played toward the psychology of the situation and of the perpetrator with the idea of, oh, well, let's bring in a female agent and have her kind of lead these interviews and steer the ship, and maybe he will open up more to a lady rather than a male agent.
- [28:59]
Dakota
Yeah.
- [29:00]
Josh Hallmark
You know, he was first dealing with Alaska PD when they got back to Anchorage, and there was a detective, Monique Dahl, who he had very clearly developed, for lack of a better word, a good rapport with. He was a lot more candid with her and chatty with her. And so I think when the Anchorage FBI kind of took the reins, I think that was very critical and apt in their decision to put Jolene Godin as the lead FBI investigator on the case. As far as we can tell, he never developed quite that same rapport with Godin that he had with Dahl. But I have found that he is a lot more talkative when she is in the room.
- [29:46]
Dakota
Yeah, for. For sure. And I think that he actually requested, early in the first couple interviews up in Anchorage, actually requested to tell the story of Samantha Koenig's abduction specifically to Detective Dahl, and. And didn't want many other people in the room. And so I think that was a big tell for the investigators to know. Okay, he's going to open up to a female more than he's going to open up to a male.
- [30:18]
Josh Hallmark
And it's interesting because I've heard a lot of takes on this that, you know, it was about control or reliving his experiences. But I think it's much more simple than that. This was a guy who was raised in a household with nine women and then, you know, went on to have a daughter and multiple girlfriends. And I just. He seemed to be just generally a lot closer to women because of the way and the environment that he was raised in. So I don't really think it has a great deal to do with controlling or reliving and more to do with just his comfort level.
- [30:51]
Interviewer/Guest
Yeah. If he doesn't feel threatened by the individual, he might be more likely to be vulnerable.
- [30:57]
Joshua Ash
Yeah.
- [30:58]
Josh Hallmark
And he even said that he liked talking to women because he never really had to be himself. And I think that kind of came into play here, where he got to be himself for the first time with women in a way that I think maybe gave him power, but not in the way that we generally tend to think in male female dynamics.
- [31:19]
Dakota
Do you think that maybe he was or felt that a woman was going to be more affected or shocked by his retelling?
- [31:30]
Josh Hallmark
Sometimes I think maybe that's the facade. You know, I think he wanted to talk to women because he was more comfortable talking to women, but he wanted the people in the room to believe that it was about something else. But, you know, I. I change my mind daily on a lot of this stuff, which I'm sure you guys do, too.
- [31:51]
Interviewer/Guest
Yeah, the. The confessions and the FBI interviews is something that I am completely fascinated with here. What do you think we learn about him? Because like you just said, there's. There's a part of him that is also still playing a game here.
- [32:09]
Josh Hallmark
I, you know, it's. I am constantly struck by just the situation he's gotten himself into where he is trying to maintain control, but he's also excited to talk about these things. And I think that push and pull of his psyche is one of the most evident and prolonged situations in these interviews is this guy who is really torn between his internal desires and his need for control. And it comes out, he'll say something and then he'll immediately be like, oh, fuck, I shouldn't have said that. Not in so many words. But he'll recoil or retract or change the subject. And I think that's what I am most profoundly struck by, and I guess viewing him as a human and not a monster, as you see these weird idiosyncrasies and this weird dynamic where he's in conflict with himself throughout these entire interviews.
- [33:05]
Dakota
Yeah. And Ted Halla, we asked Special Agent Ted Halla if he thought that Keys was mostly honest in interviews or if he was thought kind of thought he was a liar or just what his opinion of that was. And I think that it was. His answer was spot on, which is it's very obvious when Keys gets kind of backed into a corner where he doesn't. He knows that they're talking about information that is accurate and he doesn't want to go any further. He. He kind of recedes into himself and starts mumbling. And, you know, his body language, it makes it really obvious when he's either being deceptive or flat out lying.
- [33:55]
Joshua Ash
Yeah.
- [33:55]
Josh Hallmark
And I've spoken with and worked with quite closely doctors, forensic and criminal psychologists, Doctors Ramslin and Kunkel, and they both independently came to that same conclusion. This is not a guy who's prone to fantasy. This is not a guy who is A natural born liar. For the most part, he is telling as much truth as he can without revealing whatever cards he's trying to hold to his chest.
- [34:46]
Host/Moderator
And he enjoyed being cryptic along the way. It seems like, like you said, and at times when he. When he's a little more obvious, that's when he wants to take the information back or. Or spin it a different way. And I think. I think at some point, as to the captain's point, that he's playing this game right. Of I got a whole lot of information, or some of it maybe even made up, but I have a whole lot of information that these people really want to know. And if I deliver it in a certain way, in a certain manner, I might just live forever. Right. Because people will continue to analyze this for a very long time. And as I'm sure you guys have seen, and Josh, you've pointed out on your show that some people analyze this and really make something out of nothing. And he. And he. But he left. He opened that door to allow that to happen.
- [35:43]
Josh Hallmark
Yeah. You know, I agree and disagree. I don't. I think that's his worst nightmare, is people analyzing his words ad nauseam in a public setting, like we're doing today. I think that's his worst nightmare. He. His greatest thing with control was that he didn't want people to know what he did or who he was. I think he knew that the more he gave away, the more likely he was to become infamous. And I think up until the end, that's not what he wanted at all. He wanted to quietly die in prison without ever. Without anyone ever talking about him. I named my show after a quote from him where he said, you know, I don't want to be caught up in all this true crime bullshit. So I think, you know, that's what he wanted and why he was careful about what he was saying. And I think his strategy was to be very thoughtful and deliberate about the language he was using so that he wasn't necessarily lying, but he was lying by omission or concealing things through language, because I think even he knew, and it's abundantly clear to anyone who's watched these tapes, like, he is a terrible liar.
- [36:51]
Dakota
Yeah. And he.
- [36:52]
Josh Hallmark
He.
- [36:53]
Dakota
I think he was, like, kind of learning. Learning the interrogation game. I don't. I don't. He didn't go into it prepared for that. I don't think he kind of handed over the courier story on a silver platter when he didn't really need to. I believe that he thought that the FBI was going to be able to connect him to that abduction and murder when they might not have. And so I think he definitely regretted that later on. And so he was trying to figure out what information he could give and keep the FBI happy and get what he wanted, but he realized that he didn't have to give as much as he thought he did.
- [37:32]
Host/Moderator
So we think maybe he thought they're going to find out anyway. Maybe I have a chance here to control the narrative and tell it my way, rather than how everything went down
- [37:48]
Josh Hallmark
to the T. Yeah, I think that. And again, going back to, you know, his internal desires, which is like, oh, I can talk about this stuff. So, like, I will control the narrative. I get to talk about these things that I did and brag about these things that I did, only because I have a sense that you're gonna find out anyway. And, you know, he talked about less than a dozen victims, and I think that is very much a product of this. I think he thought once the FBI looked at his computer, they could tie him to 11 victims. Now, whether there were more is up for debate, but I think that's what he went into those interrogations originally thinking, like, okay, they have my computer. Who can they tie me to? I'm going to control the narrative.
- [38:31]
Host/Moderator
It seems like a. Like a fine line, too, that he was walking, because the. The way I always kind of took keys with the information that he was giving and what he was willing to talk about with the authorities, it seemed to me my opinion was that he wanted to tell some of these stories and some of the horrific acts that he did, that either being a form of confession or a form of bragging or maybe a mashing of the two. But. But then he also has this other side of him where it's like, oh, I. My daughter one day is going to hear these things. My daughter at some point will become aware of what kind of monster and just how disgusting I really am. So it feel. I always thought he was, like, walking this weird, very conflicting fine line of. Of what he wanted, what information he wanted to give, as well as what was going to be, what people thought of him.
- [39:31]
Joshua Ash
In the end, you can hear him actually grapple with that, like, in real time during the interrogations, he talks about how he has to get comfortable with actually starting to talk to people about these things because he's have kept them inside his entire life. So it's really interesting. Like, the interrogations are absolutely fascinating. It's like over 30 hours where they'll just break down so many parts of his crimes, the arsons, the burglaries, the sexual assaults, the murders. And they'll get all these little tiny pieces here and there where he's kind of speaking freely at one moment and doesn't realize that they. It doesn't seem like he realizes that they'll be able to connect those things together later on down the line.
- [40:14]
Josh Hallmark
But then at the same time, it's fascinating because he will talk freely, but he will distance himself. Like, he very rarely says rape or murder or kill. And the few times he does say the word rape, he gets very sheepish about it. And I think that goes back to, like, in many ways, he was raised to be the caretaker of his family. And it's a role that I think I will never know how he felt about it, but I think it's a role that gave him purpose. And I think that comes into play when he's talking about these things where it's like, I want to talk about what I've done, but I still have significant amount of shame about it, and I want to protect my family. And we could argue all day about the intentions of protecting his family, but I do think some of them were pure. I think he did care as much as someone like him can about the people in his life. And whether that care comes from narcissism or a more, I guess, typical care, we'll never know.
- [41:09]
Host/Moderator
It's. It's so bizarre because you get these guys in the. What they're willing to admit to and then the things, the same equally disgusting acts that they're embarrassed about. Where Sam Little, he admits he tells police and investigators, FBI, that he murdered over 90 people. But if you accuse him of rape, he would get very angry and very worked up and say, I, you know, I, I may have killed her, but I didn't rape her. You know, he instantly, he's angry at the accusation that he would rape somebody. All these interviews and, and, and confessions and cryptic messages and what have you, all leads up to his eventual suicide. Israel Keys suicide?
- [41:55]
Joshua Ash
Yeah, his, his body was found at 5 5:57am, December 12, 2012. And basically what happened is that they found him in his cell with a razor blade that was attached to a pencil, I believe, and he used that to slit his wrists. And he also tried to hang himself with his, with his sheets, I believe. There's a great article. Let's see if I can find it here. It's the. The Untold Story behind Israel Keys Jailhouse Suicide. And it talks about, it's. That's from The Anchorage Daily News. And it, it talks about how the DOC officer was actually removed from position after they found, found the body because it was alleged that the officer was reading a book only 25ft away from keys while he committed suicide. So I'd read the article because it's, it's super interesting, but. So Israel Keyes had been hinting at suicide for a while during the interrogation, saying things like, I don't need you, like I can, I can do this on my own. And he was getting very tired with the cumbersome legal process. And it seems like it was more just an opportunity where he was able to find a razor, a disposable razor, and then eventually kill himself in what they called a ritualistic suicide. Now, one of the strangest things, maybe the reason that they call it a ritualistic suicide is that he wrote in blood on the cell wall and he wrote the word Caracol in big letters and blood across the cell wall. Now this is also. We've confirmed this in the case file. We know it's kind of been up to bait for debate whether it was, whether it was Belize, but Caracol is a spot in Belize. We're kind of excited because we're going to be speaking with the retired FBI profiler Julia Colli about a suicide note because he also left a note that they found underneath him that was, you can kind of piece some of it together, but some of it was erased by his blood. So we're going to sit down with her and go over the, the suicide note and how that relates to Caracol. And also in October 20th, we'll be at the Berkshire Podcast Festival. So plug for you, Josh, releasing a brand new piece of information that will be connected to everything that we're super excited about.
- [44:08]
Interviewer/Guest
But what was found in his cell? So he commits suicide in his cell. What do we find in his cell?
- [44:15]
Joshua Ash
Basically just him. There was only thing that was left in his cell was just a typical items in her cell and then his body with the suicide note and the writing on the wall. So that's the only thing that was. There was no other items discovered other than the razor that he had snuck into his cell.
- [44:32]
Josh Hallmark
But there is some misconception around other materials taken from a cell prior to his suicide.
- [44:41]
Joshua Ash
Yes, that's correct. So in July of, of 2012, they actually found 12 drawings in a cell. 12 individual drawings. 11 of them were skulls that were basically finger painted in blood. They each had an upside down cross on their forehead. And then the 12th drawing was actually a photograph, a drawing of Baphomet with an upside down pentagram. And on one of the skull drawings, it had the words, we are one. But that was not. Actually. Those drawings were not found when he committed suicide. Those drawings were found months before. And that's basically around the time that he started to hint that he would just take his own life instead of going through the legal process.
- [45:26]
Interviewer/Guest
So we have these drawings found before his suicide. They go into the cell, they find him, they find a suicide note and then a writing on the wall. Do we have the information of what was in the suicide note and what was written on the wall?
- [45:41]
Joshua Ash
Yeah, the suicide note has been released to the public, so you can look that up online. And it's more of a. It's less of a suicide note and more of a note about how much he hates America and Americans is the way that I view it. He also, he did write what the FBI is calling a suicide note or more of a goodbye note to his family. And that was recovered again as well, much further before. Much earlier, before his. His actual eventual death. So this, this suicide note was more of a goodbye letter to his family, kind of letting them know what, roughly what had happened and that he did do these things. And then a new piece of information that the FBI told us is that he. There were actually two separate letters. So there's the goodbye letter, and then there's also a note that Special Agent Hala describes as a really odd document. It's in all block letters, and it basically starts to describe all of his victims and what he did to them in very graphic detail. He described. Well, let me. He doesn't describe all of his victims. He describes six victims. And they believe that he was interrupted while writing this note.
- [46:50]
Josh Hallmark
So.
- [46:51]
Joshua Ash
So unfortunately, they don't have the full details of all of his crimes. But in this document, it's basically just goes into extreme detail and there's no evidentiary value listed. It's really just kind of. I don't know if it's just for his own personal use or something that he was eventually going to give to the FBI.
- [47:13]
Dakota
What's really telling about the skulls and the timing of that is, you know, the doc, the Anchorage doc, and the oversight within the prison was. It seems like not. It wasn't done very well. I mean, a source. I have a source that worked for the Anchorage doc, and he told me that after Keys was able to commit suicide, that the doc restructured how they do sweeps, how they do cell sweeps. And he referred to some of the old protocols as archaic. He I have him quoted as saying, I don't think we had the infrastructure to deal with someone like Keyes. Just the fact that he was able to, you know, these, these skulls were drawn months before his suicide. Meaning that Keyes was able to self harm long before he actually took his own life in December of 2012. This source in the doc says that we would be shocked to know what kind of contraband is floating around in prisons. And he, he referred to, described things like drugs, weapons, drones, convection ovens, pornography. And the list just kind of went on. And so it's not a stretch to think that Israel could have gotten his hands on the items he needed to commit suicide. And I think that once he realized that he could gain access to those items that, that's when the interrogations with the FBI started to really break down and he realized that he didn't need them to be able to accomplish his goal.
- [48:44]
Host/Moderator
Well, the FBI seems to be pretty clear about their findings and their, their statement to the general public about these writings that were found under his body in his cell that they had to clean up because it's covered in his blood. At this point their statement is the FBI concluded there was no hidden code or message in the writings. Further, it was determined that the writings do not offer any investigative clues or leads as to the identity of other possible victims.
- [49:17]
Dakota
And we, we've been given a little kind of insight into some of the writings that haven't been released. And it sounds like that there possibly is some investigative value in that he is, had talked about some scenery at, at specific locations, things like that. They would at least not, maybe not identify the location completely, but it would at least give you some sort of guide or bullet points to investigate by. To be like if he describes a certain piece of scenery that you know, okay, you can eliminate some of these other locations, things like that. So I think that there is some value in those writings.
- [50:02]
Interviewer/Guest
Do you believe the suicide was just to not go through the process, to not be in a cage? Or, or was it maybe also that he knew the longer he was there, the more information he'd be giving law enforcement?
- [50:18]
Dakota
I think it's both. I think that it's a. Control has everything to do with control. I think that he knew that he was, the longer he was in there and talking to the FBI, the more information he would give up. Also he at one point said that he was never planning on going to prison. He thought for sure that he would be killed before he was arrested.
- [50:39]
Josh Hallmark
Also, the timing of the suicide is interesting to Me, for that reason, because I want to say, two weeks before he died by suicide, he was scheduled to help the FBI do a ground search in Tupper Lake, where he claimed that he buried one of his victims. He did not show up to that meeting, so they rescheduled. And I believe the date that they had rescheduled to do this search was. Would have been the day after he died by suicide. So I've always been curious about whether that timing was specific and intentional.
- [51:11]
Joshua Ash
The block letter note, it did describe the murders of William and Lorraine Currier and also Samantha Koenig. So they know that it was directly connected to specific murders that he had done. And as Dakota was just talking about how there is some evidentiary value in them, there's also a description of another female that was taken who had a. Who had a very rich grandmother and an old car, or maybe it was an old, rich grandparent. I could be wrong in that, but,
- [51:41]
Josh Hallmark
no, it was a wealthy grandmother and an old make car. Old make sedan. I forget the specifics, but, yeah, there were two clear. I don't know if clues is the right word, but indicators of a victim.
- [51:56]
Interviewer/Guest
Let's. Let's talk possible victims. Let's just go around the table. If you had to guess, how many victims do you think Israel Keys had?
- [52:06]
Josh Hallmark
I mean, my specific opinion changes all the time, but I. I would say I generally believe there's probably between 15 and 25.
- [52:16]
Dakota
Yeah, I. I go all over. All over the place with it. I don't. I don't. I can't land on a number, really. I know that, you know, the. The FBI landed on 11, but they. They did so in kind of an arbitrary way. Keys knows that the FBI landed on 11, and then he draws 11 skulls. You know, there's a lot of conversation or different points of view on, you know, the 11 skulls. And what that meant, you know, was he just kind of trying to confirm that for the FBI and make sure that they stuck to 11. Does it actually represent his. His full catalog of victims, or. Some people say it even represents his family, like his, you know, brothers and sisters and things like that. You know, it's very possible that he was just kind of toying with the FBI and. And saying, yeah, you landed on 11 in this kind of silly way, because he never actually said it. I. I don't. I don't have a number.
- [53:13]
Interviewer/Guest
Okay, so question. So is there a possibility that Israel Keys believes that they thought there's 11 and then he drew the 11 skulls?
- [53:23]
Josh Hallmark
Is that what you're stating that's always been my opinion.
- [53:26]
Dakota
Yeah, that's a high possibility.
- [53:28]
Interviewer/Guest
And then. So we have 11 skulls and one pentagram, basically. What do you think this means?
- [53:36]
Dakota
The 12th picture was a picture of Baphomet, the horned goat.
- [53:40]
Josh Hallmark
You might remember.
- [53:42]
Dakota
Like, I think it was on the COVID of a Stephen King novel at one point. That's, I think, where I first saw it when I was a teenager or something like that. But so people think that that represents him, and then the 11 skulls represent his victims. And so it's very possible that he was just trying to confirm 11 with the FBI.
- [54:02]
Joshua Ash
Yeah, I kind of am sticking with 11 until we have more information. I. I do agree with Josh, though, that I. I think that Keys thought that they could find 11 victims on his computer, so that's why he stuck with 11. But until we have more information, it's hard to really. It's very easy to be like, oh, he killed tons of people, and, you know, he said things like, you know, Canadians don't count. You know, things like that that would make you think that he killed a lot more than he did. But I think the thing that is really exciting about this case is that there's so much information out there that eventually we're going to get to a point where we can figure out one of his patterns. I think once we figure out one specific pattern, I think it's just going to blow the entire case open and we'll be able to really tell how many victims he really had.
- [55:01]
Interviewer/Guest
So much more to get to, so many fascinating things, so much to unpack. Make sure you join us back here in the garage. Until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter.