Keith

31m
Melissa’s mother believes Keith wasn’t born a psychopath, but that he was raised to be that way by his father, Les.

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Runtime: 31m

Transcript

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Speaker 9 Previously on Happy Face.

Speaker 11 I got a phone call and this guy says, I know where you're at. You're in the kitchen.
And you're wearing this.

Speaker 11 Keith states that he hired someone. My mom had just said that her and my dad were separating, which I didn't believe.
I wanted to keep like you guys as baby pictures and he chucked that all out.

Speaker 12 He wasn't exactly a faithful husband.

Speaker 11 Oh, absolutely not.

Speaker 12 Tell me about your wedding day.

Speaker 11 They were doing pictures of me and I guess he was outside kissing the bridesmaids. My best friend.

Speaker 13 After the second murder, the happy face killer says he realized he liked what he was doing. This triggered something in me, he says.
It was getting easy. Real easy.

Speaker 11 The first year with Melissa, had went through two fires. Keith taped the vent.
I had a little toilet cover and it caught it on fire and the whole bathroom was engulfed. Then shortly after that,

Speaker 11 we go camping and then I heard a bear. He cleaned fish in front of the cabin and he was sleeping in the car.

Speaker 12 He started killing in 1990 and he stopped in 95.

Speaker 11 The five years is not an isolated event. It was an escalation.
I think he was groomed to be who he is.

Speaker 14 In the vines,

Speaker 14 in the vines,

Speaker 14 where the sun don't ever shine,

Speaker 14 I would shiver

Speaker 14 the whole night through.

Speaker 12 One of the biggest questions you're faced with when looking at the lives of serial killers is: where did it all begin? What makes a person become a killer?

Speaker 12 Is it something that's passed down through generations, or is there a single moment that can turn someone from a normal human being with a job and a family into a monster?

Speaker 12 Are serial killers made, or are they born?

Speaker 12 I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco, and this is Happy Face.

Speaker 11 I remember the first time I saw my father in prison, and the first thing he said to me was, Missy, do you want to know why?

Speaker 11 And at the time, I

Speaker 11 couldn't handle the answer. And honestly, I thought whatever he was going to tell me would be just him trying to justify what he's done or to minimize what he's done.

Speaker 11 And so I didn't want some pacifying answer.

Speaker 11 So I said no.

Speaker 11 And I've regretted that moment for so many years now because

Speaker 11 I want to know why.

Speaker 11 Why I thought my father had an interest in crime was because he wanted to become a police officer in Canada. He wanted to be a Mountie.

Speaker 11 And he was declined from becoming that because of an injury he sustained in high school.

Speaker 11 What he told me is that in gym class, they do this rope exercise where they climb the rope to the ceiling of the gym, which is quite high.

Speaker 11 They say now

Speaker 11 when they interview killers, people who've been perpetually in jail, they have found that a large percentage of them had damaged their frontal lobe before they were 22, changes their whole personality.

Speaker 11 Keith fell in high school. I believe it was 25 feet.
He was on the very top of the rope and it let go. He fell to the gym floor.

Speaker 11 He sustained a head injury and broke his hip, and this impacted his ability to join the force.

Speaker 11 I don't believe my dad ever got over that. It was something that he carried on in conversations, but there was a sense of resentment

Speaker 11 that he was now a long-haul truck driver when he could have had this other life that was

Speaker 11 just out of his grasp.

Speaker 12 But as Melissa's mom, Rose, told us, she really thinks that Keith was conditioned to be a killer, groomed to be one by his own father, Les.

Speaker 12 And that's something we felt we had to explore.

Speaker 9 From I, the creation of a serial killer by Jack Olson.

Speaker 9 The Jesperson children grew up in a rural atmosphere, first in Chilliwack, British Columbia, later 250 miles south in Salo, Washington, an apple-scented orchard community of 10,000.

Speaker 9 Keith's perpetually mobile father built the family's Chilliwack home on land his ancestors homesteaded in 1909, moved the house from the city to a pastoral area outside of town, cleared five acres with a borrowed bulldozer, built a barn with a loft for his children, and a wooden bridge big enough for the family horses to cross the little creek that rose from the springs above the property line.

Speaker 9 Later he dammed the creek and built a water wheel to trap Chinook and silver salmon as they swam up from the Vedder River to spawn.

Speaker 12 If you read Jack Olson's biography of Keith, the way in which he describes Keith's father, Les, it's very clear that Les was a very resourceful,

Speaker 12 ingenious man, the kind of guy who could build a barn from scratch or create a water wheel to catch fish for dinner.

Speaker 12 But what also is clear is that he could be a monster.

Speaker 11 We decided that we didn't want to live near your grandfather anymore. Why?

Speaker 11 He was horrible.

Speaker 12 I hated him.

Speaker 11 Really?

Speaker 11 Yeah. He would, without warning, open up the door to our house and he goes, Would you sleep with me? To you? To me.

Speaker 11 I had no idea. Yeah.

Speaker 12 Your father-in-law. Yes.

Speaker 12 Your father-in-law hit on you.

Speaker 11 Yes.

Speaker 12 More than once?

Speaker 11 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 11 I'd be sitting right next to Keith and he would come and he'd pinch me and I was thinking, Keith, what are you doing? And then I see his hand and they'd start giggling.

Speaker 11 I don't know who I was more angry with. Keith for not protecting me or for less for doing it.

Speaker 12 So you think Keith knew his father would make passes at you?

Speaker 11 Well, he was right there.

Speaker 11 And they thought it was a joke. And the only time I was saved is when I was pregnant with Melissa.
Then I was off the tables.

Speaker 12 Keith's attitude towards marriage very much mirrored the relationship he saw unfold between his own father and his mother, Gladys.

Speaker 11 I mean I knew that Les beat the kids a lot.

Speaker 11 I don't know if he beat Gladys or not but I know that there was problems between Gladys and Les because when we were first married Keith goes I have to go down to the house and I go okay.

Speaker 11 So he went down to the house came back and he was really visibly upset. I said, so what went on? He goes, yeah, mom and dad got in a fight.
And I guess dad cut every telephone wire in the house.

Speaker 12 Was Les a drinker?

Speaker 11 He was a heavy alcoholic.

Speaker 16 A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers, but it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught. The answers were there, hidden in plain sight.

Speaker 16 So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, Hunting the Long Island Serial Killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York, since the son of Sam.

Speaker 16 Available now. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 17 I'm Cheryl McCollum, host of the podcast Zone 7.

Speaker 18 Zone 7 ain't a place. It's a way of life.

Speaker 19 I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't.

Speaker 22 We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork in solving these crazy crimes.

Speaker 21 Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims' family members.

Speaker 19 Listen to zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 27 In 1997, in Belgium, 37 female body parts placed in 15 trash bags were found at dump sites with evocative names like The Path of Worry, Dump Road, and Fear Creek.

Speaker 28 Investigators made a new discovery yesterday afternoon of the torso of a woman. Investigators believe it is the work of a serial killer.

Speaker 27 Despite a sprawling investigation, including assistance from the American FBI, the murders have never been solved. Three decades later, we've unearthed new evidence and new suspects.

Speaker 29 We felt like we were in the presence of someone who was going to the grave with nightmarish secrets.

Speaker 27 From Tenderfoot TV and iHeart Podcasts, this is Le Mansre season 2, The Butcher of Moss, available now. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 6 Welcome, fellow seekers of the dark. I'm Danny Drejo.
Won't you join me in nocturnal tales from the shadows

Speaker 10 an anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends and lore of Latin America

Speaker 10 take a trip from ghastly encounters with evil spirits to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures

Speaker 10 and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time

Speaker 15 You should probably keep your lights on for nocturnal tales from the shadows.

Speaker 10 Listen to nocturnal tales from the shadows as part of my Kaltura podcast network.

Speaker 6 Available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 12 One of the few people that Keith opened up to about his childhood was a true crime author and psychologist named Al Carlisle. Melissa met him almost completely by chance.

Speaker 11 I was invited to go to CrimeCon, and this gentleman approached the booth and he said, hey, you know, I've got this author who's working on serial killers. And he said, well, his name is Al Carlisle.

Speaker 11 and he studied Ted Bundy and he's working on a chapter of the serial killer named Keith Hunter Jesperson so when I got back home I called him immediately and I loved his perspective he had stories that I've never even heard of before about the man I thought I knew

Speaker 12 Unfortunately, the night before we were supposed to interview Al Carlisle, he passed away in his sleep.

Speaker 12 And it was heartbreaking. He was such a fascinating, brilliant man.

Speaker 12 But we were able to reach out to Stephen Booth, his publisher, and also to Carrie-Ann Keller, who was his researcher and writing assistant.

Speaker 30 Keith felt that Al had a real mission to understand violent behavior. So that was their common ground.
They each felt the other. could provide valuable information.

Speaker 30 Once, Al was up there interviewing Keith and Keith said to Al,

Speaker 30 I could reach over this table and snap your head before the guard would even notice.

Speaker 30 I don't because I don't want to lose my privileges.

Speaker 30 He wasn't threatening Al.

Speaker 30 He was just making a point about his size. Okay, so that's how you have to understand how Keith could talk.

Speaker 12 So it's like being in a room with a loaded gun.

Speaker 30 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 30 For sure. Definitely.
You feel it.

Speaker 30 My name is Stephen Booth.

Speaker 30 I have been the publisher at Genius Book Publishing since 2011. Keith Jefferson was in a situation where he had a very manipulative father.
The father, by the way, freaks me out.

Speaker 31 He had a very manipulative father. He was required to be obedient at all times.
He was given conflicting information about

Speaker 31 what ethical standards were and how to behave. And he was isolated from his family even by his own siblings.

Speaker 12 What's incredible, though, is that Al Carlisle's family gave us the tapes of his interviews with Jesperson in prison. And you can hear the intimate details and how much Keith opened up to him.

Speaker 33 Now, Brad was the older. Brad was the younger.
Yeah, Bruce is. Bruce is the oldest.

Speaker 33 When did they start calling you Igor? Igor was my junior high.

Speaker 33 I was in eighth grade and then Brad was in seventh grade

Speaker 33 and he wanted to be big with his friends so he started calling me Igor because of the monster movies

Speaker 33 and I figured I was his sidekick.

Speaker 33 I was big physically at the time and slow.

Speaker 33 Slow physically? Well

Speaker 33 I was big and I was not very well coordinated. Any learning problems? No, not really.
So you're intelligent. I'm very intelligent, but I just didn't adapt myself to it.

Speaker 33 Keith was made to pay his own room and board when the other kids were not made to do that, so he would be an example to the other siblings.

Speaker 12 And this was when he was 12, 13 years old.

Speaker 31 Precisely, yes. You know, the father forced him to work.
He got paid a pittance.

Speaker 31 Most of that money went back to room and board, and whatever was left over, the father basically took out of the bank account. And whenever he got into trouble, everybody pointed the finger at Keith.

Speaker 31 His siblings did, his father did, his friends did. He was isolated, harboring a lot of resentment, violent, rage-like resentment towards his father.

Speaker 31 I mean, what was that story about him, the boy when he was about eight years old, who kept blaming him for things, and then Keith let loose and tried to beat him to death?

Speaker 33 Oh, I have a memory of that kid. When you were very young.
Yeah, he was just, he was,

Speaker 33 every time

Speaker 33 he'd say, well, well, Keith did this and Keith did that,

Speaker 33 and I'd get the belt and I'd get nailed and I'd get punished and so forth. He'd sit back, laugh, ha ha, ha, this is funny.
And one day

Speaker 33 I caught him off the back there when he was ready to scream, Keith did it, and I was beating him damn near to death. You were how old? No, I was about eight years old at the time.

Speaker 33 When you were beating the kid,

Speaker 33 Did you feel you're in control? Did you just lose it with his song? I just lost it.

Speaker 33 I don't think it had anything to do with control I just had paybacks a bitch you know yeah and I just grabbed him and just started wailing of course I didn't know him to stop I was gonna beat him to death

Speaker 31 he was put in a position where he could not win

Speaker 31 And he could not take his rage out on his father because his father had him dialed in. So he took his rage out on the closest person to him who was embarrassing him.

Speaker 33 You know, I sure taught him a lesson. So, even by the age of eight, there was a lot of anger.
Yeah, there was anger there.

Speaker 11 Anger.

Speaker 33 Yeah, you do me wrong. It was like, Yeah, I was, you do me wrong.
I was, I was gonna, I was bound and determined to get even

Speaker 9 from I, the creation of a serial killer by Jack Olson.

Speaker 9 Sometimes the Jesperson males prowled the creek banks for muskrats. I'd yank one out of the water by its tail and throw it up on the bank.
Then dad or one of my brothers would club it to death.

Speaker 9 We also killed gophers, hundreds of them. They were a farm pest and nobody missed them.

Speaker 9 Dad has films of us boys blood splattered from killing gophers and other varmints. It was our form of recreation.

Speaker 9 After we grew up and got married, Dad liked to show the film to our wives. He would joke, watch my natural-born killers as they dispense of their victims.

Speaker 9 You don't want to run into them in a dark alley.

Speaker 16 A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers. But it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught.
The answers were there, hidden in plain sight.

Speaker 16 So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, Hunting the Long Island Serial Killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York since the son of Sam.

Speaker 16 Available now. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 17 I'm Cheryl McCollum, host of the podcast Zone 7.

Speaker 18 Zone 7 ain't a place. It's a way of life.

Speaker 19 I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't.

Speaker 21 We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork in solving these crazy crimes.

Speaker 21 Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims' family members.

Speaker 19 Listen to zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 27 In 1997, in Belgium, 37 female body parts placed in 15 trash bags were found at dump sites with evocative names like the Path of Worry, Dump Road, and Fear Creek.

Speaker 28 Investigators made a new discovery yesterday afternoon of the torso of a woman. Investigators believe it is the work of a serial killer.

Speaker 27 Despite a sprawling investigation, including assistance from the American FBI, the murders have never been solved. Three decades later, we've unearthed new evidence and new suspects.

Speaker 29 We felt like we were in the presence of someone who was going to the grave with nightmarish secrets.

Speaker 27 From Tenderfoot TV and iHeart Podcasts, this is Le Mansre Season 2: The Butcher of Moss, available now. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 May 24th, 1990, a pipe bomb explodes in the front seat of environmental activist Judy Berry's car.

Speaker 34 I knew it was a bomb the second that it exploded. I felt it rip through me with just a force more powerful and terrible than anything that I could describe.

Speaker 3 In season two of Rip Current, we ask who tried to kill Judy Berry and why.

Speaker 35 She received death threats before the bombing. She received more threats after the bombing.

Speaker 32 The men and woman who were hurt had planned to lead a summer of militant protest against logging practices in Northern California.

Speaker 2 They were climbing trees and they were sabotaging logging equipment in the woods.

Speaker 35 The timber industry, I mean, it was the number one industry in the area, but more than it was the culture, it was the way of life.

Speaker 1 I think that this is a deliberate attempt to sabotage our movement.

Speaker 3 Episodes of Rip Current Season 2 are available now. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 11 Based on their jailhouse interview, what did Al make of my dad's childhood?

Speaker 30 He was fascinated by his passivity, you know, Keith's passivity as a child. This dichotomous behavior of a shy and passive child who becomes fully the opposite as an adult

Speaker 30 was very interesting to him.

Speaker 30 He understood how Keith was bitter about the control his father had over him. He knew he wasn't able to stand up to his father's dominance, but Keith accepted it, you know, as his lot in life.

Speaker 30 And

Speaker 30 he kind of liked it because, well, he did feel trapped by his father. He was afraid of his father, but he also had a strong desire to have his dad love him.

Speaker 11 I feared my grandfather. Like, even though he never hit me, I was terrified of my grandfather being angry with me because I don't know what he would do.

Speaker 11 Like, maybe even know about the motorcycle story.

Speaker 30 I do. I do.

Speaker 30 So

Speaker 30 he has this motorcycle, Keith,

Speaker 30 that he saved up money for. A brand new motorcycle.
Okay. It's not a piece of junk like from cobbled together junkyard.

Speaker 33 I had bought a 750 Honda motorcycle. It was a 74, brand new, gold and metallic orange, you know, like a bright orange colored.
It was a beautiful bike.

Speaker 33 And

Speaker 33 it came hunting season, and I was working for dad at the time. And Brad and I wanted to go hunting over on the coast by Kalama.

Speaker 33 Of course, we needed a four-wheel drive, and I was going to use the company pickup. Well, I said, Dad, can I use a company pickup? He says,

Speaker 33 sure, Keith, but

Speaker 33 One stipulation that I knew was coming. He says, you leave me your motorcycle so I can go on a motorcycle ride with that.

Speaker 33 And I said, no, because you're going to get drunk and you're going to get on it and you're going to wreck the bike. Oh, I promise I ain't going to drink.
And I said, no,

Speaker 33 that's false promises. You know, he said, well, in order for me to get the pickup, I had to give him the bike.

Speaker 33 So I get the pickup and I load up and hunting supplies. We take off over to Clam where we have a hell of a nice time all weekend long.

Speaker 33 I wake up in the morning on Monday morning I go back to the dump truck in the backyard we have a swimming pool to dig that day

Speaker 33 and I walk through the back door and I said where the hell's dad at and we got this swimming pool to dig over here and mom says oh you don't know she says he wrecked the motorcycle he's in the hospital

Speaker 12 And I guess Keith goes on a hunting trip or something?

Speaker 12 What happened when he came back?

Speaker 11 Do Do you know? Well then Keith had to run the businesses. He had to do everything.
He was the sole provider for two families, his dad and mine, ours.

Speaker 33 And so I call up the company, the people that were going to do the swimming pool, told them I wouldn't be there because my dad's in the hospital and I have to go take care of business.

Speaker 33 So I go to St. Edith Hospital and there is dad up there on the floor and he's they operate on Rupture's spleen and his face is all bandaged up cut his nose and damn are off.

Speaker 11 He hit a Bobbed Wire

Speaker 11 and I cut up his intestines. He had a big scar and he had a big scar on his face.

Speaker 33 I get up there and he's like looking at me and I said, well what happened dad?

Speaker 10 He says, Keith,

Speaker 33 you gotta get back that motorcycle.

Speaker 33 You gotta take care of all the evidence, Keith. You gotta take care of it.
I said, what? What do you mean you take care of it? He says, go get rid of it. I said, you've been drinking.

Speaker 33 He said, just take care of it, boy. He said, we don't want that insurance company knowing that I was riding drunk, right?

Speaker 11 Did Keith drink? No.

Speaker 11 No, it was absolutely like no alcohol. He was the only one out of all my aunts and uncles that didn't drink at all.

Speaker 11 As I grew up, you didn't drink either. You and dad didn't drink at all growing up.
No, because my father was an alcoholic too. And so you either choose it or you don't.
And I chose not to.

Speaker 11 And that's, your dad chose not to drink either.

Speaker 33 But I get up to my dad and I say up to the hospital and my mom is there and I said, well, dad, I got rid of all that. And he said, good, good, good, good.

Speaker 33 And I said, now, why were you drinking on my motorcycle? My motorcycle says, I wasn't drinking on your motorcycle.

Speaker 33 Yes, you were. And he says, prove it.

Speaker 33 You can't prove it. You got rid of all the evidence, so you can't prove shit.

Speaker 15 I'll give you a nickel for your quarter,

Speaker 15 more liquor for your water.

Speaker 15 I'll leave you drunk up on the rooftop.

Speaker 15 Whoa.

Speaker 33 And that's basically how it all lands up. Everything is, I was covering up everything.

Speaker 10 How old were you then?

Speaker 33 Like I said, I was like 18 at that time.

Speaker 27 Yeah.

Speaker 12 Les basically made Keith go hide the evidence so that he could get insurance money that it didn't look like.

Speaker 11 You know, it wouldn't surprise me because Les was very famous for that.

Speaker 33 His business ethics of that was that the boss was always right and the employees were always wrong. Which meant the employee took the heat.
Yes, it did. And I'm just getting to that.

Speaker 33 His idea was that if there's any problems that occurred on the job that I would get shit on and he would get the glory of Saying I'm sorry or whatever like that. I'll it'll never happen.

Speaker 33 You know which I'll just make sure my son never does this stuff again. So I was like the bloody idiot, you know, doing all that.
And I kind of laughed one day because

Speaker 33 my dad was on the backhoe and he was digging next to this house and he put the bucket right through the side of the house. He has no depth perception.
That was one of his problems.

Speaker 33 Then he stuck the bucket through the side of the house. And the people were in the house and they were looking out and they saw him running the backhoe, right?

Speaker 33 And they come running out of the corner, but by the time they got around to where the backhoe was, he'd already stopped the machine and he'd gotten me on that.

Speaker 33 And they were looking at him and he looked at me and I said,

Speaker 33 I did it.

Speaker 33 And they were like, why do you put up with that? And I said, that's the way it is. I am the shit on it.

Speaker 11 Les

Speaker 11 told him, this is the way what you're going to say in court.

Speaker 11 And Keith did. In order for them to win a court case for the Mobile Party.
He wasn't lied in court. Absolutely.
You did.

Speaker 12 It seems like he wasn't the most honest man.

Speaker 11 No, no, he wasn't.

Speaker 11 He swindled people. I called him a swindler.
And he had a really good lawyer.

Speaker 11 My understanding

Speaker 31 is that,

Speaker 31 how do I say this? Left to his own devices, Keith would have been a pretty happy kid. He described his childhood as being fairly happy.
And

Speaker 31 he would have probably not harbored as much rage. He probably would have been somebody who got along with people.
But

Speaker 31 from Al to me, from Keith to Tal to me, his childhood was more a matter of he was the target.

Speaker 31 He was the scapegoat, for lack of a better word, of everybody's need to avoid Les's rage or manipulation or whatever it is. He had nobody backing him up.

Speaker 31 And he didn't even know how to back himself up. So all he could do was absorb all this negative energy about everything that was going on.
One, two, three, one, two.

Speaker 12 Your grandfather made him go visit a friend of your grandfather's who was dying.

Speaker 12 And your dad was really resentful because he had to go sit and make conversation with this dying man because your grandfather said nobody should have to die alone.

Speaker 12 And your dad was talking to the guy before he realized he had already passed away.

Speaker 11 I had no idea about this.

Speaker 9 Dad still treated me like the run of the litter, daddy's little helper.

Speaker 9 He dragged me to a nursing home to visit one of his hunting buddies. He said, My friend Smitty's not doing too good with his lung cancer, Keith.
I'm going out in the hall. Talk to him, son.

Speaker 9 Nobody likes to die alone.

Speaker 9 I'm sitting there, listening to the rattly breathing, watching his life drain out.

Speaker 9 After a while, Smitty goes limp. I'm holding his hand for 10 or 15 minutes before I realize he's dead.

Speaker 9 On our way home, he said, Keith, someday you'll thank me for putting you through this.

Speaker 9 I never feared a dead person after that.

Speaker 9 When I was killing, I talked to my victims as if they were still alive.

Speaker 9 It was something to thank Dad for.

Speaker 11 My dad was really good about telling his story, his narrative, and he... He beat everybody to the punch.
And it would just,

Speaker 11 when his story came forward, people always judged everybody else's tail against what he had to say.

Speaker 11 My dad had ownership, like the truth was his. He owned the truth,

Speaker 11 and it was not debatable. His air of certainty definitely played a part in other people believing in him and why probably his victims believed in him and trusted him over their own voices.

Speaker 11 He exuded confidence and certainty and

Speaker 11 whatever he said was truth and you can rely upon it and you can trust it, but

Speaker 11 not really.

Speaker 33 May I ask a question? Yes.

Speaker 31 Why is it that when Rose left Keith and took the kids, she went over to Les's house?

Speaker 11 What do you mean?

Speaker 11 The story that I got was when she left and emptied the house, the first place she went was Les's house.

Speaker 11 That is a direct quote from the history that I was reading this morning, and I can share that with you if you need me to.

Speaker 12 From Keith?

Speaker 31 Yeah. Oh.

Speaker 31 That's the story that I got.

Speaker 11 It could be wrong, but that's the story that Al got. That's interesting that he would say that I was there.
That didn't happen. Okay.
I was there the day that they left.

Speaker 11 That would make sense that my dad was shared that story to shame my mother and put her into that frame of light. Oh.
I actually remember play by play, minute by minute of that day that they separated.

Speaker 11 And there was not one single time that we went over to my grandparents' house.

Speaker 11 Matter of fact, they were gone and there was not anything that we cleaned out in that property because we left in the four topaz,

Speaker 11 which is just a little family sedan.

Speaker 11 We didn't take a single item from that house other than the clothes that we needed for like a couple days.

Speaker 7 Wow.

Speaker 31 So that is not the story that I got from Al from Keith.

Speaker 5 Yeah. That's fascinating.

Speaker 11 So that's interesting that he came up with this new story, a new spin.

Speaker 15 What happened?

Speaker 31 Well, I'm glad I asked because honestly,

Speaker 31 I bought the story that Keith gave Al.

Speaker 15 You know, I mean, it seemed reasonable.

Speaker 31 She left. She took everything with her.
She went over to the father's house. Some of this is fantasy.
Some of this is making Keith feel better about himself. So how truthful was he without?

Speaker 33 Now it's all right to lie. It's all right to be conniving and so forth.

Speaker 33 You can do that because you're an adult. You can do that.
But when you're a kid, you can't lie to your parents, you know.

Speaker 11 Because, you know, he called, you know, he would call and talk to us. And I remember you comforting me after one particular phone call where we were living on A Street over here.
and

Speaker 11 he called and said

Speaker 11 he was said he was suicidal because of having paid child support and then he

Speaker 11 because it was such a burden for him and it made me upset because I felt blamed he's blaming me for having to pay child support but then it went another step further he said

Speaker 11 you know I drove past the prison today the Oregon State prison I just like chewed my horn and said I'll be there soon as I said in the the call but I remember crying and going to my room and you came after me and you're like, what's wrong, Melissa?

Speaker 11 And I said, you know, dad said he's going to kill himself. And you got so mad.
You got so bad. You stormed out of my room.
You called him back up and you said, you

Speaker 14 son of a bitch.

Speaker 11 I heard you like, that was the first time I ever saw you mad.

Speaker 33 You're like,

Speaker 11 because I really felt the whole time he was playing on us. You know, I got picked child support.
So you guys separated in 1990, and then he, how did you find out in 1995?

Speaker 11 Didn't you receive a letter from him? I received a letter maybe a week before he got arrested. And in this letter, it said, Rose,

Speaker 11 what I did is bigger than O.J. Simpson.
He said, I'll probably be in hell forever.

Speaker 11 Keith.

Speaker 11 And I thought, you are so full of crap. I mean, like,

Speaker 11 what is this supposed to mean, right? Shredded to pieces, threw in the trash. It was directly to you.
It was directly to me. And it didn't say anything about us kids.
It just was like...

Speaker 11 I did something bigger than O.J. Simpson.

Speaker 15 Gentlemen,

Speaker 15 don't you know God is a woman

Speaker 15 And like any good poet God lets the song life itself

Speaker 6 God sits back

Speaker 6 gentle people

Speaker 6 Whoa, we must rely

Speaker 6 on ourselves

Speaker 9 Happy Face is a production of How Stuff Works. Executive producers are Melissa Moore, Lauren Bright Pacheco, Mangesh Hatikador, and Will Pearson.
Supervising producer is Noel Brown.

Speaker 9 Music by Claire Campbell, Paige Campbell, and Hope for a Golden Summer. Story editor is Matt Riddle.
Audio editing by Chandler Mays and Noel Brown. Assistant editor is Taylor Shacoyne.

Speaker 9 Special thanks to Phil Stanford, the publishers of the Oregonian newspaper, and the Carlisle family.

Speaker 16 A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers. But it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught.
The answers were there, hidden in plain sight.

Speaker 16 So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster. Hunting the Long Island Serial Killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York, since the son of Sam.

Speaker 16 Available now. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 17 I'm Cheryl McCollum, host of the podcast Zone 7.

Speaker 18 Zone 7 ain't a place, it's a way of life.

Speaker 21 Now, this ain't just any old podcast, honey.

Speaker 21 We're going to be talking to family members of victims, detectives, prosecutors, and some nationally recognized experts that I have called on over the years to help me work these difficult cases.

Speaker 19 I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't.

Speaker 22 We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork in solving these crazy crimes.

Speaker 21 Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims' family members.

Speaker 19 Come be a part of my zone 7 while building yours. Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 27 A new true crime podcast from Tenderfoot TV in the city of Mons in Belgium. Women began to go missing.

Speaker 27 It was only after their dismembered remains began turning up in various places that residents realized a sadistic serial killer was lurking among them. The murders have never been solved.

Speaker 27 Three decades later, we've unearthed new evidence. Le Monstre, Season 2, is available now.
Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 21 On this podcast, Incels, we unpack an emerging mindset.

Speaker 3 I am a loser. If I was a woman, I wouldn't pay me either.

Speaker 12 A hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger against women at a deadly tipping point. Tomorrow is the day of retribution.

Speaker 10 The day in which I will have my revenge.

Speaker 12 This is Incels.

Speaker 27 Listen to season one of Incels on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.