Ghosts and Letters

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Previously on Happy Face. There was some dark force that was trying to get rid of us.
And I felt that that force was your dad. The first year with Melissa had went through two fires.
Then shortly after that, we go camping. And then I heard a bear.
He cleaned fish in front of the cabin, and he was sleeping in the car. The moment I walked in that house, I felt like I wasn't alone, that there were spirits there, that I was being watched.
And it was my first night in this new house. I fall asleep a little bit, but then I'm awakened by being touched.
It's not a heavy touch, it's a light touch. And so I laid on the hallway floor with the light on, curled up in a ball hoping that the night would just go away fast.
And in the morning, my dad stepped over me, and he said, why did you fall asleep in the hallway? And I said, I was being touched, Dad. And he said, oh, don't pay any attention to them.
They bother me all the time at night.

Don't pay them any mind. I would shiver the whole night through.
A bond Melissa and her father share involves the spirits they both claim to encounter, even to this day. It's not a fearful feeling, it's almost a peaceful feeling that I have these, I have

come. involves the spirits they both claim to encounter, even to this day.

It's not a fearful feeling.

It's almost a peaceful feeling that I have company with me.

Okay.

It's like they're all watching me,

so now they're waiting for something to happen,

like who am I going to do next or something. But it's almost like they're my company.

I can't get rid of them.

So I have my own little party in my own cell,

and I'm all by myself, but I've got

all these eight spirits with me. Perhaps these are her father's victims, or perhaps something else.
Could they be the manifestation of the psychopathy she fears her father has passed on to her? To quote Edgar Allan Poe,

The boundaries which divide life from death. she fears her father has passed on to her.
To quote Edgar Allan Poe,

the boundaries which divide life from death

are at best shadowy and vague.

Who shall say where one ends

and where the other begins?

I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco,

and this is Happy Face. As we drove through her hometown, Melissa recalled her first real encounter.
My first experience with a spirit was when we lived in Traylor Park in CELA, Washington.

A neighbor man was watching me.

I was laying on the couch.

And I remember looking up over the couch and seeing this white being.

And it was protecting me.

So, in a weird way, it was kind of normal in your family. What did your dad talk to you about? He would comment about seeing spirits as well.
So I felt that he understood what I was seeing. It wasn't like an everyday conversation.
It was just once in a while he would talk about a supernatural event in his life.

There was a time where he was in a massive car accident where his truck went off a cliff,

totaled the semi truck and fell off the cliff. And he said he saw spirits that were around him.

But my first memory of seeing anything was that, was when I was probably about four years old, seeing a white being, and it was hovering. I wonder if I would have been harmed by the man that was watching me, and maybe that being was protecting me, but I don't know.
I don't know how that works, but ever since, I've seen them. Your dad talked a lot in his first book with Jack Olsen about the ghosts in Roberta's house.
Oh, really? Yeah. What did he say? That they tormented him.
After Keith left Melissa's mom, he moved in with his then-girlfriend, Roberta, but he claims they shared her home with spirits. In one of his conversations with Al Carlyle, Keith even seems to confirm the theory that perhaps these are his victims and describes what he felt with Tanya Bennett.
While I killed her, I felt like she just absorbed into me. I felt like she just came right up in something, like I could feel she was right there, like asking me why and all this.
I mean, it was like she's just right there, and she just like over just surrounded me and uh frightening at all i don't think it frightened me because i've been in a haunted house for two years almost i felt this stuff before i felt it i heard someone hung themselves in the house but um i do feel the spirit i feel her my when i think of her well i'm at night or or something like like that, I'm laying there and I think they're all sitting around watching me. I'm in my cell.
I think they're all sitting there waiting for me to go. When I was at my dad's house, at night I would feel like I was being watched.
And it was multiple. There's multiple female spirits that I couldn't see them.
I just felt their presence. Not bad spirits, but they were uneasy spirits.
They were, like, trying to get my attention. Nobody else would talk to me about the spirits but my dad.
I'm embarrassed actually telling you about this, because I'm thinking you guys are going to think I'm crazy, but I truly, I actually hear them too. They talk sometimes and they don't talk like audible.
I'll just have an understanding of what they're trying to convey and you don't need words for that. The house is haunted and that's my understanding.
I actually felt it was too because Roberta said it was and so did her mother. And some strange things happened in that house while I was laying there.
You'd feel coldness and you'd feel this and that. And so when after I killed Tanya, I kind of looked up and I yelled into the house.
I said, now you evil son of a bitches. Now I'm the most evil person in here.
Now shut the fuck up and leave me alone. That's basically what I said.
And I have no problem with the ghosts after that. From Melissa's perspective, her father's acceptance of spirits almost made her feel like seeing them was normal.

This is making me feel validated because it's something that I'm afraid that people would

think I'm crazy.

After he murdered Tanya in that home, he told Roberta that maybe the ghosts now would leave

him alone because they'd know what he's capable of.

That's weird.

I need to go to the next one. told Roberta that maybe the ghosts now would leave him alone because they'd know what he's capable of.

That's weird. I know some serial killers collect souvenirs like driver's licenses or panties or jewelry or hair.
Yeah. Maybe my dad collected spirits.

As we gathered interviews for this story, a pretty distinct theme began to appear, the appearance of ghosts. It was a twist that honestly split our team for a variety of reasons, but it was an undeniable one.
People we spoke to spoke of sensing ghosts. Whether these encounters were something sparked by psychosis,

the manifestation of trauma, or spirituality remains a question, but they were a shared

experience for Keith, Melissa, and Julie's son, Don. Here's Don.

With your mom, do you ever feel her with you?

Oh, yeah. I drive taxi now.
I felt my mom in the back of my cab, even when it first happened. And I had a girlfriend at the time.
She didn't believe in it, but she felt entities on the edge of the bed. My mom called me.
She called you? They say when the other side contacts you, they have made peace. Shortly after the first set of trials, I went back to San Diego.
No one had my phone number. I was living in a rental room with a bunch of Mexicans that were illegal workers doing tar roofing.
One night I decided to answer the phone. Hello, sweetie.
No one ever called me sweetie, and I know my mom's voice. Mom? Mom? I dropped the phone, curled up in a corner till daylight.
She's okay. My mother is at peace.
Her and my grandmother have come to see me in my dreams. They came to see me, and I cried, and they left.
They weren't there to make me cry. They were letting me know they're at peace.
Okay? For all of Keith's talk about the ghosts of his victims,

somewhere inside, he feared them for what they really could be,

a manifestation of his own evil.

Even in jail, he couldn't escape Tanya or the rest of his victims.

Did that seem real to you?

It did.

Yeah, it did seem real. Did you feel her presence? Yeah, I felt it.
I feel it myself. I feel it all the time.
the rest of his victims. that they're there.
It's like I feel if I turn around fast enough I can see them. They're right behind me.
They're guiding me right now I think. They're just there.
I mean everywhere I go they're

there. They're waiting for me to die so that I can be in their world.
That's what I think.

And what they're going to do. I think they're going to get even.

They're going to rule my roots because by that time I think they're going to have control of

where they're at. And I'm just a new guy in the block down.
Growing up, Melissa had a normal life. Normal family, normal friends.
Until one day, everything changed. What do you know about the happy face killer he's my father he's so good to see you missy don't call me that now streaming he said he killed another woman when i confessed in 95 i held one back what's this victim's name this can't be that easy experience the thrilling new series there's a family out there still wondering what happened to their daughter.
Inspired by a true life story. He wasn't always a monster.
He became one. About family.
The stories we tell ourselves. And what it takes to uncover the truth.
If I don't deal with him, he will never leave us alone. You think you're so different.
You don't see how they're the same to you. Annalee Ashford and Dennis Quaid star.
I am not responsible for what my dad did. This going how you hoped? Happy Face, new series now streaming exclusively on Paramount+.
Are your ears bored? Yeah. Are you looking for a new podcast that will make you laugh, learn, and say, ¿qué? Yeah! Then tune in to Locatora Radio Season 10 today.

Okay!

I'm Diosa.

I'm Mala.

The host of Locatora Radio, a radiophonic novela.

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We're launching this season with a mini-series, Totally Nostalgic,

a four-part series about the Latinos who shaped pop culture in the early 2000s. It's Lala checking in with all things Y2K, 2000s.
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Listen to Locatora Radio Season 10 on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. tell you guys right now, I know my mother and I know my mom had a very forgiving heart.
That is my story on plastic surgery. This is my truth.
I think the last time I cried like that was when I lost my mom. Like that, like yelling.
I was like, no. I was like, oh, and I thought, what did I do wrong? And as always, you'll get my exclusive take on topics like love, personal growth, health, family ties, and more.
And don't forget, I'll also be dishing out my best advice to you on episodes of Dear Cheekies. So my fiance and I have been together for 10 years.
In the first two years of being together, I find out he is cheating on me, not only with women, but also with men. What should I do? Okay, where do I start?

That's not love. He doesn't love you enough because if he loved you, he'd be faithful.
It's going to be an exciting year and I hope that you can join me. Listen to Cheekies and Chill season four as part of the My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
walks into his life. Well, I guess I'm saying I like you.
You like me?

He actually is too good to be true.

This is a con.

I'm conning you to get the Dilano painting.

We could do this together.

To pull off this heist, they'll have to get close and jump into the deep end together.

That's a huge leap, Fernando, don't you think?

After you, Cholito.

But love is the biggest risk they'll ever take.

Fernando's never going to love you

as much as he loves in this job.

Chulito, that painting is ours.

Listen to The Setup

as part of the My Cultura podcast network,

available on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. perhaps for Don, the ghosts serve as a way to process their trauma or alleviate the magnitude of their loss.
But for Keith, he's become their prey. They both haunt and hunt him.
And to exercise his demons, he attempted to purge them on paper. Letters have definitely been a theme, you know, with my dad.

On the road, before he was arrested, he would send us letters. He would send us postcards.
And that's his way of communicating with me and my siblings while he was on the road as a truck driver. So I'd have all these postcards and letters from all these different destinations, and I would look forward to them.
Then my father was caught by writing a letter, a confession letter to my uncle and grandfather. Then when he was arrested, he starts writing to the Argonian, and then after that, he continues to write letters to me and tries to stay in communication with me.
And he writes letters to media outlets, and he writes letters to wannabe writers and biographers. He keeps using letters to be his medium to the world.
When speaking about his letter to the Oregonian, Jesperson almost makes it seem altruistic to free two innocent people. But he's unable to conceal his narcissism.

The gut feeling I had when I wrote that smiley face letter and sent it to him that I shouldn't do it.

But I said, I'm going to do it because I'm trying to get those two people out.

Or I'm trying to stir up a hornet's nest to get these people out

without turning myself in.

Why did you care?

I didn't think it was right that two people could take the blame,

be prosecuted for my murder. I figured that I was responsible for it, that nobody should be able to take

that responsibility from me. And then, it's kind of funny in a way that here I'm a cold-blooded

murderer and I'm worried about two people in prison doing my time. It makes sense.
When

you say, I didn't want them to take that responsibility away, what do you mean?

Well, it was my murder. My body count.
It was like my victim, she hangs around me. She's not hanging around them.

She's hanging around me, and they're like, we're interwound. We're kind of like...

And the fact that I did eight at the end there, toward the end, when I said I did it, I did it.

And it became also important on credibility

that they believed that was mine.

Keith wrote a confession letter to his brother

after Julie's murder,

which he later claimed meant to serve a dual purpose

as both confession and suicide note.

Why take a chance by confessing to him

the notes, the letters, those things?

Well, I had to, when I left, to go up in the mountain

Thank you. Why take a chance by confessing to him the notes, the letters, those things? Well, I had to, when I left to go up in the mountains, I wrote my letter to my brother feeling I wasn't going to come back.
That was my suicide note. I was going to let my brother know.
March 95. Yeah, March 24, 95.
I sent a letter. I said I killed Julie in the truck and tried to explain that I'd killed seven others.
Here I let the cat out of the bag, even though I just, instead of just being down for one murder and a suicide, I was trying to explain to my brother why I turned out this way and I couldn't, you know, in a short letter, how can I explain it? Why did you have to? I felt lost at that time. I was not feeling myself.
I was like, I have to end it. I can't let the cops get me.
And let the others go so your family wouldn't know that they were... Well, when I was arrested, when I turned myself in, I thought I could just call my brother up and say, just ignore the letter.
Destroy the letter and that way way I'll just confess to the one murder. I told him on the phone, there's nothing to the letter.
It's all bullshit, right? So just leave it at that. And I figured I'd just confess to the one murder, and then I'd be punished for the one murder, period, and that'd be the end of that.
And I'd get out in 15, 20 years after doing man one or man two. Were you clearing your conscience when you put the other homicides? Yeah, I'd be a good aspect to it.
Keith's letter to his brother led to his confession to the other murders. I come to the realization that I was going to be convicted anyway.
Like, I wanted to kill myself so the truth wouldn't come out. But now that I was in custody, I knew the truth would come out.
One of the reasons why I turned myself in was I thought, well, you know, I said I should face my problem. The first thing I did was I called the cop up and I said I did it.
I confessed to it. I confessed to the one murder.
I never said I confessed to all of them. Only after my attorney came over and he showed me the letter that my brother didn't destroy.
And then I was faced with having to deal with all of them. That was the clincher.
Keith also waged a nearly year-long letter war with Les, his now sober and dying father, that ranged from back-and-forth blame to declarations of love. From I, The Creation of a Serial Killer by Jack Olson

The Letter from Les

The last letter you sent me was full of bitterness and resentment.

It left me with a feeling that it was not my son that was writing that letter.

I have never reprimanded you for your terrible crimes.

I have forgiven you and have asked the Lord to forgive you also.

You have to admit, you put your family through one hell of a mess.

Letter from Keith

Dad, I do two hours in the morning of classes, so if I get out of prison, I won't do this again. The class is called Anger Management, deals with the way I was raised and the punishment dished out to me as a child.
We talk openly about the belt and the wooden spoon and the fist and the backhand and the verbal abuse.

Under the program, we have the prison pointing into your corner on why I'm here and why I turned out to be a serial killer.

But that's alright, Dad. I still love you anyway.
Melissa wrote her father after his arrest, and he wrote her back. He was hurtful and planted seeds in her mind that would fester and make her wonder for decades, if she was like him, that his evil could also be inside of her somewhere.
Her husband, Sam, would often read Keith's letters to act as a filter to protect Melissa from their worst content. I think periodically she would get a letter from him, and instead of reading it, she would ask me to read it.
Because she didn't want to be impacted by his words. Because he was so cruel.
I would read them and then I would kind of decipher what I thought would be helpful. And then like filter out the things that weren't needed.
So it's not like I read things verbatim back to her. I literally just kind of filter through and then go, this is what he said, or this is what I think might matter.
Why? I don't think she really wanted to hear from him, but she also maybe wanted to still stay connected to him because it was her dad. And what was your take on the personality behind those letters? You said cruel.
Yeah, he was strange, weird, like inappropriate. He made some of the most inappropriate comments to your daughter.

He just was always out of touch with what was appropriate, for sure.

He was always kind of condescending, too.

And always trying to tell Melissa that she was...

I don't think he thinks she's that smart.

Or he feels like it's his job to make her feel not smart. He was never very kind, never loving by any means.
Over the years, Melissa received many letters from Keith, and many of them remained unread. They just collect.
As you can see, they're old. And now I'm wondering if these are more honest than actually meeting him in person.
That if these are the true his true confessions like a diary versus what he would say to my face. I don't know why I collect them.
Sometimes I throw them away when they come in the mail, and sometimes I just save them. Maybe because I'm not ready to read them when I receive them, but maybe I think that I'll be ready to read them another time.
When's this one for? So nine, dear Melissa, I'll let you in on a secret you should be well aware of by now, but haven't come to understand just yet.

It matters little what the real truth is when telling stories in the press.

You see, most people reading those press reports don't know the true facts, and they're relying on the reporter to get them the story.

Therefore, they read it and believe they are getting the truth, or as close to it as they can get. It is of entertainment value.
People read it to pass the time. People write to throw across to the public, recording it, a message.
What is the message? It's to sell. It's to get enough to believe them and not the other guy.
Does it matter that Angela Sabres was alive when I dragged her body down the freeway? Does it matter that I planned to kill Laura Ann Pentland hours before I drove her to Wilsonville just to see her? Does it matter

that when I drove into the rest area at Turnlock that I was going to kill someone, the first one

I saw? Does it matter that every victim to come to me after Claudia was going to die?

Because I fulfilled a plan once I decided to kill them. My story is the story I wanted to tell.

The truth according to Keith. The story to sell to the public.
But apparently it won't sell because

people such as sick, perverted, bloodthirsty monsters like publishers and true crime writers

and victims and their people want to read about it. The gore, the thought process to why I killed.
They want to tell a morbid tale, to put me in a certain light of darkness in order to sell their books. But Dad, you're not telling the truth.
I'll tell you a story, Miss Know-It-All. Neither are you.
I know you think you can say anything you want and it will be published because you are the victim here. You are a killer yourself.
Called so because you killed your baby. But you had a reason, right? It was still murder, killing a baby.
That could have lived and not had one thing to do with why she was born.

Are you caring what I did and holding it high to tell the world,

hey, look at me, I'm the daughter of the happy face killer.

I'm a victim here.

But it seems now that you want the world to know who you are.

Not Melissa Moore, but the daughter of the happy face killer.

I've created a monster in you.

Because you are telling them you are a victim, they wrote what you say and believe it even though it isn't true.

You know this.

Oh no.

He's insane.

This is why I don't read these fucking letters. This is why I don't know.
He's insane. And that's not who you are.

This is why I don't read these fucking letters.

This is why I don't read them.

Don't you understand?

This is why I don't read them.

Just because he says it doesn't make it true.

Just because he writes it doesn't make it true.

It's not true.

I don't even know I have them.

I don't even know.

I need to breathe. I need to breathe.

I need to breathe.

The letters had undoubtedly opened old wounds that had never fully healed.

It also seems that having read the letters that he sends you, that this is an incarcerated man who is still inflicting violence with words. Absolutely.
It's just emotional abuse. It's verbal abuse through written form.
So words are his weapon of choice now?

I would say words are his weapon. Instead of his hands, now he writes.

Judging from Melissa's reaction, Keith appears to have known exactly what he was doing.

What has always been your greatest fear with your father? That I'm just like him. He said I'm just like him.
He has told me for years growing up, and then after his arrest, you're just like me. And I believed it.
And what would that have meant in terms of who you are? It means I'm a horrible person. It means I'm a murderer.
I'm a monster. I am not human.
I am nothing. And what's your greatest fear about your mind? Genetically, that I am wired to be like my dad, that I'm genetically created a clone of my father.
I look like my father. I smile like my father.
My eyes are my father. My nose is my father.
I look in the mirror and I see my dad. I want to know, did my insides match my dad too? Everything that I am, is it my dad? I thought I was choosing to live against my nature and that I was delusional and that people could see through that.
That my nature was a psychopath, my nature was my father, and that I was going against the grain of my DNA to be a good person. And then you look in your children's faces, and what do you say? My dad.
I see my dad's hair, and my son. I see my daughter's work ethic, you know, and that's so much of my dad.

There's so much, you know, that's rooted in my dad, and I see him everywhere.

Though Melissa hadn't heard her father's voice in person in nearly two decades, she still felt as though he were right there with her, speaking through his letters. And he knew everything.
He knows all my fears. And he put all my insecurities on two pages of paper

and I wasn't prepared to read his words

and it felt a little prophetic in some ways

when he said you need a doctor

and tomorrow I'm going to go see a doctor

that only a doctor can really tell me what's...

can tell me the truth.

In the next Happy Face,

Melissa's PET scan brings her face-to-face with a neuroscientist who understands psychopathy

on a very personal level.

There's a whole other part of psychopathy

which are these positive or pro-social traits

Thank you. very personal level.
There's a whole other part of psychopathy which are these positive or pro-social traits. It may sound like you're really nice to be around everything.
It just means that you can navigate through society and everybody thinks you're okay. So it makes you more dangerous in one sense.
You have these pro-social traits. People with just negative traits, everybody stays away from them.
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.

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 Chicoin