Normalcy

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Previously on Happy Face. My name is Lauren Bride Pacheco, and I've worked with Melissa Jesperson Moore for about four years.
My father is Keith Hunter Jesperson. He's known as the Happy Face serial killer.
My mom had just said that her and my dad were separating, which I didn't believe. I wanted to keep, like, you guys' baby pictures, and he chucked that all out.
There was just this thing that people said in the family. They would say, oh, that's just Keith.
That's just how Keith is. And it seemed to be acceptable.
One of the few people that Keith opened up to about his childhood was psychologist Al Carlisle. Any learning problems? No, not really.
So you're intelligent? I'm very intelligent, but I just didn't adapt myself to it. I got pregnant my freshman year.
So right after I found out is when the news hit about my dad. I was dating a guy named Nick.
and it was a very dysfunctional relationship.

So I felt like the only option for me to break out of this was to not have the baby.

A couple months later, I got a letter from my dad.

He said, you're a killer just like me.

You deserve to be in prison with me. In the pines where the sun don't ever shine I would shiver the whole night through My dad always said that he was not like his dad in the way he disciplined me and my siblings.
There was a time when I stayed out too late and didn't come home, and I worried my family. And my dad said, you know, you went past your curfew.
So he made me bend over my bed, and he pulled pants down. So my bum was bare and he took off his leather belt and he started like whipping it, you know, like slapping it.
So it made a slapping noise and he kept threatening that he was going to whip me with it or spank me with it. And so I was sobbing and pleading with him not to hit me because like the sound alone of the leather slapping was terrifying.
And just being so vulnerable with your tush in the air, like I knew it was going to hurt really bad. And he didn't.
He just kept toying with the idea that he was going to hit me. How old were you? It was at the farmhouse, so six, about six years old.
And he made sure that there was always the threat of being spanked. Like, he would threaten to spank us, and you just needed a threat, and you'd whip up real fast.
I mean, because just his size and how he made those sounds

was terrifying.

He must have known the fear.

Yeah, he must have.

For all of Melissa's happy childhood memories

regarding her father,

darker ones surfaced as our journey

progressed. Although he never physically hit them, Keith still managed to instill a sense of fear in

Melissa and her siblings. As the saying goes, not all scars are visible.
I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco.

This is Happy Face. My dad would be home on the weekends, Saturday morning and Sunday morning, like any weekend morning.
We always wanted to wake up our dad, so we would rush the bed with my mom and dad in it and we would jump on him and he would tackle us. And it just became a whole hour of tackling and tickling while he was trying to get out of bed.
So we would get more and more aggressive, like with our tactics, like I would get a further running start and run and then jump on the bed. And then I would jump on the bed and then really try to pound on my dad.
Because he could handle it. Because you could see that he could handle it.
How old were you? Oh, just a young kid. I was like five to seven or so, like really young.
I just would go and jump on him and he could take it. My brother would get aggressive.
I remember him, like, elbowing him, and then my dad, like, pinning him down and wrestling him. And with me, he pinned me down and started tickling me, but it was to the point of, like, I was going to pee my pants, and I kept screaming I was going to pee my pants.
He kept tickling me, but it turned from, like, it was funny, like, a parent would let you go. If you're like, no, really serious, I have to go, you know, you would let your child go.
But all of a sudden, it was now, like, I control you. And it turned into, like, now I'm sobbing because it's becoming painful to be tickled, you know? So you'd go from laughing to crying? Yeah.
And then would he stop?

He would eventually let me go, but it was when he wanted to let me go.

That just was his way with us.

Anything I was afraid of or didn't like, he made sure to push it and push me beyond my comfort just to let me know he had control.

It may sound very harmless or little to somebody else, but it was a message. He was giving me a message that he controls me.
I mean, there's so many little tiny lessons of that, like touching the electric fence. So we have around the peripheral of the farm, we had an electric fence.
And I asked him, Dad, is the fence on? He's like, well, touch it and find out. And I touched it.
And when you touch it, you can't let go. Your hand won't let go.
Like my hand, I remember it was on it and it

was like vibrating and I couldn't release my hand because it gripped it. And he was laughing.

It was all to tell me that he could do what he wants and that you were his. Yep.
And I had to watch my feelings around my kids. I had to watch because if they did something wrong and made me want to feel like punishing them because I know what my dad would do to me.
I feel like I had to really watch myself that I didn't allow myself. See, here I'm a murderer, and I've been out here, and I've been doing this.
I've got to watch my emotions around people I love. There is, like you say, maybe not a control there because I'm not...
There are things that may be setting me off, and I had to watch that. It was too easily done.
There's times where I've gotten with people, friends of mine, and I just sit there, and I say, I can't stay here. You don't see it, but I do, and I'm not going to stick that.
It was too easily done. There are times where I've gotten with people, friends of mine, and I just sit there and I say, I can't stay here.
You don't see it, but I do, and I'm not going to stick around because I will do something about it. Eventually, after her father's capture and her chaotic relationship with Nick, Melissa tried to find a sense of security and safety and love.
Just a normal life. But something was always missing.
Why was that so important to you that you create this stable home life? Well, it actually goes back to the breakup with Nick. When I broke up with Nick, it was a relationship that I didn't want to repeat.
So I made a list of all the things that weren't working for me that were harmful. And I took a look at what my parents' relationship was and my mom's new relationship was, and I realized I didn't want to repeat that.
In order to do that, I had to make a list of what wouldn't work for me. So I made this checklist, and I put it in my diary, and there's this moment when I met Sam, and as he was talking, I was checking off that list in my head of all the things that I needed to ensure that I didn't follow in my mom's footsteps.
Give me an example. What was on that list? Number one, he had to be college educated.
I didn't want to live in poverty, and I didn't want to be in a relationship that if I was going to have children with someone, that it was unstable. Two, traveled the world, had a worldview.
I wanted to see the world. I had this dream of traveling.
Three, that he was transparent and honest, and I could count on them and know that everything that he says would be truthful. Those were the top ones.
And so when I first met him, the first thing he said is he's in college, and he's getting his degree in international relations. And then he already lived in Portugal for two years.
So he, to me, was the best man that I have ever met in Spokane. On paper, he was everything that I needed.
The him Melissa refers to is Sam, her estranged husband and father of her two children. We spoke to Sam about how the relationship began and evolved.
So tell me how you and Melissa first met. How old were you and where was it? Oh, it was a while ago.
I was 25 or 26, right in there. And Melissa was like 21.
And it was pretty unique. I grew up Mormon.
And so every Friday, there would always be an activity at dance for singles. I remember I had just broken up with a girl and I didn't want to go out, didn't want to go hang out with anybody.
And I had two roommates and they wanted me out of the house. They're like, time for you to go do something.
We're going to go to the dance. It was in West Plains in Spokane, Washington.
It's a big gymnasium full of people, knew most everybody there because it's all of my peers, the people I hanged out with. And I was kind of reluctant to even be there, but I also was enjoying the music.
So I went and sat up on the stage and I was just watching everybody dance. And I was looking around the room trying to figure out if I was going to date again.
And then I remember it very clearly. Side doors of the gym opened up, and a beautiful blonde walked in.
Everything went dark. I'd never seen her before, and I was very, very interested.
So at that moment, I decided I probably would be open to dating again. I was sitting on the stage trying to be a loner, which isn't my normal personality, actually.
And I just watched her mingle with some people. And then after a little while, she approached me.
She came up to me on the stage, and she sat next to me. I was right next to the speakers, so you couldn't really hear each other.
So she started trying to talk to me. And as she tried, I moved closer to her so that we could hear each other.
And she started talking in my ear and I was smitten. I asked her for her phone number and I asked for a chance to be able to catch up with her.
And she left, I left. I think we went to Sherry's as a group.
Usually after dances, as a collective Mormon group, you always go to Denny's or Sherry's or something like that. And I remember the whole night, I just kind of stopped thinking about her.
And I didn't call her for like two or three days.

Was that calculated?

No, I was just too nervous.

It's a day glow gray, it's a lot

from the fog of veil I wear.

Uh-huh.

You indulge and break how you've left.

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Healthcare just got less painful. For Melissa, Sam's greatest appeal was that he represented everything her father did not.
What were your first impressions of Sam physically? Oh, um, he had a goatee that was kind of long, and he was wearing a leather jacket. Not normally, like, stylistically.
And maybe as girls, like, we all can relate to this. We're like, oh, that's changeable.
The clothes are changeable. There's probably the antithesis of your father physically, though, too.
And in terms of emotionally. Your dad's 6'6".
Sam was probably closer to 5'6". Yeah, he's 5'6".
He instantly... Did he feel safe? Yeah, because he wasn't pursuing me.
Well, it felt like he wasn't pursuing me at all. Like, I had to be the pursuer.
So that felt incredibly safe. Yeah, he put my phone number in his flip phone, and then he never called me.
Never did. And I worked at Victoria's Secret, and then one day, he just shows up at my job.
So she worked on the makeup side of Victoria's Secret, and so I showed up to the makeup side and I asked for help for a perfume or something.

But really the goal was to get to meet Melissa.

And I don't know if she asked me or if I asked her.

I was like, hey, can you?

Oh, I asked her.

I remember now.

He says, you know, like, hey, you know, I was talking to Alicia, your friend.

And she said that you could use a good guy in your life. And do you want to go out? I said, sure.
And so I gave them a day. We set the date up.
And then, like, in a few days when it was supposed to happen, I was trying to, like, make sure it was going to happen. And she told me that she couldn't go out.
Like, one of her friends asked her to, like,. So I told him like oh you know I forgot I'm babysitting and then he thought I was you know making up an excuse to turn him down and not to go out with him and I said well actually you want to just come with me.
She goes but you're welcome to come watch the kid with me and I obviously said yes. And I just thought he was a good guy.
And we went out to Denny's where everybody hung out.

Like, if you didn't want your date to end, you just go to Denny's or Sherry's.

And I remember we were talking about the, I don't know why it came up,

but one of my favorite fables was the Sirens fable.

And so we were talking about that.

The Sirens luring the Sirens.

Yes, I don't know why I like that fable.

Maybe because the female has the power.

It's subtle, but even on their first date,

Melissa's tiny exertion of control has echoes of her father.

We were on our date at Sherry's,

and I remember she did something that no other girl was capable of doing. I really detest ranch dressing.
There's no way I was ever going to eat ranch dressing. And she was eating, like, a piece of chicken, and she asked me to eat it.
And I told her, no. I go, I don't like ranch dressing.
And then I ate ranch dressing. And I remember, like, no girl had ever had that kind of power over me.
And I found it really attractive that she didn't take no from me. Did you guys get serious really quickly? We did.
So instead of taking her home, I took her back to my place. And in the Mormon community, that's not a normal next step.
I took her back to my place, and while we were there, we didn't do anything. We made out, but still, that was the fastest relationship that I've ever had to move that quickly.
On paper, Sam was everything Melissa would want in a partner, but her fear of vulnerability always overshadowed her desire for connection. This is somebody who physically doesn't look like my dad, doesn't act like my father in any shape or form, so he felt safe in all of those categories.
I craved to have everything that I was missing growing up, but I emotionally couldn't connect to it. What was your fear during that time? My biggest fear was that everybody would find out about my past and that it would take this life that I curated and make it crumble down.
That it would fall apart. That everything I worked for and survived for would fall apart.
and that people would find out that I'm just like my father, and I would lose everything. You know, it's interesting to go back and meet with people that I dated in the past, and then this to be a common thread, that I was emotionally distant in the relationship, that they constantly had to work to find out

what I was feeling. Yes, I was a very emotionally removed person, and that scared me.
But that was a vulnerability that was trained out of me. If I was vulnerable with my dad, he exploited it.
If I was vulnerable with these boyfriends, what would happen? It scared me to think that I wasn't capable of love, and that's a precursor

to psychopathy, that I could be a psychopath if I couldn't have empathy or love. And I honestly

didn't feel, when I left a lot of these relationships, I didn't feel sad to leave them.

I was relieved to leave these relationships. So it caused me to further wonder if I was just like my dad.
In Sam, Melissa saw the stability she desperately craved, and his religious upbringing provided stark contrast to her father's crimes. But in reality, Sam was very much questioning his faith and rebelling against it.
Melissa became part of that rebellion. What did you know about her family? Do you remember? Yeah, I remember when she first told me, I think we were at her mom's place where you've been now.
They used to have like a trampoline in the front of the yard. I think we were on the trampoline and we were like looking up at the stars.
That's when Melissa told me who her dad was. And once again, I was so smitten.
To be honest, I didn't really care. And I don't think I understood the magnitude, like the gravity of what her father was.
And I didn't see it as a reflection

of who she was. Like, I would hate for somebody to ever think that my parents are a reflection of me.
I mean, obviously we are, but like, I wouldn't want to be judged for that. When was the first time Sam said, you aren't there emotionally? When was the first time that he doubted.
It was always the elephant in the room, the lack of connection. I thought if we don't acknowledge it, then it doesn't exist, and therefore everything's normal.
Don't bring it up. And so there wasn't anything verbally spoken about it until three years ago.
We had a conversation about where things were at in our marriage, and that was his complaint. And what did he say? He said, you never look in my eyes and you never kiss me.
And it really bothered him. And it's true.
It's true. And it has nothing to do with him.
I don't blame him. It was nothing to do with him.
And it's true. It's true.
And it has nothing to do with him. I don't blame him.
It was nothing

to do with him at all. It was everything to do with me.
In Kyoto, forests I could see us close. I did not know you or your love.
Dark ceilings, how I longed for your love. Though you've got no feeling.
In what must have been one of the most surreal moments in their marriage, one day Melissa decided to visit Keith. Melissa and I were at home one day, and I think she had either just received a letter or maybe had come across a letter.
And she asked me if it was weird that she hadn't seen her dad. And I was like, I don't know.
I don't know if it's weird. I mean, he is in prison for murder so no I don't think it's that weird she goes how would you feel if I was to go see him again and I was like whether you want to or not I'm here for you and uh I said we'll just think about it and she did she thought about it for a little while and then she goes I think I'm do that.
And so we took some time off. We told everyone we were going on a trip to Oregon.
And we didn't tell anyone what we were going to go do. And we ended up getting to the prison with our kids.
And so we ended up following the guards through this maze of cells, where they would open up a gate, and then you'd open up another gate, and you're kind of following them through. And then they brought us into this lobby, which had couches laid out.
And I was trying to figure out how it was working. And I was waiting for them to come get us, and I was trying to figure out, so Melissa, when you go see your dad, I'll just stay here with the kids.

And then I started looking around the room.

And there was guards at the doors with guns.

And all the men in the room were wearing denim.

And I wasn't wearing denim.

And I was like, man, that must be the style in Oregon or something.

That's how naive I am. Oh, my God.
And then I started noticing that they're pretty tatted up. And it was when we were in the room that I realized that we were going to meet Melissa's dad in person.
I had no idea. And after a little little while, Melissa's dad came in and he's massive.
Like he is such a big man. I mean, I knew he was big, but I don't think I knew how big he was.
I remember I stood up, Melissa stood up and the kids were with us. And I don't remember if he hugged Melissa, but I remember his interaction with me.

He shook my hand and he said,

thank you for taking such good care of my daughter.

That was the very first thing he said.

And I was like, oh, I might be able to handle this guy.

So he sat down next to us.

I think he asked us if we wanted to have the kids go play over in the play area or not.

And we're like, no, we'll keep them here. And I wasn't very cognizant of even what my kids were enduring or even what Melissa was feeling because my anxiety level was really high.
I didn't know if I had to move it into a protective mode or into a kindness mode. I was really distraught.
I didn't know what to do. Was it crazy? It was because I wasn't expecting it to look like that.
And he was actually pretty genuine and pretty kind. The banter back and forth between Melissa and her dad seemed kind of normal.
He asked if we wanted to go outside. I guess there was an outside area that you could go sit in.
And we just had a dialogue back and forth. That was weird.
What's going through your mind? At any point, are you looking at this face and hearing this voice and hearing the small talk and thinking, this man murdered people? Yes, absolutely. I was able to sit next to a horrible, horrible person that could kill eight women.
And I wasn't able to even distinguish that that's what he was. And I used to consider myself pretty good at reading people, like assessing who they are.
And at that very moment, I realized that most, it'd be easy for all of us to be prey. And that blew my mind.
That was going through my head the entire time. While he's talking to Melissa, I was like, he murdered eight people.
From I, The Creation of a Serial Killer by Jack Olson. My sighs intimidated the guards, and they chained me up whenever I was moved.
I explained that I wasn't going to harm anyone, but they'd heard that story before. It didn't matter how nice and polite I acted, I was assumed to be a cold-blooded killer who would murder anyone he could get his hands on.
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Hey, what's up? It's Wanda Sykes. I'm here to remind you about something super important, getting your breast screened.
Because trust me, your breast health should be a priority. Early detection for breast cancer can change the game, which is why you should visit yourattentionplease.com to learn more.
And do me a favor. If you've already had a breast cancer screening, remind your friends and family to visit yourattentionplease.com too.
We got to look out for our girls. Amazon One Medical presents Painful Thoughts.
Do they ever actually clean the ball pit at these kids' play gyms? Or is my kid just swimming in a vat of bacteria,

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Amazon One Medical. Healthcare just got less painful.
Melissa and Sam had gone to visit her father in prison not knowing what to expect and they left with a very surreal souvenir. Explain to me the picture because I look at that and I'm like, that is the craziest family portrait I've ever seen.
Yeah so um when we were done there was an option to get a picture taken and so we did we got a picture with Melissa's dad and to be honest if you google the internet that'll probably be the first thing that pops up is a picture of Melissa's dad my daughter my son and me and you could see the size gap of me versus him and he's just a massive man. It must have been a blessing that the kids were too small to ask.
Oh, completely. You know, Melissa and I were sensitive for a long time because people have asked us, how could you ever take your children around such a horrible person? And I think people don't understand what it was like.
The whole room was full of children. Like, kids were playing with their dads because their dads are coming to visit their children.

And so I think what was stranger is the fact that

Melissa's dad who murdered eight people

would be in general population with just normal criminals.

Like, I think that's the real question,

is how could somebody do such horrific things

and be amidst people that maybe, like weed? And they were treated equally. Eventually, Melissa's inability to connect with Sam and to truly reciprocate his love took its toll.
There was a comfort as roommates. We got along great and we were good friends.
We still are are good friends. So it was easy to stay longer and longer in this relationship because we're such good friends.
But I knew when he brought up three years ago that he wanted someone to be passionately in love with him, that he would find it probably with someone else. You guys just weren't happy.
Yeah. I don't think we were...
If he was honest, he would say he wasn't happy. He wouldn't say that he wasn't happy with me.
He wasn't happy with living without those things that he wanted in his life. Sam said neither.
He simply acknowledged the burden Keith's crimes placed on Melissa, and how much he'd seen her struggle to atone for them. But he never blamed her.

I think it has compelled Melissa to have to be harder on herself than the average person.

And we're all pretty hard on ourselves as it is.

Like, take whatever you are as a person and magnify that.

I can only imagine, she's had to deal with people saying that she was collecting blood money by sharing her story, that we were irrational bad parents by taking our kids to visit a serial killer in a prison. I mean, you put it in words, yeah, absolutely.
You could build an argument to that. But when you put it into actuality of what really happened, it's the furthest thing from the truth.
Our children have always come first from Melissa. And I think it's compelled her to have to over-exaggerate her feelings for other people, for herself, for her kids, always kind of on the defensive, trying to prove that she's not like her father, the burden she carries must be immense.
And what's your take on Jesperson as opposed to your take on Melissa? Like if you had to be brutally honest about your take on him. So if I was to be brutally honest, I would say that he definitely corrupted his family and he made it so that they were in pain and in trauma, and that pain and trauma is carried over into her future relationships.
And it's made it so she's had to overcompensate to define who she is, to separate herself from who he is, and it's put her in a really difficult situation. And to say that there wasn't an impact would not be honest.

What's Melissa's biggest fear?

Abandonment, I think.

I think she's afraid that she'll be alone and that she would end up being a lot like her dad.

That what everyone has said is true.

I think that's probably her biggest fear. But I think that's changing.
I think she's becoming way more self-aware. I've seen how strong she was, and I really just thought she could change the world.
And I thought by her sharing her story, other people could have hope. When I was 18, 19, I was still naive to the world on crime and everything.

I was basically a good person that wouldn't never push anything past anything. I would never do anything.
When did you stop caring? Well, my divorce, the different problems with my girlfriend and trucking and the jobs and everything kind of escalating. I can't trust nobody around me and I only trust myself.
And, you know, the cruelty of life just basically caused me to think, well, hell with this.

What would you say if you could confront Jesperson on what he's done to Melissa, to his family?

If he's listening to this, what do you hope he hears?

I would tell him that the way he treated his daughter complicated my marriage, complicated Melissa's life, but didn't make it so it didn't get better. And he has no control of anything.
Who he is is really insignificant. And because of the experiences that we've all gone through because of him, we're actually stronger and better.
And it's okay that he's not remorseful for what he's done because everyone else's remorse makes up the difference. And if he goes away, he goes away alone and without thought.
Everything hurts about building a life with someone and then deciding to separate. I really discredited hearing from other people when they said they went through a divorce.
It just seemed almost so casual because I was so removed from their lives. But the pain is actually more intense than I ever thought was possible.
It's mourning. Yeah.
It's absolutely grieving. There's anger.
There are the five stages of grief for sure. And I've gone through all of them.
And I've read every book I could read and they say it takes like two years for you to feel normal again. And it's probably very similar to someone who lost someone that they loved to death in some ways.
Just because you're used to the little things, the day-to-day things like calling after a meeting or when you get home having the dishes done already for you or you know those you can lean on that person and then when you when you divorce and separate then now you have to create a new life a new normalcy she always talks about how she's leaned in on me but i've always leaned in on her like she went through such trauma so much pain, and she found her voice. Even when it's not easy to do, she still continuously puts herself in situations that most people want to do.
She's so brave. And watching her be brave has helped me be brave.
I like kids. I like my kids.
but I wasn't really a family man.

I really didn't want to be the family man.

I didn't want to end up like, well, put my kids through what I went through. And here I am putting them through worse than what I went through.

You know, a lot of things because you're, they have to be raised with the idea that dad's a killer, a murderer. My fear still to this day is that I'm incapable of loving in the way that people expect me to love them.
You know, Sam swears that I probably could love him the way he wants to be loved, but I don't believe, I just don't want to lie to people. I don't want to feel like a fraud.
I've lived too many years feeling like a fraud. And I feel like the best policy is just to be up front and let people decide if this works for them or not.
And so with Sam, I've been really transparent with him to let him know that this is where I stand. This is what I am and my level of being able to give.
Is it about control, though? Is your fear of love about losing control, about letting go, about having something have power over you? Absolutely, because if you fall in love, you give up your leverage. You give up.
You can be blindsided in a hot moment, and I don't want to ever be that vulnerable to be blindsided. And I just don't want to risk that again.
On the next Happy Face, Melissa faces her greatest fears and her father's demons. 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.

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

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.

Special thanks to Phil Stanford, the publishers of the Oregonian newspaper, and the Carl get your podcasts. Imagine you're scrolling through TikTok.
You come across a video of a teenage girl and then a photo of the person suspected of killing her.

It was shocking.

It was very shocking.

Like that could have been my daughter.

Like you never know.

I'm Jen Swan.

I'm the host of a new podcast called My Friend Daisy.

It's the story of how and why a group of teenagers

turned to social media to help track down their friend's killer.

Listen to My Friend Daisy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up? I'm Laura, host of the podcast Courtside with Laura Carrente, a masterclass case study of the business of women's sports.
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