Pure Evil

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Today's story is the remastered audio from my most popular YouTube video, which is titled, This Man Terrified the FBI.

And as of this recording, that video has over 13 million views and counting in under a year.

Part of the reason this episode has been so popular on YouTube is because it does a really good job of showcasing what pure evil looks like.

This episode is not going to be gratuitously violent or graphic.

It is just going to be unbelievably disturbing.

As such, listener discretion is advised.

But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

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Okay, let's get into today's story.

On the morning of February 2nd, 2012, a young man pulled off a four-lane highway in Anchorage, Alaska into a large snowy parking lot.

He passed by dozens of parked cars until he arrived in front of this small shack that was brightly teal-colored.

It was a popular coffee shop called the Common Grounds, and this young man worked as a barista there.

After he parked his car, he walked up to the white door employee entrance to this little building, and he got his key out and he went to unlock the door, but when he turned the key, he saw the door was already unlocked.

He knew the girl who had worked the previous night and would have been responsible for locking the shop up.

She was 18-year-old Samantha Koenig, and although she had only been on the job for about a month, she seemed very responsible and had never had any issues closing up before.

The young man shrugged it off though.

He figured people make mistakes and he went inside.

Right away, he noticed that a couple of things just seemed out of place.

It was like Samantha must have just left in the middle of her shift without even attempting to clean up.

There were napkins on the ground, there were towels out, there were cups still out.

And so as this young man is walking over to the cash register to unlock it, he's running through scenarios in his head about how Samantha could have been so sloppy.

And then he reached down with his register key and just like the door, the cash register was already unlocked.

When he pulled the tray out, all the money was gone.

And that's when he knew they had been robbed.

And so he called his boss.

The night before, Samantha had asked her boyfriend dwayne to pick her up after her shift at the common grounds dwayne arrived in front of the kiosk at about 8 30 p.m which was 30 minutes after her shift should have been over dwayne had gotten held up at his job which is why he was late and so when he gets there dwayne looks around the parking lot and he doesn't see samantha anywhere he sees the coffee shop itself is totally dark and looks like it's been closed up for the night And so Dwayne gets out of his truck into the freezing cold night air and he walked up to the window of this coffee shop and he pressed his face up to the glass to look inside, but there was nobody in there.

Dwayne automatically went back to the fight he had gotten into with Samantha earlier in the night via text message.

She had accused him of cheating on her.

He had been kind of nonchalant, like he didn't care about it.

And what ensued was a really ugly fight.

And so as Dwayne is walking back to his truck, he's thinking to himself, maybe Samantha just didn't want to see him because of the fight.

And so at the end of her shift, she got a ride home from her father or maybe from a friend.

And that's why she's not here.

And so Dwayne gets back inside of his truck and he sends a text message to Samantha asking if she's okay, if she's gotten home.

But after several minutes of no response from her, Dwayne, even though they were fighting, he still cares an awful lot about his girlfriend.

He decides, I just, I gotta go by her house and make sure she's there and that she's okay.

And so a couple minutes later, he gets to her house, he goes up to the door and her single father, James, answers the door.

Dwayne explains that he didn't see Samantha after her shift and just wanted to make sure she was here.

But James says, she's not here.

I have no idea where she is.

I haven't spoken to her.

And so the two men go into James's kitchen.

They sit down and they start texting and calling Samantha to try to figure out where she is.

And after a couple of minutes, Dwayne's phone lights up and it's a text message from Samantha.

And the message clearly indicates that she's still very upset with Dwayne, but she's saying that she needs some time to think and that she's going to be with some friends for a couple of days.

And would he, Dwayne, let her father know where she was?

And so Dwayne shows James the text message and Samantha's father looks at it and he's thinking to himself, you know, this is very uncharacteristic of Samantha.

He had raised Samantha since she she was two years old, and they were very close.

They shared everything with each other.

It didn't make any sense that she wouldn't contact him directly to say that she was going to be out with friends for a couple of days.

And it didn't make sense that she would ignore all of his phone calls and text messages when clearly he was worried about her.

The two men stayed up super late calling and texting, hoping to get more information from Samantha, but she never responded.

She never texted back.

And so the following morning, when neither men had gotten any more messages from Samantha, James went to the Anchorage Police Department and filed a missing person report for his only daughter.

After receiving this missing person report, an officer with the Anchorage Police Department called the owner of the Common Grounds coffee shop to ask about Samantha.

And the owner actually said they just got a call from their barista that was working at the kiosk that morning, and they had informed them that apparently there had been a robbery and no one can get in touch with Samantha.

No one knows where she is.

The owner told the police officer that as soon as she got her hands on the security footage from the night before, she would send it over to to the police department.

While the police waited for this footage, some officers began calling Samantha's friends and other family members to see if they knew where she was, but no one had heard from her, no one knew where she was, no one had any information.

Some other police officers headed over to the Common Grounds coffee kiosk to get a look at it for themselves.

And when they got there, there was no sign of a struggle outside or inside the kiosk, and inside underneath the counter was a panic button that had not been pressed.

And so even though Samantha's father thought there was something odd about her final text message, the police began operating under the theory that Samantha had robbed the kiosk and then left of her own accord.

But what confounded police was how Samantha actually physically got away from the coffee shop.

She didn't have a car that night, and she couldn't have just walked away because the weather was way too miserable and cold outside, and Anchorage is just not really a walkable city.

And so if Samantha was telling the truth, that she was just taking a couple of days to be by herself with some friends at their place, then why didn't any of her friends know where where she was?

This question was answered later that day when the owner of the coffee shop made the security footage available.

The footage, which has no audio, picks up around 8 p.m.

on February 1st, 2012, which was the night Samantha went missing.

It shows Samantha inside of the kiosk.

She's working alone.

She's cheerful and she's busy.

And then at some point, someone that we can't see, they're outside of the camera's range, comes up to the window and orders a drink.

Samantha clearly turns to them, acknowledges their drink order, and turns and begins making this drink.

And then after she's done making it, she turns to give it to this person.

And immediately Samantha steps back and puts her arms up.

And then seconds later, she reaches over and turns off the lights inside of the kiosk.

And then she gets down on her knees with her back to the window.

She stays in that position, not talking, not moving for about a minute before she slowly stands up and walks down the kiosk towards the cash register.

She opens it up, she scoops some money out of it.

Then she walks back to the window and appears to hand it to a shadowy figure on the other side of the window.

And then Samantha turns, kneels again with her back to the window.

Two more minutes go by before this person outside the window leans their entire upper body inside of the coffee shop.

They reach down and they appear to tie Samantha's hands.

Now, because it was dark inside of the kiosk, the footage winds up being extremely grainy, and there's no way to identify who this figure is.

Although, it's fairly obvious that it's a male.

He's wearing a big sweatshirt and he's got a hat pulled down low over his face.

After this mystery man is done tying Samantha's hands, he leaps through the window and then shuts the window behind him.

And then he stands Samantha up, he puts a gun into her back, then he marches her out the employee door and then out across the lot, all the way to a white pickup truck where he puts her inside and they drive off.

Over the next couple of days, the police and also the FBI who had been called in to be a part of this investigation, they just kept hitting dead end after dead end because there was no evidence.

All they had was the surveillance footage that was too grainy to tell who this guy was that took Samantha.

Meanwhile, Samantha's father, James, had rallied the support of nearly all 300,000 people that lived in Anchorage to go out and look for his daughter.

His efforts were so profound, it had attracted major news outlets across the country, and suddenly his daughter's story had grabbed national headlines everywhere.

This led to strangers donating thousands of dollars to fund a reward for anybody that had information about Samantha's whereabouts.

But despite this reward growing in size every single day and the national news media becoming increasingly more interested in this case, no one came forward with useful information that led to developments in this case.

And Samantha never got in touch with Duane or her father.

Then on February 24th, so three weeks after Samantha's gone missing and no one's heard from her, Dwayne got a text message from Samantha's phone.

And it was directing him to a particular sign inside of a nearby public park.

And so Dwayne and James read this text, they shared it with the police department, and then they raced to this park and actually beat the police there by about 15 minutes.

And so Dwayne and James, they walked through the gates and they start walking down this main trail and they stop in front of the sign.

It was actually a bulletin board and tacked on the bulletin board was a Ziploc bag inside of which was a typed ransom note.

And on the ransom note, literally Xeroxed onto it, was a black and white photo of Samantha.

And in this photo, Samantha looks kind of dazed, like she's got a blank expression and she's not really looking at the camera.

She's looking just to the side of the camera.

And then in this picture, a man is holding a copy of the Anchorage Daily News newspaper that's dated February 13th, 13th, 2012.

This was a proof of life photo where Samantha's captor was holding up that newspaper to indicate that Samantha was alive as of February 13th.

And so to everybody involved in this case, including Samantha's father, even though this is still not a good situation at all, it was kind of a relief to know that at least as of last week, Samantha was alive.

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Some cases fade from headlines.

Some never made it there to begin with.

I'm Ashley Flowers and on my podcast, The Deck, I tell you the stories of cold cases featured on playing cards distributed in prisons designed to spark new leads and bring long overdue justice.

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As for the demands of this ransom note, James was told to deposit $30,000 into his daughter's account immediately, and if he did that, she would be released six months later.

As advised by the FBI, James deposited a portion of the ransom money into his daughter's account, and then the FBI just waited and watched because they knew if if anyone tried to withdraw money from that account, they could track where the card was.

A few days later, three separate withdrawals were made within Anchorage, but each time the FBI got a notification about one of these withdrawals, they would rush to the scene and whoever it was that had tried to make this withdrawal was long gone.

When they pulled the security footage from these three different ATMs, the person that was making these withdrawals was a man wearing a ski mask and big sunglasses.

So they had no way to identify him.

After these withdrawals, the account went silent for over a week.

and in that time, there was no word from Samantha.

Then on March 7th, more withdrawals were made, but they were in Arizona and then New Mexico and then in Texas.

Again, authorities would rush to these ATMs, but they would get there right after the masked man with sunglasses had just left.

But there was a break this time.

In one of the surveillance videos from one of the Texas ATMs, they spotted the car this guy was getting into before he left.

And it was a small sedan.

It was a white Ford Focus.

And they saw him leave going east on a Texas highway.

And so authorities in Texas were told to look out for this particular car in this part of Texas.

And sure enough, on March 13th, a Texas patrolman spotted the car sitting in a hotel parking lot.

He waited nearby until a man in his 30s walked out of one of the hotel rooms, walked down and got inside the car.

And then this patrolman just kind of followed him and looked for any reason to pull him over.

And as he had his radar gun on this guy, he noticed he was going two miles per hour above the speed limit.

And so he pulled him over.

The patrolman got out.

He walked up to to the driver's side window.

The window was already down.

The man was very calm.

The patrolman asked him for his license, and the guy handed him an Alaskan license.

His name was Israel Keys.

He was 34 years old and he lived in Anchorage.

The patrolman knew this was the guy.

He called in backup and before long they were searching Keys' car and in the trunk they found a ski mask along with other clothes that matched the description of the guy who was making withdrawals from these different ATMs.

They also found a gun as well as Samantha's cell phone and debit card.

After Keys was arrested and was brought into custody, he denied having any involvement with Samantha's disappearance.

But after being presented with the overwhelming evidence that suggested otherwise, he caved and said, yes, he would tell them the full story of what happened to Samantha, but they had to get him an Americano coffee, a peanut butter Snickers, and a cigar.

Once he had said items, he began to speak.

And what he said was so disturbing and so graphic, the FBI still has not released the full transcript of his confession.

Here is the version of events based on what was made public.

On February 1st, 2012, Keyes decided he was going to rob the Common Grounds coffee kiosk.

He walked up to the window, expecting there to be some teenager working inside, and he was right.

It was Samantha.

He asked her for an Americano, and while she turned to make his drink, suddenly his plan changed.

Not only was he going to steal money from inside of this coffee shop, he decided he was going to steal Samantha from this coffee shop.

When she turned back with his drink and handed it to him, he discreetly pulled his gun out and aimed it at her and told her this was a robbery.

That's when she backed up and put her hands up.

And then she turned around, he tied her hands, he jumped back inside.

And then he said, after he shut the window, he jammed napkins inside of her mouth so she couldn't make any sound.

And then he marched her out the door, outside, into his car, and they took off.

Once they were in the vehicle, he pulled the napkins out of her mouth and he told her if she tried to escape or if she tried to flag anybody down, that he would just kill her.

And so he said she was very obedient.

She was obviously very scared, but she was trying to do her best to stay composed.

At some point, Keyes reached over and took her phone and sent that text message to her boyfriend informing him that she was going to be spending a couple of days with friends and that he should tell her father.

And then Keyes told Samantha he was going to be holding her hostage and trying to extract some ransom money.

Samantha told Keyes that her family was very poor and that he wouldn't get much money out of them.

To which Keyes said, don't worry about it.

I know they'll raise money and they'll come up with it somehow.

Then they drove around Anchorage for several hours, periodically stopping so Samantha could get out and relieve herself, other times so Keys could smoke a cigar.

Then around midnight, Keys made his way back to his house and he pulled into the driveway and he turned to Samantha and he had her go in the back seat and lie down.

Then he put some tarps over her and he told her if she tried to escape, he would kill her.

And then Keys got out and he walked inside of his house where his 10-year-old daughter and his girlfriend were fast asleep.

And in just a few hours, Keyes and his daughter were scheduled to go to New Orleans for a two-week long luxury cruise.

Keyes left his house and went back to his car.

He put a blindfold on Samantha and then led her down down the driveway to his shed.

Once inside, he sat her down on an upturned bucket in the back of the shed, and then he put a rope around her neck and he anchored each end of the rope to the wall so she was pinned to the wall.

Then Keys turned his radio all the way up to make sure it masked any noise she might make, even though he reminded her repeatedly that if she made any noise, he would just kill her, and by and large, she was very obedient.

And then he gave her a couple of cigarettes to smoke and told her it was going to be just fine to just chill out, that he was going to get the ransom money from their family, and then as soon as that was done, he would let her go.

He turned on some space heaters to keep the space warm, and then he left and locked the door.

He walked back into his house and double-checked that his daughter and his girlfriend were still asleep.

They were.

Afterwards, he started drinking some wine and relaxing.

And then after a little while, he got a cup of water and he went back out to the shed.

He went inside and he gave the water to Samantha.

And he said, Samantha was very composed.

She was obviously frightened, but she asked him, did you speak to my father?

Did you figure out the ransom situation?

And Keyes told her that, yes, I talked to your father.

Everything's working out fine.

He's going to raise the money.

We're going to get you out of here.

Everything's going exactly to plan.

After that, he walked up to Samantha and he unscrewed the two anchors that were holding that rope up against her throat.

And then he cut the zip ties on her wrist, allowing her to relax and sit forward and just kind of be at ease for a second.

And it was very obvious that Samantha was relieved.

Her nightmare was about to be over.

But then seconds later, Keys grabbed her really aggressively and tied her up all over again, this time much more thoroughly and much more tightly.

It had been a cruel trick.

When he cut her handcuffs and undid her necktie, he just wanted to see what she would do if she thought she was being let go.

When in reality, he was never going to let her go.

There was no ransom.

He had not spoken to her father.

It was all a big lie.

Keyes told investigators that as he was tying her up for that second time, he looked at her face and she had this look of total resignation.

He said she knew what was about to happen to her.

After Keyes tied her up, he left the shed and locked it behind him.

He went inside to check one more time to make sure his 10-year-old daughter and his girlfriend were still asleep when they were.

He went back to the shed, he opened it up, he went inside, and this time when he stepped inside, it smelled like urine and sweat.

And he looked down at Samantha and she was terrified.

He walked up to her and he began to assault her.

And then after he was done, he was standing over her getting his clothes back on.

And Samantha very stoically looks up at him and says, are you going to kill me?

And he says, yes, I am.

As he put on his leather gloves, she tried to talk him out of it, but he said there was no other way.

Keyes would tell investigators that he was very impressed with Samantha's bravery.

Shortly before 4 a.m., Keyes drove a knife into Samantha's back before choking her until she stopped moving.

He told investigators that she never made a sound.

After she was dead, Keyes left the shed and locked it behind him.

He went into his house.

He took a shower.

Afterwards, he woke up his daughter and told her to start getting ready because they were leaving soon for the airport.

While his daughter was getting ready, Keyes went back out to the shed.

He went inside.

He rolled Samantha's body up in a tarp and pushed her towards the back.

He unplugged the space heaters, turned off the lights, turned off the music, and then double locked the shed and went back inside the house to make his daughter breakfast.

At 5 a.m., a cab showed up at the house and Keys and his daughter hopped inside and they made their way to the airport and then on to New Orleans where they went on their two week long vacation.

After they got back, Keys went inside of his shed, he unrolled Samantha from her tarp, and by his account, she still looked fairly lively.

And so he dressed her in some new clothes, he put lots of makeup on her face, he braided her hair, and then he stitched her eyelids open so it gave the impression she was alive and alert.

And then he held up a copy of the Anchorage Daily News next to her and then took several photos creating that proof of life photo for the ransom note.

If you want to see this photo, you can google it, but that's up to you.

After he took these pictures, he chopped her body up into pieces and then disposed of her in a nearby frozen lake.

It would turn out Samantha was not Israel Keys' first victim.

He was in fact a serial killer who specifically preyed on completely random people because he enjoyed watching them die.

Over the years, he had hid what he called kill kits all over the United States, which were these cachets filled with weapons and other tools designed to capture and kill people.

This way, no matter where he was in the country, when he had an urge to go kill someone, he would just go to his nearest kill kit, dig it up, and then go target a random stranger.

And he didn't care if you were young, old, big, small, male, female, alone, or in a group.

Everyone was a target of opportunity.

Keyes told investigators that as soon as he saw Samantha inside of that coffee kiosk, instantly he knew he was going to kill her.

Everything about the ransom, the robbery, all of it was just a lie to keep her in line, to give her some hope that she might get out of this alive.

When in reality, the second she walked outside of the doors of that kiosk, she was dead.

Keyes admitted to killing Samantha as well as an older couple up in Vermont, but he would take his own life in a jail cell in December of 2012 before he named any of his other victims.

And so to this day, we have no idea how many people he killed.

The best guess is 11 based on a drawing he made in his jail cell, but that's just a guess.

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