December 21, 2018 • 29 mins
How has this journey changed Melissa’s life? And were she and her father tormented by his ghosts or their shared inner demons? Melissa now has an answer.
Melissa G. Moore: IG @melissag.moore; Tik Tok @melissa.g.moore
Lauren Bright Pacheco: www.LaurenBrightPacheco.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Previously on happy Face.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Today I find out if my worst fears and insecurities
are true. If I'm capable of being like my dad.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
You would never do what your father's done, and you
could never.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Be what he is.
Speaker 4 (00:17):
I would like to tell my story, the writer of
the letter begins. The exclamation point is all his, so
is the labored printing, and the odd mixture of capital
and lowercase letters.
Speaker 5 (00:30):
Are hurt people.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
But I'm scared of You're not like him.
Speaker 6 (00:33):
Because of that, our universe has a plan for each
and every one of us.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I wish I could see this.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I want to help you feel it. You have to
let me.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
The letter has a happy face at the top of
the first page, two tiny circles for eyes, an upturned
sliver of a moon for mouth.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Have a nice day.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Doctor James Fallon is a neuroscientist at the University of California.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
So here you are, and here's the normal. And it
turns out yours is completely normal.
Speaker 7 (01:09):
That's amazing. Yeah, with the sun, I don't know shine.
Speaker 8 (01:26):
Oh I.
Speaker 6 (01:33):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
You told me once that being the daughter of a
serial killer isn't something you grow out of, it's something
you grow into.
Speaker 9 (01:48):
Yes, you just can't run it. You can't even when
he dies.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
One day, when he dies.
Speaker 9 (01:57):
Those swimmories will still be there. I mean, I don't
think about the future with hit my.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Dad in it.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I live my life by my own desires and I
own attentions, and I could get everything I want, except
forgetting things.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
As Arthur Golden writes and Memoirs of a Geisha. After all,
when a stone is dropped into a pond, the water
continues quivering even after the stone has sunk to the bottom.
I'm Lauren Brighte Pacheco, and this is happy face. While
(02:43):
having the brain scan last week removed certain doubts from Melissa,
the healing is still a process. Even simple things like
a happy memory of her dad and the smell of
house paint as he painted the walls of her childhood
home are tainted by his crimes.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I remember when we took possession of the house, my
dad painting the walls white, and it came to my mind.
Speaker 9 (03:09):
Sorry, it came to my mind. This weekend.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I I bought a fixer upper in Ohio, and when
I entered the fixer upper, I thought, this needs gallery
white walls.
Speaker 9 (03:31):
I just see it's had beautiful arches.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I saw white. The walls would need to be white,
So I started painting.
Speaker 9 (03:38):
The walls white.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And for hours, I says, painting, I saw my dad
and the smell of the fresh paint and my dad's
care and painting the walls white in this.
Speaker 9 (03:49):
Farmhouse is one of those good memories, you know, of
my dad taking care of a property.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
And he's the one who taught me, or instilled in me,
this love for real estate and this love for fixing
up properties. And that's something that I've had to reconcile
because a lot of things that I love are rooted
back to my dad.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Now, every time Melissa looks at white paint, those good
memories are overridden by what she learned that Keith used
paint to cover over the splattered blood after killing Tanya Bennett.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
And that's not the first thing that happened. But on
my birthday was just a couple weeks ago, and my
boyfriend bought me a road bike. And I grew up
with my dad cycling, and he bought me the cycling shoes,
and the first thing that went into my mind was
(04:48):
Tanya Bennett and my dad saying I would wear my
cycling shoes so when it leave the soul print and.
Speaker 9 (04:55):
I it's it's so.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
Hard because I love these things.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Everything.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
I love.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
It.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
I've tried, I've tried a run.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I can't and I'll never I'll never put those shoes,
all those cycling shoes and not think of Tanya.
Speaker 9 (05:21):
I'll never be able to.
Speaker 8 (05:24):
I want to.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
But Melissa, you didn't kill Tanya Bennett.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
I know.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Maybe it's a question of going back to those memories
and just trying to take the good from them. You
cannot take responsibility for your father's actions. For Keith's family,
(05:54):
shaking off guilt isn't easy. Here's Melissa's mother Rose talking
about it.
Speaker 10 (06:00):
Well, everybody assumes you are guilty by association just because
you knew him. Because I was his wife.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I knew everything that he did. I knew he murdered
those women.
Speaker 10 (06:12):
I knew, and I had no clue he.
Speaker 7 (06:15):
Had a second life.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Over the years, accusations have come in that Melissa wants
attention for her father's crimes. People attack her on social
media or flood the comment sections on websites. Even her
own father has accused her of trying to profit off
of his murders. In his letters to her. But the
truth is Melissa's whole career has been a way to
(06:41):
atone for her father's sins, and that's true of her
whole family. One of her siblings is a nurse, another
has enlisted to protect the country, her mother spends her
days trying to resettle families in desperate situations, and Melissa,
of course, is working to speak out for victims and
give them a voice. What's interesting is that as much
(07:03):
as the family has tried to distance themselves from Keith's
horrific crimes, Keith is also constantly reminding the public that
they are his own. It's important to him. No one
else takes credit for them. Here's reporter Phil Stafford talking
about it.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Have you written to my father since our conversation?
Speaker 4 (07:22):
No, I haven't been in touch with him for years.
I've done a number of things since then. But you know,
to say the least, we're dealing with a split personality here,
someone driven by some pretty serious unconscious compulsions. So that's
one side of it, and the other side of it
was every once in a while, this monster from the
(07:44):
unconscious would break through.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
At one point, Keith was allegedly offered the opportunity to
give false testimony against Phil in exchange for favorable treatment
in prison, and to his credit, driven by some strange
moral code, he refused.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
But there's also the chance that someone who's as mentally
unusual as obviously he was might also have been interested
in just playing more games and keeping people in the air.
He did confess to murders that he didn't commit, so
he was playing fast and loose with the truth at
some point, trying to get more attention, which I think
(08:25):
is one of the deeper reasons behind some of these killings,
just getting attention, getting recognition as some sort of person
that he felt had been denied him all his life.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
When you met Jasperson, you had read those letters. So
was there that moment of authenticity that you knew he
was the author? And what did that feel like? Because
I can imagine that those letters were terrifying to read.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
I knew from my own research that he had to
be the guy. I mean, there were times when I
was talking with him, when he was talking to me
about what he had done, that I had those skin
crawling moments, that's for sure. When he talked about killing
one of the truck stop whores in the cab of
his truck and he watched it from twenty feet above.
(09:18):
That's when I realized that this is a very strange.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Person, and regardless of everything Melissa has undertaken and tried
to prove, that very strange person will always be her father.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Well, how I even started my whole beginning was when
my daughter asked me a question. She got off the
school bus. She was learning about genealogy in the family tree,
and they were being basic. Of course, the family tree
is going up to your grandparents. So she filled out
her dad's side, you know, samside, Nana, Papa, and then
(09:54):
on my side Grandma rose me. And then she realized
there's a miss grandfather here. She said, you know, mom,
everybody has a daddy. Where's your daddy? And I wasn't
expecting that she was six the kindergarten. It just took
me back. I thought, how am I going to answer
this for her? And so I said, yes, I have
(10:15):
a daddy lives in Salem. And I left it at that,
and I gave her the name to put, just the
first name to put in.
Speaker 9 (10:22):
I didn't want the last name.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
From there, I went to the libraries, I went everywhere,
just scouring for information about how do I reconcile this
for myself so that I can tell my child this
in a way that she can understand without terrifying her.
And I didn't want to be public because at this
point I had nobody knew I had a business, Nobody
(10:47):
knew who my father was.
Speaker 9 (10:49):
We had bought our house, our first home.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
My daughter was happy and well adjusted in kindergarten. None
of my friends knew, my church groups didn't know. But
I kept thinking about my daughter's question.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
What do you want your children to take away from
your journey?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Finding out that I'm not a psychopath liberated me too
as a parent, because my son was scared, and I
think my son was asking a very complex question when
he asked, like, is it a choice or is it
something that you are?
Speaker 11 (11:30):
He wants to know more about his grandfather, my dad,
and I had to keep telling him you're nothing like him,
You're nothing like him.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
As both Leroy and Don Findley made a huge impact
on the Happy Face team, and he stayed in contact
with both Melissa and me.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Is it Don or is it Leroy?
Speaker 6 (12:15):
Well, you know what, after talking to you, I started
telling people my real name.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Really, Yes, ma'am, why did you start doing that?
Speaker 6 (12:24):
Someone pointed out to me that, well, if LeRoy's really healed,
why don't you just start introducing people who don't.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Know you as who you are.
Speaker 6 (12:35):
Because I'm back to where I was before it happened,
and I saw myself changing.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
I felt it in my energy.
Speaker 6 (12:46):
People who were They're like, something's different about you.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
So this whole thing was like because of.
Speaker 6 (12:53):
Meeting Melissa amazingly lifted off my shoulders, because she answered
the questions that I needed answered. And God, the universe
has rewarded me in so many ways. He's like, I
put you through hell, you have come out smelling like carnations.
(13:14):
Now it's time for you to be rewarded. So I've
turned into a whole different person. But at the same time,
I'm still same spirit and soul.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
So it sounds like you went back to your former name,
but you've gotten a new life, yes, ma'am. And it
would seem that Don had left a huge impression on
Melissa as well.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
You were in my thoughts last night actually when I
went to this floating restaurant on the water and I thought, oh,
the last time I was here was a puffins with Don,
and I remembered that whole experience and how intense it
felt leading up to that moment. I was terrified, absolutely
(13:58):
terrified to meet it up with you because it I
didn't know. I didn't know what you would think of me,
And I've already dealt with so many people having preconceived
notions of me and criticizing me. And I'm not saying
this to feel sorry for myself, but I had enough
already on my plate.
Speaker 5 (14:14):
I didn't need I know.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
What you mean on some level, Don. I think Melissa's
biggest fear was that twenty years ago when she read
your words in the newspaper. Yeah, she knew that you
were speaking the truth. She knew that you saw through everything,
and the narrative that she'd been fed by her father
(14:37):
all those years was not the truth. So her fear
in facing you was that you would look in her
face and you would see the face of her father,
and that you would blame her for his horrible crimes.
Speaker 6 (14:52):
And I fully understand that because people, like I said,
don't know how to take me. And everybody in society
always prejudges everybody and assumes that they know about everybody,
but they don't know about themselves, and now Melissa learned
that none of it's true. Everybody has assumptions, everybody's gonna
(15:12):
come up with their own ideas, but it's only us
as individuals that we can do for ourselves. I'm trying
to word this the right way, but we all know
I'm the Stone or Yogi so.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Perfect.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
But if they understand it's cool, they don't.
Speaker 6 (15:28):
That's their problem, Melissa, because they're not the ones having
to live in our body or walk our shoes.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
As we set out to make this series, we wanted
to give Melissa the tools and opportunity to understand and
confront her dad, the man she hadn't seen in so
many years, but still had such control over her and
her life choices. What Melissa ultimately got, though, was actually
much better, a release from Keith's manipulation and the confidence
(16:05):
to create her own narrative. In the end, it was
Melissa's choice not to confront Keith. She knew she didn't
need to see him, or read his letters, or let
him invade her life anymore, and that realization set her
free on so many levels. And it was a direct
result of her meeting with Don.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
I'm trying to find words of what that experience was.
I think that I have found that meeting to be
a sacred meeting, and I felt like it was a
crossroads moment in my life.
Speaker 9 (16:42):
That was a gift.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
I thought you would blame me and see my father
and me, and I said, I wanted to go to
this doctor to find out if I am biologically hardwired
to be like my dad, And you said, well, your
brain may be, but your heart isn't.
Speaker 6 (17:02):
I said, you may have his blood, but you don't
have his heart, mind, or soul, because you wouldn't do
what you do for others. So when you told me
that you were going to go to the doctors and
get that checked out, I believe I told you that
you're not and I never got the answer to see
(17:25):
if I was correct or wrong.
Speaker 9 (17:28):
Well, you were correct.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
My brain is perfectly normal and not hardwired to be
a psychopath. And what gave me the courage to go
do that was actually your statement to me after that though.
I mean, it is like history just erased. Like there
was this pressure that I always felt walking around this world,
(17:51):
feeling like I have to prove myself.
Speaker 9 (17:54):
That's a lot of energy.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
To take into every encounter and it's unconscious that this
point has been decades, so it's just well left this
void like this open space. And I felt it all sudden.
These wonderful things in the world just started to pour
into that space. And yes, yes, I didn't know I
(18:17):
was going to meet you this summer. I didn't know
that the universe had this in store for me, and
I didn't know that was worthy of this gift.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
You don't have to say no more. I am so happy,
I really am.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
I'm not scared of my dad anymore. The Eliza has
told me. I believed them, and I allowed him to
shape me and put me in this place, this box.
And I was terrified of him because everybody believed his
narrative always, and so I couldn't outrun even his lies.
(18:55):
And now he could say whatever he wanted to say and.
Speaker 9 (19:00):
I would be fine.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
During that conversation, Melissa brought up the fact that my dad,
my father, had taken very seriously ill. She expressed her
sentiments and almost envy that he had the benefit of
being surrounded by his loving, proud family during this painful
time and the sharp contrast to her own reality.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
You know, Lauren, sitting across from me, and her dad
right now is in the hospital.
Speaker 9 (19:33):
Or in care, and.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Lauren and I have had quite an opposite of upbringing,
and the love that she has for her father and
the care that she has for her father and that
he has for her makes it so that she's right
now currently in the most intense grief and pain, and
(19:57):
that her father is surrounded by beautiful daughters, a beautiful
family that loves him, and my dad will never get
that because he didn't deserve that, because he didn't create
the life that her dad created.
Speaker 9 (20:10):
And that's what I know.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
You know what, I bet you, There's going to come
a day where my dad passes away and I won't
even know it, Like I won't even know my dad
died because all these years will have passed and I
didn't say a word to him, and he never said
a word to me.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
To be honest, I initially cringed and immediately felt protective
of my privacy. Then my dad died the next day.
Now that I've had the time to reflect, I realize
Melissa was also grieving with me and for her father.
(20:51):
Keith didn't just murder eight women. He killed the man
Melissa thought she knew, and the father she dearly loved.
Melissa's dad died when she was fifteen, and she's still
grieving that loss. In that moment of mentioning my dad,
she clearly expressed empathy and remorse, confirming she's truly the
(21:15):
antithesis of a psychopath. But for Melissa's mom Rose, even
her life with Keith was filled with a sort of grief.
She struggled to articulate and understand.
Speaker 10 (21:28):
You know, an intimate partner, you hold each other and
kindle each other. It was like, Okay, I'm gonna go
watch TV.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
It was robotic.
Speaker 7 (21:38):
Yeah, or did you feel used?
Speaker 6 (21:40):
No?
Speaker 10 (21:41):
I just because I mean I never had men. I
don't know what like, I'm a hooyfriend.
Speaker 7 (21:49):
Yeah, how men are?
Speaker 9 (21:51):
I thought that was the norm.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
You must have been so lonely.
Speaker 10 (21:55):
I was extremely lonely. Matter of fact, I would go
to church and I knew my life was out of balance,
but I just couldn't figure out why it.
Speaker 7 (22:05):
Was out of balance.
Speaker 10 (22:06):
But then I used to have a neighbor when we
lived in Zilla, and there was a little old couple
and summertimes they would sit out in the patio and
play cards and they had their little lights on, you know,
and I'd sit there and I'd listen to their conversation
because they were so close, and I just thought, that's
what our relations should be like, that you enjoy each
(22:26):
other when you're even that old. And they'd laugh and
they would just crack up jokes between them, and I thought,
that's what it is, that's what I you know, that's
what it's supposed to be.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Like.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Melissa and Don were initially linked by Keith, but they're
both determined and to transcend his effects on their lives.
Speaker 6 (23:03):
Our gift now is to pass on the words of
survival and that when you do make it through the
tough times that are put in front of you that
are out of your control, if you handle them in
the right way.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
You will be rewarded.
Speaker 6 (23:23):
Whether you believe in God, the universe, aliens, birds.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
The gypsy and cats, you will be rewarded.
Speaker 6 (23:30):
And we are proof of that because both of us
have lived in deep dark places.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
I just you know, for me, it really is humbling
to watch. It is the triumph of good over evil.
Speaker 12 (23:46):
Ultimately, I mean, I really hope we can help not
just each other grow further in our lives and stay connected,
but to help other people.
Speaker 6 (23:57):
And I did tell you you will love and you
will care. So I said those words, but I didn't
believe them one hundred percent. I had to tell myself
that stuff for years to get through it, and when
I met Melissa.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
All those words were proven right. Does any of that
make sense?
Speaker 9 (24:21):
Absolutely? Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (24:25):
The most telling change in Don was evident when confronted
with the idea of being face to face with Keith
present day.
Speaker 6 (24:33):
If I met him in person, I would hope that
my power and my strength would hold me back and
I would say you lose me and your daughter win.
But in honesty action at this very moment, my anger
(24:55):
sight still would want to put him in some kind
of other pain, but not kill him. You know, I'm
not trying to be mean or angry, but my good
side would say we win, you lose. I think that
part is stronger than my angry part, so I wouldn't
do that, is what I feel in my heart. You know,
(25:17):
I'll be honest, I really haven't even thought about you know.
I used to think about the guy and so forth,
but he ain't even in the back of my mind anymore.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Like he's not living rent free in your brain anymore.
He's not controlling your thoughts, and that's all part of
I think your acceptance of yourself and going back to
Don and letting Leroy go.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Right, that's a great metaphor. I don't know how I
didn't come up with it.
Speaker 6 (25:49):
But yeah, I am able to be more free than
I've ever been.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Now, what Melissa ultimately regained through the journey through Don,
through everything, was to regain control of her own story
without Keith. At points, you thought that you needed answers
(26:17):
from your dad. How do you feel now, Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:22):
I thought that I asked my dad really honest questions
and that he would give really honest answers. But through
this journey, I found that he doesn't tell honest. He
tells his own narrative, and that changes depending on what
he wants from you. And even if I was to
(26:44):
meet with him, he would spin me a tale. I
don't need any more of his narrative.
Speaker 9 (26:51):
That's control.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
So has this journey given you the narrative back?
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Yeah, me the freedom to tell my own story to myself,
like who I really am who I intuitively thought I was, Like,
this identity is really about our self beliefs, and we
operate our lives by the beliefs we carry about.
Speaker 9 (27:12):
Who we are.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
And for so many years I operated my life with
the story I told myself, which is I'm the daughter
of a serial killer, Therefore I am bad. The apple
doesn't fall far from the tree. I am part of
that tree. And now that's no longer my story. I'm
(27:35):
Melissa More, a mother, a woman, and that's what I am.
There's no tagline like I don't. I don't have to
carry daughter of a serial killer like I don't. It's just
Melissa More. Just like you're Lauren. You don't have a
banner behind you. You know, that's that's it's liberating, you know,
(28:01):
it's celebrating.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
As sensational and at times surreal as Melissa's story has been,
there's something very universal about her journey. It's really about
the triumph of the human spirit over fear, shame, and
ultimately grief. In the end, it's about hope, the hope
that good can triumph over evil, or at least lesson
(28:29):
its stinging.
Speaker 13 (28:37):
Oh hey, can it be another way to punish me?
A thousand lies, light years fly, dark years wander slowly
by my broken voice.
Speaker 8 (28:57):
It calls to me, what notes I'll never meet? I'll
drift in words way out to see way out until
I'm his story.
Speaker 9 (29:18):
Happy Face is a production of How Stuff Works.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Executive producers are Melissa Moore, Lauren Bright, Pacheco Mangesha Ticketdour
and Will Pearson.
Speaker 9 (29:27):
Supervising producer is Noel Brown. Music by Claire Campbell, Page
Campbell and Hope for a Golden Summer. Story editor is
Matt Riddle. Audio editing by Chandler Mays and Noel Brown.
Assistant editor is Taylor Chicogne.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Special thanks to Phil Stanford, the publishers of the Oregonian Newspaper,
and the Carlisle family
Previously on happy Face.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Today I find out if my worst fears and insecurities
are true. If I'm capable of being like my dad.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
You would never do what your father's done, and you
could never.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Be what he is.
Speaker 4 (00:17):
I would like to tell my story, the writer of
the letter begins. The exclamation point is all his, so
is the labored printing, and the odd mixture of capital
and lowercase letters.
Speaker 5 (00:30):
Are hurt people.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
But I'm scared of You're not like him.
Speaker 6 (00:33):
Because of that, our universe has a plan for each
and every one of us.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I wish I could see this.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I want to help you feel it. You have to
let me.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
The letter has a happy face at the top of
the first page, two tiny circles for eyes, an upturned
sliver of a moon for mouth.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Have a nice day.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Doctor James Fallon is a neuroscientist at the University of California.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
So here you are, and here's the normal. And it
turns out yours is completely normal.
Speaker 7 (01:09):
That's amazing. Yeah, with the sun, I don't know shine.
Speaker 8 (01:26):
Oh I.
Speaker 6 (01:33):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
You told me once that being the daughter of a
serial killer isn't something you grow out of, it's something
you grow into.
Speaker 9 (01:48):
Yes, you just can't run it. You can't even when
he dies.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
One day, when he dies.
Speaker 9 (01:57):
Those swimmories will still be there. I mean, I don't
think about the future with hit my.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Dad in it.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I live my life by my own desires and I
own attentions, and I could get everything I want, except
forgetting things.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
As Arthur Golden writes and Memoirs of a Geisha. After all,
when a stone is dropped into a pond, the water
continues quivering even after the stone has sunk to the bottom.
I'm Lauren Brighte Pacheco, and this is happy face. While
(02:43):
having the brain scan last week removed certain doubts from Melissa,
the healing is still a process. Even simple things like
a happy memory of her dad and the smell of
house paint as he painted the walls of her childhood
home are tainted by his crimes.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I remember when we took possession of the house, my
dad painting the walls white, and it came to my mind.
Speaker 9 (03:09):
Sorry, it came to my mind. This weekend.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I I bought a fixer upper in Ohio, and when
I entered the fixer upper, I thought, this needs gallery
white walls.
Speaker 9 (03:31):
I just see it's had beautiful arches.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I saw white. The walls would need to be white,
So I started painting.
Speaker 9 (03:38):
The walls white.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And for hours, I says, painting, I saw my dad
and the smell of the fresh paint and my dad's
care and painting the walls white in this.
Speaker 9 (03:49):
Farmhouse is one of those good memories, you know, of
my dad taking care of a property.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
And he's the one who taught me, or instilled in me,
this love for real estate and this love for fixing
up properties. And that's something that I've had to reconcile
because a lot of things that I love are rooted
back to my dad.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Now, every time Melissa looks at white paint, those good
memories are overridden by what she learned that Keith used
paint to cover over the splattered blood after killing Tanya Bennett.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
And that's not the first thing that happened. But on
my birthday was just a couple weeks ago, and my
boyfriend bought me a road bike. And I grew up
with my dad cycling, and he bought me the cycling shoes,
and the first thing that went into my mind was
(04:48):
Tanya Bennett and my dad saying I would wear my
cycling shoes so when it leave the soul print and.
Speaker 9 (04:55):
I it's it's so.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
Hard because I love these things.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Everything.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
I love.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
It.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
I've tried, I've tried a run.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I can't and I'll never I'll never put those shoes,
all those cycling shoes and not think of Tanya.
Speaker 9 (05:21):
I'll never be able to.
Speaker 8 (05:24):
I want to.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
But Melissa, you didn't kill Tanya Bennett.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
I know.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Maybe it's a question of going back to those memories
and just trying to take the good from them. You
cannot take responsibility for your father's actions. For Keith's family,
(05:54):
shaking off guilt isn't easy. Here's Melissa's mother Rose talking
about it.
Speaker 10 (06:00):
Well, everybody assumes you are guilty by association just because
you knew him. Because I was his wife.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I knew everything that he did. I knew he murdered
those women.
Speaker 10 (06:12):
I knew, and I had no clue he.
Speaker 7 (06:15):
Had a second life.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Over the years, accusations have come in that Melissa wants
attention for her father's crimes. People attack her on social
media or flood the comment sections on websites. Even her
own father has accused her of trying to profit off
of his murders. In his letters to her. But the
truth is Melissa's whole career has been a way to
(06:41):
atone for her father's sins, and that's true of her
whole family. One of her siblings is a nurse, another
has enlisted to protect the country, her mother spends her
days trying to resettle families in desperate situations, and Melissa,
of course, is working to speak out for victims and
give them a voice. What's interesting is that as much
(07:03):
as the family has tried to distance themselves from Keith's
horrific crimes, Keith is also constantly reminding the public that
they are his own. It's important to him. No one
else takes credit for them. Here's reporter Phil Stafford talking
about it.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Have you written to my father since our conversation?
Speaker 4 (07:22):
No, I haven't been in touch with him for years.
I've done a number of things since then. But you know,
to say the least, we're dealing with a split personality here,
someone driven by some pretty serious unconscious compulsions. So that's
one side of it, and the other side of it
was every once in a while, this monster from the
(07:44):
unconscious would break through.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
At one point, Keith was allegedly offered the opportunity to
give false testimony against Phil in exchange for favorable treatment
in prison, and to his credit, driven by some strange
moral code, he refused.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
But there's also the chance that someone who's as mentally
unusual as obviously he was might also have been interested
in just playing more games and keeping people in the air.
He did confess to murders that he didn't commit, so
he was playing fast and loose with the truth at
some point, trying to get more attention, which I think
(08:25):
is one of the deeper reasons behind some of these killings,
just getting attention, getting recognition as some sort of person
that he felt had been denied him all his life.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
When you met Jasperson, you had read those letters. So
was there that moment of authenticity that you knew he
was the author? And what did that feel like? Because
I can imagine that those letters were terrifying to read.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
I knew from my own research that he had to
be the guy. I mean, there were times when I
was talking with him, when he was talking to me
about what he had done, that I had those skin
crawling moments, that's for sure. When he talked about killing
one of the truck stop whores in the cab of
his truck and he watched it from twenty feet above.
(09:18):
That's when I realized that this is a very strange.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Person, and regardless of everything Melissa has undertaken and tried
to prove, that very strange person will always be her father.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Well, how I even started my whole beginning was when
my daughter asked me a question. She got off the
school bus. She was learning about genealogy in the family tree,
and they were being basic. Of course, the family tree
is going up to your grandparents. So she filled out
her dad's side, you know, samside, Nana, Papa, and then
(09:54):
on my side Grandma rose me. And then she realized
there's a miss grandfather here. She said, you know, mom,
everybody has a daddy. Where's your daddy? And I wasn't
expecting that she was six the kindergarten. It just took
me back. I thought, how am I going to answer
this for her? And so I said, yes, I have
(10:15):
a daddy lives in Salem. And I left it at that,
and I gave her the name to put, just the
first name to put in.
Speaker 9 (10:22):
I didn't want the last name.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
From there, I went to the libraries, I went everywhere,
just scouring for information about how do I reconcile this
for myself so that I can tell my child this
in a way that she can understand without terrifying her.
And I didn't want to be public because at this
point I had nobody knew I had a business, Nobody
(10:47):
knew who my father was.
Speaker 9 (10:49):
We had bought our house, our first home.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
My daughter was happy and well adjusted in kindergarten. None
of my friends knew, my church groups didn't know. But
I kept thinking about my daughter's question.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
What do you want your children to take away from
your journey?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Finding out that I'm not a psychopath liberated me too
as a parent, because my son was scared, and I
think my son was asking a very complex question when
he asked, like, is it a choice or is it
something that you are?
Speaker 11 (11:30):
He wants to know more about his grandfather, my dad,
and I had to keep telling him you're nothing like him,
You're nothing like him.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
As both Leroy and Don Findley made a huge impact
on the Happy Face team, and he stayed in contact
with both Melissa and me.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Is it Don or is it Leroy?
Speaker 6 (12:15):
Well, you know what, after talking to you, I started
telling people my real name.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Really, Yes, ma'am, why did you start doing that?
Speaker 6 (12:24):
Someone pointed out to me that, well, if LeRoy's really healed,
why don't you just start introducing people who don't.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Know you as who you are.
Speaker 6 (12:35):
Because I'm back to where I was before it happened,
and I saw myself changing.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
I felt it in my energy.
Speaker 6 (12:46):
People who were They're like, something's different about you.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
So this whole thing was like because of.
Speaker 6 (12:53):
Meeting Melissa amazingly lifted off my shoulders, because she answered
the questions that I needed answered. And God, the universe
has rewarded me in so many ways. He's like, I
put you through hell, you have come out smelling like carnations.
(13:14):
Now it's time for you to be rewarded. So I've
turned into a whole different person. But at the same time,
I'm still same spirit and soul.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
So it sounds like you went back to your former name,
but you've gotten a new life, yes, ma'am. And it
would seem that Don had left a huge impression on
Melissa as well.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
You were in my thoughts last night actually when I
went to this floating restaurant on the water and I thought, oh,
the last time I was here was a puffins with Don,
and I remembered that whole experience and how intense it
felt leading up to that moment. I was terrified, absolutely
(13:58):
terrified to meet it up with you because it I
didn't know. I didn't know what you would think of me,
And I've already dealt with so many people having preconceived
notions of me and criticizing me. And I'm not saying
this to feel sorry for myself, but I had enough
already on my plate.
Speaker 5 (14:14):
I didn't need I know.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
What you mean on some level, Don. I think Melissa's
biggest fear was that twenty years ago when she read
your words in the newspaper. Yeah, she knew that you
were speaking the truth. She knew that you saw through everything,
and the narrative that she'd been fed by her father
(14:37):
all those years was not the truth. So her fear
in facing you was that you would look in her
face and you would see the face of her father,
and that you would blame her for his horrible crimes.
Speaker 6 (14:52):
And I fully understand that because people, like I said,
don't know how to take me. And everybody in society
always prejudges everybody and assumes that they know about everybody,
but they don't know about themselves, and now Melissa learned
that none of it's true. Everybody has assumptions, everybody's gonna
(15:12):
come up with their own ideas, but it's only us
as individuals that we can do for ourselves. I'm trying
to word this the right way, but we all know
I'm the Stone or Yogi so.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Perfect.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
But if they understand it's cool, they don't.
Speaker 6 (15:28):
That's their problem, Melissa, because they're not the ones having
to live in our body or walk our shoes.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
As we set out to make this series, we wanted
to give Melissa the tools and opportunity to understand and
confront her dad, the man she hadn't seen in so
many years, but still had such control over her and
her life choices. What Melissa ultimately got, though, was actually
much better, a release from Keith's manipulation and the confidence
(16:05):
to create her own narrative. In the end, it was
Melissa's choice not to confront Keith. She knew she didn't
need to see him, or read his letters, or let
him invade her life anymore, and that realization set her
free on so many levels. And it was a direct
result of her meeting with Don.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
I'm trying to find words of what that experience was.
I think that I have found that meeting to be
a sacred meeting, and I felt like it was a
crossroads moment in my life.
Speaker 9 (16:42):
That was a gift.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
I thought you would blame me and see my father
and me, and I said, I wanted to go to
this doctor to find out if I am biologically hardwired
to be like my dad, And you said, well, your
brain may be, but your heart isn't.
Speaker 6 (17:02):
I said, you may have his blood, but you don't
have his heart, mind, or soul, because you wouldn't do
what you do for others. So when you told me
that you were going to go to the doctors and
get that checked out, I believe I told you that
you're not and I never got the answer to see
(17:25):
if I was correct or wrong.
Speaker 9 (17:28):
Well, you were correct.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
My brain is perfectly normal and not hardwired to be
a psychopath. And what gave me the courage to go
do that was actually your statement to me after that though.
I mean, it is like history just erased. Like there
was this pressure that I always felt walking around this world,
(17:51):
feeling like I have to prove myself.
Speaker 9 (17:54):
That's a lot of energy.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
To take into every encounter and it's unconscious that this
point has been decades, so it's just well left this
void like this open space. And I felt it all sudden.
These wonderful things in the world just started to pour
into that space. And yes, yes, I didn't know I
(18:17):
was going to meet you this summer. I didn't know
that the universe had this in store for me, and
I didn't know that was worthy of this gift.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
You don't have to say no more. I am so happy,
I really am.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
I'm not scared of my dad anymore. The Eliza has
told me. I believed them, and I allowed him to
shape me and put me in this place, this box.
And I was terrified of him because everybody believed his
narrative always, and so I couldn't outrun even his lies.
(18:55):
And now he could say whatever he wanted to say and.
Speaker 9 (19:00):
I would be fine.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
During that conversation, Melissa brought up the fact that my dad,
my father, had taken very seriously ill. She expressed her
sentiments and almost envy that he had the benefit of
being surrounded by his loving, proud family during this painful
time and the sharp contrast to her own reality.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
You know, Lauren, sitting across from me, and her dad
right now is in the hospital.
Speaker 9 (19:33):
Or in care, and.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Lauren and I have had quite an opposite of upbringing,
and the love that she has for her father and
the care that she has for her father and that
he has for her makes it so that she's right
now currently in the most intense grief and pain, and
(19:57):
that her father is surrounded by beautiful daughters, a beautiful
family that loves him, and my dad will never get
that because he didn't deserve that, because he didn't create
the life that her dad created.
Speaker 9 (20:10):
And that's what I know.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
You know what, I bet you, There's going to come
a day where my dad passes away and I won't
even know it, Like I won't even know my dad
died because all these years will have passed and I
didn't say a word to him, and he never said
a word to me.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
To be honest, I initially cringed and immediately felt protective
of my privacy. Then my dad died the next day.
Now that I've had the time to reflect, I realize
Melissa was also grieving with me and for her father.
(20:51):
Keith didn't just murder eight women. He killed the man
Melissa thought she knew, and the father she dearly loved.
Melissa's dad died when she was fifteen, and she's still
grieving that loss. In that moment of mentioning my dad,
she clearly expressed empathy and remorse, confirming she's truly the
(21:15):
antithesis of a psychopath. But for Melissa's mom Rose, even
her life with Keith was filled with a sort of grief.
She struggled to articulate and understand.
Speaker 10 (21:28):
You know, an intimate partner, you hold each other and
kindle each other. It was like, Okay, I'm gonna go
watch TV.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
It was robotic.
Speaker 7 (21:38):
Yeah, or did you feel used?
Speaker 6 (21:40):
No?
Speaker 10 (21:41):
I just because I mean I never had men. I
don't know what like, I'm a hooyfriend.
Speaker 7 (21:49):
Yeah, how men are?
Speaker 9 (21:51):
I thought that was the norm.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
You must have been so lonely.
Speaker 10 (21:55):
I was extremely lonely. Matter of fact, I would go
to church and I knew my life was out of balance,
but I just couldn't figure out why it.
Speaker 7 (22:05):
Was out of balance.
Speaker 10 (22:06):
But then I used to have a neighbor when we
lived in Zilla, and there was a little old couple
and summertimes they would sit out in the patio and
play cards and they had their little lights on, you know,
and I'd sit there and I'd listen to their conversation
because they were so close, and I just thought, that's
what our relations should be like, that you enjoy each
(22:26):
other when you're even that old. And they'd laugh and
they would just crack up jokes between them, and I thought,
that's what it is, that's what I you know, that's
what it's supposed to be.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Like.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Melissa and Don were initially linked by Keith, but they're
both determined and to transcend his effects on their lives.
Speaker 6 (23:03):
Our gift now is to pass on the words of
survival and that when you do make it through the
tough times that are put in front of you that
are out of your control, if you handle them in
the right way.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
You will be rewarded.
Speaker 6 (23:23):
Whether you believe in God, the universe, aliens, birds.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
The gypsy and cats, you will be rewarded.
Speaker 6 (23:30):
And we are proof of that because both of us
have lived in deep dark places.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
I just you know, for me, it really is humbling
to watch. It is the triumph of good over evil.
Speaker 12 (23:46):
Ultimately, I mean, I really hope we can help not
just each other grow further in our lives and stay connected,
but to help other people.
Speaker 6 (23:57):
And I did tell you you will love and you
will care. So I said those words, but I didn't
believe them one hundred percent. I had to tell myself
that stuff for years to get through it, and when
I met Melissa.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
All those words were proven right. Does any of that
make sense?
Speaker 9 (24:21):
Absolutely? Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (24:25):
The most telling change in Don was evident when confronted
with the idea of being face to face with Keith
present day.
Speaker 6 (24:33):
If I met him in person, I would hope that
my power and my strength would hold me back and
I would say you lose me and your daughter win.
But in honesty action at this very moment, my anger
(24:55):
sight still would want to put him in some kind
of other pain, but not kill him. You know, I'm
not trying to be mean or angry, but my good
side would say we win, you lose. I think that
part is stronger than my angry part, so I wouldn't
do that, is what I feel in my heart. You know,
(25:17):
I'll be honest, I really haven't even thought about you know.
I used to think about the guy and so forth,
but he ain't even in the back of my mind anymore.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Like he's not living rent free in your brain anymore.
He's not controlling your thoughts, and that's all part of
I think your acceptance of yourself and going back to
Don and letting Leroy go.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Right, that's a great metaphor. I don't know how I
didn't come up with it.
Speaker 6 (25:49):
But yeah, I am able to be more free than
I've ever been.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Now, what Melissa ultimately regained through the journey through Don,
through everything, was to regain control of her own story
without Keith. At points, you thought that you needed answers
(26:17):
from your dad. How do you feel now, Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:22):
I thought that I asked my dad really honest questions
and that he would give really honest answers. But through
this journey, I found that he doesn't tell honest. He
tells his own narrative, and that changes depending on what
he wants from you. And even if I was to
(26:44):
meet with him, he would spin me a tale. I
don't need any more of his narrative.
Speaker 9 (26:51):
That's control.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
So has this journey given you the narrative back?
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Yeah, me the freedom to tell my own story to myself,
like who I really am who I intuitively thought I was, Like,
this identity is really about our self beliefs, and we
operate our lives by the beliefs we carry about.
Speaker 9 (27:12):
Who we are.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
And for so many years I operated my life with
the story I told myself, which is I'm the daughter
of a serial killer, Therefore I am bad. The apple
doesn't fall far from the tree. I am part of
that tree. And now that's no longer my story. I'm
(27:35):
Melissa More, a mother, a woman, and that's what I am.
There's no tagline like I don't. I don't have to
carry daughter of a serial killer like I don't. It's just
Melissa More. Just like you're Lauren. You don't have a
banner behind you. You know, that's that's it's liberating, you know,
(28:01):
it's celebrating.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
As sensational and at times surreal as Melissa's story has been,
there's something very universal about her journey. It's really about
the triumph of the human spirit over fear, shame, and
ultimately grief. In the end, it's about hope, the hope
that good can triumph over evil, or at least lesson
(28:29):
its stinging.
Speaker 13 (28:37):
Oh hey, can it be another way to punish me?
A thousand lies, light years fly, dark years wander slowly
by my broken voice.
Speaker 8 (28:57):
It calls to me, what notes I'll never meet? I'll
drift in words way out to see way out until
I'm his story.
Speaker 9 (29:18):
Happy Face is a production of How Stuff Works.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Executive producers are Melissa Moore, Lauren Bright, Pacheco Mangesha Ticketdour
and Will Pearson.
Speaker 9 (29:27):
Supervising producer is Noel Brown. Music by Claire Campbell, Page
Campbell and Hope for a Golden Summer. Story editor is
Matt Riddle. Audio editing by Chandler Mays and Noel Brown.
Assistant editor is Taylor Chicogne.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Special thanks to Phil Stanford, the publishers of the Oregonian Newspaper,
and the Carlisle family
Happy Face News
Hosts And Creators
Melissa Moore
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Show Links
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