October 12, 2018 • 31 mins
Melissa’s mother believes Keith wasn’t born a psychopath, but that he was raised to be that way by his father, Les.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Previously on Happy Face. I got a phone call and
this guy says, I know where you're at. You're in
the kitchen and you're wearing this. Keith states that he
hired somewhat. My mom had just said that her and
my dad were separating, which I did believe. I wanted
to keep like you guys baby pictures and he chucked
(00:22):
out all up. He wasn't exactly a faithful class. Oh
absolutely not tell me about your wedding day. They were
doing pictures of me and I guess he was outside
kissing the bridesmaids, my best friend. After the second murder
the Happy Face, Keller says he realized he liked what
he was doing. This triggered something to me. He said,
(00:44):
it was getting easy Ez. The first year with Melissa
had went through two fires. Keith take the vent. I
had a little toilet cover and it caught it on fire,
and the whole bathroom was a golf van. Shortly after that,
we go camping and then I heard a bear. He
(01:06):
cleaned fish in front of the cabin and he was
sleeping in the car. He started killing in and he
stopped in The five years is not isolated the event.
It was an escalation. I think he was groomed to
be who he is and the fight with the sun
(01:28):
don't shine? Oh, oh nice room. One of the biggest
questions you're faced with when looking at the lives of
(01:50):
serial killers is where did it all begin? What makes
a person become a killer? Is it something that's passed
down through generations or is there a single moment that
can turn someone from a normal human being with a
job and a family into a monster? Our serial killers
made or are they born? I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco, and
(02:15):
this is happy face. I remember the first time I
saw my father in prison, and the first thing he
said to me was, Missy, do you want to know why?
And at the time, I couldn't. I couldn't handle the answer,
(02:37):
and honestly, I thought whatever he was going to tell
me would be just him trying to justify what he's
done or to minimize what he's done, and so I
didn't want some pacifying answer, so I said no. And
I've regretted that moment for so many years now because
(03:00):
as I want to know why, why about my father
had an interest in crime was because he wanted to
become a police officer in Canada. He wanted to be
(03:22):
a mountee and he was declined from becoming that because
of an injury he sustained in high school. What he
told me is that in gym class they do this
rope exercise where they climbed the rope to the ceiling
of the gym, which is quite high. They say now
(03:43):
when they interview killers, people who have been perpetually in jail,
they have found that a large percentage of them had
damaged their front palo before they were twenty two, changes
their whole personality. Um Keith fell in high school. I
believe he was on the very top of the rope
(04:03):
and I let go. He fell to the gym floor.
He sustained a head injury and broke his hip, and
this impacted his ability to join the force. I don't
believe my dad ever got over that. It was something
that he carried on in conversations, but there was a
(04:26):
sense of resentment that he was now a long haul
truck driver when he could have had this other life
that was just out of his grasp. M But as
(04:47):
Melissa's mom Rose told us, she really thinks that Keith
was conditioned to be a killer, groomed to be one
by his own father Less, and that's something we felt
we had to explore from I The Creation of a
Serial Killer by Jack Olsen, The Jesperson children grew up
(05:09):
in a rural atmosphere, first in chili Wack, British Columbia,
later two fifty miles south in Salo, Washington, an apple
scented orchard community of ten thousand. Keith's perpetually mobile father
built the family's chili Wack home on land his ancestors homestead.
In nineteen o nine, moved the house from the city
to a pastoral area outside of town. Cleared five acres
(05:31):
with a borrowed bulldozer, built a barn with aloft for
his children, and a wooden bridge big enough for the
family horses to cross the little creek that rose from
the springs above the property line. Later, he dammed the
creek and built a water wheel to trap chinook and
silver salmon as they swam up from the Vetter River
to spawn. If you read Jack Olsen's biography of Key
(06:00):
the way in which he describes Keith's father Less, it's
very clear that Less was a very resourceful, ingenious man,
the kind of guy who could build a barn from
scratch or create a water wheel to catch fish for dinner.
But what also is clear is that he could be
(06:21):
a monster. We decided that we didn't want to live
near your grandfather anymore. He was horrible. I hated him.
Really m hm. Yeah. He would without warning open up
the door to our house and he goes, we just
sleep with me, do you to me? I had no
(06:42):
idea your father in law. Your father in law hit
on you. Yes, more than once, like oh yeah, I
would be I'd be sitting right next to Keith and
he would come in. He'd pinch me, and I was thinking, Keith,
what are you doing? And then I see his hand
and they start giggling. I don't know who. I was
(07:03):
more angry with Keith for not protecting me or for
less for doing it. So you think Keith knew his
father would make passes at you, Well, he was right
there and they thought it was a joke. And the
only time I was saved is when I was partnant
with Melissa. Then I was off the tables. Keith's attitude
(07:35):
towards marriage very much mirrored the relationship he saw unfold
between his own father and his mother, Gladys I mean,
I knew that last beat the kids a lot. I
don't know if he beat Gladys or not, but I
know that there was problems between Gladys and Lass because
(07:59):
when we were for was married. He goes, I have
to go down to the house and they go okay.
So he went down to the house, came back and
he was really visibly upset. I said, so, what went on?
He goes, yeah, Mom and dad got in a fight,
and I guess Dad cut every telephone wire in the house.
It was less a drinker. He was a heavy alcoholic.
(08:39):
One of the few people that Keith opened up to
about his childhood was a true crime author and psychologist
named al Carlyle. Melissa met him almost completely by chance.
I was invited to go to crime con and this
gentleman approached the booth and he said, hey, you know,
(08:59):
I've I've got this author who's working on serial killers.
And he said, well, his name is al Carlysle and
he studied Ted Bundy and he's working on a chapter
of the serial killer named Keith Hunter Jasperson. So when
I got that calm, I called him immediately and I
loved his perspective. He had stories that I've never even
(09:22):
heard of before, about the man I thought I knew. Unfortunately,
the night before we were supposed to interview Al Carlyle,
he passed away in his sleep, and it was heartbreaking.
He was such a fascinating, brilliant man. But we were
(09:43):
able to reach out to Stephen Booth, his publisher, and
also to carry Ann Keller, who was his researcher and
writing assistant. Keith felt that Al had a real mission
to understand by my behavior, so that was their common ground.
They each felt the other could provide valuable information. Once
(10:05):
Al was up there interviewing Keith, and Keith said to Al,
I could reach over this table and snap your head
before the guard would even notice. I don't because I
don't want to lose my privileges. He wasn't threatening Al.
He was just making a point about his size. Okay,
So that's how you have to understand how Keith could talk.
(10:28):
So it's like being in a room with a loaded gun.
Oh yeah, for sure, definitely you feel it. My name
is Stephen Booth. I have been the publisher at Genius
Book Publishing since two thousand eleven. Keith Jefferson was in
a situation where he had a very manipulative father. The father,
(10:48):
by the way, freaks me out. He had a very
manipulative father. He was required to be obedient at all times,
he was given conflicting information about what ethical standards were
and how to behave, and he was isolated from his family,
even by his own siblings. What's incredible, though, is that
(11:11):
Al Carlisle's family gave us the tapes of his interviews
with Jesperson in prison, and you can hear the intimate
details and how much Keith opened up to him. Brad
was a younger, bruceus the oldest. When did they start
calling you? Igor? Was my junior high I was in
(11:37):
eighth grade, and then Brad was in the seventh grade
and he wanted to be big with his friends, so
he started calling me Igor because of the Monster movies.
And I figured I was his sidekick. Big physically at
the time and slow slow physically. Well I was. I was.
I was big, and I was not very well core
(12:00):
ordinated intelligence. I'm very intelligent, but I just didn't adapt
myself to it. Keith was made to pay his own
room and board when the other kids were not made
to do that, so he would be an example to
the other siblings. And this was when he was twelve
(12:20):
thirteen years old, precisely. Yes, you know, the father forced
him to work. He got paid a pittance. Most of
that money went back to ruin the board and whatever
was left over, the father basically took out of the
bank account. And whenever he got into trouble, everybody pointed
the finger at Keith. His siblings did, his father, did,
his friends did? He was isolated, harboring a lot of resentment,
(12:45):
violent rage like resentment towards his father. And I mean,
what was that story about him? Uh, the boy when
he was about eight years old who kept blaming him
for things, and then Keith let loose and tried to
beat him to death. I have a memory that kid. Yeah,
he was just he was. Every time he he would say,
(13:06):
well Keith did this, and Keith did that, and and
I'd get the belt and I'd get nailed and I'd
get punished and so forth. He sent back laugh ha
ha ha, this is funny. And one day I caught
him off the back there when he was ready to
scream Keith that, and I was beating him down or
to death. When I was about eight years old, the
time when you were eating the kid, did you feel
(13:31):
you're in control? Did you just lose it with his song?
Just lost it? I didn't. I didn't. I don't think
they had anything to do with control, and just had
paybacks a bit, you know, And I just grabbed him
and just started wailing him. Of course I didn't know
him to stop, and I was going to beat him
to death. He was put in a position where he
(13:54):
could not win, and he could not take his rage
out on his father, because father I had have dialed in.
So he took his rage out on the closest person
to him, who was embarrassing him. You know, I'm sure
taught him a less So even by the age of eight,
it was a lot of anger. Yeah, there was anger there. Anger, Yeah,
(14:16):
you're doing me wrong. It was like, yeah, I was
you doing me wrong? I was just I was gonna.
I was bounding and termined to get even from I.
The Creation of a Serial Killer by Jack Olsen. Sometimes
(14:39):
the Jesperson males proud the creek banks for muskrats. I'd
yank one out of the water by its tail and
throw it up on the bank. Then Dad or one
of my brothers would club it to death. We also
killed gophers, hundreds of them. They were a farm pest,
and nobody missed him. Dad has films of us boys
blood splattered from killing gophers and other varmints. It was
(15:02):
our form of recreation. After we grew up and got married,
Dad liked to show the film to our wives. He
would joke watch my natural born killers as they dispense
of their victims. You don't want to run into them
in a dark alley. Based on their jail health interview.
(15:37):
What did I'll make of my dad's childhood? He was
fascinated by his passivity, you know, Keith's passivity as a child.
This uh economist behavior of a shy and passive child
who becomes fully the opposite as an adult was very
interesting to him. He understood how Keith is bitter about
(16:00):
the control his father had over him. He knew he
wasn't able to stand up to his father's dominance. But
Keith accepted it, you know, as his lot in life,
and he kind of liked it because well, he did
full trapped by his father. He was afraid of his father,
but he also had a strong desire to have his
(16:21):
dad love him. I feared my grandfather, like even though
he never hit me. I was terrified at my grandfather
being angry with me because I don't know what he
would do, like maybe even know about the motorcycle story.
I do. I do. So he has this motorcycle Keith
(16:45):
that he saved up money for a brand new motorcycle. Okay,
it's not a piece of junk like from Cobble Together Junkyard.
I had bought in a seven fifty hanted motorcycle. It
was a brand new gold and Mattel out orange, you know,
like a bright orange colored, a beautiful bike. And it
(17:06):
came hunting season and I was working for Dad at
the time, and Brad and I wanted to go hunting
over on the coast by Clamba. Of course we need
a four world drive and I was going to use
the company pickup. Well, I said, Dad, can I use
the company pick him? He says, shirty but one stipulation
and I knew it was coming, and he he said, you
leave me your motorcycle out and so I could go
(17:27):
on a motorcycle ride with that. And I said no,
because you're gonna get drunk and you're gonna get on it.
You're gonna erect the bike. Oh, I probably ain't gonna drink,
and I said, no false promises. You know, well, in
order for me to get the pickup, I had to
give him the bike. So I get to pick up,
(17:53):
and I load up and hunting supplies and we take
off over the climb and we have a hell of
nice time all weekend long cut. In the morning on
Monday morning, I go back to the dump truck in
the backyard. We have a swimming pool to dig that day.
And I walked through the back door and said, where
the hell's Dad at? We got the swimming pool the
dig over here, and Mom said, oh, you don't know.
(18:14):
He says he wrecked the motorcycle. He's in the hospital.
And I guess Keith was an architect trip or something.
What happened when he came back. Well, then Keith had
to run the businesses. He had to do everything. He
was the sole provider for two families, his dad and
(18:35):
mine ours. And so I call up the company that
the people that were going to the swimming pool told Hi,
I wouldn't be there with my dad's in the hospital,
and I have to go take care of business. So
I go to Sainting Hospital and there, his dad up
there on the floor and he's they operated on Rupert's
planing and his face is all bandaged up, kind of
(18:56):
nose and donner off. He hit bob wire and I
cut up his intestines. He had a big scar and
he had a big scar in his face. I get
up there and he's like looking at me, and I said, well,
what happened? Dad? It's you gotta you gotta get back
to that motorcycle. You gotta you gotta take care of
all the evidence. You gotta take care of it. I said,
(19:17):
what what do you mean to take curses? Go get
rid of that. So you've been drinking, he said, just
take care of it away. You said, we don't want
that insurance company knowing that I was ride and drunk right,
keep drink? No, no, it's absolutely no alcohol. He was
the only one out of all my aunts and uncles
that didn't drink at all. I said, And you didn't
(19:39):
drink either. You and dad didn't drink at all and
are growing up. No, because my father was an alcoholic too,
And so you either choose it or you don't. And
I chose not to, and that's your dad chose not
to drink either. But I get up to my dad
and I sapped the hospital and my mom's there and
I said, well, Dad, I got rid of all that.
And he said, good good, good goodness. Now why would
(19:59):
you anything on my Morgan my motorcycle, says I wasn't
drinking on your motorcycle. Yes, your wordes says, prove it.
You can't prove it. So you got rid of all
the evidence you can't prove ship. I'll give you my
lega for your water. I'll lave you drunk up whoa.
(20:29):
And that's basically how it all ends up. Everything is
I was covering up everything. I say. I was like
eighteen at that time. Yeah. Less Basically sit made Keith
(20:50):
go hide the evidence so that he could get insurance
money that it didn't know. He wouldn't surprise me because
LUs was very famous for that. His business ethics of
that was that the boss was always right and the
employees were always wrong. The heat, yes it did, and
I'm just getting to that. His His idea was that
(21:14):
if there's any problems that occurred on the job, that
I would get shipped on and he would get the
glory of saying I'm sorry or whatever. Like that, I'll
it will never happen, you know which, I'll just make
sure my son never does and stuff again. So I
was like the blue an idiot, you know, doing all that.
And I kind of laughed one day because my dad
(21:34):
was on the back when he was digging next to
his house and he put the bucket right through the
side of the house. He has no depth perception. That
was one of his problems. He stuck the buckets to
the side of the house and the people in the
house and they were looking out and they saw him
running the bacco right and uh, they come running out
of the corner. But by the time they got around
to who the backle was, he'd already stopped machine and
(21:56):
he had gotten me on that and they're looking at
him and the man and I said I did it,
and they were like, why do you put up with that?
I said, that's the way it is. I am the
ship on less. I told him this is the way
what you're gonna say in court. And Keith did in
(22:19):
order for them to win a court case for the
mobile part or absolutely did it. Seems like he wasn't
the most honest man. No, No, he wasn't. He swindled people.
I called him a swindler, and he had a really
good lawyer. My understanding is that, how do I say this?
(22:43):
Left to his own devices, Keith would have been a
pretty happy kid. He described his childhood as being fairly happy,
and um, he would have probably not harvard as much rage.
He probably would have been somebody who got along with people.
But from al to me, from Keith to telling me
(23:04):
his childhood was more a matter of he was the target.
He was the scapegoat, for lack of a better word,
of everybody's need to avoid less his rage or manipulation
or whatever it is. He had nobody backing him up,
and he didn't even know how to back himself up,
(23:25):
so all he could do was absorbed all this negative
energy about everything that was going on. Three there's an
(23:46):
interview with your dad about your grandfather made him go
visit a friend of your grandfather's who was dying, and
your dad was really resentful because he had to go
sit and make conversation him with this dying man, because
your grandfather said nobody should have to die alone, and
your dad was talking to the guy before he realized
(24:08):
he had already passed away. I had no idea about this.
Dad still treated me like the run of the litter,
Daddy's little helper. He dragged me to a nursing home
to visit one of his hunting buddies. He said, my friends,
(24:28):
Smitty is not doing too good with his lung cancer. Keith,
I'm going out in the hall talk to him. Son.
Nobody likes to die alone. I'm sitting there listening to
the rattily breathing, watching his life drain out. After a while,
Smitty goes limp. I'm holding his hand for ten or
(24:49):
fifteen minutes before I realize he's dead. On our way home,
he said, Keith, someday you'll thank me for putting you
through this. I never feared a dead person after that.
When I was killing, I talked to my victims as
if they were still alive. It was something to thank
(25:11):
Dad for. My Dad was really good about telling his story,
his narrative, and he he beat everybody to the punch,
and it would just when his story came forward, people
always judged everybody else's tail against what he had to say.
(25:34):
My dad had ownership, like the truth was his. He
owned the truth and it was not debatable. His air
of certainty definitely played a part in other people believing
in him, and why probably his his victims believed in
him and trusted him over their own voices. He exuded
(25:55):
confidence and certainty and and whatever he said was true
and you can rely upon it, and and you could
trust it. But not really. May I ask a question, Yes,
(26:19):
why is it that when Rose left Keith and took
the kids she went over to Lesser's house? What do
you mean? The story that I got was when she
left and untied the house, the first place she went
was Less's house. That is a direct quote from the
history that I was reading this morning, and I can
(26:40):
share that with you if you need me to. From
from Keith. Yeah, that's that's that's the story that I got.
It could I could be wrong, but that's the story
that that Al got. That's interesting that he would say
that I was there. That didn't happen. I was there
the day that they left. That would make sense that
my dad was shared that's story to shame my mother
(27:02):
and put her into that frame of light. Oh. I
actually remember play by play, a minute by minute of
that day that they separated, And there was not one
single time that we went over to my grandparents house.
A matter of fact, they were gone and there was
not anything that we cleaned down in that property because
we left in the four Topaz, which is just a
little family sedan. We didn't take a single item from
(27:23):
the house other than the clothes that we needed for
like a couple of days. Wow. So that is not
the story that I got from al from Keith. Yeah,
so that's interesting that he came up with this, this
new story, a new spin. So I happened. Well, I'm
glad I asked, because honestly, I I I bought the
(27:45):
stories that Keith gave out, you know, I mean, seem reasonable.
She left, she took everything, whether she went over to
the father's house. Some of this is fantasy. Some of
this is making Keith feel better about himself. So how
truthful was he without Now it's all right to lie,
it's all right too to be conniving and so forth.
(28:07):
You can. You can do that because you're an a dog.
You know you can do that. But when you're a kid,
you can't lie to your parents, you know, because you
know he called, you know you would call on us,
and I remember you comforting me after one particular phone
call where. Um, we were living on a street over here,
(28:27):
and um, he called and said he was suicidal because
of having paid child support. And then he because it
was such a burden for him. And it made me
upset because I felt blamed. He's blaming me for having
pay child support. But then it went another step further.
He said, um, you know I drove past the prison today,
(28:48):
the organ State prison. I just like chewed my horn
and said I'll be there soon, as we said in
the call. But I remember crying and going to my
room and you came after me. You're like, what's wrong, Wissa?
And I said, you know, Dodd said he's going to
kill himself. And you got so mad, You got so
bad you stormed out of my room. You called him
(29:11):
back up, and you said, you you still have a pitch.
I've heard you like. That was the first time I
ever saw you mad. You're like, because I really felt
the whole time he was playing on us. You know,
I got pitch child support, so you I separated in
and then he how did you find out? Didn't you
(29:32):
receive a letter from him? I received a letter maybe
a week before he got arrested. And in this letter
it said rose Um, what I did is bigger than all. J. Simpson.
He said, I'll probably be in hell forever. Keith, and
(29:53):
I thought you were so full of crap. I mean, like,
what this is supposed to mean? Right? Shreded? A piece
is through in the trash directly to you. It was
directly to me. And I didn't say anything about us kids.
It just was like I did something bigger than O. J. Simpson. Gentle,
(30:19):
don't you know God? A man? Gentle, don't know GODM
I like that A good poet. God? That's song? Right?
(30:42):
Is so? God sits back? Gents, O payple, Oh we was,
Oh Happy Faces. A production of how Stuff for X.
Executive producers or Melissa Moore, Lauren Bright, Pacheco, mangesh Ha
(31:04):
Ticketur and Will Pearson. 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 Chacogne. Special thanks
to Phil Stanford, the publishers of the Oregonian Newspaper, and
(31:25):
the Carlisle Family.
Previously on Happy Face. I got a phone call and
this guy says, I know where you're at. You're in
the kitchen and you're wearing this. Keith states that he
hired somewhat. My mom had just said that her and
my dad were separating, which I did believe. I wanted
to keep like you guys baby pictures and he chucked
(00:22):
out all up. He wasn't exactly a faithful class. Oh
absolutely not tell me about your wedding day. They were
doing pictures of me and I guess he was outside
kissing the bridesmaids, my best friend. After the second murder
the Happy Face, Keller says he realized he liked what
he was doing. This triggered something to me. He said,
(00:44):
it was getting easy Ez. The first year with Melissa
had went through two fires. Keith take the vent. I
had a little toilet cover and it caught it on fire,
and the whole bathroom was a golf van. Shortly after that,
we go camping and then I heard a bear. He
(01:06):
cleaned fish in front of the cabin and he was
sleeping in the car. He started killing in and he
stopped in The five years is not isolated the event.
It was an escalation. I think he was groomed to
be who he is and the fight with the sun
(01:28):
don't shine? Oh, oh nice room. One of the biggest
questions you're faced with when looking at the lives of
(01:50):
serial killers is where did it all begin? What makes
a person become a killer? Is it something that's passed
down through generations or is there a single moment that
can turn someone from a normal human being with a
job and a family into a monster? Our serial killers
made or are they born? I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco, and
(02:15):
this is happy face. I remember the first time I
saw my father in prison, and the first thing he
said to me was, Missy, do you want to know why?
And at the time, I couldn't. I couldn't handle the answer,
(02:37):
and honestly, I thought whatever he was going to tell
me would be just him trying to justify what he's
done or to minimize what he's done, and so I
didn't want some pacifying answer, so I said no. And
I've regretted that moment for so many years now because
(03:00):
as I want to know why, why about my father
had an interest in crime was because he wanted to
become a police officer in Canada. He wanted to be
(03:22):
a mountee and he was declined from becoming that because
of an injury he sustained in high school. What he
told me is that in gym class they do this
rope exercise where they climbed the rope to the ceiling
of the gym, which is quite high. They say now
(03:43):
when they interview killers, people who have been perpetually in jail,
they have found that a large percentage of them had
damaged their front palo before they were twenty two, changes
their whole personality. Um Keith fell in high school. I
believe he was on the very top of the rope
(04:03):
and I let go. He fell to the gym floor.
He sustained a head injury and broke his hip, and
this impacted his ability to join the force. I don't
believe my dad ever got over that. It was something
that he carried on in conversations, but there was a
(04:26):
sense of resentment that he was now a long haul
truck driver when he could have had this other life
that was just out of his grasp. M But as
(04:47):
Melissa's mom Rose told us, she really thinks that Keith
was conditioned to be a killer, groomed to be one
by his own father Less, and that's something we felt
we had to explore from I The Creation of a
Serial Killer by Jack Olsen, The Jesperson children grew up
(05:09):
in a rural atmosphere, first in chili Wack, British Columbia,
later two fifty miles south in Salo, Washington, an apple
scented orchard community of ten thousand. Keith's perpetually mobile father
built the family's chili Wack home on land his ancestors homestead.
In nineteen o nine, moved the house from the city
to a pastoral area outside of town. Cleared five acres
(05:31):
with a borrowed bulldozer, built a barn with aloft for
his children, and a wooden bridge big enough for the
family horses to cross the little creek that rose from
the springs above the property line. Later, he dammed the
creek and built a water wheel to trap chinook and
silver salmon as they swam up from the Vetter River
to spawn. If you read Jack Olsen's biography of Key
(06:00):
the way in which he describes Keith's father Less, it's
very clear that Less was a very resourceful, ingenious man,
the kind of guy who could build a barn from
scratch or create a water wheel to catch fish for dinner.
But what also is clear is that he could be
(06:21):
a monster. We decided that we didn't want to live
near your grandfather anymore. He was horrible. I hated him.
Really m hm. Yeah. He would without warning open up
the door to our house and he goes, we just
sleep with me, do you to me? I had no
(06:42):
idea your father in law. Your father in law hit
on you. Yes, more than once, like oh yeah, I
would be I'd be sitting right next to Keith and
he would come in. He'd pinch me, and I was thinking, Keith,
what are you doing? And then I see his hand
and they start giggling. I don't know who. I was
(07:03):
more angry with Keith for not protecting me or for
less for doing it. So you think Keith knew his
father would make passes at you, Well, he was right
there and they thought it was a joke. And the
only time I was saved is when I was partnant
with Melissa. Then I was off the tables. Keith's attitude
(07:35):
towards marriage very much mirrored the relationship he saw unfold
between his own father and his mother, Gladys I mean,
I knew that last beat the kids a lot. I
don't know if he beat Gladys or not, but I
know that there was problems between Gladys and Lass because
(07:59):
when we were for was married. He goes, I have
to go down to the house and they go okay.
So he went down to the house, came back and
he was really visibly upset. I said, so, what went on?
He goes, yeah, Mom and dad got in a fight,
and I guess Dad cut every telephone wire in the house.
It was less a drinker. He was a heavy alcoholic.
(08:39):
One of the few people that Keith opened up to
about his childhood was a true crime author and psychologist
named al Carlyle. Melissa met him almost completely by chance.
I was invited to go to crime con and this
gentleman approached the booth and he said, hey, you know,
(08:59):
I've I've got this author who's working on serial killers.
And he said, well, his name is al Carlysle and
he studied Ted Bundy and he's working on a chapter
of the serial killer named Keith Hunter Jasperson. So when
I got that calm, I called him immediately and I
loved his perspective. He had stories that I've never even
(09:22):
heard of before, about the man I thought I knew. Unfortunately,
the night before we were supposed to interview Al Carlyle,
he passed away in his sleep, and it was heartbreaking.
He was such a fascinating, brilliant man. But we were
(09:43):
able to reach out to Stephen Booth, his publisher, and
also to carry Ann Keller, who was his researcher and
writing assistant. Keith felt that Al had a real mission
to understand by my behavior, so that was their common ground.
They each felt the other could provide valuable information. Once
(10:05):
Al was up there interviewing Keith, and Keith said to Al,
I could reach over this table and snap your head
before the guard would even notice. I don't because I
don't want to lose my privileges. He wasn't threatening Al.
He was just making a point about his size. Okay,
So that's how you have to understand how Keith could talk.
(10:28):
So it's like being in a room with a loaded gun.
Oh yeah, for sure, definitely you feel it. My name
is Stephen Booth. I have been the publisher at Genius
Book Publishing since two thousand eleven. Keith Jefferson was in
a situation where he had a very manipulative father. The father,
(10:48):
by the way, freaks me out. He had a very
manipulative father. He was required to be obedient at all times,
he was given conflicting information about what ethical standards were
and how to behave, and he was isolated from his family,
even by his own siblings. What's incredible, though, is that
(11:11):
Al Carlisle's family gave us the tapes of his interviews
with Jesperson in prison, and you can hear the intimate
details and how much Keith opened up to him. Brad
was a younger, bruceus the oldest. When did they start
calling you? Igor? Was my junior high I was in
(11:37):
eighth grade, and then Brad was in the seventh grade
and he wanted to be big with his friends, so
he started calling me Igor because of the Monster movies.
And I figured I was his sidekick. Big physically at
the time and slow slow physically. Well I was. I was.
I was big, and I was not very well core
(12:00):
ordinated intelligence. I'm very intelligent, but I just didn't adapt
myself to it. Keith was made to pay his own
room and board when the other kids were not made
to do that, so he would be an example to
the other siblings. And this was when he was twelve
(12:20):
thirteen years old, precisely. Yes, you know, the father forced
him to work. He got paid a pittance. Most of
that money went back to ruin the board and whatever
was left over, the father basically took out of the
bank account. And whenever he got into trouble, everybody pointed
the finger at Keith. His siblings did, his father, did,
his friends did? He was isolated, harboring a lot of resentment,
(12:45):
violent rage like resentment towards his father. And I mean,
what was that story about him? Uh, the boy when
he was about eight years old who kept blaming him
for things, and then Keith let loose and tried to
beat him to death. I have a memory that kid. Yeah,
he was just he was. Every time he he would say,
(13:06):
well Keith did this, and Keith did that, and and
I'd get the belt and I'd get nailed and I'd
get punished and so forth. He sent back laugh ha
ha ha, this is funny. And one day I caught
him off the back there when he was ready to
scream Keith that, and I was beating him down or
to death. When I was about eight years old, the
time when you were eating the kid, did you feel
(13:31):
you're in control? Did you just lose it with his song?
Just lost it? I didn't. I didn't. I don't think
they had anything to do with control, and just had
paybacks a bit, you know, And I just grabbed him
and just started wailing him. Of course I didn't know
him to stop, and I was going to beat him
to death. He was put in a position where he
(13:54):
could not win, and he could not take his rage
out on his father, because father I had have dialed in.
So he took his rage out on the closest person
to him, who was embarrassing him. You know, I'm sure
taught him a less So even by the age of eight,
it was a lot of anger. Yeah, there was anger there. Anger, Yeah,
(14:16):
you're doing me wrong. It was like, yeah, I was
you doing me wrong? I was just I was gonna.
I was bounding and termined to get even from I.
The Creation of a Serial Killer by Jack Olsen. Sometimes
(14:39):
the Jesperson males proud the creek banks for muskrats. I'd
yank one out of the water by its tail and
throw it up on the bank. Then Dad or one
of my brothers would club it to death. We also
killed gophers, hundreds of them. They were a farm pest,
and nobody missed him. Dad has films of us boys
blood splattered from killing gophers and other varmints. It was
(15:02):
our form of recreation. After we grew up and got married,
Dad liked to show the film to our wives. He
would joke watch my natural born killers as they dispense
of their victims. You don't want to run into them
in a dark alley. Based on their jail health interview.
(15:37):
What did I'll make of my dad's childhood? He was
fascinated by his passivity, you know, Keith's passivity as a child.
This uh economist behavior of a shy and passive child
who becomes fully the opposite as an adult was very
interesting to him. He understood how Keith is bitter about
(16:00):
the control his father had over him. He knew he
wasn't able to stand up to his father's dominance. But
Keith accepted it, you know, as his lot in life,
and he kind of liked it because well, he did
full trapped by his father. He was afraid of his father,
but he also had a strong desire to have his
(16:21):
dad love him. I feared my grandfather, like even though
he never hit me. I was terrified at my grandfather
being angry with me because I don't know what he
would do, like maybe even know about the motorcycle story.
I do. I do. So he has this motorcycle Keith
(16:45):
that he saved up money for a brand new motorcycle. Okay,
it's not a piece of junk like from Cobble Together Junkyard.
I had bought in a seven fifty hanted motorcycle. It
was a brand new gold and Mattel out orange, you know,
like a bright orange colored, a beautiful bike. And it
(17:06):
came hunting season and I was working for Dad at
the time, and Brad and I wanted to go hunting
over on the coast by Clamba. Of course we need
a four world drive and I was going to use
the company pickup. Well, I said, Dad, can I use
the company pick him? He says, shirty but one stipulation
and I knew it was coming, and he he said, you
leave me your motorcycle out and so I could go
(17:27):
on a motorcycle ride with that. And I said no,
because you're gonna get drunk and you're gonna get on it.
You're gonna erect the bike. Oh, I probably ain't gonna drink,
and I said, no false promises. You know, well, in
order for me to get the pickup, I had to
give him the bike. So I get to pick up,
(17:53):
and I load up and hunting supplies and we take
off over the climb and we have a hell of
nice time all weekend long cut. In the morning on
Monday morning, I go back to the dump truck in
the backyard. We have a swimming pool to dig that day.
And I walked through the back door and said, where
the hell's Dad at? We got the swimming pool the
dig over here, and Mom said, oh, you don't know.
(18:14):
He says he wrecked the motorcycle. He's in the hospital.
And I guess Keith was an architect trip or something.
What happened when he came back. Well, then Keith had
to run the businesses. He had to do everything. He
was the sole provider for two families, his dad and
(18:35):
mine ours. And so I call up the company that
the people that were going to the swimming pool told Hi,
I wouldn't be there with my dad's in the hospital,
and I have to go take care of business. So
I go to Sainting Hospital and there, his dad up
there on the floor and he's they operated on Rupert's
planing and his face is all bandaged up, kind of
(18:56):
nose and donner off. He hit bob wire and I
cut up his intestines. He had a big scar and
he had a big scar in his face. I get
up there and he's like looking at me, and I said, well,
what happened? Dad? It's you gotta you gotta get back
to that motorcycle. You gotta you gotta take care of
all the evidence. You gotta take care of it. I said,
(19:17):
what what do you mean to take curses? Go get
rid of that. So you've been drinking, he said, just
take care of it away. You said, we don't want
that insurance company knowing that I was ride and drunk right,
keep drink? No, no, it's absolutely no alcohol. He was
the only one out of all my aunts and uncles
that didn't drink at all. I said, And you didn't
(19:39):
drink either. You and dad didn't drink at all and
are growing up. No, because my father was an alcoholic too,
And so you either choose it or you don't. And
I chose not to, and that's your dad chose not
to drink either. But I get up to my dad
and I sapped the hospital and my mom's there and
I said, well, Dad, I got rid of all that.
And he said, good good, good goodness. Now why would
(19:59):
you anything on my Morgan my motorcycle, says I wasn't
drinking on your motorcycle. Yes, your wordes says, prove it.
You can't prove it. So you got rid of all
the evidence you can't prove ship. I'll give you my
lega for your water. I'll lave you drunk up whoa.
(20:29):
And that's basically how it all ends up. Everything is
I was covering up everything. I say. I was like
eighteen at that time. Yeah. Less Basically sit made Keith
(20:50):
go hide the evidence so that he could get insurance
money that it didn't know. He wouldn't surprise me because
LUs was very famous for that. His business ethics of
that was that the boss was always right and the
employees were always wrong. The heat, yes it did, and
I'm just getting to that. His His idea was that
(21:14):
if there's any problems that occurred on the job, that
I would get shipped on and he would get the
glory of saying I'm sorry or whatever. Like that, I'll
it will never happen, you know which, I'll just make
sure my son never does and stuff again. So I
was like the blue an idiot, you know, doing all that.
And I kind of laughed one day because my dad
(21:34):
was on the back when he was digging next to
his house and he put the bucket right through the
side of the house. He has no depth perception. That
was one of his problems. He stuck the buckets to
the side of the house and the people in the
house and they were looking out and they saw him
running the bacco right and uh, they come running out
of the corner. But by the time they got around
to who the backle was, he'd already stopped machine and
(21:56):
he had gotten me on that and they're looking at
him and the man and I said I did it,
and they were like, why do you put up with that?
I said, that's the way it is. I am the
ship on less. I told him this is the way
what you're gonna say in court. And Keith did in
(22:19):
order for them to win a court case for the
mobile part or absolutely did it. Seems like he wasn't
the most honest man. No, No, he wasn't. He swindled people.
I called him a swindler, and he had a really
good lawyer. My understanding is that, how do I say this?
(22:43):
Left to his own devices, Keith would have been a
pretty happy kid. He described his childhood as being fairly happy,
and um, he would have probably not harvard as much rage.
He probably would have been somebody who got along with people.
But from al to me, from Keith to telling me
(23:04):
his childhood was more a matter of he was the target.
He was the scapegoat, for lack of a better word,
of everybody's need to avoid less his rage or manipulation
or whatever it is. He had nobody backing him up,
and he didn't even know how to back himself up,
(23:25):
so all he could do was absorbed all this negative
energy about everything that was going on. Three there's an
(23:46):
interview with your dad about your grandfather made him go
visit a friend of your grandfather's who was dying, and
your dad was really resentful because he had to go
sit and make conversation him with this dying man, because
your grandfather said nobody should have to die alone, and
your dad was talking to the guy before he realized
(24:08):
he had already passed away. I had no idea about this.
Dad still treated me like the run of the litter,
Daddy's little helper. He dragged me to a nursing home
to visit one of his hunting buddies. He said, my friends,
(24:28):
Smitty is not doing too good with his lung cancer. Keith,
I'm going out in the hall talk to him. Son.
Nobody likes to die alone. I'm sitting there listening to
the rattily breathing, watching his life drain out. After a while,
Smitty goes limp. I'm holding his hand for ten or
(24:49):
fifteen minutes before I realize he's dead. On our way home,
he said, Keith, someday you'll thank me for putting you
through this. I never feared a dead person after that.
When I was killing, I talked to my victims as
if they were still alive. It was something to thank
(25:11):
Dad for. My Dad was really good about telling his story,
his narrative, and he he beat everybody to the punch,
and it would just when his story came forward, people
always judged everybody else's tail against what he had to say.
(25:34):
My dad had ownership, like the truth was his. He
owned the truth and it was not debatable. His air
of certainty definitely played a part in other people believing
in him, and why probably his his victims believed in
him and trusted him over their own voices. He exuded
(25:55):
confidence and certainty and and whatever he said was true
and you can rely upon it, and and you could
trust it. But not really. May I ask a question, Yes,
(26:19):
why is it that when Rose left Keith and took
the kids she went over to Lesser's house? What do
you mean? The story that I got was when she
left and untied the house, the first place she went
was Less's house. That is a direct quote from the
history that I was reading this morning, and I can
(26:40):
share that with you if you need me to. From
from Keith. Yeah, that's that's that's the story that I got.
It could I could be wrong, but that's the story
that that Al got. That's interesting that he would say
that I was there. That didn't happen. I was there
the day that they left. That would make sense that
my dad was shared that's story to shame my mother
(27:02):
and put her into that frame of light. Oh. I
actually remember play by play, a minute by minute of
that day that they separated, And there was not one
single time that we went over to my grandparents house.
A matter of fact, they were gone and there was
not anything that we cleaned down in that property because
we left in the four Topaz, which is just a
little family sedan. We didn't take a single item from
(27:23):
the house other than the clothes that we needed for
like a couple of days. Wow. So that is not
the story that I got from al from Keith. Yeah,
so that's interesting that he came up with this, this
new story, a new spin. So I happened. Well, I'm
glad I asked, because honestly, I I I bought the
(27:45):
stories that Keith gave out, you know, I mean, seem reasonable.
She left, she took everything, whether she went over to
the father's house. Some of this is fantasy. Some of
this is making Keith feel better about himself. So how
truthful was he without Now it's all right to lie,
it's all right too to be conniving and so forth.
(28:07):
You can. You can do that because you're an a dog.
You know you can do that. But when you're a kid,
you can't lie to your parents, you know, because you
know he called, you know you would call on us,
and I remember you comforting me after one particular phone
call where. Um, we were living on a street over here,
(28:27):
and um, he called and said he was suicidal because
of having paid child support. And then he because it
was such a burden for him. And it made me
upset because I felt blamed. He's blaming me for having
pay child support. But then it went another step further.
He said, um, you know I drove past the prison today,
(28:48):
the organ State prison. I just like chewed my horn
and said I'll be there soon, as we said in
the call. But I remember crying and going to my
room and you came after me. You're like, what's wrong, Wissa?
And I said, you know, Dodd said he's going to
kill himself. And you got so mad, You got so
bad you stormed out of my room. You called him
(29:11):
back up, and you said, you you still have a pitch.
I've heard you like. That was the first time I
ever saw you mad. You're like, because I really felt
the whole time he was playing on us. You know,
I got pitch child support, so you I separated in
and then he how did you find out? Didn't you
(29:32):
receive a letter from him? I received a letter maybe
a week before he got arrested. And in this letter
it said rose Um, what I did is bigger than all. J. Simpson.
He said, I'll probably be in hell forever. Keith, and
(29:53):
I thought you were so full of crap. I mean, like,
what this is supposed to mean? Right? Shreded? A piece
is through in the trash directly to you. It was
directly to me. And I didn't say anything about us kids.
It just was like I did something bigger than O. J. Simpson. Gentle,
(30:19):
don't you know God? A man? Gentle, don't know GODM
I like that A good poet. God? That's song? Right?
(30:42):
Is so? God sits back? Gents, O payple, Oh we was,
Oh Happy Faces. A production of how Stuff for X.
Executive producers or Melissa Moore, Lauren Bright, Pacheco, mangesh Ha
(31:04):
Ticketur and Will Pearson. 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 Chacogne. Special thanks
to Phil Stanford, the publishers of the Oregonian Newspaper, and
(31:25):
the Carlisle Family.
Happy Face Presents: Two Face News
Hosts And Creators
Melissa Moore
Lauren Bright Pacheco
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