David Parker Ray： The Sadistic 'Toy Box Killer' That Preyed On Women

David Parker Ray： The Sadistic 'Toy Box Killer' That Preyed On Women 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
They are the deadliest predators on the planet.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
This was somebody that was interested in inflicting pain, and
I was sure people had died there.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
No killer is as cold, cunning, or bloodthirsty.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Police think they may be the remains of fifteen victims
of yet another so called serial killer, and they may be.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Closer than you think.

Speaker 4 (00:28):
He's the guy who's blind you in the supermarket line.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
These killers don't hunt in search of food. They pursue
perverted fantasies.

Speaker 5 (00:36):
He became sexually aroused when he watched his grandmother kill
a chicken, and he wanted to replicate them.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
And they lust for power and control.

Speaker 6 (00:45):
The death is prolonged in such a way that every
excruciating pain that is imaginable is part thrilled.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
What creates these cold blooded monsters, what drives their warped psychees.

Speaker 7 (00:58):
There's the fusion of sexual thought with violence, and it
becomes sexually arousing to them.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Now rare recordings of the voices and visions of serial killers.

Speaker 8 (01:09):
And they got the hand on her and got a
nylon sock and start strangling.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Plunge us deep inside their complex and twisted minds. Serial
psyche March twenty second nineteen ninety nine, a terrified woman

(01:37):
runs down a country road. She's naked except for a
metal dog collar attached to a six foot change. The
young woman barges into a double wide trailer, screaming for help.
The homeowner calls nine one, one, yes.

Speaker 9 (02:00):
Long for a young lady that ran into the house,
saying she'd been raped. She's got a chain on her
and everything. Please send someone right away. This lady is
naked and everything else. She said, they've been holding her
for three days.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
And she told this amazing story. And this story was
that she had been abducted in Albuquerque, that she had
been chained up and kept in a sunken room in
this man's house, chained to a post.

Speaker 10 (02:26):
She had a bed, and she had a bucket for
a toilet.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
And she had been systematically raped and tortured over a
period of three days.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
The woman's name is Cynthia Viel. It's clear she has
looked into the eyes of pure evil. Cynthia directs police
to the home of David Parker Ray, and what they
find there leads them to one of history's most horrifying
series of crimes.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
So when the Sheriff's department responds into this house, they
discover everything is exactly supports what Cindy V. Hill's account
of events were.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
They find a room in disarray with clear signs of
a struggle. Rich Libiser is the lead case agent for
the New Mexico State Police.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
They soon went down one of the short hallways into
another room, which they thought was a bedroom, and discovered
all kinds of sado masochistic sexual devices, the likes of
which nobody had ever seen. That did not appear designed
for pleasure. They definitely appeared designed to inflict pain. They

(03:50):
had all been modified, Some had nails melted into the
plastic and bent.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Then police find a trailer next to the house, and
none of them are prepared for what they discover.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
So when you walk in the trailer, the first thing
you're going to see is the centerpiece, which is a
gynecological chair, black gynecological chair, and immediately suspended above it
is this rack of harnesses and pulleys and trusses, all

(04:27):
of which had manacles on them. On the walls adjacent
to it are devices that made the devices inside the
house look like kids toys. These were obviously painful kind
of implements. I mean, I've never seen anything like it.
This space was evil. This space was sinister and mean.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
David Parker Ray calls this one hundred thousand dollars soundproofed
torture chamber his toy box.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
As soon as I went into the trailer and saw
what was inside the utility trailer, I had two reactions.
First of all, I knew we were dealing with somebody
that was very, very accomplished.

Speaker 10 (05:13):
At this behavior. Whatever it was.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
They were obviously consumed by this. This was very important
to them, whatever was going on in this trailer. Second
of all, I was sure people had died there.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
David Parker Ray is a serial killer. This label places
him in the most heinous category of these offenders. He's
a psychopathic serial sexual sadist. Doctor Michael Stone and doctor
Gary Bruccato are experts on violent crime, including serial sexual homicide.

(05:55):
Together they authored the book The New Evil, Understanding the
Emergence of Modern Violent Crime.

Speaker 11 (06:01):
David Parker Ray, being an example of a charming man,
would go to bars and lure either prostitutes or other
women who would be willing to go with him for
a night of drinking, you know, to his house, only
to then end up an infamous toy box mobile home
that he converted into a torture chamber.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Cynthia V. Hill is a twenty one year old prostitute
and heroin addict. Ray knows her disappearance is unlikely to
arouse suspicion. He can take his time with his victim
and she will experience unspeakable torture.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
Hanging on the wall inside the utility room was a checklist,
and it was a how to handle a captured victim
and had check boxes next to it. But it was
an instruction manual how to deal with an abducted woman
who was being tortured.

Speaker 6 (06:58):
But before the torture became the woman might be drugged
and chained, hoisted the ceiling, and forced to listen to
an extremely long, droning tape of Ray describing in detail
all of the acts to which she was going to
be subjected.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Commander Vernon Gebreth is a world renowned homicide investigator. He
trains law enforcement on how to deal with these extreme killers.
Ray's introductory tape is a powerful element in his lectures
to police officers.

Speaker 12 (07:33):
This is more probably one of the most horrendous tapes
I've ever heard, and there's a few I've heard some
bad ones. I've heard of tapes of people being tortured,
it sexually tord you, but this one is terrible because
you have that psychopathic, monotone voice talking about what he's
going to do to this party, and it's outrageous, and

(07:58):
the tape describes what's going to happen to them. I'll
play a segment.

Speaker 13 (08:05):
Hello there, bitch, Are you comfortable right now? I doubt it.
Wrists and ankles, chained, gagged, probably blindfolded. You are disoriented
and scared too. I would imagine perfectly normal under the
circumstances for a little while. At least. You need to

(08:28):
get your together. It is very relevant to your situation.
I'm going to tell you in detail why you have
been kidnapped, what's going to happen to you, and how long.

Speaker 6 (08:40):
He'll be here.

Speaker 12 (08:44):
That is scary. Did you hear that voice? He recorded
that tape in July twenty third, nineteen ninety three. I
can't imagine how many women heard that tape before they
were tortured and or killed. It's horrible.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
Raised tape is carefully designed to induce maximum terror and
strip away any less shred of power, hope, or personal identity.
This is key in satisfying the sexual sadist.

Speaker 14 (09:15):
I think that's an interesting thing.

Speaker 12 (09:17):
This one piece will make fifty two layers.

Speaker 15 (09:21):
Watch on mobile devices or the big screen, all for free,
no subscription.

Speaker 16 (09:26):
Require.

Speaker 13 (09:30):
No.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
This is another part of that kind of meticulous behavior.
But he had crafted this kind of ominous welcome to
them just to put them in a psychological state of terror.
And I think that's a method of control. But it's
also I think because David enjoyed seeing fear and pain
in another person.

Speaker 11 (09:52):
Important element in sadistic man committing serial sexual homicide is
the reveling the joyfulness in causing intense pain and humiliation
to another human being.

Speaker 6 (10:07):
The torture of that individual becomes sometimes a means in
and of itself. The death is prolonged in such a
way that the end of every excruciating pain that is imaginable.

Speaker 10 (10:17):
Is part of the thrill.

Speaker 12 (10:18):
David Parker read didn't want to kill him. He wants
to cause them pain. It's the infliction of pain and
watching the victims suffer that was exciting for him.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
The tape offers insight into David Parker Ray's motives.

Speaker 13 (10:33):
In my case, I cannot get off with a girl
unless I heard her first. That's basically the reason I'm
into ragement slavery and the reason that you're going to
be subjected to a certain amount of pain. Actually that
pretty well covers it.

Speaker 12 (10:48):
Yes, instilling the fear, psychologically breaking them down, making them compliant.
And if you hear what he says is that he
is basically telling them if you a docile and you work,
when you go along with this, you may eventually be released.
So does that hope, does that piece of hope out
there that maybe I'll get out of this. What's going to.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Hurt for Ray? Prolonging the torture is critical if he.

Speaker 6 (11:15):
Had a knowledge of things like medical techniques where he
would bring a person close to the brink of death
and then revive them with medical equipment so that the
individual did not die during the act, as much as
they may have wished at the moment that they would
have died.

Speaker 13 (11:31):
Well, I believe I've told you about everything that I can.
I cannot predict the future. I can't predict changes of procedure,
and I can only give you advice. Be smart and
be a survivor. Don't ever scream, don't talk without permission,

(11:52):
be very quiet, be docile and obedient, and by all
means show proper respect. Have a nice day.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
David Parker raised crimes span more than forty years. He's
believed to have brutally tortured and killed more than fifty women.

Speaker 12 (12:15):
I mean, Investigatively speaking, i'd call them a human product.
Clinically speaking, I'd say he's a psychopathic sexual sadist. Theologically speaking,
i'd call them the devil on earth. It's like a ghost,
not looking for fame and glory or recognition. Something's slipping
through societal like a dark cloud.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
The most heinous breed of serial killers are identified as
psychopathic sexual sadists. For them, murder is not enough. These
monsters are addicted to rape and torture before they kill.
At the core of their evil is that they are psychopaths.
This is the diagnosis of ninety five percent of serial killers.

(13:00):
Doctor Brianna Fox is an expert on psychopaths, serial killers,
and violent offenders.

Speaker 17 (13:06):
A psychopath is somebody who is narcissistic, cold and callous.
They have very low empathy for others, and they're very
willing to break laws and norms to do exactly what
they want. This is somebody who doesn't have a lot
of emotion and who doesn't really feel bad when they
commit crimes or hurt others. All of that is very

(13:27):
characteristic of someone who's willing to commit crimes against other people,
including murder.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Certainly, not all psychopaths are criminals, but it's frequently a
trait of serial killers, and what makes them extraordinary is
just how ordinary they appear. David Parker Ray is a
master mechanic for the New Mexico State Parks Department.

Speaker 12 (13:52):
He was very clever if you think about it. Here
we use a state employee. I believe in nineteen ninety
five he got an Employee of the Year award. Okay,
because nobody knew what he was doing back in his
little compound. He's a reliable employee. We don't need to
supervise him. So he is a guy who's operating all
separately from everybody else, and on the service everything looks fine.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
Ray uses his psychopath's charm to convince victims to come
to his home, only to end up in his so
called toy box. One of Ray's favorite tricks is to
pose as a police officer. Investigators find authentic uniforms, gear,

(14:43):
and badges in his home. Cynthia V. Hill, the escapee
from the Toy Box, had been lured in by this deceit.

Speaker 18 (14:51):
One morning, I was walking to a restaurant and this
guy came up to me and told me that he
had asked for me. So I went over there, and
he acted like a cop and told me I was
under wrist and he put his handkus on me, and
he had me in his trailer and he joke me
to elk. He did a lot of sick stuff.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
B Hill quickly becomes one of David Parker Ray's sex slaves.
He is now her master. She's horrified to find out
that Ray has an accomplice. The Toy Box is also
ruled by a mistress. New Mexico State Police investigate the

(15:42):
home of fifty nine year old David Parker Ray, a
suspected sadistic serial killer. They find a sound proofd trailer
outfitted as a torture chamber. The tools they discover inside
the dungeon offer clear evidence of acts of unimaginable cruelty
and terrifying insight into the mind of a psychopathic serial

(16:05):
sexual sadis. But meanwhile, to his neighbors and co workers.
Ray is just a friendly, regular guy.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
When you spoke to David, the David that you got
was an intelligent, articulate, kind of wry sense of humor.
You never got the feeling when you were talking to
him that you were dealing with somebody that was inherently
evil or was capable of this kind of behavior. He
was excellent at shielding that part of himself from anybody.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
David Parker raised charm not only attracts victims. In a
shocking revelation, investigators discovered that he has convinced accomplices to
assist in his heinous acts, including his own daughter, Jesse raya.

Speaker 6 (16:53):
A daughter that lore woman to the toy Bucks, but
it was one incident where she bopped woman over the
head in a bar with a beer bottle after drugging her,
and they brought her home and she was tortured.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
Ray also has a live in girlfriend who becomes his
partner in crime for several years, named Cindy Hendy. Ray
is the dungeon master. Hendy is the mistress. Shockingly, Cindy
Hendy and Jesse Ray lure in victims, and Hendy also
participates in the torture of the young women.

Speaker 12 (17:31):
The fact that he incorporated a female accomplished. That's not
very common. Not many Serirah killers have a female accomplished
that actually participates in the sexual assault of another woman
while she was with him. She talks about doing eighteen
packages those are victims.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
During this time, Ray also persuades a friend of Jesse's
named Roy Yancey to join the group. Ray convinces Yancey
to murder one of their torture victims, Murray Parker, to
get They dump her body in the desert outside of
truth or consequences.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
David seem to have this ability to manipulate people, and
he would surround himself with people who were easily controlled
and easily manipulated, and who were much less intelligent than
he was. Is in a manner of speaking, he's brainwashing them.
He's providing them with the things they want. He's making

(18:28):
them feel good about themselves. He's filling a hole somehow
in their life, and out of gratitude for that or
whatever that is, or out of this idea that they
have this meaningful relationship with him, they'll basically do whatever
he wants them to do.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
After Cynthia V. Hill's escape and the discovery of the
toy box, David Parker, Ray, and Cindy Hendy are arrested.
Ray claims he was just helping the Hill detox from
her heroin addiction and all the rough said was consensual.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
That was David's whole story, that any sex that they
would have had during that time was consensual. She was
a prostitute. He would pay her for that. This was
his approach and he was very, very confident in this
kind of approach.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
Meanwhile, the state police and the FBI set up a
task force in nearby Truther Consequences, New Mexico. They are
convinced there must be more victims.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
So what we were interested in doing was trying to
kind of co locate David with known missing persons. So
if we could put David in the vicinity at the time.

Speaker 10 (19:40):
That a particular person was reported missing.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
We could make some kind of a connection there and
maybe follow that up as a lead and see if
we could develop any evidence. What we were able to
do was to show the possibility of upwards of ninety
to ninety five potential events missing person events, that David
Parker was in that vicinity at the time. We can
place him there at the time that person was reported missing.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
But Ray's victims are tough to track. Typically they are
prostitutes or runaways, young women who won't be missed. After
torturing and killing them, he cleverly hides the corpses in
the vast New Mexico desert or an Elephant Butte Lake
next to his home. Investigators can't find any bodies despite

(20:29):
finding Ray's hand drawn treasure map.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
This is Elephant Butte Lake, Elephant Butte Reservoir, and it's
forty two miles long. When we found the map that
had x's on it, for example, one X would be
up there what we call Kettle Top, the large plateau.

Speaker 10 (20:46):
Off in the distance, and then there would.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
Be other exes like over here by Rattlesnake Island, there
would be an ex down here in this part of
the lake which leads down to the Elephant Butte itself,
And we had dive missions in all of those places.
You kind of get an idea of the challenge you're facing.
Even in the best of conditions, it's very, very difficult
to locate something underwater.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
David Parker Ray has operated under the radar for decades.
The number of victims is unknown. He skillfully hides his
crimes and law enforcement doesn't even realize there is a
serial killer on the loose. But not all psychopathic serial
sexual sadists enjoy lurking in the shadows. Some crave the
media spotlight, like the brutal serial murderer known as Bind,

(21:35):
torture and kill. Law enforcement is searching for more victims
of one of history's most horrific and cunning serial killers,
David Parker Ray. They develop leads on a possible ninety
five victims that could have been abducted by the prolific murderer.

(22:00):
Ray has operated totally under the radar for over forty years.
But meanwhile, a different breed of sadistic serial killer is
on the loose, one who craves the spotlight. January fifteenth,
nineteen seventy four. It's a quiet morning in this Wichita neighborhood.

(22:24):
An armed invader cuts the phone line and forces his
way into this home. Joseph Atero, his wife Julie, their
nine year old son Joseph the Second, and eleven year
old daughter Josephine all hope this is only a robbery.
The Oteros are bound and strangled to death, and there

(22:46):
is clear evidence of sexual violence and torture. The young
girl is hung on a pipe in the basement. The
murderer masturbates on her lifeless body. The killer leaves no
concrete leads and the case goes cold. Then in October,

(23:07):
three suspects are taken into custody for the crime, and
suddenly a chilling letter arrives at the Wichita Eagle newspaper.
The letter declares, those three dudes you have in custody
are just talking to get publicity for the Utero murders.
They know nothing at all. I did it by myself

(23:30):
and with no one's head. Let's put it straight.

Speaker 12 (23:36):
This was his homicide. He wanted credit for that, so
he sends a letter to the press those three dudes
that you in custody did not do it. I did this,
And then he begins to articulate that only someone who
was at the crime scene would know the location and
position of each of the bodies.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
The writer signs the letter yours truly guiltily with a PostScript.

Speaker 12 (24:00):
He then concludes with the fact that he will continue
to kill and he wants to be called b t
K for bind, torture and kill, and from now on
when you hear from me, it will be b t K.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
The killer's real name is Dennis Rader. He's a church
going family man respected in the community. Rader brutally murders
at least ten people. The hunt to find him will
last over thirty years. Like David Parker Ray, he is
also a psychopathic serial sexual sadist, but Dennis Rader is

(24:37):
fueled by somewhat different desires. While David Parker Ray makes
every effort to hide his crimes, Dennis Rader lobbies for publicity.
Rader is thought to have been driven by narcissism. That
means he feels he possesses unique talents and believes he's
entitled to special treatment.

Speaker 12 (24:58):
When he's a milignant narcissist, he gets off on the
thrill that he's a threat, that he's somebody in real
life is nobody, but in this persona of the BTK,
he's somebody to be reckoned with, and that's what's driving him.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
Ray and Raider hunt for two different types of prey.
David Parker Ray's anonymous victims go missing completely, but Dennis
Rader targets ordinary citizens and then he poses the corpses
in provocative positions.

Speaker 12 (25:31):
These victims were everyday people, residents of Wichita, Kansas, and
basically he had literally terrorized the city of Wichita because
nobody knew where he would come in. People would come in,
the first thing he would do is they go to
their phone and pick it up the seff was dead.
That's how paranoid people became. Because in the newspapers reported
that he would cut the phone lines of each of

(25:52):
these victims houses, So that was one of his signatures.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
After three more murders, Raiders said, next letter, I'm asking
how many do I have to kill before I get
a name in the paper or some national attention. David
Parker Ray and Dennis Rader may be two different types
of sexual sadists, but at their core both are leth
of psychopaths. So the key questions that still puzzle experts

(26:23):
are how do people become psychopaths and then how do
they go on to be sadistic serial killers.

Speaker 6 (26:31):
It's very important to make a distinction between what we
would call primary and secondary psychopathy. It certainly understood that
the vast majority of serial killers are going to demonstrate
some degree of psychopathy, But when we talk about primary psychopathy,
we're referring to hereditary psychopathy, what we might call a
bad seed. Secondary psychopathy is where an individual is so

(26:52):
badly maltreated, neglected, abused that the individual looks an awful
lot like a person who from birth has this kind
of declivity, and it's sometimes difficult to tease them apart.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
Dennis Rader had a fairly normal upbringing without any evidence
of abuse, but he developed a fascination with torturing and
killing animals.

Speaker 5 (27:14):
If you look at his history, it would lead you
to believe that this was a kid that had some
issues when he was young. When he was a child,
he admitted that he became sexually roused when he watched
his grandmother kill a chicken, and he wanted to replicate
that children that do certain kinds of things, killing of animals,

(27:34):
those are kids that need watching, and those are kids
that you need to attend to. But that never happened
to Dennis Rader.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
It appears David Parker Ray did suffer a cruel childhood.
He grew up in an abusive, broken home. The socially
awkward child was bullied in school, and an adolescence developed
a fascination with drugs, pornography. Sato masochism and murder. Ray

(28:08):
claimed to have committed his first statistic attack when he
was a young teen, and he bragged about it in
his journal.

Speaker 12 (28:17):
Now you links copathy with sexual sadism, and what you
have is a human predator.

Speaker 6 (28:23):
Ray had a very peculiar split in his personality that
seems to have developed an adolescence where he was capable
of viewing a woman as a good object that he
could incorporate into his crimes, idealize a little bit, or
view her as garbage. There's an infamous incident in the
life of David Parker Ray where he told one of

(28:46):
the female captives that he did not kill if I
recall he turned her and he said, you know, if
I had known that you were such a good woman,
I wouldn't have thought of you as the type of
person that I would torture in the toy box.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
Another common trait of sadistic serial killers is their engagement
in paraphilia to find as abnormal sexual behaviors or impulses
that play out through intense and recurring sexual fantasies and urges.
The BTK strangler always strives to perfect his techniques. He

(29:22):
creates gruesome sketches and builds models of his fantasies.

Speaker 19 (29:27):
He used a ball to strengthen his fingers because you
have to keep your fingers very strong because it takes
a lot to strangle someone.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
Dennis Raider methodically scouts his victims and plans his attacks,
all while carrying on with his normal life.

Speaker 12 (29:47):
So in addition to being a church leader and a
government worker for the city, he also was a Boy
Scout leader and they would go on camping trips, and
he would use the camping trips as cover for him
to go out into a because his wife believed he
was on a camping trip.

Speaker 20 (30:04):
The kids were sleeping.

Speaker 12 (30:05):
He would leave the campsite, take a cab, go to
the location that he had presvailed, and attack his victim.

Speaker 1 (30:13):
This aspect of planning their crimes is one area where
Raider and Ray are alike.

Speaker 17 (30:19):
In the case of BTK Dennis Raider and David Parker Ray,
we see there's these tendencies to journal, to sketch things out,
to plan out their future crimes. And this is both
a way to relive the crimes that they committed in
the past to get pleasure out of it. Much like
we would look through a photo album of happy moments

(30:39):
from the past, or to plan out the future crimes.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
David Parker Ray even uses Barbie dolls in his planning.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
He had taken these dolls and perverted them and turned
them into kind of.

Speaker 10 (30:58):
An action figure or for S and M. I mean
they were naked.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
He had manufactured little devices to put on them, and
they were decorations in his utility trailer.

Speaker 6 (31:10):
What his disturbingly vivid diaries record is years of fantasies
of torture that were worsened by the fact that he
had an incredibly brilliant knack for creating devices, sort of
technical devices.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
Ray is a skilled mechanic and builder. At work, he
is known to be a pack rat, bringing home scrap
items to use on personal projects.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
So this is the headquarters for the State Park of Elephant,
but David was employed here. He was employed with state
Parks as a mechanic. If there were things that were
left over, a little bits and pieces that he could use,
he would pack those away. We found a garage filled
with it, just scrap and old tools and scrap metal,
and that's some of the material he would use to

(31:56):
create his devices.

Speaker 10 (31:58):
He had it readyply of it right here at work.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
For decades, Raider and Ray carried out their gruesome attacks,
Ray feeling he's invincible and can't be caught, while Rader
thinks he's smarter than the police and dares them to
stop him before he kills again. Sadistic serial killers are

(32:28):
the most brutal predators on the planet. David Parker Ray
and Dennis Rader are two of history's most horrific examples
of this kind of murderer. They both carry on their
monstrous acts for decades. Their crimes are similar, but their
motives and methods are very different. Often these crimes worsen

(32:54):
over time as the killers habituate to the experience and
need to intensify the sadistic act to get the thrill
they crave.

Speaker 17 (33:03):
There are times where a sexually citistic killer will jump
immediately into serial killing, and in those cases we tend
to see where there's a slight escalation in the severity
of their crimes. But more often we see it where
they keep trophies of their offenses and that helps them
to relive the fantasy to keep that high going that

(33:23):
they had, and also the premeditation of their next crime.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
Dennis Raider exhibits a rare behavior for a serial murderer.
He is able to completely stop killing for long stretches
of time. He takes five victims in nineteen seventy four,
two in nineteen seventy seven, then one a year in
nineteen eighty five, nineteen eighty six and nineteen ninety one.

(33:52):
His last correspondence with the press is received in nineteen
eighty eight. Commander Vernon Gebreth Is brought in as a
consultant on both the RAY and BTK cases.

Speaker 12 (34:04):
So he remained dormant if you think about it, from
nineteen eighty eight to two thousand and four. Nobody heard
anything about him. Now, the old ad caveat in cases
like this is that the serial killers either in jail
or has died. Well, guess what, BTK just rewrote the book.
It changed all the rules. He actually remained dormant all

(34:26):
these years, And how did he do that?

Speaker 1 (34:33):
Dennis Raider statues away trophies taken from his victims and
uses them to play twisted autoerotic games. He engages in
self bondage and takes selfies.

Speaker 12 (34:45):
So Dennis Raider in some instances would actually wear the
clothing of the victim. Or dressed like the victim and
put a mask over his face. Okay, and put himself
in the same position as the victims he had killed,
and he was to relieve himself sexually like that.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
In one photo, he digs a shallow grave and wraps
himself in plastic and wears a frightening mask. In another,
he suspends himself upside down from the trees, all keeping
the memories of his victims alive, fulfilling his fantasies, and
allowing him to stop killing. By two thousand and four,

(35:24):
the case goes cold. It's assumed BTK is in jail
or dead.

Speaker 12 (35:30):
Two thousand and four, he announces dead. He's back and
why is he making that announcement Because The Wichita Eagle
had a special front page edition thirty year anniversary of
the BTK killing, which basically set him out again to
come forth.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Over the next twelve months, BTK sends eleven communications confirming
his role in several earlier murders, with gruesome photos and
victims driver's licenses and ID badges. One chilling letter confirms
Btk's new intentions.

Speaker 12 (36:09):
This letter was more intense. It was scary because he
ends up with a threat I have spotted a spoiled
latchkey kit, just have to work out the details. I
think four of Winter would be just about right for
the hit. So now he's doing he's putting the authorities
on alert that he is now about to strike. He's
identified as possible victim, and this is putting a whole

(36:29):
new spin on it. It's a pressure on the authorities
is unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
Now in Wichita, thirty years after BTK first appears, a
long dormant horror is about to rear its head once again.
David Parker Ray the Toy Box Killer, and Dennis Raider,
the BTK Strangler, are two of the most evil serial

(36:57):
killers in the Annals of Crime. Both remain on the
loose for decades. After three days of torture, Cynthia V.
Hill manages to escape while David is out. She's able
to overcome Cindy Hendy and get free. Finally, Ray's reign
of terror comes to an end. Police find incriminating evidence

(37:23):
at the crime scene, but the few victims that survived
were so heavily drugged and brainwashed that their testimony is
not considered credible. Investigators hunt for definitive evidence of murder.
They continue to scour the desert and the lake for bodies,

(37:44):
but they still come up empty. In the courtroom, the
judge rules against playing Ray's introductory audiotape, and in the
first trial there's a hung jury. Prosecutors cannot let this
monster go free, so they retry the case. Still they
can't convict Ray of murder without a body, but this

(38:07):
time the tape is played for the jury, and finally,
in two thousand and one, he is convicted for kidnapping
and torture and is sentenced to two hundred and twenty
four years in prison.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
David showed zero remorse for anything. It wasn't that he
didn't understand the ramifications of what he's doing.

Speaker 10 (38:27):
He just didn't care.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
His daughter, Jesse Ray cooperates with the prosecution and only
receives probation. Cindy Hendy is sentenced to thirty six years.
She is released on probation in twenty nineteen after serving
half her sentence. Roy Yancey also cooperates and agrees to
take police to the site of Marie Parker's body, but

(38:51):
the body isn't there.

Speaker 12 (38:55):
He realized that more than he knew where that body was.
He went back, dug that body up and put us
someplace else. Very smart, very clever, very evil. So when
Roy Yancey, who was arrested, admitted to what he had done,
he actually brought the authorities out there, this is where
the body was, but the body wasn't there anymore.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
Roy Yancey is sentenced to twenty two years for the
murder of Marie Parker. David Parker Ray is sent to prison,
but just eight months later he dies of a heart attack.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
So he dies eight months into a sentence at a
prison facility in Hobbes, New Mexico.

Speaker 10 (39:42):
And it was it was frustrating for us because.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
That ended any possibility we had, or the best possibility
we had, of being able to take something to the
families of his victims and say here's what happened. These
people are still at home with pictures of their daughters
somewhere in that house, and that daughter is dead. She's gone,

(40:12):
and we couldn't do anything about that. That is what
was the frustration with David's death for all of us.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
By two thousand and four, three decades after Dennis Rader's
first murder, the case had been declared cold. But then
the letters and other correspondents flood into Wichita media outlets.
The BTK strangler's ego and narcissism are his downfall. Eventually,
the police trick him into sending a floppy disk to

(40:42):
the newspaper. Officers are able to trace the computer files
to a desktop machine located at Christ Lutheran Church in Wichita.
Quickly they identify the source. Dennis Raider, president of the
Congregation Council BTK, is finally stopped. In btk's shocking courtroom confession,

(41:17):
he describes his methods of trolling then stalking his victims coldly.
He refers to his targets as projects, like Catherine Bright,
his sixth victim.

Speaker 8 (41:29):
I had many what I called him projects. There were
different people in the town that I followed watch Kaptain
Bryant was one of the next targets. Of anyway, that's
just basically a selection process, work regarded. If it didn't work,
I just moved on to something else.

Speaker 12 (41:44):
That part of the plea agreement was that he had
to admit to each of these cases in front of
the families of the victims, which he did, and when
he articulated that, it was almost like he was reading
a laundry list, no emotion. No emotion you talked about well,
I realized they saw me, so I had to put

(42:04):
them down. That's an expression used for animal control, putting
them down. That's what he said. I how to put
them down, just like that.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
The psychopath's lack of sympathy is clearly evident through btk's
forty five minute statement.

Speaker 8 (42:21):
I strangled with a bell that took the belt off
and retied them with anny hose real tight and at
that time masturbated.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
Certain In August two thousand and five, sixty year old
Dennis Rader receives ten consecutive life sentences. Sadistic serial killers
may carry no remorse or sympathy for their prey, but
concern for the victims and their families must never be ignored.

Speaker 6 (42:46):
I think that when we talk about serial killing, mass killings,
pre killing, and you know, we become interested in understanding
how people can do these things and so forth, fascinated,
horrified sometimes simultaneously. What I have found often gets lost
is the fact that what we're talking about are crimes

(43:07):
that involved real human beings.

Speaker 17 (43:12):
Given the fact that so many victims of serial killers
are females.

Speaker 20 (43:17):
And they're younger women.

Speaker 17 (43:19):
I find it really difficult to dissociate from that when
I see these crime scene photos, when I read about
what had happened to these women, Oftentimes I think that
could have been me, or that woman looks like me,
And it's really difficult to not feel the pain, to
feel the fear that they must have felt when they
were about to go through these horrible experiences. And I

(43:40):
just want to be able to prevent this type of
thing from happening in the future.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
I think the right way to present these kinds of
cases is to see if there's something to learn from them.
I would like to see, whether it's David or BTK
or anything else, a presentation of how does somebody evolve
into this, how does that happen? And is there anything
that can be done to prevent it? Because by doing so,

(44:07):
you're literally saving somebody's life somewhere. You don't know them,
but they have a family, they're important in their world,
and they don't deserve to die the way these women die.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
What motivates a serial killer? For some, it's sheer hatred
against humankind.

Speaker 11 (44:31):
He was punishing those who have the good force and
be raised in a warm, loving home.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
Some of these murderers seek revenge for an abusive childhood.

Speaker 4 (44:41):
They're destroying them out of a need for vengeance.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
And then there are others who just simply love to kill.

Speaker 16 (44:52):
Israel Keys killed because he enjoyed it. You got a
journaline rush from it. You love the thrill of it.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
What creates these cold blooded monsters? What drives their work? Psyche?
Now the actual voices and visions of serial killers.

Speaker 20 (45:12):
Once I started, you know, there was nothing else.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
Like Plunge, just deep inside their complex and twisted minds.

(45:39):
February first, twenty twelve. It's a cold winter's night in Anchorage.
A heinous crime is about to be committed. Eighteen year
old Samantha Konig is working alone at the common Ground's
coffee hut a.

Speaker 20 (45:56):
Little bit before closing time.

Speaker 16 (45:58):
That night, A tall man in a dark coat walked
up to the window and he ordered an Americano coffee.
And he stood there and watched as Samantha turned around
and made it. When she turned back around, he had
pulled a gun on her.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
Shocked, den surprised, Samantha raises her hands as if being
held up.

Speaker 16 (46:19):
He tells her it's a robbery. She kind of steps
back surprised. He then ends up coming in through the window,
climbs in through the window, and ties her up with
some zip ties, and then forces her at gunpoint out
of the coffee stand and walks her back to his car.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
The abductor's name is Israel Keys. He is a serial
killer responsible for a steady string of brutal murders for
more than a dozen years.

Speaker 16 (46:49):
Keys didn't have a real victim profile. He was pretty
unusual for serial killers.

Speaker 20 (46:54):
He didn't have a.

Speaker 16 (46:55):
Certain race, or a certain age, or certain sex that
he targeted.

Speaker 20 (46:59):
Was much more random.

Speaker 16 (47:01):
It's more opportunity crimes with him, just who happened to
be at the wrong place at the wrong time, And
for Samantha Konig, she was at the wrong place at
the wrong time.

Speaker 20 (47:13):
Keys had decided that he was.

Speaker 16 (47:14):
Going to rob this particular common grounds coffee shop. That's
originally what he planned on doing, just robbing it, but
when he got to it, when he saw Samantha, he
changed his mind and decided to take her.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
Keyes tries to keep his captive calm by telling her
it's only a kidnapping. He's going to hold her for ransom.
He takes Samantha conyg to the shed next to his
home and binds and gags her. Incredibly, his living girlfriend
and ten year old daughter are in the house just

(47:50):
several feet away.

Speaker 16 (47:53):
He took her into the shed, closed it up, tied
her up in there, left her in the shed. He
then actually got information from her and went to her
house where her truck was parked outside to get her wallet,
to get her ATM card and some other things. Came
back to the shed where she was still subdued, and

(48:13):
then that's when he raped her.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
Still Samantha praise, she will survive this horror. Hoping it's
only a kidnapping, she gives Keys her ATM pin number,
but she'd never had a chance. Once Keys made up
his mind. Back at the coffee hut, Keys strangles the
helpless young woman.

Speaker 16 (48:38):
Well, he enjoyed the thrill, the adrenaline rush of it.
He enjoyed having control over his victims. He enjoyed seeing
their fear. He raped his victims.

Speaker 20 (48:50):
We know that.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
Astoundingly. After the murder, Keys immediately returns to his normal life.

Speaker 16 (48:57):
So after he kills Samantha, he drank a glass of
wine calmly went back into the house where his daughter
was sleeping and his girlfriend was sleeping, and later on
that very morning, they all leave for a pre planned vacation.
They fly to Houston and then drive to New Orleans
for a cruise.

Speaker 1 (49:17):
For a one week cruise, Keys doesn't have time to
dispose of Samantha's body. Prior to the trip.

Speaker 16 (49:25):
Before leaving, he had put Samantha's body in a cabinet
in the shed, the thought being that it's so cold
in Anchorage in the middle of winter that her body
would be perfectly preserved there while he was gone.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Meanwhile, a frenzied hunt begins for Samantha. Her dad launches
a grassroots campaign to find his daughter. Upon returning home Israel,
Keys calmly checks back on Samantha's corpse.

Speaker 16 (49:57):
When he gets back, Samantha's body is frozen solid in
the cabinet.

Speaker 20 (50:01):
There is some difficult to getting it out. Actually, he takes.

Speaker 16 (50:04):
The body out, faws it out with heaters, has sex
with a corpse.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
Then, in a horrifying turn, Keys makes a successful ransom
demand by sending a photo of the young woman made
up to appear alive. He applies makeup so's her eyes
open with fishing line, and poses the body alongside an
addition of the Anchorage Daily News from four days earlier.

Speaker 20 (50:35):
And then ultimately ends up.

Speaker 16 (50:38):
Cutting her up into pieces, dismembering the body to get
rid of it, puts some body parts in trash bags
and hauls them to a lake, a frozen lake near Anchorage,
and cuts a hole in the ice, drops the bags
into the water, weighs them down and lets him sink
to the bottom of the lake.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
On March sixth, with her atm card in hand, Israel
Keys flies to Las Vegas and rents a car, and
a dramatic chase begins. At this point, police think they
are tracking a kidnapper. They have no reason to believe
he is a serial murderer. They have no clues to

(51:20):
his identity and no concept of the enormous depth of
his crimes. Keys is a thirty four year old psychopathic
serial killer, and like so many of these monsters, he's
able to commit these grisly crimes while still carrying on
a normal life.

Speaker 16 (51:39):
Somehow, he was able to just maintain this dual existence,
having these two separate identities, the one of the family man,
the devoted father, and the one as the killer.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
Detective Malcolm Rieman encountered these types of violent psychopaths for
over thirty years as a New York City Police Department
and homicide investigator. He specialized in sexual predator and serial
killer cases.

Speaker 4 (52:09):
People expect to see serial killers as being some type
of drooling, maniac, creepy, maniacal person, and it's not really
the case, And what you'll often find is they're charming, articulate, friendly,
normal people.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
The FBI defines psychopathy as a personality disorder manifested in
people who use a mixture of charm, manipulation, intimidation, and
sometimes violence to control others and satisfy their own selfish needs.
Psychopathic serial murderers have no empathy for their victims and

(52:51):
no remorse for their crimes, and sadly, they're surprisingly hard
to spot.

Speaker 16 (53:03):
Israel Keys had his own business. He had a construction business.
All his clients reported that he seemed very normal. He
seemed very friendly most of the time. He seemed nothing
unusual about him. The neighbors reported seemed to seem like
a normal, friendly guy from all appearances.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
But Israel Keys is far from normal. He sets out
from Las Vegas on a determined drive across the Southwest.
He heads through Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Along the way,
he stopped several times to withdraw ransom money from Samantha's
ATM account.

Speaker 16 (53:40):
When he made the withdrawal, there would be a ping
basically on the investigators system. They would know the cards
been used at this location, so they would rush to
the location. But of course, by the time they got there,
Keys was a long time. He was off in another
town somewhere else.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
Investigators still have no no idea who the kidnapper is,
what kind of car is driving, or if Samantha is
with him on his journey. Meanwhile, Samantha's disappearance has now
gained national attention, fueled by her father's relentless efforts to
save his daughter. Israel Keys is cleverly staying one step

(54:20):
ahead of law enforcement. But then the man known as
the most meticulous serial killer of the twenty first century
makes an uncharacteristic mistake and police uncovers shocking truths about
this heartless serial killer. Alaska's serial killer, Israel Keys abducts

(54:40):
eighteen year old Samantha Koenig and brutally rapes and murders
the young woman. He stashes her body in a cabinet
and calmly leaves on a family vacation. Upon his return,
he dismembers the corpse and drops the remains in a
frozen lake, but still convinces her father and the police

(55:03):
she's only been kidnapped. Now law enforcement is tracking Keys
through the southwest United States by the use of Samantha's
ATM card, hoping she is still alive. What's going on
inside the warped mind of this killer and what drives
him towards these heinous acts. Keys is energized by his

(55:26):
crime and craves more thrills well.

Speaker 20 (55:29):
In addition to using the ATM card.

Speaker 16 (55:31):
While he was in Texas, he's also decided he's going
to rob a bank. This is something he'd done before.
He'd robbed several banks before in the past. He found
a house in a small town in Texas to Ledo, Texas.
He broke into the house, burglarized it for what he could,
and then set it on fire. And the point is
setting it on fire was for diversion, So, in other words,

(55:53):
he planned on the fire drawing out the police from
the nearby town so that he could then go to
the town and rob the bank, which he did.

Speaker 20 (56:01):
And rob the bank in Lego, Texas.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
The anonymous murderer continues across the Southwest, but finally investigators
catch a break. It's an uncharacteristic slip up for a
killer whose precise planning has kept him under the radar
for many years. At one of his ATM withdrawals, the
security camera catches a glimpse of keys rental car. It's

(56:28):
a white twenty twelve Ford Focus.

Speaker 16 (56:35):
And it wasn't until they got the video of his
rental car that they had something concrete that could.

Speaker 20 (56:40):
Actually search for.

Speaker 16 (56:42):
So then the FBAI put out of a bolo beyond
the lookout for this twenty twelve white Ford Focus.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
On March thirteenth, a Texas Highway patrolman spots the White
Ford in the parking lot of a quality in motel
in Lufkin, Texas.

Speaker 16 (56:58):
He's got in the car, drove off, and they pulled
him over. In the car they found. In addition, obviously
to the strangeness of this driver having an Alaska driver's license,
they also found Samantha Koenig's cell phone.

Speaker 20 (57:12):
They found Samantha Konig's ATM.

Speaker 16 (57:14):
Card, a gun, cash with the inkstand on it from
robbery and they knew they had their guy.

Speaker 13 (57:32):
Before we ask any questions, you listen, understand your rights.

Speaker 20 (57:35):
You have the right to can be.

Speaker 21 (57:36):
A silent anything you say.

Speaker 20 (57:38):
Can you use the question report?

Speaker 13 (57:40):
Do you have the right to talk to a lawyer for.

Speaker 20 (57:42):
Advice before we ask you questions?

Speaker 16 (57:44):
Do you have the right to have with your joint question?

Speaker 22 (57:47):
If you cannot afford, a lawyer will be appointed for
you affording question.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
The Anchorage police and the FBI interrogate Keys, still having
no idea he may be involved in any other murders. Sadly,
on March thirty first, twenty twelve, he gives a gruesome
confession of Samantha Koenig's torture and murder, and then the
complex psychology of Israel Keys begins to unveil. He hints

(58:17):
that there are other victims, many other victims.

Speaker 23 (58:22):
There is no one who knows me, or who has
ever known me, who knows anything about me.

Speaker 12 (58:28):
Really.

Speaker 23 (58:29):
They know they're going to tell you something that does
not line up with anything I tell you, because I'm
two different people, basically, and the only person who knows
about what I'm telling you, the kind of things I'm
telling you is me.

Speaker 20 (58:44):
How long have you been too different people.

Speaker 23 (58:48):
A long time fourteen years.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
Over the next nine months, investigators attempt to piece together
other crimes. Keys, he may have committed more than forty
hours of complex interrogation and psychological maneuvering reveals a killer
with a shockingly precise method for serial murder.

Speaker 17 (59:15):
In the case of Israel Keys, even after he was arrested,
he still felt the need to try to control the situation,
control law enforcement, and make the situation as beneficial for himself,
despite the fact that he was apprehended as a serial killer. So,
for example, he was only willing to give very limited
information to police even though they had arrested him. So

(59:37):
he was willing to negotiate, but he had very specific
stipulations associated with all of the information he was willing
to give out, and he was only willing to give
out more once the stipulations were fulfilled.

Speaker 1 (59:50):
Investigators hope he'll cooperate and help bring closure to the
victims' families. While Keys often focuses on receiving coffees and cigar.

Speaker 23 (01:00:02):
First of all, do I get a cigar today?

Speaker 20 (01:00:06):
What I can do is I can give you something.
I'll get that cigar.

Speaker 23 (01:00:18):
There was a bank robbery in Tupper Lake.

Speaker 22 (01:00:26):
That was me, and I'm sure it was probably the
only bank robbery in that town for a while.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
So security cam photos confirm Key's account. The investigators and
Keys share a laugh about using real hair for his disguises.
Key's response is chilling.

Speaker 20 (01:00:50):
You use real hair. What do you buy real hair?
You don't have to buy real hair to get real hair?
Fair enough? I guess you just take it.

Speaker 16 (01:01:03):
Don't hairs free. Everything's free if you take it. He
wanted to have control. He seemed to enjoy toying with

(01:01:23):
the investigators as well. He would generally allude to certain
crimes without giving details or specifics, leaving the investigators wanting
more and more from him and kind of drawing them
along that way.

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
Interrogating these cunning serial killers can be very challenging for investigators.
Detectives call the interrogation room the box.

Speaker 4 (01:01:48):
When I'm in the interview room, when I'm in the
box with the serial killer. Before I go in there,
I want to know everything about that person. I want
to know every intricate detail about that person's life. I
want to know about the traumatic things that happened in childhood.
I want to know about previous crimes. I want to
know everything about them. I want them to feel transparent.

(01:02:10):
I want them to feel like there's nothing that they
can hide from me that either I know or I'm
going to find out.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
Experienced detectives learn how to read nonverbal cues and how
to manipulate the suspect to get the information they need.
Investigators notice that Israel Keys gets physically excited when he
talks about his skills, rapidly tapping his hands and feet
and jangling his shackles. It's a way detectives know when

(01:02:39):
he is telling the truth. With Israel Keys, this process
is extremely difficult. Keys agrees to continue to cooperate on
the condition that they keep his name out of the press.

Speaker 24 (01:02:57):
We can work out some sort of dream and give
you all the answers on these cases.

Speaker 20 (01:03:05):
Families get closure, You find his news.

Speaker 24 (01:03:10):
As many of them as possible, and and return for that.
You know, I you know, I don't plan on being
around a whole lot longer, But I've really been.

Speaker 20 (01:03:22):
Concerned to me, is.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
You know my kid's going to be around.

Speaker 16 (01:03:26):
I don't want her to.

Speaker 24 (01:03:27):
Like type my name in the computer or anything of
it pop up like you.

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
Know, he doesn't want his ten year old daughter to
hear about his grisly crimes.

Speaker 23 (01:03:37):
I'm not in this for glorious and i don't see
why the media has to get involved at all.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
FBI Special Agent Jolene Godin is part of the interrogation team.

Speaker 14 (01:03:51):
He wanted the death penalty, and he wanted it fast.
It was speaking generally, that was what he wanted. There
were little things along the way he wanted, you know,
he wanted evidence, return to family members and things like that,
But big picture, what he wanted. He wanted to avoid trials.
He wanted to avoid publicity and meeting. He wanted to
avoid being taken from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and tried in

(01:04:13):
multiple places. And ultimately he wanted the death penalty and
he wanted it quickly. He didn't want to sit in
jail for a long period of time.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
Investigators tell Keys he won't get the death penalty without
other victims. He slowly begins to reveal information about others
he murdered. They learned that Keys has been alluding capture
through brilliant planning. He has studied the serial killers of
the past and idolizes Ted Bundy, but they're shocked to

(01:04:44):
discover that there's never been any serial killer quite like
Israel Keys. The FBI and the Anchorage, Alaska Police Department
are deep into the interrogation of serial killer Israel Keys
has already confessed to one heinous murder, but now investigators
are unraveling horrifying layers of complex and unspeakable crimes.

Speaker 20 (01:05:10):
So Key's view the entire country as his hunting grounds.

Speaker 16 (01:05:13):
So what he would do is, even though he was
based out of Alaska, Okay, out of Anchorage, he would
fly to another city Okay, say, for example, he fighted
to Chicago, Okay.

Speaker 20 (01:05:22):
Once he got there to Chicago, he would rent a car.
He'd then drive that.

Speaker 16 (01:05:25):
Car to a different state or through multiple states, putting
on hundreds even thousands of miles before he got to
where he actually committed the crime. So the crime was
committed thousands of thousands of miles away, multiple jurisdictions, so
made it very difficult to try to track him or
come up with any sort of suspect in the crimes.

Speaker 14 (01:05:44):
Everything was meticulously planned, and our interviews with him were
the same from his standpoint. I mean, he I never
got the sense that he accidentally told us something or
got anger and riled up, and then something flew out
of his mouth. He My sense was that he knew
every time he came in kind of what he was
going to give us that day.

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
In the chilling interview, Keys talks about his inspiration and
his motives.

Speaker 20 (01:06:11):
Other people like that.

Speaker 22 (01:06:13):
I probably know every single serial killer that's ever been
written about is.

Speaker 20 (01:06:17):
Kind of a hobby on I don't.

Speaker 22 (01:06:19):
Really consider myself all that different and all that special from.

Speaker 20 (01:06:23):
Hundreds of thousands of other people.

Speaker 22 (01:06:25):
All you have to do is type in a word
search on any given porn site, and you know, there's
all kinds of people who have fantasies about rape and
bondage and.

Speaker 20 (01:06:37):
You know, kinds of things that I take to another level.

Speaker 23 (01:06:41):
I think with me, it's a combination of things.

Speaker 22 (01:06:44):
It's not you know, it's not just about the sexual fantasies,
and it's not it's definitely not just about the money,
and it's not just.

Speaker 20 (01:06:53):
About the adrenaline. But it's all of those things together,
and that's what I get out of it.

Speaker 13 (01:06:58):
And once I.

Speaker 22 (01:07:01):
Started doing you know, once I did it, Once I started,
you know, and there was nothing else like it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
In his intricate planning. Keys even go so far as
to bury pre packed murder kits in at least five
states around America Israel.

Speaker 16 (01:07:19):
Keys put so much thought and preparation and planning into
his crimes. He would use what he called kill kits.
These were five gallon plastic buckets. He would then put
certain things in the buckets that he wanted to use
for his crimes. He would put guns in the buckets.
He would put ammunition in the buckets. He would put
zip ties in the buckets. He would put tape in

(01:07:39):
the buckets, flashlights, whatever he thought he would need. He'd
then seal up the bucket and bury it in the ground.
He did this in multiple states. He did it in
New York, did in Vermont, he did it in Washington,
he did in Alaska. Then he would return to these sites,
sometimes years later, and dig up the bucket, get the
items out, and then use them for the crime.

Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
He even included caustic chemicals like dreno and ly to
help dispose of the bodies. The kits allowed him to
travel without any weapons or tools to avoid security concerns
at airports. Keys referred to his kids as buried treasures.
Investigators find that Keys uses guns to control his victims,

(01:08:25):
but that's not how he likes to kill. Keys. Takes
investigators through the killing of Bill and Lorraine Courier in Essex, Vermont,
in June of twenty eleven, four thousand miles from Anchorage.
It's a typical stalk and kill murder for this ruthless predator.

Speaker 16 (01:08:49):
The couriers were chosen mostly at random, and I say
mostly at random because there was a little bit of
a criteria involved, not for the victims themselves, for their
carriers themselves, but for their home. He's had certain things
he was looking for that particular night. He wanted a
one story building. He wanted a home with an attached garage.

(01:09:09):
He wanted a home that it looked like there weren't
any children there. And unfortunately for the couriers, their home
fit the profile. To the tee, he called it a
blitzkrek attack.

Speaker 20 (01:09:20):
He broke in through the garage. No one could see him.

Speaker 16 (01:09:24):
He was attached garage, so he broke in the window
in the garage door, broke into the kitchen of the house,
immediately stormed into the keys bedroom and surprised them, subdued
them and took them away.

Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
But keys says he was unhappy it didn't go according
to his plan and he had to shoot Bill Currier.

Speaker 16 (01:09:43):
He typically liked to strangle his victims to death. It
was kind of a more personal murder, hands on literally
the killing. So in the case of Bill Currier as
the murder victim in Vermont, he was shot and killed,
which is very unusual for Keys to do, and the
reason why He's did it is Bill Career was not cooperating,
not following directions. Ultimately, there's the loss of control of

(01:10:06):
the situation. There was screaming and shouting and was not
following instructions, not following directions from Keys, and this.

Speaker 20 (01:10:15):
Loss of control anger Keys.

Speaker 16 (01:10:17):
It pissed him off and he reacted violently shot him
multiple times.

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
Keyes states he was disappointed because he had other plans
for Bill Caurrier.

Speaker 16 (01:10:29):
He never specified what the other plans were, but the
implied in that is that.

Speaker 20 (01:10:34):
There was definitely some sort of torture that was in mind.

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
This idea of power and control often runs through the
motives of many serial killers. For years, researchers have tried
to identify and categorize what creates and drives these monsters.
Israel Keys fits in The categories of seeking power and control,
as well as the sheer thrill, love, killing, sex, and

(01:11:03):
torture are also common elements of serial murders, but these
components are not always involved.

Speaker 4 (01:11:09):
I see really two basic types that I've dealt with,
and the first type being a sexual predator hunter who's
going out and hunting down victims, seeking them out and
deriving some type of sexual pleasure in victimizing them. And
then you have another type of serial killer who's exacting

(01:11:32):
some type of revenge. It's a revenge killer. They're getting
revenge from rejection, alienation, perceived slights against a group of people,
and they're destroying them out of a need for vengeance.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
Keys seems to fit into the sexual predator hunter category,
while another brutal serial killer from the Ukraine falls into
the revenge category. Anatoly Onoprienko, took the lives of at
least fifty two innocent victims. A twelve gage shotgun was

(01:12:10):
his weapon of choice.

Speaker 11 (01:12:12):
Serial killer who was not oriented or sexual homicide so
much as just plain misanthropic killing one person after the
other would be of this fellow, On Aprianco from the Ukraine.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
On Aprienco's grisly crime scenes appear to express pathological rage
against families, a hatred spawned by his own troubled childhood.
When on Aprienco was just four years old, his mother died.
His older brother stayed on with his father, but Anatoly
was placed in an orphanage. Apparently this abandonment fuels his

(01:12:52):
homicidal rage.

Speaker 11 (01:12:54):
He developed a hatred for how he was raised and
for mankind in general. He would often invade a house
in this small town places and kill all the people
in the house, sometimes several older months, and then burn
the house down in order to further get back at

(01:13:14):
the people who had the advantage of living in a
nice home, which he never could do, so that he
was punishing those who had the good fortune to be
raised in a warm, loving home.

Speaker 1 (01:13:26):
Many serial killers claim they are on some kind of mission,
driven by psychotic visions or voices.

Speaker 25 (01:13:35):
To commit such crimes. You have to be given the right,
But I can't prove who gave me the right. Maybe
God gave me the right. How can I prove it when,
for example, there are six billion people on earth who
claim to have seen God, but they can't prove it.
But maybe I've seen God maybe I've received a concrete
task from him, but I can't prove it well.

Speaker 7 (01:13:54):
Psychosis is more of a breaker's reality. The person I
have used reality in a significantly different way than persons
around them. They may have delusions, which are beliefs that
have no basis in reality. They may experience voices that
no one else arounds them hears. They may see things

(01:14:16):
that no one else around them sees. They may be
actually very disorganized in their thought. There's a clear break
with reality. They generally they're seen as mental yield.

Speaker 1 (01:14:28):
Serial killers sometimes fake psychosis in order to escape the
death penalty on a Preenco try to use insanity as
his defense, but the courts felt he was faking his
mental illness and he was sentenced to death.

Speaker 7 (01:14:44):
There's no one course that makes an individual turn into
or becoming criminals. There's only one individual path. There's different
things you want to look at, and that one is
the family dynamics. The relationship is with the family, the
mother the father of the relationship. The mother and the
father have themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:15:01):
Some experts believe Key's unconventional childhood played a role in
fueling his desire to kill Israel. Keys grew up in
a remote forest outside the small town of Colville, Washington.
He was one of nine children. His family belonged to

(01:15:21):
a strict religious group called the ark, a church associated
with racist and antisemitic theology. He was homeschooled and had
little chance to socialize with other kids. He insists he
wasn't abused or neglected as a child, but could the
extreme isolation in his childhood be what transformed him into

(01:15:45):
a monster. Serial killer Israel Keys has operated completely under
the radar for decades. His precise planning has allowed him
to murder an untold number of victims without leaving a
hint of a trail. Now investigators are interrogating the killer
to attempt to determine the depth of his crimes and

(01:16:05):
the motives behind is depravity. It seems a strange childhood
may have played a role. Keys grew up in the
isolated woods outside of the small town of Colville, Washington.
He enjoyed hunting and once remarked he would kill anything
with a heartbeat, since I.

Speaker 21 (01:16:26):
Was fortunate that there were paints that I thought were
normal and that we're okay, that nobody up when friends
came without, when there was a cat of ours that
was already getting into the trash, and they all went

(01:16:46):
and took a piece of polish and cord high up
through the tree and I shot it in the stomach.

Speaker 10 (01:16:58):
That was getting this last time anybody.

Speaker 20 (01:17:03):
Well, when he was young, when he was about nineteen.

Speaker 16 (01:17:08):
Or twenty, he's committed his first violent crime against another person.
He was watching a girl two being on a river
in an Oregon from the woods, and he decided that
he was going to taker and kill her. And he
took the girl, grabbed her when she was separated from

(01:17:29):
the people she was with.

Speaker 20 (01:17:30):
He grabbed her offtitude.

Speaker 16 (01:17:32):
Dragged her up, and raped her, but then decided to
let her go.

Speaker 1 (01:17:41):
Is it just a dreadful childhood that turns these people
into serial killers? They often asked. Question is whether it's
nature or nurture. Is it a result of their upbringing
or are they born to kill?

Speaker 7 (01:17:56):
That's a great question. I think that question is currently
hot debated, and it's something that it's been questioned now
over our two hundred and fifty years. Is someone born
a criminal? Is someone made a criminal?

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
Behavioral studies theorized that the serial killer's dysfunctional childhood may
lead to this A cold hearted lack of empathy.

Speaker 17 (01:18:18):
Most research that I've seen has suggested it's the interaction
between nature and nurture. It's the biological tendencies combined with
the right environment to allow them to act out on
those tendencies. If they have a predisposition to let's say,
be impulsive, or be unempathetic, or to commit crimes, parents

(01:18:39):
could help neutralize that. But if they have that tendency
and they have very bad parents, you can imagine that
that tendency could just run wild and be exacerbated.

Speaker 4 (01:18:49):
I think absolutely that there is something in eight. There
is something intrinsic, something that's within somebody to become a
serial killer. I think that that an environmental stimuli certainly
can trigger it, and there are certain traits that or

(01:19:10):
occurrences that will happen to somebody that may trigger it.
But the bottom line is it's going to be something
within them to make them that way.

Speaker 1 (01:19:19):
Israel Keys develops his love for killing very early in life,
and he continues honing his murderer's craft. Understanding Israel Key's
motives for killing presents a complex puzzle for law enforcement.
Another notorious serial murderer from Great Britain, displays a similar

(01:19:40):
psychopathic love of killing.

Speaker 3 (01:19:53):
We understand that the police called on the owners of
number one sixty three Melrose Avenue today because they own
two dogs, and those two dogs might have picked up
some of the bones from one ninety.

Speaker 26 (01:20:01):
Five Milrose Avenue and buried them in.

Speaker 10 (01:20:04):
Their back garden.

Speaker 3 (01:20:05):
Police described it tonight as only a cursory search and
said they will be checking other gardens in the street
as well.

Speaker 26 (01:20:11):
And I think it's right to say that we have
found a significant amount of human bones and also a
part of a jaw with teeth attached to it.

Speaker 1 (01:20:24):
Dennis Nilsen is one of Great Britain's most notorious serial killers,
claiming at least twelve young men as victims. Like keys,
his murders are motivated by the thrill of killing, but
Nilsen's crimes appear to be driven by a morbid fascination
with death and extreme loneliness. He would lure young male

(01:20:48):
victims back to his home, strangle them and plunge their
heads underwater to be certain they were dead. He'd sometimes
commit sex acts with his dead victims. Nielson and said
he saved the corpses for a while to keep him company,
but at.

Speaker 3 (01:21:04):
Least fifteen people paid the ultimate price for Dennis Neilson's hospitality.

Speaker 20 (01:21:09):
He killed them, he chopped up their.

Speaker 3 (01:21:11):
Bodies, and he then burned, boiled, or buried the pieces.

Speaker 15 (01:21:16):
Twelve of the sixteen murders happened at Nielsen's flat in
Melrose Avenue, North London. Each time he hid the body
under the floorboards. Nielsen was asked by police how many
bodies were under the floorboards at any one time. He replied,
I didn't do a stock check or anything. It's all
a bit of a jungle.

Speaker 1 (01:21:33):
Like Israel Keys, Nielsen shows no mental break with reality.
He displays clear and calculating thought. In nineteen eighty three,
after five years of killing, plumbing clogged with human remains
and the body parts found by the dogs lead to
Nielsen's capture. When asked about his motive for murder, Nielsen says, well,

(01:21:56):
enjoying it is as good a reason as any. In
nineteen ninety eight, after his troubled childhood, Israel Keys joins
the army.

Speaker 20 (01:22:08):
He starts to.

Speaker 1 (01:22:09):
Drink heavily and enjoys the company of prostitutes, but he
also learns more valuable skills to help him intensify his experiences.

Speaker 20 (01:22:19):
He's enlisted in the army when he was about twenty
years old.

Speaker 16 (01:22:23):
He was stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington, and so he
learned survival skills.

Speaker 20 (01:22:27):
During the army, he learned how to handle weapons in
the army. These sorts of skills that he would then
put the use for committing his crimes later on.

Speaker 1 (01:22:36):
It was during this time he meets Tammy Hawkins and
together they have a daughter. After the army, he lives
with Tammy and his daughter in the lush forests of
Washington's Olympic Peninsula, and it's thought that there he puts
his hunting skills to the test on human beings.

Speaker 16 (01:22:55):
So Keys would typically try to find areas that were
isolated part for one of his favorite areas to scout
to stock people.

Speaker 20 (01:23:05):
He would then wait for people to show up.

Speaker 16 (01:23:08):
He would follow them and would track them as necessary,
and then surprise them.

Speaker 1 (01:23:13):
It appears Keys murders four victims in the forests of
Washington State, often disposing of the bodies in remote mountain lakes.
His murders continue for more than fourteen years, and law
enforcement has no idea there's even a killer at large.

(01:23:34):
Then in February twenty twelve, Keyes kills Samantha Konik close
to home in Anchorage, Alaska, a rare impulsive decision for
this calculating murderer.

Speaker 16 (01:23:51):
So one of his rules, one of his primary rules,
was not to commit these crimes where he lived, and
with Samantha, he broke his own rule.

Speaker 1 (01:23:59):
This missed of temptation has now led to his downfall.
He's now under arrest and heading for trial in Anchorage.
The negotiations continue to try to get more information from
Israel Keys. Then suddenly, during a court appearance, he once
again shocks law enforcement.

Speaker 16 (01:24:19):
During one of the hearings in court for Keys, he
decided he was going to try to escape, and while
all the attorneys were up arguing before the judge, he
bolted tried.

Speaker 20 (01:24:31):
To run out of the courtroom, but before he get even.

Speaker 16 (01:24:34):
Clear the aisle there the courtroom, deputies tackled him and subdued.

Speaker 1 (01:24:39):
Him in typical fashion. Keys shows no remorse for his
escape attempt.

Speaker 20 (01:24:46):
I mean, come on, let's say, say, yeah, what happened yesterday?
Who I'm a bad guy?

Speaker 21 (01:24:49):
I tried to escape, But let's be honest, nobody really
thought it was a good guy before that.

Speaker 1 (01:24:56):
So months of interrogation. Israel Keys admits to killing at
least nine people, but investigators fear the actual total is higher.

Speaker 14 (01:25:09):
And he was very evasive at times during interviews, and
he told us when we tried to pin him down
on a number, he would say it was less than twelve.
But then there were things that he would say that
led us to believe that by less than twelve, he
simply meant eleven. And so he was quick to correct
us in interviews if we had something wrong. So there
were several times where we just throughout statements like you

(01:25:30):
were eleven victims or things like that, and he didn't
correct us. So based on that and so much additional
things that he said, we believe the number is eleven.

Speaker 16 (01:25:40):
He traveled so extensively, both in the US and in
other countries such long periods of time, long periods of
time that authorities haven't been able to pinpoint where he
was oftentimes, So the number of victims is going to
be much higher than eleven, in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (01:25:57):
Israel Keys begs the FBI for a quick death sentence,
but the agents continue to press for information on other victims.
Keys grows impatient with the process and decides to take
matters into his own hands.

Speaker 16 (01:26:13):
On December one, twenty twelve, while he was in prison
awaiting trial in the ConA case, He's slit his wrists
and also used his headsheet to strangle himself as insurance
to make sure he got the job done. So as
he bled out and as his body shifted relaxed from

(01:26:34):
the leading, he rigged the sheet so.

Speaker 20 (01:26:36):
That they would strangle him to make sure he did
the job. So he committed suicide while in prison.

Speaker 4 (01:26:42):
In many cases with serial killers, they started a very
young age, often starting in their teen years, and I
think historically they never stopped. The only way that the
serial killer stops historically is if they're incarcerated or they
kill themselves, which somewhat often that they do. Commit suicide.

Speaker 1 (01:27:05):
Crumpled inside the blanket on Key's deathbed is a bloodstained suicide. Note.
The case of Israel Keys reinforces the immense challenges facing
law enforcements in their efforts to apprehend serial killers.

Speaker 4 (01:27:21):
When you take a common murder case, you start at
the nucleus of that person's life, then you work your
way out from there. With a serial killer, they're often
just a random person, and that person does not even
figure into that investigation, and it's somebody who's completely off
the radar.

Speaker 20 (01:27:40):
How you're going to find them.

Speaker 4 (01:27:42):
You have to use modern technology and you have to
use old fashioned police work. You have to be absolutely relentless.
You just got to keep on plugging.

Speaker 16 (01:27:50):
Keys is really unique in the world of serial killers
and the amount of preparation and planning you put into
his crimes. Use so meticulous in his crimes, really a
new breed of serial killer. He was extremely deceptive, extremely cunning.
He got a journaline rush from it. You love the
thrill of it.

Speaker 20 (01:28:09):
If he hadn't been caught, Keys would still be out
there doing it today.

Speaker 16 (01:28:15):
As a serial killer and as an individual. Keys as
deceptive and cunning as the devil.