November 14, 2024 • 54 mins
If you have a tip, please call 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324)
Somewhere in the Pines is sponsored by Better Help and Hello Fresh
Hi Everyone,
This is part one of two episodes that we are releasing today. This episode talks about a new reconstruction of the Note left behind by Israel.
For image reference - please visit Somewhereinthepines.com/Caracol
Guest appearances:
Sarah Latshaw and Nina Waldman - https://lastknowncontact.com
Nic and the Captain of True Crime Garage - https://www.truecrimegarage.com
Julia Cowley of The Consult - https://www.truecrimeconsult.com
Including music "Light in the Basement" by John Hankse https://open.spotify.com/album/1dWT7FYt5uvw14Nky89rxm
And as always, a very special Thank you to our Patreon producers:
Heather Horton Whedon
Nicole Guzman
Lynnlie Tuschoff
Colleen Sullivan
Attar Mann
Stephanie Maksimow
Katelyn James
Kathy Nation
Brian Hanna
Trista
Ally
Pink
and
Dale Akstin
Researched, Written, Recorded, Edited, and Produced by Somewhere in the Pines
All audio containing Special Agent Ted Halla belongs to Somewhere in the Pines and may not be used without written consent.
This is a Studio BOTH/AND collaboration: www.somewhereinthepines.com / bothand.fyi For an ad-free experience: www.patreon.com/studiobothand
For early episodes and more: www.Patreon.com/somewhereinthepines
Resources:
The "suicide note" was provided by Sarah Latshaw and Nina Waldman
FBI Case File
Special Forces Caching Techniques Manual
Montage - CBSN LiveCBS NEWSNBC5 - WPTZKPTV
Music:
Note reading music - The Captain
Including music "Light in the Basement" by John Hankse https://open.spotify.com/album/1dWT7FYt5uvw14Nky89rxm
"part 2" by Dirt Jake Replicas
"Mend" by Dirt Jake Replicas
Backing Tracks: GarageBand Loops
Somewhere in the Pines is sponsored by Better Help and Hello Fresh
Hi Everyone,
This is part one of two episodes that we are releasing today. This episode talks about a new reconstruction of the Note left behind by Israel.
For image reference - please visit Somewhereinthepines.com/Caracol
Guest appearances:
Sarah Latshaw and Nina Waldman - https://lastknowncontact.com
Nic and the Captain of True Crime Garage - https://www.truecrimegarage.com
Julia Cowley of The Consult - https://www.truecrimeconsult.com
Including music "Light in the Basement" by John Hankse https://open.spotify.com/album/1dWT7FYt5uvw14Nky89rxm
And as always, a very special Thank you to our Patreon producers:
Heather Horton Whedon
Nicole Guzman
Lynnlie Tuschoff
Colleen Sullivan
Attar Mann
Stephanie Maksimow
Katelyn James
Kathy Nation
Brian Hanna
Trista
Ally
Pink
and
Dale Akstin
Researched, Written, Recorded, Edited, and Produced by Somewhere in the Pines
All audio containing Special Agent Ted Halla belongs to Somewhere in the Pines and may not be used without written consent.
This is a Studio BOTH/AND collaboration: www.somewhereinthepines.com / bothand.fyi For an ad-free experience: www.patreon.com/studiobothand
For early episodes and more: www.Patreon.com/somewhereinthepines
Resources:
The "suicide note" was provided by Sarah Latshaw and Nina Waldman
FBI Case File
Special Forces Caching Techniques Manual
Montage - CBSN LiveCBS NEWSNBC5 - WPTZKPTV
Music:
Note reading music - The Captain
Including music "Light in the Basement" by John Hankse https://open.spotify.com/album/1dWT7FYt5uvw14Nky89rxm
"part 2" by Dirt Jake Replicas
"Mend" by Dirt Jake Replicas
Backing Tracks: GarageBand Loops
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
This is a studio both and collaboration. Somewhere in the
Pines is a serial podcast containing adult content, including descriptions
of violence, sexual assault, and suicide. Listener discretion is strongly advised.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Thank you for joining us for the next episode in
the Kara Call series. As we dig into israel Keys
cell information, we look to other citizens, investigators, experts, and
new friends to help guide our way.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Welcome to Somewhere the Pines.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
How's it going, guys? Going well? How about yourself?
Speaker 5 (01:09):
Wonderful, wonderful, A little nervous. I'm not used to being
on these meetings as much as you guys are.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
We're still nervous too, don't worry.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
It's new to all of us.
Speaker 6 (01:20):
Then. Okay, yeah, hello, Hello, Okay, you guys just introduce yourself.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
So we so, Kevin, what we're hoping to do with
this is the next episode we're going to have. I
don't know if you've listened to the console podcast, but
they were are profilers that actually worked two of the cases,
Samantha Koenig's case and the career case, and they've already
gone through and done a full episode on the suicide
note and they we just feel that they did such
(01:48):
a great job that we asked to be able to
just present their episode, and we like to do a
lead in just kind of talking about, you know, what
you guys have done so far.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
Now I'm even more nervous.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Every time we have to do that. I'm just like,
oh my god, my name was my name?
Speaker 5 (02:02):
And yeah, exactly, I know my name. My name is
Sarah letcha And I've been researching the case for about
a year or so, so not actually that long, but
I've been into true crime for ages. It's kind of
one of those fascinations that is difficult to explain to people,
but you guys get it. But what I really find
(02:27):
fascinating about Israel Keesu's case is how much information there
is versus how much is public. Basically, so when you
look for information, you might find a few little quotes
here and there, but it's nowhere near the wealth of
information that we have in the FBI vault. And trying
(02:49):
to document all that and figure out fact versus myth
is something else. So I'm really enjoying that process. It's
totally got me looked.
Speaker 7 (03:00):
So my name is Nina Baltman, and I got into
this case between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty. I was
at home and I was like really sick for a
long time, so I was just like isolating at home
maybe for like a month, and then I just stumbled
upon the interviews on YouTube and I was just blown
(03:24):
away by like how like relatable he was, so like
how much he reminded me of like my brother, many
of my friends, myself kind of, but that he had
this other like totally horrible, like crazy sexual stay this
side and he actually went through it, so like, yeah,
that's why.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
That's how I.
Speaker 7 (03:43):
Got into it first and how I got interested in it,
and then I read the book by mare In Callahan
and then I found two Crime bullshit at some time.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
How did you guys meet and start working together?
Speaker 5 (03:57):
We met on Reddit. Yeah, Nina actually reached out to me.
I'm kind of one of those people who stays mainly
to myself, and Nina is very gifted at reaching out
to people, drawing them in. So I know I'm probably
embarrassing you, Nina, but there you are credit where credits?
(04:20):
Do you are awesome at that? So yes, she reached
out to me and we just clicked.
Speaker 7 (04:25):
Yeah, and it's good also because we have like Sarah
is so good with computers and doing all kinds of
organizing like things and this, and I'm not like good
with that at all. So we can also like Sarah
is able to do all those things, and you know,
and then we can discuss we're pretty much often on
the same page about like what we think about his psychology,
(04:48):
and like, of course they're open to being totally wrong also,
So then I'm mostly looking up to like look looking
up missing people in persons and trying to see like
if he can be placed about the same like place,
because he could be placed at all of the cases
(05:08):
we know of, so you know, he was it's able
to We were able to place him at close to
the couriers and also obviously Samantha Konik and also the
PA failed man. So I kind of believe that, you know,
we should be able to to place him, you know,
somewhat close to That's a.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Really good point because yeah, all the options that are available,
there actually is like evidence of him being in those spots.
So yeah, you're totally right that it should be able
to find evidence of him in other positions or close
to other victims, like that he didn't try hard to
hide where he was during those those times.
Speaker 7 (05:48):
No, he didn't because he wasn't thinking that, hey, I'll
get caught now, you know. And I don't think like personally,
I don't think that he like was in Internet contact
with anybody before, because I think he was smart enough
to realize that they check all suspicious internet communications. I
(06:08):
think the color coded the note was like really really good.
It totally made sense much much more that way.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Sarah and Nina reached out to us through social media.
They've been spending their free time studying and updating the
note that was discovered the morning Israel was found dead
in his cell, restructuring it and trying to identify some
of the words that were less legible because of sloppy
cursive handwriting and bloodstains. This is the same note that
we asked our new friends Nick and the Captain from
the independent podcast True Crime Garage to present in our
(06:38):
last episode. We will again play that presentation after we
discuss Sarah and Nina's process. You can listen along while
viewing their new color coded interpretation on their website. To
access this document, go to Somewhere on the Pines dot
com forward slash Kara call that cr col then scroll
down to the views suicide note button. Yeah, why don't
(06:59):
you tell us a little bit about what was the
process of going through and refining that note?
Speaker 5 (07:06):
Yeah? Absolutely. First of all, I have a question, do
we know which parts? Are all of the parts of
the note written in pen or pencil or some of each?
I wish that we would be able to look at
an actual color photograph, but obviously they don't want to
release that because it has blood on it. It's a
(07:28):
little distasteful. But do we know or do you guys
know rather because I don't.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Yeah, I don't know. That's a great question. Yeah, I
don't know. Have you ever heard that?
Speaker 4 (07:38):
I'm not sure. I looked at the like you say,
I looked at the black and white foot I mean,
and the photographs of the note almost looked like a
like a photo copy of a photograph. Yeah, like they're
so bad. Yeah, yeah, I don't know the answer to that.
That you write that down.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
It may be that it has to be pencil, because
I don't know if they're allowed to have pens in jail.
Is that is that?
Speaker 5 (08:04):
Well, they're not allowed to have razors in jail. But
he managed to find a way around that didn't either,
but I don't know. I was looking. It's kind of
weird because with this case, every time I look at something,
I find three or four new things that I never
noticed before. So I was looking for about the fiftieth
(08:26):
seventy fifth time or so at a suicide note. And
you can kind of see pen strokes, I think on
some of the letters, particularly on the the one where
he goes sideways at the margin that land of the free,
land of the lie that one American eyes, I can
kind of I think I can see pen strokes, but
(08:49):
it might just be the way that it's photocopied and
at the end of the other sheet of paper where
he's saying, open my trembling flower or your petals. Oh crush.
I'm sorry, that's just so cringey. But I wrote stuff
like that when I was a fourteen fifteen year old teenager.
Speaker 7 (09:11):
But yeah, you know, it's so intensity.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
Oh boy, yes, have you guys read intensity?
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Oh yeah, yes, oh much.
Speaker 7 (09:21):
So you know, it's like edge flood vessus, like the
the inspiration.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
You asked about the process of kind of deconstructing the
note and figuring out what it was that we think
that he was saying, and obviously it's open to interpretation.
He's the only one that actually knows and he's not talking.
So what I did was I was trying to figure out,
(09:50):
you know, it seemed to have random little rhymes in there,
and I thought that's odd because somebody described it as
what was it? They said, a rambling? I don't remember,
a weird creepy ode to murder, which basically, but I
thought it's a lot more structured than it looks at first. Yeah,
(10:11):
when you keep in mind that he was homeschooled, he
didn't know how poetry is written down usually, or song
lyrics or whatever it was he was trying for. But
he didn't put things in stanzas. They're not organized the
way that you would typically see lyricism of any sort,
(10:34):
and the meter is all off. He just doesn't quite
get it. But that's understandable. I mean, especially if you're
trying to write something all in story format, you just
can't really quite get that poem form. But when I
(10:54):
broke it down by the rhymes or the near rhymes,
it kind of took structure. But the structure was a
lot more complex, complex than I thought it would be.
It gets really complicated with the way that he constructs
his rhymes or kind of rhymes. Again, I mean, a
(11:14):
lot of them aren't exact rhymes, but they're very close.
And I don't know how you guys feel about this,
but I keep thinking that they're different letters. I mean,
I know they were found together with him, but the
first sheet and the second sheet they felt different a
(11:37):
bit to me, and I'm not certain if that's just
something that I'm creating or not. The Americanized one, I
thought that felt more like a song. I know that
I read that when read his note, she said it
kind of sounded like a song like lyrics, So I
(11:59):
mean that was kind of confirmation. I thought, oh, hey,
somebody else saw it too good. But the other one,
I think is more I don't know, edgey or I
don't know, but either way, when I was looking at
the structure, it didn't make sense that you had all
these words scribbled off to the side in the margin,
(12:22):
because why would you do that? Just flip the paper over.
Oh maybe you can't because you already wrote on the
other side. Okay, Well what if I flipped this paper over?
And then it made so much more sense to me.
So Nina has been really helpful in trying to figure
out what he meant. I know there are a lot
(12:46):
of things where I just I don't know, but we
both have. We learned cursive back in the day they
used to teach that, yeah, gold, and that's really helpful.
I like looking at old census records, so looking at
the strokes and trying to figure out what letters say what.
(13:06):
And you know, it's not for certain, but I think
we're close.
Speaker 7 (13:11):
Yeah, I think so do Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Yeah, it's it's interesting the I can definitely see the
two like the change in mood between the two sections,
but it also the way that you guys did it
with the color coding was very like similar to how
they'll break down like a rap song. Is that something?
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Yes, okay, yes.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
I'm glad you mentioned that. I haven't listened to rap
in a very long time, but there was this song.
Sometimes I rhyme slow. It's by nice and smooth, and
can't always say much for the lyrics. They're a little
bit off color maybe, but the style is really similar.
(13:50):
You have one character singing and then you have another
character singing, and it kind of switches voices, and that's
kind of what that's what I saw in the note
in the American Eyes one.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
That's interesting. Have you guys heard the Rage Against Machine
song from the Godzilla soundtrack?
Speaker 5 (14:07):
No, I want to.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
This is like early two thousand there. I just remembered
there is like a I think the chorus or maybe
like the bridge or something. They changed the word into
American Eyes as well. I didn't know if that was.
I haven't heard if he liked Rage against Machine. And
I can look up what the actual song title is
(14:31):
and send it to you guys, but I haven't gone
back to look to see if there's any connection between
the two. If it was just the theme, because the
theme is very similar to the first part, where it's
all about like trading in your history for a VCR,
just consumerism and everything like that. Yeah, okay, connection.
Speaker 7 (14:49):
It was obvious that there was also that he was
at least like inspired by intensity for that the part
about like the probably Samantha I think at at song,
but at least at some of the writings in the poem.
But yeah, so it would make sense so that he
(15:10):
could have well taken from the songline men. Yeah, yeah,
please send us that, Please send us which song is?
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Yes, I'd love.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
To see that. A quick note, the title of that
song is No Shelter by Raging against the Machine.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
I do know, well, he liked Red Hot Chili Peppers.
It's kind of a different style. But I don't know
about Insane clown Policy. I've never heard anything of theirs.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
I heard.
Speaker 7 (15:36):
I actually like some of their songs. Yeah, I like
that in my room song I listened to rap by
the Wise Do So.
Speaker 5 (15:45):
Yeah, you'd be the best one to ask about that then,
But it did feel kind of hip hop to me.
I'm not certain if if that kind of rings true
with you or not, but it just kind of felt
like hip.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Hop kind of. Yeah, it sounds to me a little
bit like that, kind of like rage where it's like
this hip hop rock mixture. Yeah, like the late nineties.
Speaker 7 (16:13):
Yeah, that was kind of a he listened to it,
wasn't he like? Well, kind of like black metal, like
just like high rock gund also also like some rap
probably also so.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:28):
Yeah, and there there are a lot of parallels between
the different types of music. It's really rare that you're
going to find something that's a perfect example of one
sort of music without another. Right, you can't have country
without rockabilly without rock and roll, without blues without you know,
it's it's very interesting the way they're all connected. I'm
(16:49):
not certainly what he listened to most of the time,
just the symbolism in the in the note, I feel
kind of like it was I don't almost plagiarized. I
feel like you should have said special thanks to Dean
Coots for.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Yeah, it's really funny. You're totally right. It's the fiftieth
time you read it that it jumps out to you
it's true. And it changes as you you know, learn
the case more and you just see things differently as
things progress. It's really fascinating.
Speaker 6 (17:27):
Absolutely.
Speaker 7 (17:28):
I always call the interviews like the gift that keeps giving,
because there's always like new things that you know is
there's always like you're like, oh, I didn't notice that before,
Like oh he said.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
We did a quick write up on some of our
ideas about the suicide note, and that's available on that website.
It's kind of interesting. I think it's easier to understand.
I think the rhyming pattern and the structure if you
see it because we have you know, again, they are
different colors and if you say, oh, well, it's on
(18:03):
the twelfth line about halfway through the that doesn't really
mean anything. Oh it's red on the screen. Oh oh okay, yeah,
the red word. Why didn't you just tell me that?
It makes more sense to me that way?
Speaker 7 (18:14):
And yeah, and I think the name as forty four
and forty five is also like really well like because
you know, Sarah used to be like he's still a
freelance writer, so she's so good at writing, So you know,
I think the name is forty it's ex like how
it came about and what it actually is is so
well explained.
Speaker 6 (18:35):
Like thank you.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
Yeah, I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Yeah, and that's on the website as well, the name.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
Yeah excellent.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
And yes, I am a freelance writer when I can
find work. I'm looking, okay, I'm a looking.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
You said that you kind of thought through after assembling
the suicide note this way that is there one like
maybe one or two things you think stands out?
Speaker 5 (19:02):
Yeah, yes, out to me is that it's way way
way more structured and nuanced.
Speaker 7 (19:12):
Yes, it's actually much better than like people give it
credit for. I understand that people want to say it's
so shitty and everything's so horrible and gross, because of
what he's done. But it's actually like much better than
you know it for it seems at first when you
read it.
Speaker 5 (19:28):
Yeah, I really believe. I mean, you know how he
said he was basically two different people. I believe that
there was a side to him that was actually a
very good dad. I believe he loved his daughter, and
he had this other side that m that wasn't a
(19:49):
good side.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (19:51):
I think the separation between the two was actually like
real like between the two sides of him, Yes, like
very very like. I think he even speaks differently when
he tells the story about what he did to Samantha,
and so he sounds like some kind of like like
teenage boy that goes like he sounds like, I don't know.
(20:13):
I think maybe he's the same way that drugs like
arrest your development. They used to like kind of stop
developing emotionally, And I think he might it might have
been something like that, that that addiction that when he
went through with that for like first killing, that he
kind of stopped in got stunted, his emotional development stopped
(20:34):
for that part of himself. Because it's so different, like
he the discuss I don't know how he say, but
discuss comments. They're so like if it takes time to
even comment on some world like matters like the Middle
East and all these kinds of things and seem to
(20:55):
actually like me and what he said there, and then
he has this other other, other like totally friend like
side that's like this absolutely like discussing like say, sadistick
like psychopath. So it must be like two really really different.
And I mean he lied like successfully to everybody in
(21:17):
his life. So even though he seems like a pretty
bad liar in the interviews, let's not forget that he
lied to everybody in his life like successfully.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
So yeah, that's super interesting. The stunted growth things We've
talked a lot about that after listening to the contents,
definitely yeah, super interesting. I don't know the comparison between
the discussed comments and his time in the army and
how that kind of is reflected in the suicide. Note
(21:49):
that seems like in the Army he kind of changed
his view and the views in America really seemed to
have soured enough. What I see in the suicide it
is a lot of this hatred towards Americans.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Yes, probably, yeah, but like I mean, if you look
at his timeline that his time in the military was
really his first introduction to the world.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
You know.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
For that he's extremely isolated.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
And so it makes sense that his viewpoints and his
reality would shift dramatically.
Speaker 7 (22:24):
Yeah, true, Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 8 (22:48):
Send the dying to wait for their death and the
comfort of retirement homes. Justify say it is for the best.
It's best for you, So they're fate. You'll not turn
a blind eye back to the screen. Soak in your
reality shows, stand in front of your mirror, and you
preen in a plastic castle you call home. Land of
(23:12):
the Free, Land of the Lye, Land of scheme, American eyes.
Consume what you don't need, stars you idolize, pursue what
you admit is a dream. Then it's American die. Get
in your big car so you can get to work
fast on roads made of dinosaur bones. Punch in on
(23:36):
the clock, and sit on your ass playing stupid ass
games on your phone. Paper on your wall says you
got smarts. The test that you took told you so,
but you would still crawl like the vermin you are.
Once your precious power grid's blown. Land of the Free,
Land of the Lye Land of the scheme, American eye eyes,
(24:01):
global overuse, as you over colonize. Where will you go,
you clever little worm? If you bleed your hosts dry
back in your ride, the night is still young. Street
lights push back the black and neat rose. Off to
the right, a graveyard appears, lines of stones, bodies molder below.
(24:24):
Turn away, quick, bob your head to the beat. As
straight through the stop sign you roll. Loaded truck with
lights off slams into your broadside, your flesh smashed as
metal explodes. You may have been free, You loved living
your life. Fate had its own scheme. Crushed like a bug.
(24:45):
You still die soon. Now you'll join those ranks of dead,
your ashes, the wind will soon blow. Family and friends
will shed a few tears. Pretend it's off to heavy,
you go, But the reality is you were just bones
and meat, and with your brain dyed, also your soul.
(25:08):
A nightmare you called a dream. While other cultures you despised,
attacked countries who didn't provoke. America believed the lie. Money
was your only scheme for it. You pumped the future dry.
And now you are the punchline, and you were the joke.
American died. Now that I have you held tight, I
(25:32):
will tell you a story. Speak soft in your ear
so you know that it's true. You are my love
at first sight, and though you are scared to be
near me. My words penetrate your thoughts. Now in an
intimate prelude. I look in your eyes. They were so dark,
warm and trusting, as though you had not a worry
(25:54):
or care. The more guileless the gaze, the better potential
to fill up those with your fear. You face framed
in dark curls like a portrait, the sun shone through
highlights of red. What color I wonder, and how straight
will it turn? Plastered back with the sweat of your dread,
(26:16):
your wet lips were a promise of a secret. Unspoke
nervous laugh as it burst like a pulse of blood
from your throat. There will be no more laughter here.
I feel your body tense up. My hand now on
your shoulder. Your eyes search away out of this small
(26:39):
dark room. Forget the lady called luck. She does not
abide near me, for her powers don't extend to those
who are doomed. You, precious pet, would that I could
keep you. Let you be the master of your own fate.
What I wonder would you willingly stoop to, knowing full
(27:00):
well what's at stake? My pretty captive butterfly, colorful wings
in my hands, smears? Could I somehow repaint them with
punishment and tears? Violent metamorphosis emerge, my dark mothed princess.
I would come often and worship on the altar of
your flesh. You shudder now with revulsion and try to
(27:23):
shrink far from me. I'll have you tied down and
begging to become my Stockholm sweetie. Okay, talk is over.
Words are placid and weak. Back it up with action
where it all comes off cheap. Watch close while I work. Now,
feel the electric shock of my touch. Open my trembling flower,
(27:44):
your petals, I'll crush. This is Nick and the Captain
from True Crime Garage and you are listening to somewhere
in the pines.
Speaker 6 (28:35):
So, Joshua and Dakota.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 6 (28:39):
Yeah, thanks for reaching out.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Yeah no, we absolutely love your show. I think it's
so awesome.
Speaker 6 (28:44):
Oh, thank you. It's a little rough around the edges,
but we're getting better. It's authentic, that's no doubt about it.
I'm like, it really is, you know, it's really the
work that we do. It's it's authentic and I like
that about it, but I also wish it could be
a little higher quality. Yeah, little baby Steps.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
This is Julia Cowley from the Consult and that sweet
guitar intro is their show's intro music by artist John Hansky.
More info in the show notes. The console features four
retired FBI profilers breaking down cases as they would if
they were on the clock. This is our first conversation.
We wanted to do a collaboration with Julia and her
team as we released the painting that Heather did of
(29:28):
Israel Cell. Her passion for this line of work is
ever present, and what we thought would be a quick
talk about scheduling turned into a lot more, especially once
we found out that she was from the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 6 (29:39):
Yeah, so I feel that Oregon is my home.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Yeah. Yeah, it's nice to have a reason to come
back too.
Speaker 6 (29:46):
Yeah. Yeah, well, my everybody's there. I'm the only one
that really left Oregon. I've never been back. I mean,
because you know, once I got into the FBI, just
never lived back there. Again. Husband's from the East Coast, originally,
so we just stayed out here. But yeah, how did
you get.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Into the fat or what made you pursue that?
Speaker 5 (30:08):
Well?
Speaker 6 (30:09):
I always read true crime, and it was the only
thing I ever true. I mean, I like sports that
was about it, sports and true crime. So I read
Helter Skelter. My mom was reading it. She told me
I was too young to read it, and when she
finished it, I read it. And all I ever wanted
(30:30):
to do was read true crime after that, so I
read all of Anne Rule's books, The Stranger Beside Me
and all that, and I knew I wanted to do
something in law enforcement and something involved in solving murders.
And then I became I decided a major in chemistry
and I became a forensic scientist. Cool, and that's where
(30:50):
I started because I didn't really want to be like
a police officer, and I just really you know, and
I thought, oh, forensics, that's what I went to do.
I want to go to crime scenes and I want
to process crime scenes. And so that's what I ended
up doing. I worked for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation
when I got out of school, which was I'd never
been to Tennessee before, but they gave me a job
(31:12):
and I made sixteen thousand dollars a year and I
started there and I loved it. I got great experience there.
They were an accredited agency, a really good laboratory, tons
of experience. And then I had a coworker who joined
the FBI, and a couple of years later he, I guess,
recruited me. They said you should really join the FBI.
(31:35):
And I by that point I had read some books
by John Douglas and criminal pro you know, criminal profiling
had become a big deal in Silence of the Lambs
had come out, and I'm like, that's what I.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Want to do.
Speaker 6 (31:50):
So that's how It's like all I ever wanted to do.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
That's awesome.
Speaker 6 (31:54):
That's how I got into it.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
That's so cool.
Speaker 6 (31:56):
And I was fortunate enough to do. I don't know how.
Speaker 7 (31:58):
I try.
Speaker 6 (31:59):
I always tell people, like, you know, there was a
whole along the way. Everybody's like, well, it's impossible. It's
you know, you can't just say I want to be
a profiler and you walk in and you become a profiler.
And of course it wasn't that easy. But you know,
I look back and I really can't believe my good
fortune like you know.
Speaker 7 (32:17):
But I did.
Speaker 6 (32:18):
I actually did it. But I just tell people I
just never really took no for an answer, and not
that I was, you know, difficult, but if somebody said no,
you can't do it that way, I just continued to
do it. I just didn't, you know, And I just
got very lucky. And I look back and I can't
believe I did it.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
I wasn't.
Speaker 6 (32:38):
I'm from Primeville, Oregon. All I tell you, I went
to a one star, one star high school, and I
wasn't like the smartest kid. I wasn't the best athlete.
I mean, I just was very determined and really loved
the field. I mean, I hate to say love of
true crime, but I guess my interests fascination the cases
(33:01):
and behavior and and and you know, basing that, you know,
basing the behavior on my forensic background and basing it
on science. And can we understand Okay, let's understand all
the forensic evidence, let's understand the crime scene. Let's understand
what happened between the offender and the victim before we
can start trying to make determinations about behavior.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
Right. Well, that's what that's what sets I mean, your
show apart from everything. In my opinion, is the scientific
basis that you start with is I mean, it's different
than any other listening to any other host, break any
case down, listening to you guys, do it I feel
like I'm actually learning something.
Speaker 6 (33:42):
You know, Yeah, thank you, well I do. I think
that's what people do. They want to try to assess
someone's behavior, but they don't really they don't understand or
don't have the facts of what really happened at the
crime scene. And what is you know, what is the
forensic evidence telling us actually happen. And if you misinterpret
that or you don't have a complete picture, and sometimes
(34:03):
you don't, then how do you interpret the behavior from that?
So it's like trying to make sure you have the
facts straight, make sure you understand the forensics, and and
then you know, of course, you know, my my background
being forensics, and my colleague Angela she also had a
strong background in forensics. She was also on the Evidence
(34:23):
Response team. And then Bob and Sue have really strong
investigative backgrounds, you know, working cold case homicides for you know,
portions of their career, so it's a good combination. And
then of course when there's an area that none of
us really understand. We go to other experts explain this
to us.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
That's what we do most of the time.
Speaker 6 (34:46):
Yeah, well that's that's good to do that you want to,
you know, you don't want to just want to understand it,
go to somebody who does it xactly understands it. So yeah,
but thank you. I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
I'm always surprised or I guess your show really helped
me understand how important victimology is. It's something I don't know,
I just couldn't really grasp it before then for some reason.
But like, yeah, like it just changed my mind, like
why it's more important, especially like now looking through like
israe key stuff because we're really just focused on trying
to find the cases. But it's yeah, it's it just
(35:22):
definitely helped me look at the entire case completely differently
and just from a completely different perspective. It's awesome.
Speaker 6 (35:28):
Yeah, yeah, it is. It's really important victimology. It can
inform a lot sometimes, you know, sometimes it's hard to do.
Like if you have a like a series like jody'angelis,
you're looking at collective victimology and he's you know, he's
another guy who kind of picked his victims, you know,
mostly based on the neighborhoods and homes he could get into.
He knew he could get into, so that was, you know,
(35:53):
that was part of his selection process. He didn't necessarily
have a specific I see that person, I'm going to
follow them. It was more casing than neighborhoods and finding
the homes and he felt comfortable and you know, his
he had a very specific hunting ground in terms of
the types of homes he would enter.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
So we I don't really know, I kind of just
want your opinion. So all of this we have been
lucky enough to sit down with specialized in tut Holla,
So we sat down with them once and then we
had another phone call with him as well, and the
response has been absolutely incredible. He's given us a lot
of information that we were not expecting. We thought we'd
(36:35):
just get kind of like the overview of the case.
Speaker 6 (36:37):
Surprised.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Yeah, no, it's too.
Speaker 6 (36:42):
I mean, that's I mean, the FBI never gives information, yeah,
calling him.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
The one thing he showed us is a photo of
Israel's cell. We'd ask to see what was written on
the wall in blood and so are you familiar with
I know you're familiar with with the Courier case and everything,
but did you actually work is your case as well
or just well, we.
Speaker 6 (37:10):
Worked on the Courier case and Samantha's case, so in
our perspective was coming at it at a time that
we did not know he was the offender, right and well,
actually that's not true, but by the time they arrested
him we knew because he said he also killed the couriers.
(37:32):
But you know, we were involved in Samantha's case when
she first went missing, so we did not know who
he was. We had no idea the two cases were connected.
We were as surprised as anybody when he admitted to
the couriers and had the details. It was shocking because
we had, you know, the three of us, Bob's You
(37:55):
and I had been in the original consultation and the couriers.
That was Bob's case. He was the lead profiler on that,
and then we were in all of the consults when
Samantha went missing, trying to help them, and then of
course once Israel started to communicate with the families, then
(38:17):
we were really involved in that part of it as well.
So to find out those were related we were very surprised.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Must shocking. Yeah, that's crazy. It was.
Speaker 6 (38:30):
I mean, you don't get shocked too much at BAU
because you see the worst of the worst, and you're
never surprised by what people do. But I think we
were just surprised that they were connected, just based on
the fact that geographically they almost couldn't be further apart
in the United States, and the victimology was very different.
(38:50):
Of course, when you you know, look at the behavior involved,
you see, yeah, there's similar behaviors involved. But even if
even if we were looking at similar behaviors but the
two different cases just geographically, we probably would not have said, oh, yeah,
these are connected. Of course, now twenty hindsight twenty twenty,
(39:11):
we see it and we see the kind of offender
he is, so you can't necessarily rule out a case
just because you know it's in a different part of
the country. And so, yeah, it was. It was just
absolutely shocking.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
That's crazy.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
Yeah, did did the victimology throw you off? Yes as well, Yeah.
Speaker 6 (39:33):
It did, you know, but now now you know, like
we sort of know how he selected victims, and I
guess we get really wrapped up a lot of times,
even at a bau knowing better that. You know, serial
killers aren't always selecting the exact type of victim every
single time. Most of them have an ideal victim. But
(39:58):
you know, I think with Ted Bund and everyone thought, well,
he's just picking all the same types of long brown
hair parted down the middle. Of course, that was the
style at the time, so everyone sort of thought, well,
serial killers just have a one specick type that they're
going to kill, and they're all going to be the same.
But we know that that's not true. But the fact
(40:20):
that these victimologies were so vastly different in terms of
you have a couple and they're approach I'm gonna say,
approaching middle age. I don't want to put myself in
that they're approaching middle you know, they're older. And of
course you have Samantha obviously, and then of course that
(40:41):
was a home invasion versus a kidnapping out of a
place of employment kiosk. So it yeah, it was it's
through us. But you know, now we know that he
he's just he's a very He was a very you know,
he had a diverse selection process and that's who he was.
(41:03):
So now we know that about him and we know,
like going forward, just you can't necessarily rule out a
common offender if you have different victimologies. I mean, that's
just a lesson you just you know, it just reiterated
that to us. Don't rule something out just because victimologies
are different, Right, that's crazy, Yeah, it really is. But
(41:28):
I mean he continues to fascinate. I think a lot
of it has to do with this idea that he's
you know, bearing burying the kill kits, and anyone could
be in danger anywhere in the country at any specific time.
He just happens to be passing through and I think
that makes him stand.
Speaker 4 (41:49):
Out mm hm.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Yes, terrifying person, terrifying.
Speaker 6 (41:54):
Him, yes, very much.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
So. Yeah, something we go just back and forth with,
over and over. I know that some people agree, some
people disagreed. Do you think that? And this isn't what
we called to talk about, but since we have you on,
might as well ask do you think that his victims
were as random as he says? Or do you think
(42:17):
that like for the couriers, for instance, do you think
that they were targeted?
Speaker 6 (42:22):
I think I think they're fairly random. I mean he
certainly had a selection process with them. I mean he
you know, looked at the house. He assessed a low
risk house to go into. We didn't think there were
children in there. I mean, this is what he says,
(42:43):
and I think that that probably is true. But I
don't think they were selected because of who they were
as opposed to that they just were at a risk level.
He was comfortable with the FAU That makes sense. Yeah,
they just fit a criteria and you know, it could
(43:06):
have been someone else down the street. I don't necessarily
think that he saw them and that was it. That
they were very specific. I think it was. It was
probably so somewhere in between being very random, but he
had a selection process in place. A lot of the
selection process was not so much based on the characteristics
(43:30):
of the victims, but the characteristics of like their lifestyle
and their habits and the risk that it would pose
to him versus, oh, I desire that specific victim. You know,
That's how I think he selected them more so so
that makes it seem more random. But in some ways
(43:51):
he had, you know, he still had his checklist.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
The information that Special Agent Holla gave us was they
showed us the footo of the cell and so have
you seen it already?
Speaker 6 (44:02):
You know, I think that I have, but it's been
a long time, so I just don't really recall that details.
Speaker 4 (44:10):
Yeah, and so after the meeting we kind of looked
at each other. We're like, are we allowed to even
release this? You know? And and so we've gotten back
in touch with him and asked him like, I know
you're not allowed to give us the photo, but are
we allowed to release the information? And he said absolutely,
that's oh right.
Speaker 5 (44:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (44:28):
If he says that and you do an artist interpretation,
I think as long, in my opinion, just to be ethical,
as long as you say this is a depiction, this is.
Speaker 4 (44:37):
Not right, And that's why we're.
Speaker 6 (44:39):
Obviously you will.
Speaker 4 (44:41):
Yeah, that's why we're having the painting done rather than
recreating it with like a staged photo, because we don't
want the photo to get out and people think that
that's the actual photo.
Speaker 6 (44:53):
It's like they did with Samantha's Pure exactly. That show
had her picture are on there saying it was hers,
and I'm like, that's.
Speaker 4 (45:02):
That's not her, that's not the picture.
Speaker 6 (45:04):
Yeah, yeah, but yeah, people think that.
Speaker 4 (45:07):
Yeah, and so that's exactly what we're trying to avoid.
That's why we're having the artist painted paint and interpretation
of it rather than a photograph.
Speaker 6 (45:14):
Yeah, as long as he says it's okay to release
the information, I don't see a problem with that, okay
at all. And of course if it's a painting, everyone's
going to know it's not really the cell.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
But yeah, the episode that you guys did on Israel's
suicide note was just we both think it was just
like top notch and we cannot replicate anything even close
to that. So yeah, no, it's it's awesome. We were
hoping to feed drop that on our show as like
(45:44):
part of an episode, just to continue to continue the
storyline with them, And then I don't know, you know,
if we give you maybe you will find no value
in the extra information. But if we give you the
extra information that was written on his soul wall, so
it's basically like one word and then a sentence of
like ten words in it written in blood. So we
(46:05):
didn't know if you guys wanted to expand on your
episode at all with the new information included with the
suicide note, if that is, if there's value there or not.
Speaker 6 (46:15):
Yeah, I guess it would depend on like what what's written.
And yeah, I mean I know I know most people
want to know, you know, is there are there more
people out there that he killed? Right? Yeah, So I
think that, I mean, if if that sheds light on
something like that, that would be helpful as well. But
if it doesn't, yeah, I mean, it's all I think
anyone finds anything about him interesting, you know, I don't
(46:39):
want to take away from what a dangerous person he was,
but he wasn't an was in no way an extraordinary person,
you know that That is what I want to make
sure it comes of what the message we sent. He
was dangerous and and oftentimes very insecure. Low life people
(47:05):
who don't really have any particular talents or anything to
offer the world at all can be the most dangerous people.
But he had nothing else really going for him. So
I mean, I think that that's what we try to
get across about him. He was not an extraordinary person
in any way, shape or form. Same with like jody'angelo.
(47:28):
I mean, what a completely average, below average person he
was in his life. And I just you know, he
just like got so inflated and it makes it just
makes me mad. I mean, but that's that's the thing
we always say, Like a lot of times people you
know that saying money is at the root of all evil,
(47:49):
but I think insecurity often is you know, people do
really bad things out of being insecure, and you know,
not caring about anybody but them solves.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
The episode you did on Joseph Dangelo, I thought it
was so interesting how you explained that really always coming
from like a place of insecurity, and how when he
had because the same thing that when he had the couples.
I was like, oh man, this guy is super confident
to go in and do something like that. So like
learn so much from that. And with Israel he talks
(48:23):
about two couples that he had and each time he
prematurely killed the mail before he said he was going
to his full plan was developed. And yeah, I'm just
like curious. I don't know, have you guys ever talked
about that or or.
Speaker 6 (48:40):
No, we haven't talked much outside of the cases that
we worked on that we knew specific details about. We
haven't really expanded I mean, the node itself, we didn't
even really analyze it at BAU. We ended we ended
up doing that just for the show. I mean that,
I mean just generally, we tend to be skeptical about
(49:04):
what guys like Israel Keys say, because there's a lot
of different factors going into it, and part of it
is he's a manipulator, he's deceitful, and you know, I
think one of the things that he said that resonated
with me at the time more than anything else was
when he said, these are my secrets, like these are
(49:27):
mine and I'm going to give them to you. I mean,
you know, that's this that tells me that the crimes
that he committed were so personal to him and he
was not going to give it up without some kind
of tangible benefit. And even then, I don't believe he
ever would have explained. And of course, you know, the
(49:47):
ultimate control was to kill himself, and that way we
never know the truth and he leaves things behind that
are create more mystery, and I think that was his tension.
But I just, you know, I just we don't put
a lot of weight until they can be corroborated into
(50:09):
what they you know, what they say, and it's it's
it is a little strange to me that he was
pretty specific about the couriers to the point where we
knew when they called us or when they were you know,
were calling around saying do you have a crime out here?
And it was he had not only just you know,
(50:30):
the crime itself and what had been released to the public,
but he had details and he didn't really do that
for he didn't give enough information about anybody else that
we could say for sure he did that. So that's
a little bit, you know, it makes me question how
many people maybe he really did kill? Yeah, yeah, just
(50:55):
because why why give all that information about the couriers
and not give anything else? I mean, and it just
could be his game. There could be a lot more
and he's like, well I just give him a little tidbit,
so they think I, you know, know that I have
something to offer. Yeah, and you know that could be
as well. We just don't know. He's so manipulative, you know. Yeah, Yeah,
(51:16):
but yeah, we could we could talk. We could talk
about the cell, the writings. We can weave that into
the note the skulls.
Speaker 3 (51:25):
There was a second note as well that was more
of a description of six victims in extremely graphic detail.
Speaker 6 (51:32):
We did not see that.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
Yeah, he's he said that he hopes it never gets
out that it was really really bad.
Speaker 6 (51:38):
But yeah, no, we didn't have that one.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
Yeah, we haven't haven't read it. Just didn't know if
you knew about the extra letters or if that was
something that wasn't discussed yet.
Speaker 6 (51:47):
But yeah, who when it had the details of the
other victims, that was a letter to family.
Speaker 9 (51:53):
No, it was more like a confession type letter. Yeah,
and it was interrupted. He said that he got to
six victims and then it looked like he was interrupted,
so he didn't complete the full document. And it sounds
like so we're gonna ask him next time if it
was the same time that they gathered the skulls written
(52:13):
in blood as well, to see if maybe that was
the same timing. But yeah, I'm kind of curious if
he was actually trying to decide at that point and
it was just stop before he had the chance to orwarded. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(52:40):
thanks for listening to this episode of Somewhere in the Pines.
We are releasing the Consolets episode called Profiling Israel Keys
Part three today in tandem with this drop where they
break down the note left behind by Keys. You can
show the console teams from Love and Find Them on
whatever podcast platform you use and listen to another two
episodes from them Profiling Keys, along with other major care
and crimes, and don't forget to tell Nick and the
(53:02):
Captain of True Crime Garage how much you appreciate them
taking on the task of presenting Israel's note. We also
want to thank everyone that has been contributing through Patreon,
telling their friends about the show and giving us a
five star rating that has allowed us to surpass two
hundred and fifty thousand downloads since we began releasing episodes
just four months ago. We truly appreciate your support, and
if you haven't signed up for Patreon yet, we want
(53:22):
to remind you that the funding you provide is what
will continue to help us search and continue investigating the
crimes of Israel Keys. As always, we want to give
a very special thank you to our Patreon producers for
their continued support. Heather Horton, Whedon, Nicole Guzman, Colleen Sullivan,
Linlie Tuschoff, otter Man, Kaylin James, Stephanie, Maximo, Kathy Nation, Pink,
(53:45):
Brian Hannah, Trista Ali and Dale Axton.
Speaker 3 (54:25):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 6 (54:26):
I'm really happy to meet both of you.
Speaker 4 (54:28):
Yeah, it's wonderful. Thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 6 (54:31):
Yeah, we can support each other in the Crazy True
Crime Podcast world,
This is a studio both and collaboration. Somewhere in the
Pines is a serial podcast containing adult content, including descriptions
of violence, sexual assault, and suicide. Listener discretion is strongly advised.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Thank you for joining us for the next episode in
the Kara Call series. As we dig into israel Keys
cell information, we look to other citizens, investigators, experts, and
new friends to help guide our way.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Welcome to Somewhere the Pines.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
How's it going, guys? Going well? How about yourself?
Speaker 5 (01:09):
Wonderful, wonderful, A little nervous. I'm not used to being
on these meetings as much as you guys are.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
We're still nervous too, don't worry.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
It's new to all of us.
Speaker 6 (01:20):
Then. Okay, yeah, hello, Hello, Okay, you guys just introduce yourself.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
So we so, Kevin, what we're hoping to do with
this is the next episode we're going to have. I
don't know if you've listened to the console podcast, but
they were are profilers that actually worked two of the cases,
Samantha Koenig's case and the career case, and they've already
gone through and done a full episode on the suicide
note and they we just feel that they did such
(01:48):
a great job that we asked to be able to
just present their episode, and we like to do a
lead in just kind of talking about, you know, what
you guys have done so far.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
Now I'm even more nervous.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Every time we have to do that. I'm just like,
oh my god, my name was my name?
Speaker 5 (02:02):
And yeah, exactly, I know my name. My name is
Sarah letcha And I've been researching the case for about
a year or so, so not actually that long, but
I've been into true crime for ages. It's kind of
one of those fascinations that is difficult to explain to people,
but you guys get it. But what I really find
(02:27):
fascinating about Israel Keesu's case is how much information there
is versus how much is public. Basically, so when you
look for information, you might find a few little quotes
here and there, but it's nowhere near the wealth of
information that we have in the FBI vault. And trying
(02:49):
to document all that and figure out fact versus myth
is something else. So I'm really enjoying that process. It's
totally got me looked.
Speaker 7 (03:00):
So my name is Nina Baltman, and I got into
this case between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty. I was
at home and I was like really sick for a
long time, so I was just like isolating at home
maybe for like a month, and then I just stumbled
upon the interviews on YouTube and I was just blown
(03:24):
away by like how like relatable he was, so like
how much he reminded me of like my brother, many
of my friends, myself kind of, but that he had
this other like totally horrible, like crazy sexual stay this
side and he actually went through it, so like, yeah,
that's why.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
That's how I.
Speaker 7 (03:43):
Got into it first and how I got interested in it,
and then I read the book by mare In Callahan
and then I found two Crime bullshit at some time.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
How did you guys meet and start working together?
Speaker 5 (03:57):
We met on Reddit. Yeah, Nina actually reached out to me.
I'm kind of one of those people who stays mainly
to myself, and Nina is very gifted at reaching out
to people, drawing them in. So I know I'm probably
embarrassing you, Nina, but there you are credit where credits?
(04:20):
Do you are awesome at that? So yes, she reached
out to me and we just clicked.
Speaker 7 (04:25):
Yeah, and it's good also because we have like Sarah
is so good with computers and doing all kinds of
organizing like things and this, and I'm not like good
with that at all. So we can also like Sarah
is able to do all those things, and you know,
and then we can discuss we're pretty much often on
the same page about like what we think about his psychology,
(04:48):
and like, of course they're open to being totally wrong also,
So then I'm mostly looking up to like look looking
up missing people in persons and trying to see like
if he can be placed about the same like place,
because he could be placed at all of the cases
(05:08):
we know of, so you know, he was it's able
to We were able to place him at close to
the couriers and also obviously Samantha Konik and also the
PA failed man. So I kind of believe that, you know,
we should be able to to place him, you know,
somewhat close to That's a.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Really good point because yeah, all the options that are available,
there actually is like evidence of him being in those spots.
So yeah, you're totally right that it should be able
to find evidence of him in other positions or close
to other victims, like that he didn't try hard to
hide where he was during those those times.
Speaker 7 (05:48):
No, he didn't because he wasn't thinking that, hey, I'll
get caught now, you know. And I don't think like personally,
I don't think that he like was in Internet contact
with anybody before, because I think he was smart enough
to realize that they check all suspicious internet communications. I
(06:08):
think the color coded the note was like really really good.
It totally made sense much much more that way.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Sarah and Nina reached out to us through social media.
They've been spending their free time studying and updating the
note that was discovered the morning Israel was found dead
in his cell, restructuring it and trying to identify some
of the words that were less legible because of sloppy
cursive handwriting and bloodstains. This is the same note that
we asked our new friends Nick and the Captain from
the independent podcast True Crime Garage to present in our
(06:38):
last episode. We will again play that presentation after we
discuss Sarah and Nina's process. You can listen along while
viewing their new color coded interpretation on their website. To
access this document, go to Somewhere on the Pines dot
com forward slash Kara call that cr col then scroll
down to the views suicide note button. Yeah, why don't
(06:59):
you tell us a little bit about what was the
process of going through and refining that note?
Speaker 5 (07:06):
Yeah? Absolutely. First of all, I have a question, do
we know which parts? Are all of the parts of
the note written in pen or pencil or some of each?
I wish that we would be able to look at
an actual color photograph, but obviously they don't want to
release that because it has blood on it. It's a
(07:28):
little distasteful. But do we know or do you guys
know rather because I don't.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Yeah, I don't know. That's a great question. Yeah, I
don't know. Have you ever heard that?
Speaker 4 (07:38):
I'm not sure. I looked at the like you say,
I looked at the black and white foot I mean,
and the photographs of the note almost looked like a
like a photo copy of a photograph. Yeah, like they're
so bad. Yeah, yeah, I don't know the answer to that.
That you write that down.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
It may be that it has to be pencil, because
I don't know if they're allowed to have pens in jail.
Is that is that?
Speaker 5 (08:04):
Well, they're not allowed to have razors in jail. But
he managed to find a way around that didn't either,
but I don't know. I was looking. It's kind of
weird because with this case, every time I look at something,
I find three or four new things that I never
noticed before. So I was looking for about the fiftieth
(08:26):
seventy fifth time or so at a suicide note. And
you can kind of see pen strokes, I think on
some of the letters, particularly on the the one where
he goes sideways at the margin that land of the free,
land of the lie that one American eyes, I can
kind of I think I can see pen strokes, but
(08:49):
it might just be the way that it's photocopied and
at the end of the other sheet of paper where
he's saying, open my trembling flower or your petals. Oh crush.
I'm sorry, that's just so cringey. But I wrote stuff
like that when I was a fourteen fifteen year old teenager.
Speaker 7 (09:11):
But yeah, you know, it's so intensity.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
Oh boy, yes, have you guys read intensity?
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Oh yeah, yes, oh much.
Speaker 7 (09:21):
So you know, it's like edge flood vessus, like the
the inspiration.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
You asked about the process of kind of deconstructing the
note and figuring out what it was that we think
that he was saying, and obviously it's open to interpretation.
He's the only one that actually knows and he's not talking.
So what I did was I was trying to figure out,
(09:50):
you know, it seemed to have random little rhymes in there,
and I thought that's odd because somebody described it as
what was it? They said, a rambling? I don't remember,
a weird creepy ode to murder, which basically, but I
thought it's a lot more structured than it looks at first. Yeah,
(10:11):
when you keep in mind that he was homeschooled, he
didn't know how poetry is written down usually, or song
lyrics or whatever it was he was trying for. But
he didn't put things in stanzas. They're not organized the
way that you would typically see lyricism of any sort,
(10:34):
and the meter is all off. He just doesn't quite
get it. But that's understandable. I mean, especially if you're
trying to write something all in story format, you just
can't really quite get that poem form. But when I
(10:54):
broke it down by the rhymes or the near rhymes,
it kind of took structure. But the structure was a
lot more complex, complex than I thought it would be.
It gets really complicated with the way that he constructs
his rhymes or kind of rhymes. Again, I mean, a
(11:14):
lot of them aren't exact rhymes, but they're very close.
And I don't know how you guys feel about this,
but I keep thinking that they're different letters. I mean,
I know they were found together with him, but the
first sheet and the second sheet they felt different a
(11:37):
bit to me, and I'm not certain if that's just
something that I'm creating or not. The Americanized one, I
thought that felt more like a song. I know that
I read that when read his note, she said it
kind of sounded like a song like lyrics, So I
(11:59):
mean that was kind of confirmation. I thought, oh, hey,
somebody else saw it too good. But the other one,
I think is more I don't know, edgey or I
don't know, but either way, when I was looking at
the structure, it didn't make sense that you had all
these words scribbled off to the side in the margin,
(12:22):
because why would you do that? Just flip the paper over.
Oh maybe you can't because you already wrote on the
other side. Okay, Well what if I flipped this paper over?
And then it made so much more sense to me.
So Nina has been really helpful in trying to figure
out what he meant. I know there are a lot
(12:46):
of things where I just I don't know, but we
both have. We learned cursive back in the day they
used to teach that, yeah, gold, and that's really helpful.
I like looking at old census records, so looking at
the strokes and trying to figure out what letters say what.
(13:06):
And you know, it's not for certain, but I think
we're close.
Speaker 7 (13:11):
Yeah, I think so do Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Yeah, it's it's interesting the I can definitely see the
two like the change in mood between the two sections,
but it also the way that you guys did it
with the color coding was very like similar to how
they'll break down like a rap song. Is that something?
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Yes, okay, yes.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
I'm glad you mentioned that. I haven't listened to rap
in a very long time, but there was this song.
Sometimes I rhyme slow. It's by nice and smooth, and
can't always say much for the lyrics. They're a little
bit off color maybe, but the style is really similar.
(13:50):
You have one character singing and then you have another
character singing, and it kind of switches voices, and that's
kind of what that's what I saw in the note
in the American Eyes one.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
That's interesting. Have you guys heard the Rage Against Machine
song from the Godzilla soundtrack?
Speaker 5 (14:07):
No, I want to.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
This is like early two thousand there. I just remembered
there is like a I think the chorus or maybe
like the bridge or something. They changed the word into
American Eyes as well. I didn't know if that was.
I haven't heard if he liked Rage against Machine. And
I can look up what the actual song title is
(14:31):
and send it to you guys, but I haven't gone
back to look to see if there's any connection between
the two. If it was just the theme, because the
theme is very similar to the first part, where it's
all about like trading in your history for a VCR,
just consumerism and everything like that. Yeah, okay, connection.
Speaker 7 (14:49):
It was obvious that there was also that he was
at least like inspired by intensity for that the part
about like the probably Samantha I think at at song,
but at least at some of the writings in the poem.
But yeah, so it would make sense so that he
(15:10):
could have well taken from the songline men. Yeah, yeah,
please send us that, Please send us which song is?
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Yes, I'd love.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
To see that. A quick note, the title of that
song is No Shelter by Raging against the Machine.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
I do know, well, he liked Red Hot Chili Peppers.
It's kind of a different style. But I don't know
about Insane clown Policy. I've never heard anything of theirs.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
I heard.
Speaker 7 (15:36):
I actually like some of their songs. Yeah, I like
that in my room song I listened to rap by
the Wise Do So.
Speaker 5 (15:45):
Yeah, you'd be the best one to ask about that then,
But it did feel kind of hip hop to me.
I'm not certain if if that kind of rings true
with you or not, but it just kind of felt
like hip.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Hop kind of. Yeah, it sounds to me a little
bit like that, kind of like rage where it's like
this hip hop rock mixture. Yeah, like the late nineties.
Speaker 7 (16:13):
Yeah, that was kind of a he listened to it,
wasn't he like? Well, kind of like black metal, like
just like high rock gund also also like some rap
probably also so.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:28):
Yeah, and there there are a lot of parallels between
the different types of music. It's really rare that you're
going to find something that's a perfect example of one
sort of music without another. Right, you can't have country
without rockabilly without rock and roll, without blues without you know,
it's it's very interesting the way they're all connected. I'm
(16:49):
not certainly what he listened to most of the time,
just the symbolism in the in the note, I feel
kind of like it was I don't almost plagiarized. I
feel like you should have said special thanks to Dean
Coots for.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Yeah, it's really funny. You're totally right. It's the fiftieth
time you read it that it jumps out to you
it's true. And it changes as you you know, learn
the case more and you just see things differently as
things progress. It's really fascinating.
Speaker 6 (17:27):
Absolutely.
Speaker 7 (17:28):
I always call the interviews like the gift that keeps giving,
because there's always like new things that you know is
there's always like you're like, oh, I didn't notice that before,
Like oh he said.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
We did a quick write up on some of our
ideas about the suicide note, and that's available on that website.
It's kind of interesting. I think it's easier to understand.
I think the rhyming pattern and the structure if you
see it because we have you know, again, they are
different colors and if you say, oh, well, it's on
(18:03):
the twelfth line about halfway through the that doesn't really
mean anything. Oh it's red on the screen. Oh oh okay, yeah,
the red word. Why didn't you just tell me that?
It makes more sense to me that way?
Speaker 7 (18:14):
And yeah, and I think the name as forty four
and forty five is also like really well like because
you know, Sarah used to be like he's still a
freelance writer, so she's so good at writing, So you know,
I think the name is forty it's ex like how
it came about and what it actually is is so
well explained.
Speaker 6 (18:35):
Like thank you.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
Yeah, I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Yeah, and that's on the website as well, the name.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
Yeah excellent.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
And yes, I am a freelance writer when I can
find work. I'm looking, okay, I'm a looking.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
You said that you kind of thought through after assembling
the suicide note this way that is there one like
maybe one or two things you think stands out?
Speaker 5 (19:02):
Yeah, yes, out to me is that it's way way
way more structured and nuanced.
Speaker 7 (19:12):
Yes, it's actually much better than like people give it
credit for. I understand that people want to say it's
so shitty and everything's so horrible and gross, because of
what he's done. But it's actually like much better than
you know it for it seems at first when you
read it.
Speaker 5 (19:28):
Yeah, I really believe. I mean, you know how he
said he was basically two different people. I believe that
there was a side to him that was actually a
very good dad. I believe he loved his daughter, and
he had this other side that m that wasn't a
(19:49):
good side.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (19:51):
I think the separation between the two was actually like
real like between the two sides of him, Yes, like
very very like. I think he even speaks differently when
he tells the story about what he did to Samantha,
and so he sounds like some kind of like like
teenage boy that goes like he sounds like, I don't know.
(20:13):
I think maybe he's the same way that drugs like
arrest your development. They used to like kind of stop
developing emotionally, And I think he might it might have
been something like that, that that addiction that when he
went through with that for like first killing, that he
kind of stopped in got stunted, his emotional development stopped
(20:34):
for that part of himself. Because it's so different, like
he the discuss I don't know how he say, but
discuss comments. They're so like if it takes time to
even comment on some world like matters like the Middle
East and all these kinds of things and seem to
(20:55):
actually like me and what he said there, and then
he has this other other, other like totally friend like
side that's like this absolutely like discussing like say, sadistick
like psychopath. So it must be like two really really different.
And I mean he lied like successfully to everybody in
(21:17):
his life. So even though he seems like a pretty
bad liar in the interviews, let's not forget that he
lied to everybody in his life like successfully.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
So yeah, that's super interesting. The stunted growth things We've
talked a lot about that after listening to the contents,
definitely yeah, super interesting. I don't know the comparison between
the discussed comments and his time in the army and
how that kind of is reflected in the suicide. Note
(21:49):
that seems like in the Army he kind of changed
his view and the views in America really seemed to
have soured enough. What I see in the suicide it
is a lot of this hatred towards Americans.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Yes, probably, yeah, but like I mean, if you look
at his timeline that his time in the military was
really his first introduction to the world.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
You know.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
For that he's extremely isolated.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
And so it makes sense that his viewpoints and his
reality would shift dramatically.
Speaker 7 (22:24):
Yeah, true, Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 8 (22:48):
Send the dying to wait for their death and the
comfort of retirement homes. Justify say it is for the best.
It's best for you, So they're fate. You'll not turn
a blind eye back to the screen. Soak in your
reality shows, stand in front of your mirror, and you
preen in a plastic castle you call home. Land of
(23:12):
the Free, Land of the Lye, Land of scheme, American eyes.
Consume what you don't need, stars you idolize, pursue what
you admit is a dream. Then it's American die. Get
in your big car so you can get to work
fast on roads made of dinosaur bones. Punch in on
(23:36):
the clock, and sit on your ass playing stupid ass
games on your phone. Paper on your wall says you
got smarts. The test that you took told you so,
but you would still crawl like the vermin you are.
Once your precious power grid's blown. Land of the Free,
Land of the Lye Land of the scheme, American eye eyes,
(24:01):
global overuse, as you over colonize. Where will you go,
you clever little worm? If you bleed your hosts dry
back in your ride, the night is still young. Street
lights push back the black and neat rose. Off to
the right, a graveyard appears, lines of stones, bodies molder below.
(24:24):
Turn away, quick, bob your head to the beat. As
straight through the stop sign you roll. Loaded truck with
lights off slams into your broadside, your flesh smashed as
metal explodes. You may have been free, You loved living
your life. Fate had its own scheme. Crushed like a bug.
(24:45):
You still die soon. Now you'll join those ranks of dead,
your ashes, the wind will soon blow. Family and friends
will shed a few tears. Pretend it's off to heavy,
you go, But the reality is you were just bones
and meat, and with your brain dyed, also your soul.
(25:08):
A nightmare you called a dream. While other cultures you despised,
attacked countries who didn't provoke. America believed the lie. Money
was your only scheme for it. You pumped the future dry.
And now you are the punchline, and you were the joke.
American died. Now that I have you held tight, I
(25:32):
will tell you a story. Speak soft in your ear
so you know that it's true. You are my love
at first sight, and though you are scared to be
near me. My words penetrate your thoughts. Now in an
intimate prelude. I look in your eyes. They were so dark,
warm and trusting, as though you had not a worry
(25:54):
or care. The more guileless the gaze, the better potential
to fill up those with your fear. You face framed
in dark curls like a portrait, the sun shone through
highlights of red. What color I wonder, and how straight
will it turn? Plastered back with the sweat of your dread,
(26:16):
your wet lips were a promise of a secret. Unspoke
nervous laugh as it burst like a pulse of blood
from your throat. There will be no more laughter here.
I feel your body tense up. My hand now on
your shoulder. Your eyes search away out of this small
(26:39):
dark room. Forget the lady called luck. She does not
abide near me, for her powers don't extend to those
who are doomed. You, precious pet, would that I could
keep you. Let you be the master of your own fate.
What I wonder would you willingly stoop to, knowing full
(27:00):
well what's at stake? My pretty captive butterfly, colorful wings
in my hands, smears? Could I somehow repaint them with
punishment and tears? Violent metamorphosis emerge, my dark mothed princess.
I would come often and worship on the altar of
your flesh. You shudder now with revulsion and try to
(27:23):
shrink far from me. I'll have you tied down and
begging to become my Stockholm sweetie. Okay, talk is over.
Words are placid and weak. Back it up with action
where it all comes off cheap. Watch close while I work. Now,
feel the electric shock of my touch. Open my trembling flower,
(27:44):
your petals, I'll crush. This is Nick and the Captain
from True Crime Garage and you are listening to somewhere
in the pines.
Speaker 6 (28:35):
So, Joshua and Dakota.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 6 (28:39):
Yeah, thanks for reaching out.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Yeah no, we absolutely love your show. I think it's
so awesome.
Speaker 6 (28:44):
Oh, thank you. It's a little rough around the edges,
but we're getting better. It's authentic, that's no doubt about it.
I'm like, it really is, you know, it's really the
work that we do. It's it's authentic and I like
that about it, but I also wish it could be
a little higher quality. Yeah, little baby Steps.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
This is Julia Cowley from the Consult and that sweet
guitar intro is their show's intro music by artist John Hansky.
More info in the show notes. The console features four
retired FBI profilers breaking down cases as they would if
they were on the clock. This is our first conversation.
We wanted to do a collaboration with Julia and her
team as we released the painting that Heather did of
(29:28):
Israel Cell. Her passion for this line of work is
ever present, and what we thought would be a quick
talk about scheduling turned into a lot more, especially once
we found out that she was from the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 6 (29:39):
Yeah, so I feel that Oregon is my home.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Yeah. Yeah, it's nice to have a reason to come
back too.
Speaker 6 (29:46):
Yeah. Yeah, well, my everybody's there. I'm the only one
that really left Oregon. I've never been back. I mean,
because you know, once I got into the FBI, just
never lived back there. Again. Husband's from the East Coast, originally,
so we just stayed out here. But yeah, how did
you get.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Into the fat or what made you pursue that?
Speaker 5 (30:08):
Well?
Speaker 6 (30:09):
I always read true crime, and it was the only
thing I ever true. I mean, I like sports that
was about it, sports and true crime. So I read
Helter Skelter. My mom was reading it. She told me
I was too young to read it, and when she
finished it, I read it. And all I ever wanted
(30:30):
to do was read true crime after that, so I
read all of Anne Rule's books, The Stranger Beside Me
and all that, and I knew I wanted to do
something in law enforcement and something involved in solving murders.
And then I became I decided a major in chemistry
and I became a forensic scientist. Cool, and that's where
(30:50):
I started because I didn't really want to be like
a police officer, and I just really you know, and
I thought, oh, forensics, that's what I went to do.
I want to go to crime scenes and I want
to process crime scenes. And so that's what I ended
up doing. I worked for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation
when I got out of school, which was I'd never
been to Tennessee before, but they gave me a job
(31:12):
and I made sixteen thousand dollars a year and I
started there and I loved it. I got great experience there.
They were an accredited agency, a really good laboratory, tons
of experience. And then I had a coworker who joined
the FBI, and a couple of years later he, I guess,
recruited me. They said you should really join the FBI.
(31:35):
And I by that point I had read some books
by John Douglas and criminal pro you know, criminal profiling
had become a big deal in Silence of the Lambs
had come out, and I'm like, that's what I.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Want to do.
Speaker 6 (31:50):
So that's how It's like all I ever wanted to do.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
That's awesome.
Speaker 6 (31:54):
That's how I got into it.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
That's so cool.
Speaker 6 (31:56):
And I was fortunate enough to do. I don't know how.
Speaker 7 (31:58):
I try.
Speaker 6 (31:59):
I always tell people, like, you know, there was a
whole along the way. Everybody's like, well, it's impossible. It's
you know, you can't just say I want to be
a profiler and you walk in and you become a profiler.
And of course it wasn't that easy. But you know,
I look back and I really can't believe my good
fortune like you know.
Speaker 7 (32:17):
But I did.
Speaker 6 (32:18):
I actually did it. But I just tell people I
just never really took no for an answer, and not
that I was, you know, difficult, but if somebody said no,
you can't do it that way, I just continued to
do it. I just didn't, you know, And I just
got very lucky. And I look back and I can't
believe I did it.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
I wasn't.
Speaker 6 (32:38):
I'm from Primeville, Oregon. All I tell you, I went
to a one star, one star high school, and I
wasn't like the smartest kid. I wasn't the best athlete.
I mean, I just was very determined and really loved
the field. I mean, I hate to say love of
true crime, but I guess my interests fascination the cases
(33:01):
and behavior and and and you know, basing that, you know,
basing the behavior on my forensic background and basing it
on science. And can we understand Okay, let's understand all
the forensic evidence, let's understand the crime scene. Let's understand
what happened between the offender and the victim before we
can start trying to make determinations about behavior.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
Right. Well, that's what that's what sets I mean, your
show apart from everything. In my opinion, is the scientific
basis that you start with is I mean, it's different
than any other listening to any other host, break any
case down, listening to you guys, do it I feel
like I'm actually learning something.
Speaker 6 (33:42):
You know, Yeah, thank you, well I do. I think
that's what people do. They want to try to assess
someone's behavior, but they don't really they don't understand or
don't have the facts of what really happened at the
crime scene. And what is you know, what is the
forensic evidence telling us actually happen. And if you misinterpret
that or you don't have a complete picture, and sometimes
(34:03):
you don't, then how do you interpret the behavior from that?
So it's like trying to make sure you have the
facts straight, make sure you understand the forensics, and and
then you know, of course, you know, my my background
being forensics, and my colleague Angela she also had a
strong background in forensics. She was also on the Evidence
(34:23):
Response team. And then Bob and Sue have really strong
investigative backgrounds, you know, working cold case homicides for you know,
portions of their career, so it's a good combination. And
then of course when there's an area that none of
us really understand. We go to other experts explain this
to us.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
That's what we do most of the time.
Speaker 6 (34:46):
Yeah, well that's that's good to do that you want to,
you know, you don't want to just want to understand it,
go to somebody who does it xactly understands it. So yeah,
but thank you. I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
I'm always surprised or I guess your show really helped
me understand how important victimology is. It's something I don't know,
I just couldn't really grasp it before then for some reason.
But like, yeah, like it just changed my mind, like
why it's more important, especially like now looking through like
israe key stuff because we're really just focused on trying
to find the cases. But it's yeah, it's it just
(35:22):
definitely helped me look at the entire case completely differently
and just from a completely different perspective. It's awesome.
Speaker 6 (35:28):
Yeah, yeah, it is. It's really important victimology. It can
inform a lot sometimes, you know, sometimes it's hard to do.
Like if you have a like a series like jody'angelis,
you're looking at collective victimology and he's you know, he's
another guy who kind of picked his victims, you know,
mostly based on the neighborhoods and homes he could get into.
He knew he could get into, so that was, you know,
(35:53):
that was part of his selection process. He didn't necessarily
have a specific I see that person, I'm going to
follow them. It was more casing than neighborhoods and finding
the homes and he felt comfortable and you know, his
he had a very specific hunting ground in terms of
the types of homes he would enter.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
So we I don't really know, I kind of just
want your opinion. So all of this we have been
lucky enough to sit down with specialized in tut Holla,
So we sat down with them once and then we
had another phone call with him as well, and the
response has been absolutely incredible. He's given us a lot
of information that we were not expecting. We thought we'd
(36:35):
just get kind of like the overview of the case.
Speaker 6 (36:37):
Surprised.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Yeah, no, it's too.
Speaker 6 (36:42):
I mean, that's I mean, the FBI never gives information, yeah,
calling him.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
The one thing he showed us is a photo of
Israel's cell. We'd ask to see what was written on
the wall in blood and so are you familiar with
I know you're familiar with with the Courier case and everything,
but did you actually work is your case as well
or just well, we.
Speaker 6 (37:10):
Worked on the Courier case and Samantha's case, so in
our perspective was coming at it at a time that
we did not know he was the offender, right and well,
actually that's not true, but by the time they arrested
him we knew because he said he also killed the couriers.
(37:32):
But you know, we were involved in Samantha's case when
she first went missing, so we did not know who
he was. We had no idea the two cases were connected.
We were as surprised as anybody when he admitted to
the couriers and had the details. It was shocking because
we had, you know, the three of us, Bob's You
(37:55):
and I had been in the original consultation and the couriers.
That was Bob's case. He was the lead profiler on that,
and then we were in all of the consults when
Samantha went missing, trying to help them, and then of
course once Israel started to communicate with the families, then
(38:17):
we were really involved in that part of it as well.
So to find out those were related we were very surprised.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Must shocking. Yeah, that's crazy. It was.
Speaker 6 (38:30):
I mean, you don't get shocked too much at BAU
because you see the worst of the worst, and you're
never surprised by what people do. But I think we
were just surprised that they were connected, just based on
the fact that geographically they almost couldn't be further apart
in the United States, and the victimology was very different.
(38:50):
Of course, when you you know, look at the behavior involved,
you see, yeah, there's similar behaviors involved. But even if
even if we were looking at similar behaviors but the
two different cases just geographically, we probably would not have said, oh, yeah,
these are connected. Of course, now twenty hindsight twenty twenty,
(39:11):
we see it and we see the kind of offender
he is, so you can't necessarily rule out a case
just because you know it's in a different part of
the country. And so, yeah, it was. It was just
absolutely shocking.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
That's crazy.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
Yeah, did did the victimology throw you off? Yes as well, Yeah.
Speaker 6 (39:33):
It did, you know, but now now you know, like
we sort of know how he selected victims, and I
guess we get really wrapped up a lot of times,
even at a bau knowing better that. You know, serial
killers aren't always selecting the exact type of victim every
single time. Most of them have an ideal victim. But
(39:58):
you know, I think with Ted Bund and everyone thought, well,
he's just picking all the same types of long brown
hair parted down the middle. Of course, that was the
style at the time, so everyone sort of thought, well,
serial killers just have a one specick type that they're
going to kill, and they're all going to be the same.
But we know that that's not true. But the fact
(40:20):
that these victimologies were so vastly different in terms of
you have a couple and they're approach I'm gonna say,
approaching middle age. I don't want to put myself in
that they're approaching middle you know, they're older. And of
course you have Samantha obviously, and then of course that
(40:41):
was a home invasion versus a kidnapping out of a
place of employment kiosk. So it yeah, it was it's
through us. But you know, now we know that he
he's just he's a very He was a very you know,
he had a diverse selection process and that's who he was.
(41:03):
So now we know that about him and we know,
like going forward, just you can't necessarily rule out a
common offender if you have different victimologies. I mean, that's
just a lesson you just you know, it just reiterated
that to us. Don't rule something out just because victimologies
are different, Right, that's crazy, Yeah, it really is. But
(41:28):
I mean he continues to fascinate. I think a lot
of it has to do with this idea that he's
you know, bearing burying the kill kits, and anyone could
be in danger anywhere in the country at any specific time.
He just happens to be passing through and I think
that makes him stand.
Speaker 4 (41:49):
Out mm hm.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Yes, terrifying person, terrifying.
Speaker 6 (41:54):
Him, yes, very much.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
So. Yeah, something we go just back and forth with,
over and over. I know that some people agree, some
people disagreed. Do you think that? And this isn't what
we called to talk about, but since we have you on,
might as well ask do you think that his victims
were as random as he says? Or do you think
(42:17):
that like for the couriers, for instance, do you think
that they were targeted?
Speaker 6 (42:22):
I think I think they're fairly random. I mean he
certainly had a selection process with them. I mean he
you know, looked at the house. He assessed a low
risk house to go into. We didn't think there were
children in there. I mean, this is what he says,
(42:43):
and I think that that probably is true. But I
don't think they were selected because of who they were
as opposed to that they just were at a risk level.
He was comfortable with the FAU That makes sense. Yeah,
they just fit a criteria and you know, it could
(43:06):
have been someone else down the street. I don't necessarily
think that he saw them and that was it. That
they were very specific. I think it was. It was
probably so somewhere in between being very random, but he
had a selection process in place. A lot of the
selection process was not so much based on the characteristics
(43:30):
of the victims, but the characteristics of like their lifestyle
and their habits and the risk that it would pose
to him versus, oh, I desire that specific victim. You know,
That's how I think he selected them more so so
that makes it seem more random. But in some ways
(43:51):
he had, you know, he still had his checklist.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
The information that Special Agent Holla gave us was they
showed us the footo of the cell and so have
you seen it already?
Speaker 6 (44:02):
You know, I think that I have, but it's been
a long time, so I just don't really recall that details.
Speaker 4 (44:10):
Yeah, and so after the meeting we kind of looked
at each other. We're like, are we allowed to even
release this? You know? And and so we've gotten back
in touch with him and asked him like, I know
you're not allowed to give us the photo, but are
we allowed to release the information? And he said absolutely,
that's oh right.
Speaker 5 (44:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (44:28):
If he says that and you do an artist interpretation,
I think as long, in my opinion, just to be ethical,
as long as you say this is a depiction, this is.
Speaker 4 (44:37):
Not right, And that's why we're.
Speaker 6 (44:39):
Obviously you will.
Speaker 4 (44:41):
Yeah, that's why we're having the painting done rather than
recreating it with like a staged photo, because we don't
want the photo to get out and people think that
that's the actual photo.
Speaker 6 (44:53):
It's like they did with Samantha's Pure exactly. That show
had her picture are on there saying it was hers,
and I'm like, that's.
Speaker 4 (45:02):
That's not her, that's not the picture.
Speaker 6 (45:04):
Yeah, yeah, but yeah, people think that.
Speaker 4 (45:07):
Yeah, and so that's exactly what we're trying to avoid.
That's why we're having the artist painted paint and interpretation
of it rather than a photograph.
Speaker 6 (45:14):
Yeah, as long as he says it's okay to release
the information, I don't see a problem with that, okay
at all. And of course if it's a painting, everyone's
going to know it's not really the cell.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
But yeah, the episode that you guys did on Israel's
suicide note was just we both think it was just
like top notch and we cannot replicate anything even close
to that. So yeah, no, it's it's awesome. We were
hoping to feed drop that on our show as like
(45:44):
part of an episode, just to continue to continue the
storyline with them, And then I don't know, you know,
if we give you maybe you will find no value
in the extra information. But if we give you the
extra information that was written on his soul wall, so
it's basically like one word and then a sentence of
like ten words in it written in blood. So we
(46:05):
didn't know if you guys wanted to expand on your
episode at all with the new information included with the
suicide note, if that is, if there's value there or not.
Speaker 6 (46:15):
Yeah, I guess it would depend on like what what's written.
And yeah, I mean I know I know most people
want to know, you know, is there are there more
people out there that he killed? Right? Yeah, So I
think that, I mean, if if that sheds light on
something like that, that would be helpful as well. But
if it doesn't, yeah, I mean, it's all I think
anyone finds anything about him interesting, you know, I don't
(46:39):
want to take away from what a dangerous person he was,
but he wasn't an was in no way an extraordinary person,
you know that That is what I want to make
sure it comes of what the message we sent. He
was dangerous and and oftentimes very insecure. Low life people
(47:05):
who don't really have any particular talents or anything to
offer the world at all can be the most dangerous people.
But he had nothing else really going for him. So
I mean, I think that that's what we try to
get across about him. He was not an extraordinary person
in any way, shape or form. Same with like jody'angelo.
(47:28):
I mean, what a completely average, below average person he
was in his life. And I just you know, he
just like got so inflated and it makes it just
makes me mad. I mean, but that's that's the thing
we always say, Like a lot of times people you
know that saying money is at the root of all evil,
(47:49):
but I think insecurity often is you know, people do
really bad things out of being insecure, and you know,
not caring about anybody but them solves.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
The episode you did on Joseph Dangelo, I thought it
was so interesting how you explained that really always coming
from like a place of insecurity, and how when he
had because the same thing that when he had the couples.
I was like, oh man, this guy is super confident
to go in and do something like that. So like
learn so much from that. And with Israel he talks
(48:23):
about two couples that he had and each time he
prematurely killed the mail before he said he was going
to his full plan was developed. And yeah, I'm just
like curious. I don't know, have you guys ever talked
about that or or.
Speaker 6 (48:40):
No, we haven't talked much outside of the cases that
we worked on that we knew specific details about. We
haven't really expanded I mean, the node itself, we didn't
even really analyze it at BAU. We ended we ended
up doing that just for the show. I mean that,
I mean just generally, we tend to be skeptical about
(49:04):
what guys like Israel Keys say, because there's a lot
of different factors going into it, and part of it
is he's a manipulator, he's deceitful, and you know, I
think one of the things that he said that resonated
with me at the time more than anything else was
when he said, these are my secrets, like these are
(49:27):
mine and I'm going to give them to you. I mean,
you know, that's this that tells me that the crimes
that he committed were so personal to him and he
was not going to give it up without some kind
of tangible benefit. And even then, I don't believe he
ever would have explained. And of course, you know, the
(49:47):
ultimate control was to kill himself, and that way we
never know the truth and he leaves things behind that
are create more mystery, and I think that was his tension.
But I just, you know, I just we don't put
a lot of weight until they can be corroborated into
(50:09):
what they you know, what they say, and it's it's
it is a little strange to me that he was
pretty specific about the couriers to the point where we
knew when they called us or when they were you know,
were calling around saying do you have a crime out here?
And it was he had not only just you know,
(50:30):
the crime itself and what had been released to the public,
but he had details and he didn't really do that
for he didn't give enough information about anybody else that
we could say for sure he did that. So that's
a little bit, you know, it makes me question how
many people maybe he really did kill? Yeah, yeah, just
(50:55):
because why why give all that information about the couriers
and not give anything else? I mean, and it just
could be his game. There could be a lot more
and he's like, well I just give him a little tidbit,
so they think I, you know, know that I have
something to offer. Yeah, and you know that could be
as well. We just don't know. He's so manipulative, you know. Yeah, Yeah,
(51:16):
but yeah, we could we could talk. We could talk
about the cell, the writings. We can weave that into
the note the skulls.
Speaker 3 (51:25):
There was a second note as well that was more
of a description of six victims in extremely graphic detail.
Speaker 6 (51:32):
We did not see that.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
Yeah, he's he said that he hopes it never gets
out that it was really really bad.
Speaker 6 (51:38):
But yeah, no, we didn't have that one.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
Yeah, we haven't haven't read it. Just didn't know if
you knew about the extra letters or if that was
something that wasn't discussed yet.
Speaker 6 (51:47):
But yeah, who when it had the details of the
other victims, that was a letter to family.
Speaker 9 (51:53):
No, it was more like a confession type letter. Yeah,
and it was interrupted. He said that he got to
six victims and then it looked like he was interrupted,
so he didn't complete the full document. And it sounds
like so we're gonna ask him next time if it
was the same time that they gathered the skulls written
(52:13):
in blood as well, to see if maybe that was
the same timing. But yeah, I'm kind of curious if
he was actually trying to decide at that point and
it was just stop before he had the chance to orwarded. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(52:40):
thanks for listening to this episode of Somewhere in the Pines.
We are releasing the Consolets episode called Profiling Israel Keys
Part three today in tandem with this drop where they
break down the note left behind by Keys. You can
show the console teams from Love and Find Them on
whatever podcast platform you use and listen to another two
episodes from them Profiling Keys, along with other major care
and crimes, and don't forget to tell Nick and the
(53:02):
Captain of True Crime Garage how much you appreciate them
taking on the task of presenting Israel's note. We also
want to thank everyone that has been contributing through Patreon,
telling their friends about the show and giving us a
five star rating that has allowed us to surpass two
hundred and fifty thousand downloads since we began releasing episodes
just four months ago. We truly appreciate your support, and
if you haven't signed up for Patreon yet, we want
(53:22):
to remind you that the funding you provide is what
will continue to help us search and continue investigating the
crimes of Israel Keys. As always, we want to give
a very special thank you to our Patreon producers for
their continued support. Heather Horton, Whedon, Nicole Guzman, Colleen Sullivan,
Linlie Tuschoff, otter Man, Kaylin James, Stephanie, Maximo, Kathy Nation, Pink,
(53:45):
Brian Hannah, Trista Ali and Dale Axton.
Speaker 3 (54:25):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 6 (54:26):
I'm really happy to meet both of you.
Speaker 4 (54:28):
Yeah, it's wonderful. Thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 6 (54:31):
Yeah, we can support each other in the Crazy True
Crime Podcast world,
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