November 14, 2024 • 41 mins
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Somewhere in the Pines is sponsored by Better Help and Hello Fresh
Hi Everyone,
This is part 2 of two episodes that we are releasing today. This is an episode of the Consult podcast that we were given permission to use to help us explain all that we can about Israel's time in his cell. Please show the Consult podcast some love and check out the other two episodes they did on Keyes - as well as a list of other incredible cases. https://www.truecrimeconsult.com
Th Consult's show notes:
Israel Keyes was a highly mobile serial killer who murdered Bill and Lorraine Currier in June 2011 and Samantha Koenig in February 2012. Keyes is also suspected of murdering several other people. He died by suicide in December 2012. Listen as retired FBI profilers Julia Cowley, Angela Sercer, Susan Kossler Drew, and Bob Drew continue to profile Keyes, including discussion of the note he left in his jail cell. Part 3 of 3.
Music by John Hanske. If you'd like to hear more of John's music, you can listen on Spotify.
For image reference - please visit Somewhereinthepines.com/Caracol
Including music "Light in the Basement" by John Hankse https://open.spotify.com/album/1dWT7FYt5uvw14Nky89rxm
Returning to SITP credits and show notes
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
This is a Studio BOTH/AND collaboration: www.somewhereinthepines.com / bothand.fyi For an ad-free experience: cz/studiobothand For early episodes and more: www.Patreon.com/somewhereinthepines
Somewhere in the Pines is sponsored by Better Help and Hello Fresh
Hi Everyone,
This is part 2 of two episodes that we are releasing today. This is an episode of the Consult podcast that we were given permission to use to help us explain all that we can about Israel's time in his cell. Please show the Consult podcast some love and check out the other two episodes they did on Keyes - as well as a list of other incredible cases. https://www.truecrimeconsult.com
Th Consult's show notes:
Israel Keyes was a highly mobile serial killer who murdered Bill and Lorraine Currier in June 2011 and Samantha Koenig in February 2012. Keyes is also suspected of murdering several other people. He died by suicide in December 2012. Listen as retired FBI profilers Julia Cowley, Angela Sercer, Susan Kossler Drew, and Bob Drew continue to profile Keyes, including discussion of the note he left in his jail cell. Part 3 of 3.
Music by John Hanske. If you'd like to hear more of John's music, you can listen on Spotify.
For image reference - please visit Somewhereinthepines.com/Caracol
Including music "Light in the Basement" by John Hankse https://open.spotify.com/album/1dWT7FYt5uvw14Nky89rxm
Returning to SITP credits and show notes
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
This is a Studio BOTH/AND collaboration: www.somewhereinthepines.com / bothand.fyi For an ad-free experience: cz/studiobothand For early episodes and more: www.Patreon.com/somewhereinthepines
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
In the Consult, we discuss cases that are violent and
sexually violent in nature. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to
(00:39):
the Consult. I'm Julia Cowley, retired FBI agent in profiler
and former special Agent forensic scientist with the Tennessee Bureau
of Investigation.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Angela Ceirser retired FBI agent and profiler.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Susan Kostler Drew, retired FBI agent and profiler.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
And Blob Drew, retired FBI agent and profiler.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
This episode is part three and the final episode of
Profiling Israel Keys. I'm sorry for the delay in getting
this episode out, but there were some unforeseen circumstances that
prevented us from working on the podcast. If you have
not listened to parts one and two, please go back
and do so. As we discussed in part one, married
(01:23):
couple Bill and Lorraine Courier went missing from their home
in Essex, Vermont, in June twenty eleven. In March twenty twelve,
after eighteen year old Samantha Koenig was kidnapped from the
drive through coffee stand she worked at in Anchorage, Alaska,
we learned that Israel Keys was responsible for all their murders.
(01:45):
He also sexually assaulted Lorraine and Samantha. I believe Israel
Keys was above average intelligence, but not as smart as
he believed himself to be. They never are. He admitted
to bearing what he called a kill cat in the
area of the courier's home, and this kill cash was
a home deepot bucket that contained his abduction slash rape kit.
(02:09):
In Samantha's case, as we mentioned, he formulated a plan
to get money by writing a fake ransom note to
her family. Samantha's father deposited the money into her account,
and Keys used her debit card to take the money out.
It was this supposed great plan that was ultimately his undoing.
Authorities tracked the debit card usage in Arizona, New Mexico,
(02:32):
and Texas, which is where authorities apprehended Keys. In one
of the ATM surveillance photos. Investigators identified the make and
model of a rental car seen in the photo, and
a trooper pulled Keys over. In the car, they found
Samantha's cell phone, her ID and a gun. Keys believed
(02:55):
he was smarter than everyone, including law enforcement, and that
was just not the case. They did a great job
and they were able to apprehend of highly mobile, somewhat intelligent,
and well thought out serial killer.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
I think this is a good point to make with
this case, just because if you were to look at
these two cases individually, they're obviously very different.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Even in this one.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Case, there's some very unusual things, which is why the
BAU was contacted.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
I guess the point I want to make in.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Both of these behavioral analysis is just one aspect of
a very good and thorough investigation. It is not the
be all end all, as we've said right from the
very beginning, and although we were involved throughout this to
provide some advice with regards to behavior at the same time,
(03:58):
another thing that the unit did in advising the police
was just to make sure that every bit of any
kind of technology that could be used was being used.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I guess in way to describe it would be investigative support.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Clearly, the local and state investigators that were involved with
this were the lead investigators, But what was going on
at the same time as the behavioral analysis was also
very good investigative techniques and stuff that was happening in
real time every time new evidence came in that it
was being acted on, and every type of investigative technique
(04:33):
that could be used was being used, and that's what
ultimately led to his arrest, was him finally making a mistake,
which everyone does at some point, and the vehicle that
he was operating at the time being discovered, and then
that leading to being pulled over in Texas. I think
it's important to know that investigations like this, abductions, whether
(04:56):
they are of adults or children, have many, many arms
and many many leads that are all being covered simultaneously.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Many different techniques, some.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
That we obviously wouldn't want to be we wouldn't want
to disclose in detail in this type of beforum are
all being used as much as possible in real time.
And the baus were one aspect of what sometimes can
be a huge operation involving hundreds of individuals, and then
all that information being funneling back to the lead investigators
(05:29):
with the agency that has the lead case to hopefully
come to a successful conclusion. So while hopefully we can
provide information either with regards to behavioral analysis or suggesting
techniques that maybe that agency, just because they haven't had
a case like that before, haven't thought of before. It
(05:50):
really is a combination of all these things that eventually
solve the case, and then a lot of what we
may learn it comes after the apprehension and a further
detailed examination of who this individual was, where they've been one,
are the crimes they might have committed, and what brought
(06:12):
them to the point to when they were finally apprehended.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
In the case of Israel Keys, one of the things
that is not uncommon with people with this type of
personality is that they really enjoy being able to manipulate
and deceive other people. There was a term coined by
a psychologist who studied nonverbal behavior by the name of
doctor Eckman, and he termed it the phrase of duping delight,
(06:39):
where when telling a lie and when manipulating and deceiving
someone else, this is a very pleasurable experience for them. Certainly,
someone like Israel Keys, that would be a very positive
experience to deceive other people. On the other hand, while
he may have been intelligent, even above average intelligence, his
(07:03):
ego was such and that's reflected throughout this case. But
his ego is such that it was inflated. So he
might have been smart, but he wasn't as smart as
he thought himself to be, and he might have been smart,
but he underestimated the intelligence of other people. Ultimately, this
creates a vulnerability in someone who would have very few vulnerabilities.
(07:27):
It's like if you see a boxing match and someone
is a champion and assumes that there is nobody that
can beat them, and there is an upset, a surprise
match where they lose to someone who might have been
ranked far below them or thought to be less skilled
than them, but they underestimated their imponent while at the
(07:49):
same time overestimating their own abilities. And that is what
you see with the inflated ego of someone like an
Israel Keys, where he began meticulously planning as his ego
was fulfilled and he was being rewarded for that planning,
his sense of self became inflated. What couldn't he do?
(08:11):
Then possibilities are endless because he does not feel the
vulnerability that he initially planned against as acutely. He doesn't
feel the risk of being apprehended as acutely as he
did when he initially started planning. That's when mistakes are made.
That individual feels less of a compelling need to be
(08:32):
meticulous and to be planned for contingencies. May even think
I was worrying needlessly. I could have done this much
easier with less planning, and I would have still gotten
away with it. And that's oftentimes how people like this
are caught.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
And I think that's a great point, this idea of
dooping delight, someone getting a thrill out of deceiving others.
I think that you're exactly right. And in fact, during
his interview with detectives and FBI agents, he mentions that
he says, that's where I get my kicks, was being
able to live two different lives and have no one
(09:11):
have a clue. He loved having this secret in deceiving others,
and that was a thrill, and he went through his
life like that.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
If you think of psychopathy being on the far continuum
of narcissism, and you see both the inflated ego and
the desire to feel superior masking an insecure and weak individual,
and ultimately that's what we have its conceit as opposed
to confidence. I think it's an intoxicating circumstance when he
(09:43):
can feel superior to other human beings. I think that's
very intoxicated. Hence his desire for control and his delight
in deceiving people. The feeling, or the incorrect conclusion is
I'm operating on a superior level than other people. They
are outmatched with me. They can never compete with me.
They're certainly not going to be able to catch me.
(10:06):
I am a mastermind. The fact that he was intelligent
only in his mind was evidence that he was correct
in that assumption.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
So after being caught in Texas, he was extradited back
up to Alaska, where he gave several interviews to detectives
and we learned a lot. He did confess to sexually
assaulting and murdering Samantha Kooning the very night that he
(10:37):
had abducted her, upon his return from his trip with
his family. He dismembered her and put her in a lake.
It was a frozen lake. He cut a hole in
the ice and put her body in the lake. Up
there in Alaska. Members of the FBI dive team able
(11:00):
to go and recover her. After his admissions, and as
I mentioned earlier, during those talks, he admitted to other
crimes over many years, offered details, and we were able
to conclusively link him to the couriers. There's another case
(11:22):
that I think investigators are confident he's responsible for, but
they don't have forensic evidence, and that is the disappearance
of a woman named Deborah Feldman in New Jersey. They're
pretty confident there's enough details that he's responsible for that,
and she was forty nine years old. She went missing
(11:43):
in two thousand and nine, but again no forensic evidence.
So he talked a lot. He talked a lot to investigators.
And one of the things that I've often heard people
say and other experts say, is that these guys, meaning
(12:05):
serial killers like him, love to talk. And he's certainly
a good example of that. But we've seen other cases,
cases that we've worked on, cases we've covered in this show,
where they don't want to talk. But in this case
he did. He sat down willingly with investigators and talked
quite a bit. And he'd asked for a coffee. He
(12:28):
wanted Americano, which was exactly what he had apparently ordered
that night at the kiosk, and he wanted a Snicker's
candy bar and a cigar. So he had his demands.
He wanted some favorable treatment while he was talking with investigators,
but he said a lot of things, and ultimately he
(12:50):
claimed responsibility for approximately eleven murders, several murders. I don't
know exactly, but I know he ended up killing himself
after talking with investigators at length before going to trial.
He killed himself at the end of the year, December first,
(13:12):
twenty twelve. He was in the correctional facility where he
was being held, and he slit his wrist with a
disposable razor, and in his cell they found what was
sort of a suicide note, but I'll let Angela talk
a little bit more about that, and eleven pieces of
(13:33):
paper where skulls had been sort of painted on with
Keys's blood. And investigators believe that those skulls represent the
total amount of his victims eleven victims. And they truly
believe there are other victims out there, they just haven't
(13:54):
identified them. And Angela, you want to talk a little
bit about the suicide note and your impressions of that,
because I know you have some.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
So it's interesting. It's indicated that a suicide note was found,
but when you actually read it, it's more of a statement.
It's not really even related to waiting for his trial.
It's not related to why he's killing himself or anything
like that. Again, this is just an interpretation of some
(14:28):
of the things that I read on there. Obviously, nobody
knows exactly what he meant except for him, and he
is no longer with us, so we can't ask him
what he meant. But it is a very interesting statement.
It's in a poetic format, so he's written it as
if it's a poem. And one of the things I
find very interesting is that he starts off talking mostly
(14:52):
about maybe his ideological views and how they translate into
his lack of respect or even disdain for consumerism and
Americans focusing on material things or superficial things. I'd say
at least more than half of it is related to that,
(15:14):
and that's the beginning of it, even the very first line,
which reads, where will you go, you clever little worm,
if you bleed your host dry? Now, we don't know
what that means. But when you keep reading and he's
talking about the issues with consumerism, people not appreciating what
they have, having big cars, things like that, it makes
(15:35):
you believe he's talking about the earth and you know,
depleting the resources, talking about somebody who's so passionate about
what he was doing in the killings he was involved
in or performed and the beginning of his letter that
he leaves behind is about ideology. It's fascinating to me.
(15:56):
He goes on, here's another interesting line. I said part
of it before get in your big car so you
can go. You can get to work fast on roads
made of dinosaur bones, punch in on the clock, and
sit on your ass playing stupid ass games on your phone.
Paper on your wall says you got smarts. The tests
(16:19):
that you took told you so, but you would still
crawl like the vermin you are once your precious power
grid's blown. So that sounds like a typical thing that
extremists might say when they're talking about people being too
commercialized and depleting resources and consumerism. And we know that
(16:41):
he grew up in Utah and also in Washington State,
so it's not uncommon to have people with I'm not
saying extremism, but with beliefs that are there to protect
the earth.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
And interestingly, where he chooses to ultimately end up is Alaska,
the last frontier off the grid, so to speak. What
you point out is like what he's writing is, you're right,
there's a lot of disdain. He's looking down on people here.
He is his committing murder, but that's not bad. It's
(17:16):
everyone else.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Right, And as Bob was saying, talking about superior level,
he's talking about people with their educations there I assume
diplomas up on the wall. But he's basically smarter than
everyone else when it comes down to it.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
At the point that he dies, he has been identified
as one of the most condemned types of individuals on earth.
He is a sexually motivated serial killer, and he is
writing not about that. He is basically aligning these base,
(18:04):
disgusting acts, cruel acts with this vaunted ideology, as if
to emphasize how superior he is and the fact that
you'll never understand the way his mind works because it
is just unknowable at your level. He probably knows these
letters would be made public, that the public will never
(18:27):
understand a mind that is just so so well developed
like his. Meanwhile, it's being written by someone who trolls
around and kills innocent people for sexual pleasure. If he
could pull off that manipulation and have people believe that
he was somehow special, that would really be a trick.
(18:51):
But after you finish reading his and maybe even finding
yourself nodding at some of the things he's saying about consumerism,
and then you back up and go, wait a minute,
this is written by some depraved psychopath. This is nobody
I align with at all, and that's the only thing
he'd agree with. You don't align with him because he's
(19:15):
a superior being to you.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
It is interesting also when you talk about the fact
that he's talking about victimization other than his victims and
how it's wrong. He talks about, the way I'm reading it,
send the dying to wait for their death and the
comfort of retirement homes. Quietly, quickly say it's for the best,
(19:38):
it's best for you, so their fate you'll not know.
Turn a blind eye back to the screen, and soak
into your reality shows. Stand in front of your mirror
as you and you prene in a plastic castle you
call home to me, that reads, you know, feeling that
it talks about the victimization of people that just put
(19:59):
their family members into retirement homes and leave them for dead.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
Basically, it's more chastising of this is what he's preaching.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
This is what's wrong with society.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
And people are not sacred beings. People are disgusting. They
are deceitful. They are awful, and so if you kill
a couple of them, well that's because I'm just so
disgusted with all of you, and none of you are
worth anything. So if that's what I do, then that's
what I do. And for reasons that you'll never understand such.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
A dichotomy between what he writes and what he actually does.
If you think back to the couriers, two very vulnerable
people with medical issues, just the type that might wind
up in a nursing home that he's railing against in
his little composition, and yet these are exactly the folks
(21:00):
that he picked out to victimize several years earlier.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Well, for that matter of Samantha Koonig, who is just
beginning her life and is by all accounts, she's a giving,
kind person, just beginning her life. She's not a risky liver,
not someone who is involved with all sorts of illicit acts.
She is working, she is responsible, She has loved all
(21:30):
things that are foreign to someone like Israel Keys. He
had his own family. He may there's a phrase that
was coined by psychiatrists, actually was the title of his book.
Doctor Cleckley in nineteen forty one wrote the mask of sanity,
(21:52):
and he was speaking about the psychopathic person, and he
was saying that what they do is they are basically
mimicking what they observe to be normal. It is just
a disguise. Horrifyingly enough, even having a significant other and
(22:13):
having children, these are all acts that you would assume
involve a great deal of emotion and loving and caring,
and in fact it's just it's an act on his
part to cover up what he really is, which is
this sexually depraved predator that is looking just to hurt
(22:35):
people for his own pleasure.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I think he believes these things about himself as well.
I think he really truly feels superior and better than others.
We don't always see that in these cases. We see
some very insecure serial sexual murderers. But in this case,
I think he does truly believe these things, and he
does have a lot of disdain for everyone else around him,
(23:00):
and the rules don't apply to him, and he's going
to do whatever he wants because the rest of us
are just scum.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
You know.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
People ask is it nurture or nature and or some
combination thereof, and we what we don't know from him
is what his personal development was like, we know he
went into the service, We know that that he was
seemingly sociable, We know that he was talking about several murders.
(23:35):
But what we don't know, and we know we also
know that he's a liar. So what we don't know
is any of the content of what he says. And
even if he talked about his childhood, we couldn't be
we couldn't rely on that because he's a liar first
and foremost. He's a liar to himself and to everyone else.
There are some things that can be verified, but anyone's
(23:59):
internal thoughts and feelings are mystery unless they honestly disclose them.
We can make assumptions based on their actions, but we
can't know them. Although, as the adage goes, oh these
guys as if there's a club. But these guys love
(24:21):
to talk. They might like to talk, but the motivation
to talk is not to reveal facts or to create
a bridge of understanding. Their primary motivation is to decide
what it is that is accepted as fact so that
they can maintain that mask of sanity, and they can
(24:45):
maintain the secrets that are most valuable to them. So
now he's dead, and we'll never know the truth, the
whole truth about Israel, Keys or whether anything that he
says accept that which can be irrefutably proven external to
anything he said. We'll never know the rest of it,
(25:10):
and we'll never know how much is a lie, how
much is the truth, and how much is just his
opinion on things that have actually occurred.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Absolutely we won't know that, but it is fun to
try to figure it out. This letter, which you know,
I wouldn't even call it a suicide note. Who knows
if it was even meant to be a suicide note,
or just subscribing that he did, but just to finish.
Another interesting part to me is that the last line
(25:40):
regarding what we're talking about before is the land of
the free, land of the lie, land of the scheme,
American eye, and then he switches right from that the
next line he starts going into what is seemingly about
the murders he committed or the victims that he had,
although again we don't know if that's exactly what it is.
(26:04):
So one of the lines here is I looked in
your eyes. They were so dark, warm and trusting, as
though you had not a worri or care. The more
guileless the game, the better potential to fill up those
pools with your fear. Basically, it's you're vulnerable, you're trusting,
(26:24):
You're a good victim for me. Soon you'll be filled
with fear.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
It's the best kind of victim for him because he
loves to fool people and to see that change in
them when they realize who he really is is probably
something that is very meaningful to him when he's committing
(26:50):
his crimes. But perfect victim. But I think you're right, Angela.
I think that sums it all up right there. And
as we keep talking about, as Bob mentioned, he loves
the lie. He loves fooling people, seeing that trust in
their eyes, but he knows who he really is and
what he's really going to do.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
And in that he feels in control.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
Which is another part of this, is that control of
fooling people, of instilling fear in his victims.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
And he mentioned this in his in his statements, was.
Speaker 5 (27:27):
That a lot of these aspects that we're talking about,
the organization, the planning in his writings, in any of this,
whether he's fooling someone, whether he's leading them on and
hoping that the that Samantha is still alive, or he's
conned somebody into a vunerable position, and then he knows later
that he's going to commit great violence and kill them.
(27:49):
And to watch that recognition in his victim's face go
from some kind of a hope that maybe I can
get out of this to live to realizing that they're
going to be killed, all of that is immensely gratifying.
But it's also kind of an ultimate control of not
only his immediate victim, but then of any of the
people that are associated with his victim. If he thinks
(28:10):
he's fooling the police and he's controlling that too, he's
controlling the investigation.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
There's an immense amount of gratification that I think comes.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Just from that.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
And in that same line, Angela's said, you know, there's
not really a suicide noticed some kind of a rya diatribe.
Oftentimes we think of suicide of someone who is so desperate,
who has lost so much hope, who oftentimes is suffering
from such a severe depression that they just can't really
see their way out of that, and that this is
(28:43):
really the only way to alleviate the pain that they're suffering.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
This is not where Israel Keys was. I believe this
is not someone who was desperate.
Speaker 5 (28:54):
This is someone who was continuing to maintain control of
his destiny. He wasn't going to have to go through
a trial if it was going to end. He knew
at this point he was going to be jailed for
the rest of his life, that he would no longer
be able to travel, he would no longer be able
to enjoy the things that meant the most to him,
and so it was like, I'm going to end this now,
(29:16):
and I'm going.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
To end it under my own terms.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
He wanted to make sure that this was interpreted not
as someone and oftentimes people the despondent who end up
taking their own lives feel that they're no longer worthy
of life, or they're failing at in the world and
have no hope. Rather, what he does first he states
(29:43):
this very condescending ideology where he's chastising humanity for its
false but ultimately what he's doing is he hasn't failed
the world has failed him. He is dismissing himself from
any more of this bs that is life on this earth.
(30:03):
He doesn't want to be associated with people because people
are as he puts their scum or vermin, and he
doesn't want to be associated with them. The interesting part
when he mentions to me the innocence or maybe even
gullibility of victims in this I look into your eyes
and see trust someone who's trusting and gullible and innocent.
(30:30):
In his view, at least his stated view is stupid.
You could look at the vulnerable because they're innocent and gullible,
because they're innocent, as virtuous and in a sense superior
to perhaps the more cynical of us, But he doesn't.
(30:52):
He doesn't want to. In fact, I would bet there
is a certain amount of resentment for someone who has
maintained the ability to trust other humans and to be
gullible because they don't think in evil terms, and to
have maintained a modicum of innocence into adulthood. I would
(31:16):
bet that he resents that because he did not, he
was not able to maintain that if he ever remembered
having it, And he sees his reality as.
Speaker 6 (31:27):
The reality, and these people are just stupid and deceived,
and so the fact that he victimizes them, well that's
in his view.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
Well, what do you expect if you walk around so vulnerable?
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Like this.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
You know, you as a as a population do terrible
things to the earth and each other, and you live
this ridiculous life. On top of that, you're not even
aware of it, and you end up being vulnerable to
someone like me because you're stupid, when in fact, who
he's victimizing are people who are good people, and good
(32:04):
people don't think along the terms that someone like Israel
Keys thinks he's more or less an expert in being
an evil person, and everyone else is in that particular
subject less informed than he is.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
As he goes on, because there are several excerpts here
comparing his and again, I'm assuming his victims to butterflies,
My pretty captive butterfly, colorful wings, my hand smears I
somehow repaint them with punishment and tears, violent metamorphosis emerge,
(32:42):
my dark mouthed princess. I would come often and worship
on the altar of your flesh. You shudder with revulsion
and try to shrink far from me. I'll have you
tied down and begging to become my Stockholm sweetie. So
as you could see, he wants to take them from
being their beautiful, innocent selves and smear them with fear
(33:05):
to fulfill his fantasy.
Speaker 5 (33:09):
I think also that that just speaks to his sadistic tendencies.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
And the anger that they're based on. He's angry at
the world. He can act cool. That imagery and those
words betray this confident air that he tries to put
on and tell you that he is a frustrated, angry,
weak individual does not even see his has lost the
(33:34):
connection enough to even understand that he's weak. He feels
that he has discovered the truth. Maybe at some point
he wasn't as far down the road as he ended up,
that he was less informed that now he is more informed.
But I don't think he sees it. I don't think
(33:54):
he's aware of it. I think he's lost awareness of that.
I think he feels like he is super and that
he's embraced this fantasy, but in fact, his sadism it
is anger, is anger because he cannot live in connection
and conjunction with the world.
Speaker 5 (34:14):
In this instance, this particular instance too, I think he
may be taken a little talked about impossibly being above
average intelligence. Maybe he was well read. This is he's
taken a little artistic license here. This sounds a little
allah silence of the lambs, with the moth reference.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
Et cetera.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
Again, in reading this here he is in his.
Speaker 5 (34:35):
Possibly maybe this is his last statement to the world
or whatever, and he's writing in some type of a
poetic fashion, and yet.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
He's a serial killer.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
It's these two things that are just so diametrically opposed
that he fashions himself some type of a great writer,
completely removing himself from the fact of who he at
the core really is, to speak in any kind of
a quasi flowery language and try to describe what it
(35:12):
is that he's done in an eloquent way, again possibly
borrowing from Silence of the Lamps, that he's still at
his core someone who's a sadistic, sexually motivated serial killer.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
Well, he's extremely grandiose, but would expect that because he
has this inflated sense, this fantasy of unlimited power and
intellect and whatever, and so he wants that to be
part of his legacy. Is Wow, he was just, I mean,
an evil genius. And the thing is people are writing articles.
(35:50):
If you googled his name, you will find that there
are articles written about how he stumped law enforcement, etc.
Because he was just so so smart. I'm sure if
he had the ability to read those, that would be
exactly what he would want to laminate and tag on
his wall. That is what he was intending was for
(36:14):
people to think of him in those terms.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Probably thought when he wrote that his legacy would go
on and on and on, as if it was going
to be some published material that was going to be
referenced for years and years to come.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
But he's leaving us, or he's trying to leave this
impression and may have left it on some that he
was way beyond all of us and we could never
understand him. And he leaves this note and what he's
probably thinking when he leaves these notes and these drawings again,
(36:51):
what does he want to do? He wants to dupe us.
He wants to make us think and question and like
who is this? Israel key? Which is what we're doing.
We've learned a lot from him, but he's really not
as mythical or legendary as he wanted us all to
believe exactly.
Speaker 5 (37:13):
Grandielse is a great term, in particular with.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
The skulls done in his blood.
Speaker 5 (37:21):
I mean, it's it's really over the top, dramatic, last
effort to draw attention.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
He's emphasizing himself as someone with who exercised the power
over life and death. He probably wouldn't want to be
talked about as a perverb, because that's that's it's a
meaning term. But people who engage in deviant sexual practices
at times are called back, and he certainly is someone
(37:52):
who engaged in extremely deviant sexual practices. He talks about
the death aspect, he doesn't talk talk about the fact
that he is one. He was one strange dude, with
or without murder. That was one screwed up guy. Sexually,
that is not the type of legacy he wanted. He
(38:13):
wanted it to be more about, you know, on a
philosophical plane, on or just an esoteric, unknowable plane. Certainly
not well. I found it sexually stimulating to hurt people.
I'm a grubby little pervert. That's not what he wanted
anyone to think of him as.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
But that's what he was, bottom line. And yet we
have books and media that portray him again as this
sort of evil genius of some sort, and he's not
at all.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
I think.
Speaker 5 (38:47):
In closing, especially given what Bob was just talking about,
and that what Israel Keys, I think how he would
like to be remembered as opposed to what.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
He truly was.
Speaker 5 (39:00):
Is Instead, rather than the focus being so often on
those who perpetrate.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
The crimes, is to remember the victims. To remember the.
Speaker 5 (39:09):
Individuals that were lost to family and to friends, whether
they be a middle aged couple that weren't hurting anyone
who were just living there quiet lives, or a young
woman full of life and looking forward to everything that
(39:33):
life could offer that were suddenly and violently taken from
this world. We so often focus on the predators when
I wish, in particularly in the media, that we focused
much more heavily on the victims and who they were
(39:55):
and the loss to society of a whole because of
their deaths.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Thank you, Thank you all my dearest friends and colleagues, Angela,
Susan and Bob. That's it for this episode of The Consult.
Thank you for listening. This episode of The Consult was
written and produced by me Julia Cowley. The show was
(40:24):
edited and mixed by Mike Aarris, and the music was
composed by John Hanskey. If you'd like to learn more,
please visit the Consult website at www dot Truecrimeconsult dot com.
That's www. Dot truecrimeconsult dot com. You can also follow
us on Twitter. Our handle is at the Consult Pod.
(40:50):
Thank you for listening, and back o bad
In the Consult, we discuss cases that are violent and
sexually violent in nature. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to
(00:39):
the Consult. I'm Julia Cowley, retired FBI agent in profiler
and former special Agent forensic scientist with the Tennessee Bureau
of Investigation.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Angela Ceirser retired FBI agent and profiler.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Susan Kostler Drew, retired FBI agent and profiler.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
And Blob Drew, retired FBI agent and profiler.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
This episode is part three and the final episode of
Profiling Israel Keys. I'm sorry for the delay in getting
this episode out, but there were some unforeseen circumstances that
prevented us from working on the podcast. If you have
not listened to parts one and two, please go back
and do so. As we discussed in part one, married
(01:23):
couple Bill and Lorraine Courier went missing from their home
in Essex, Vermont, in June twenty eleven. In March twenty twelve,
after eighteen year old Samantha Koenig was kidnapped from the
drive through coffee stand she worked at in Anchorage, Alaska,
we learned that Israel Keys was responsible for all their murders.
(01:45):
He also sexually assaulted Lorraine and Samantha. I believe Israel
Keys was above average intelligence, but not as smart as
he believed himself to be. They never are. He admitted
to bearing what he called a kill cat in the
area of the courier's home, and this kill cash was
a home deepot bucket that contained his abduction slash rape kit.
(02:09):
In Samantha's case, as we mentioned, he formulated a plan
to get money by writing a fake ransom note to
her family. Samantha's father deposited the money into her account,
and Keys used her debit card to take the money out.
It was this supposed great plan that was ultimately his undoing.
Authorities tracked the debit card usage in Arizona, New Mexico,
(02:32):
and Texas, which is where authorities apprehended Keys. In one
of the ATM surveillance photos. Investigators identified the make and
model of a rental car seen in the photo, and
a trooper pulled Keys over. In the car, they found
Samantha's cell phone, her ID and a gun. Keys believed
(02:55):
he was smarter than everyone, including law enforcement, and that
was just not the case. They did a great job
and they were able to apprehend of highly mobile, somewhat intelligent,
and well thought out serial killer.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
I think this is a good point to make with
this case, just because if you were to look at
these two cases individually, they're obviously very different.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Even in this one.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Case, there's some very unusual things, which is why the
BAU was contacted.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
I guess the point I want to make in.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Both of these behavioral analysis is just one aspect of
a very good and thorough investigation. It is not the
be all end all, as we've said right from the
very beginning, and although we were involved throughout this to
provide some advice with regards to behavior at the same time,
(03:58):
another thing that the unit did in advising the police
was just to make sure that every bit of any
kind of technology that could be used was being used.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I guess in way to describe it would be investigative support.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Clearly, the local and state investigators that were involved with
this were the lead investigators, But what was going on
at the same time as the behavioral analysis was also
very good investigative techniques and stuff that was happening in
real time every time new evidence came in that it
was being acted on, and every type of investigative technique
(04:33):
that could be used was being used, and that's what
ultimately led to his arrest, was him finally making a mistake,
which everyone does at some point, and the vehicle that
he was operating at the time being discovered, and then
that leading to being pulled over in Texas. I think
it's important to know that investigations like this, abductions, whether
(04:56):
they are of adults or children, have many, many arms
and many many leads that are all being covered simultaneously.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Many different techniques, some.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
That we obviously wouldn't want to be we wouldn't want
to disclose in detail in this type of beforum are
all being used as much as possible in real time.
And the baus were one aspect of what sometimes can
be a huge operation involving hundreds of individuals, and then
all that information being funneling back to the lead investigators
(05:29):
with the agency that has the lead case to hopefully
come to a successful conclusion. So while hopefully we can
provide information either with regards to behavioral analysis or suggesting
techniques that maybe that agency, just because they haven't had
a case like that before, haven't thought of before. It
(05:50):
really is a combination of all these things that eventually
solve the case, and then a lot of what we
may learn it comes after the apprehension and a further
detailed examination of who this individual was, where they've been one,
are the crimes they might have committed, and what brought
(06:12):
them to the point to when they were finally apprehended.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
In the case of Israel Keys, one of the things
that is not uncommon with people with this type of
personality is that they really enjoy being able to manipulate
and deceive other people. There was a term coined by
a psychologist who studied nonverbal behavior by the name of
doctor Eckman, and he termed it the phrase of duping delight,
(06:39):
where when telling a lie and when manipulating and deceiving
someone else, this is a very pleasurable experience for them. Certainly,
someone like Israel Keys, that would be a very positive
experience to deceive other people. On the other hand, while
he may have been intelligent, even above average intelligence, his
(07:03):
ego was such and that's reflected throughout this case. But
his ego is such that it was inflated. So he
might have been smart, but he wasn't as smart as
he thought himself to be, and he might have been smart,
but he underestimated the intelligence of other people. Ultimately, this
creates a vulnerability in someone who would have very few vulnerabilities.
(07:27):
It's like if you see a boxing match and someone
is a champion and assumes that there is nobody that
can beat them, and there is an upset, a surprise
match where they lose to someone who might have been
ranked far below them or thought to be less skilled
than them, but they underestimated their imponent while at the
(07:49):
same time overestimating their own abilities. And that is what
you see with the inflated ego of someone like an
Israel Keys, where he began meticulously planning as his ego
was fulfilled and he was being rewarded for that planning,
his sense of self became inflated. What couldn't he do?
(08:11):
Then possibilities are endless because he does not feel the
vulnerability that he initially planned against as acutely. He doesn't
feel the risk of being apprehended as acutely as he
did when he initially started planning. That's when mistakes are made.
That individual feels less of a compelling need to be
(08:32):
meticulous and to be planned for contingencies. May even think
I was worrying needlessly. I could have done this much
easier with less planning, and I would have still gotten
away with it. And that's oftentimes how people like this
are caught.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
And I think that's a great point, this idea of
dooping delight, someone getting a thrill out of deceiving others.
I think that you're exactly right. And in fact, during
his interview with detectives and FBI agents, he mentions that
he says, that's where I get my kicks, was being
able to live two different lives and have no one
(09:11):
have a clue. He loved having this secret in deceiving others,
and that was a thrill, and he went through his
life like that.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
If you think of psychopathy being on the far continuum
of narcissism, and you see both the inflated ego and
the desire to feel superior masking an insecure and weak individual,
and ultimately that's what we have its conceit as opposed
to confidence. I think it's an intoxicating circumstance when he
(09:43):
can feel superior to other human beings. I think that's
very intoxicated. Hence his desire for control and his delight
in deceiving people. The feeling, or the incorrect conclusion is
I'm operating on a superior level than other people. They
are outmatched with me. They can never compete with me.
They're certainly not going to be able to catch me.
(10:06):
I am a mastermind. The fact that he was intelligent
only in his mind was evidence that he was correct
in that assumption.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
So after being caught in Texas, he was extradited back
up to Alaska, where he gave several interviews to detectives
and we learned a lot. He did confess to sexually
assaulting and murdering Samantha Kooning the very night that he
(10:37):
had abducted her, upon his return from his trip with
his family. He dismembered her and put her in a lake.
It was a frozen lake. He cut a hole in
the ice and put her body in the lake. Up
there in Alaska. Members of the FBI dive team able
(11:00):
to go and recover her. After his admissions, and as
I mentioned earlier, during those talks, he admitted to other
crimes over many years, offered details, and we were able
to conclusively link him to the couriers. There's another case
(11:22):
that I think investigators are confident he's responsible for, but
they don't have forensic evidence, and that is the disappearance
of a woman named Deborah Feldman in New Jersey. They're
pretty confident there's enough details that he's responsible for that,
and she was forty nine years old. She went missing
(11:43):
in two thousand and nine, but again no forensic evidence.
So he talked a lot. He talked a lot to investigators.
And one of the things that I've often heard people
say and other experts say, is that these guys, meaning
(12:05):
serial killers like him, love to talk. And he's certainly
a good example of that. But we've seen other cases,
cases that we've worked on, cases we've covered in this show,
where they don't want to talk. But in this case
he did. He sat down willingly with investigators and talked
quite a bit. And he'd asked for a coffee. He
(12:28):
wanted Americano, which was exactly what he had apparently ordered
that night at the kiosk, and he wanted a Snicker's
candy bar and a cigar. So he had his demands.
He wanted some favorable treatment while he was talking with investigators,
but he said a lot of things, and ultimately he
(12:50):
claimed responsibility for approximately eleven murders, several murders. I don't
know exactly, but I know he ended up killing himself
after talking with investigators at length before going to trial.
He killed himself at the end of the year, December first,
(13:12):
twenty twelve. He was in the correctional facility where he
was being held, and he slit his wrist with a
disposable razor, and in his cell they found what was
sort of a suicide note, but I'll let Angela talk
a little bit more about that, and eleven pieces of
(13:33):
paper where skulls had been sort of painted on with
Keys's blood. And investigators believe that those skulls represent the
total amount of his victims eleven victims. And they truly
believe there are other victims out there, they just haven't
(13:54):
identified them. And Angela, you want to talk a little
bit about the suicide note and your impressions of that,
because I know you have some.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
So it's interesting. It's indicated that a suicide note was found,
but when you actually read it, it's more of a statement.
It's not really even related to waiting for his trial.
It's not related to why he's killing himself or anything
like that. Again, this is just an interpretation of some
(14:28):
of the things that I read on there. Obviously, nobody
knows exactly what he meant except for him, and he
is no longer with us, so we can't ask him
what he meant. But it is a very interesting statement.
It's in a poetic format, so he's written it as
if it's a poem. And one of the things I
find very interesting is that he starts off talking mostly
(14:52):
about maybe his ideological views and how they translate into
his lack of respect or even disdain for consumerism and
Americans focusing on material things or superficial things. I'd say
at least more than half of it is related to that,
(15:14):
and that's the beginning of it, even the very first line,
which reads, where will you go, you clever little worm,
if you bleed your host dry? Now, we don't know
what that means. But when you keep reading and he's
talking about the issues with consumerism, people not appreciating what
they have, having big cars, things like that, it makes
(15:35):
you believe he's talking about the earth and you know,
depleting the resources, talking about somebody who's so passionate about
what he was doing in the killings he was involved
in or performed and the beginning of his letter that
he leaves behind is about ideology. It's fascinating to me.
(15:56):
He goes on, here's another interesting line. I said part
of it before get in your big car so you
can go. You can get to work fast on roads
made of dinosaur bones, punch in on the clock, and
sit on your ass playing stupid ass games on your phone.
Paper on your wall says you got smarts. The tests
(16:19):
that you took told you so, but you would still
crawl like the vermin you are once your precious power
grid's blown. So that sounds like a typical thing that
extremists might say when they're talking about people being too
commercialized and depleting resources and consumerism. And we know that
(16:41):
he grew up in Utah and also in Washington State,
so it's not uncommon to have people with I'm not
saying extremism, but with beliefs that are there to protect
the earth.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
And interestingly, where he chooses to ultimately end up is Alaska,
the last frontier off the grid, so to speak. What
you point out is like what he's writing is, you're right,
there's a lot of disdain. He's looking down on people here.
He is his committing murder, but that's not bad. It's
(17:16):
everyone else.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Right, And as Bob was saying, talking about superior level,
he's talking about people with their educations there I assume
diplomas up on the wall. But he's basically smarter than
everyone else when it comes down to it.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
At the point that he dies, he has been identified
as one of the most condemned types of individuals on earth.
He is a sexually motivated serial killer, and he is
writing not about that. He is basically aligning these base,
(18:04):
disgusting acts, cruel acts with this vaunted ideology, as if
to emphasize how superior he is and the fact that
you'll never understand the way his mind works because it
is just unknowable at your level. He probably knows these
letters would be made public, that the public will never
(18:27):
understand a mind that is just so so well developed
like his. Meanwhile, it's being written by someone who trolls
around and kills innocent people for sexual pleasure. If he
could pull off that manipulation and have people believe that
he was somehow special, that would really be a trick.
(18:51):
But after you finish reading his and maybe even finding
yourself nodding at some of the things he's saying about consumerism,
and then you back up and go, wait a minute,
this is written by some depraved psychopath. This is nobody
I align with at all, and that's the only thing
he'd agree with. You don't align with him because he's
(19:15):
a superior being to you.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
It is interesting also when you talk about the fact
that he's talking about victimization other than his victims and
how it's wrong. He talks about, the way I'm reading it,
send the dying to wait for their death and the
comfort of retirement homes. Quietly, quickly say it's for the best,
(19:38):
it's best for you, so their fate you'll not know.
Turn a blind eye back to the screen, and soak
into your reality shows. Stand in front of your mirror
as you and you prene in a plastic castle you
call home to me, that reads, you know, feeling that
it talks about the victimization of people that just put
(19:59):
their family members into retirement homes and leave them for dead.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
Basically, it's more chastising of this is what he's preaching.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
This is what's wrong with society.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
And people are not sacred beings. People are disgusting. They
are deceitful. They are awful, and so if you kill
a couple of them, well that's because I'm just so
disgusted with all of you, and none of you are
worth anything. So if that's what I do, then that's
what I do. And for reasons that you'll never understand such.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
A dichotomy between what he writes and what he actually does.
If you think back to the couriers, two very vulnerable
people with medical issues, just the type that might wind
up in a nursing home that he's railing against in
his little composition, and yet these are exactly the folks
(21:00):
that he picked out to victimize several years earlier.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Well, for that matter of Samantha Koonig, who is just
beginning her life and is by all accounts, she's a giving,
kind person, just beginning her life. She's not a risky liver,
not someone who is involved with all sorts of illicit acts.
She is working, she is responsible, She has loved all
(21:30):
things that are foreign to someone like Israel Keys. He
had his own family. He may there's a phrase that
was coined by psychiatrists, actually was the title of his book.
Doctor Cleckley in nineteen forty one wrote the mask of sanity,
(21:52):
and he was speaking about the psychopathic person, and he
was saying that what they do is they are basically
mimicking what they observe to be normal. It is just
a disguise. Horrifyingly enough, even having a significant other and
(22:13):
having children, these are all acts that you would assume
involve a great deal of emotion and loving and caring,
and in fact it's just it's an act on his
part to cover up what he really is, which is
this sexually depraved predator that is looking just to hurt
(22:35):
people for his own pleasure.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I think he believes these things about himself as well.
I think he really truly feels superior and better than others.
We don't always see that in these cases. We see
some very insecure serial sexual murderers. But in this case,
I think he does truly believe these things, and he
does have a lot of disdain for everyone else around him,
(23:00):
and the rules don't apply to him, and he's going
to do whatever he wants because the rest of us
are just scum.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
You know.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
People ask is it nurture or nature and or some
combination thereof, and we what we don't know from him
is what his personal development was like, we know he
went into the service, We know that that he was
seemingly sociable, We know that he was talking about several murders.
(23:35):
But what we don't know, and we know we also
know that he's a liar. So what we don't know
is any of the content of what he says. And
even if he talked about his childhood, we couldn't be
we couldn't rely on that because he's a liar first
and foremost. He's a liar to himself and to everyone else.
There are some things that can be verified, but anyone's
(23:59):
internal thoughts and feelings are mystery unless they honestly disclose them.
We can make assumptions based on their actions, but we
can't know them. Although, as the adage goes, oh these
guys as if there's a club. But these guys love
(24:21):
to talk. They might like to talk, but the motivation
to talk is not to reveal facts or to create
a bridge of understanding. Their primary motivation is to decide
what it is that is accepted as fact so that
they can maintain that mask of sanity, and they can
(24:45):
maintain the secrets that are most valuable to them. So
now he's dead, and we'll never know the truth, the
whole truth about Israel, Keys or whether anything that he
says accept that which can be irrefutably proven external to
anything he said. We'll never know the rest of it,
(25:10):
and we'll never know how much is a lie, how
much is the truth, and how much is just his
opinion on things that have actually occurred.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Absolutely we won't know that, but it is fun to
try to figure it out. This letter, which you know,
I wouldn't even call it a suicide note. Who knows
if it was even meant to be a suicide note,
or just subscribing that he did, but just to finish.
Another interesting part to me is that the last line
(25:40):
regarding what we're talking about before is the land of
the free, land of the lie, land of the scheme,
American eye, and then he switches right from that the
next line he starts going into what is seemingly about
the murders he committed or the victims that he had,
although again we don't know if that's exactly what it is.
(26:04):
So one of the lines here is I looked in
your eyes. They were so dark, warm and trusting, as
though you had not a worri or care. The more
guileless the game, the better potential to fill up those
pools with your fear. Basically, it's you're vulnerable, you're trusting,
(26:24):
You're a good victim for me. Soon you'll be filled
with fear.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
It's the best kind of victim for him because he
loves to fool people and to see that change in
them when they realize who he really is is probably
something that is very meaningful to him when he's committing
(26:50):
his crimes. But perfect victim. But I think you're right, Angela.
I think that sums it all up right there. And
as we keep talking about, as Bob mentioned, he loves
the lie. He loves fooling people, seeing that trust in
their eyes, but he knows who he really is and
what he's really going to do.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
And in that he feels in control.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
Which is another part of this, is that control of
fooling people, of instilling fear in his victims.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
And he mentioned this in his in his statements, was.
Speaker 5 (27:27):
That a lot of these aspects that we're talking about,
the organization, the planning in his writings, in any of this,
whether he's fooling someone, whether he's leading them on and
hoping that the that Samantha is still alive, or he's
conned somebody into a vunerable position, and then he knows later
that he's going to commit great violence and kill them.
(27:49):
And to watch that recognition in his victim's face go
from some kind of a hope that maybe I can
get out of this to live to realizing that they're
going to be killed, all of that is immensely gratifying.
But it's also kind of an ultimate control of not
only his immediate victim, but then of any of the
people that are associated with his victim. If he thinks
(28:10):
he's fooling the police and he's controlling that too, he's
controlling the investigation.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
There's an immense amount of gratification that I think comes.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Just from that.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
And in that same line, Angela's said, you know, there's
not really a suicide noticed some kind of a rya diatribe.
Oftentimes we think of suicide of someone who is so desperate,
who has lost so much hope, who oftentimes is suffering
from such a severe depression that they just can't really
see their way out of that, and that this is
(28:43):
really the only way to alleviate the pain that they're suffering.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
This is not where Israel Keys was. I believe this
is not someone who was desperate.
Speaker 5 (28:54):
This is someone who was continuing to maintain control of
his destiny. He wasn't going to have to go through
a trial if it was going to end. He knew
at this point he was going to be jailed for
the rest of his life, that he would no longer
be able to travel, he would no longer be able
to enjoy the things that meant the most to him,
and so it was like, I'm going to end this now,
(29:16):
and I'm going.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
To end it under my own terms.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
He wanted to make sure that this was interpreted not
as someone and oftentimes people the despondent who end up
taking their own lives feel that they're no longer worthy
of life, or they're failing at in the world and
have no hope. Rather, what he does first he states
(29:43):
this very condescending ideology where he's chastising humanity for its
false but ultimately what he's doing is he hasn't failed
the world has failed him. He is dismissing himself from
any more of this bs that is life on this earth.
(30:03):
He doesn't want to be associated with people because people
are as he puts their scum or vermin, and he
doesn't want to be associated with them. The interesting part
when he mentions to me the innocence or maybe even
gullibility of victims in this I look into your eyes
and see trust someone who's trusting and gullible and innocent.
(30:30):
In his view, at least his stated view is stupid.
You could look at the vulnerable because they're innocent and gullible,
because they're innocent, as virtuous and in a sense superior
to perhaps the more cynical of us, But he doesn't.
(30:52):
He doesn't want to. In fact, I would bet there
is a certain amount of resentment for someone who has
maintained the ability to trust other humans and to be
gullible because they don't think in evil terms, and to
have maintained a modicum of innocence into adulthood. I would
(31:16):
bet that he resents that because he did not, he
was not able to maintain that if he ever remembered
having it, And he sees his reality as.
Speaker 6 (31:27):
The reality, and these people are just stupid and deceived,
and so the fact that he victimizes them, well that's
in his view.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
Well, what do you expect if you walk around so vulnerable?
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Like this.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
You know, you as a as a population do terrible
things to the earth and each other, and you live
this ridiculous life. On top of that, you're not even
aware of it, and you end up being vulnerable to
someone like me because you're stupid, when in fact, who
he's victimizing are people who are good people, and good
(32:04):
people don't think along the terms that someone like Israel
Keys thinks he's more or less an expert in being
an evil person, and everyone else is in that particular
subject less informed than he is.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
As he goes on, because there are several excerpts here
comparing his and again, I'm assuming his victims to butterflies,
My pretty captive butterfly, colorful wings, my hand smears I
somehow repaint them with punishment and tears, violent metamorphosis emerge,
(32:42):
my dark mouthed princess. I would come often and worship
on the altar of your flesh. You shudder with revulsion
and try to shrink far from me. I'll have you
tied down and begging to become my Stockholm sweetie. So
as you could see, he wants to take them from
being their beautiful, innocent selves and smear them with fear
(33:05):
to fulfill his fantasy.
Speaker 5 (33:09):
I think also that that just speaks to his sadistic tendencies.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
And the anger that they're based on. He's angry at
the world. He can act cool. That imagery and those
words betray this confident air that he tries to put
on and tell you that he is a frustrated, angry,
weak individual does not even see his has lost the
(33:34):
connection enough to even understand that he's weak. He feels
that he has discovered the truth. Maybe at some point
he wasn't as far down the road as he ended up,
that he was less informed that now he is more informed.
But I don't think he sees it. I don't think
(33:54):
he's aware of it. I think he's lost awareness of that.
I think he feels like he is super and that
he's embraced this fantasy, but in fact, his sadism it
is anger, is anger because he cannot live in connection
and conjunction with the world.
Speaker 5 (34:14):
In this instance, this particular instance too, I think he
may be taken a little talked about impossibly being above
average intelligence. Maybe he was well read. This is he's
taken a little artistic license here. This sounds a little
allah silence of the lambs, with the moth reference.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
Et cetera.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
Again, in reading this here he is in his.
Speaker 5 (34:35):
Possibly maybe this is his last statement to the world
or whatever, and he's writing in some type of a
poetic fashion, and yet.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
He's a serial killer.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
It's these two things that are just so diametrically opposed
that he fashions himself some type of a great writer,
completely removing himself from the fact of who he at
the core really is, to speak in any kind of
a quasi flowery language and try to describe what it
(35:12):
is that he's done in an eloquent way, again possibly
borrowing from Silence of the Lamps, that he's still at
his core someone who's a sadistic, sexually motivated serial killer.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
Well, he's extremely grandiose, but would expect that because he
has this inflated sense, this fantasy of unlimited power and
intellect and whatever, and so he wants that to be
part of his legacy. Is Wow, he was just, I mean,
an evil genius. And the thing is people are writing articles.
(35:50):
If you googled his name, you will find that there
are articles written about how he stumped law enforcement, etc.
Because he was just so so smart. I'm sure if
he had the ability to read those, that would be
exactly what he would want to laminate and tag on
his wall. That is what he was intending was for
(36:14):
people to think of him in those terms.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Probably thought when he wrote that his legacy would go
on and on and on, as if it was going
to be some published material that was going to be
referenced for years and years to come.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
But he's leaving us, or he's trying to leave this
impression and may have left it on some that he
was way beyond all of us and we could never
understand him. And he leaves this note and what he's
probably thinking when he leaves these notes and these drawings again,
(36:51):
what does he want to do? He wants to dupe us.
He wants to make us think and question and like
who is this? Israel key? Which is what we're doing.
We've learned a lot from him, but he's really not
as mythical or legendary as he wanted us all to
believe exactly.
Speaker 5 (37:13):
Grandielse is a great term, in particular with.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
The skulls done in his blood.
Speaker 5 (37:21):
I mean, it's it's really over the top, dramatic, last
effort to draw attention.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
He's emphasizing himself as someone with who exercised the power
over life and death. He probably wouldn't want to be
talked about as a perverb, because that's that's it's a
meaning term. But people who engage in deviant sexual practices
at times are called back, and he certainly is someone
(37:52):
who engaged in extremely deviant sexual practices. He talks about
the death aspect, he doesn't talk talk about the fact
that he is one. He was one strange dude, with
or without murder. That was one screwed up guy. Sexually,
that is not the type of legacy he wanted. He
(38:13):
wanted it to be more about, you know, on a
philosophical plane, on or just an esoteric, unknowable plane. Certainly
not well. I found it sexually stimulating to hurt people.
I'm a grubby little pervert. That's not what he wanted
anyone to think of him as.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
But that's what he was, bottom line. And yet we
have books and media that portray him again as this
sort of evil genius of some sort, and he's not
at all.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
I think.
Speaker 5 (38:47):
In closing, especially given what Bob was just talking about,
and that what Israel Keys, I think how he would
like to be remembered as opposed to what.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
He truly was.
Speaker 5 (39:00):
Is Instead, rather than the focus being so often on
those who perpetrate.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
The crimes, is to remember the victims. To remember the.
Speaker 5 (39:09):
Individuals that were lost to family and to friends, whether
they be a middle aged couple that weren't hurting anyone
who were just living there quiet lives, or a young
woman full of life and looking forward to everything that
(39:33):
life could offer that were suddenly and violently taken from
this world. We so often focus on the predators when
I wish, in particularly in the media, that we focused
much more heavily on the victims and who they were
(39:55):
and the loss to society of a whole because of
their deaths.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Thank you, Thank you all my dearest friends and colleagues, Angela,
Susan and Bob. That's it for this episode of The Consult.
Thank you for listening. This episode of The Consult was
written and produced by me Julia Cowley. The show was
(40:24):
edited and mixed by Mike Aarris, and the music was
composed by John Hanskey. If you'd like to learn more,
please visit the Consult website at www dot Truecrimeconsult dot com.
That's www. Dot truecrimeconsult dot com. You can also follow
us on Twitter. Our handle is at the Consult Pod.
(40:50):
Thank you for listening, and back o bad
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