S01E13 - Caracol - The Profilers

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

We are excited to bring you a conversatoin we had with 4 retired FBI profilers from the podcast, The Consult.  They independently profiled the Samantha Koenig case and the William and Lorraine Currier case before anyone knew that a serial killer was involved.  They know the case well and have covered Israel Keyes on thier show. Their experience and expertise shines through as they begin to put to bed all of the mystic built around the case.  We not only get their insight into the details surrounding his  drawings and writings found in his cell, but they also discuss Israel in a more general sense and how he relates to other offenders.

Enjoy!

Special Guests:

The Consult team - 
Julia Cowley
Robert Drew
Susan Kossler Drew
Angela Sercer

Resources:
The FBI files

Episode Artwork Credit:
Heather Horton Whedon

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
Dale Akstin
and
Corey Deatly

This is a Studio BOTH/AND collaboration: www.somewhereinthepines.com / bothand.fyi  For an ad-free experience: cz/studiobothand

 For early ad-free episodes and more: www.Patreon.com/somewhereinthepines
 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
This is a studio both and collaboration.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
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 3 (00:36):
Thank you for joining us. The following interview marks the
final installment in the Kara Call mini series I'm Dakota.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
And I'm Joshua. Welcome to Someone the Pines, Episode thirteen.
The Profilers. Today's episode is part one of a conversation

(01:16):
we have with four retired FBI agents and profilers. The agents,
Julia Cowley, Robert Drew, Susan Costler, Drew, and Angela Secer
are all part of the podcast The consult What really
sets them apart is they profiled the Samantha ConA case
and the William and the Ring Career case before anyone
knew there was a serial killer involved, so they are

(01:37):
well versed in the case. They know a great deal
about Israel, and they have covered parts of his case
on their show. We wanted to get their insight on
the new information from the cell, as well as talk
about the case in general and who they believe Israel
really was. We hope you enjoyed the conversation.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
Hello, Joshua, how's it going going? Well? How are you?

Speaker 5 (02:00):
I'm doing great? Thanks?

Speaker 6 (02:02):
Hey, guys, Hello.

Speaker 4 (02:05):
I heard you on True Crime Garage.

Speaker 6 (02:07):
Oh awesome, both of you.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
That's one of my favorite shows. So I haven't listened
to every episode of THEIRS, but.

Speaker 6 (02:16):
I have something like seven hundred.

Speaker 7 (02:18):
Yeah, I know.

Speaker 4 (02:20):
I feel like they must have some background in law
enforcement something. I know that they don't. I mean, I
don't think that they do, but there's like they seem
to have some knowledge of it. So I confuse them
with a different podcast. So I was late to the game.
The others should be joining us too.

Speaker 8 (02:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:39):
I heard you on the Pretend podcast recently too, Loadonna.

Speaker 4 (02:44):
Yeah, yeah, I'm just waiting to be stocked now.

Speaker 9 (02:51):
Hi, guys, I am doing Hi.

Speaker 5 (02:53):
It's nice to meet you too. And I'm Joshuaitz, Dakota,
Susan Yeah, Hie.

Speaker 10 (03:03):
Hello, I'm Angela.

Speaker 5 (03:05):
Nice to Angela. Thanks for doing this, guys, it's really awesome.

Speaker 4 (03:11):
Thanks for having us. We I mean, obviously we are
interested in this case and covered it on our show
as well, and in it from a different perspective. But
what you guys are doing is very interesting. Are you
You're probably not allowed to say, are you Ted Holla's informants?
I wanted did he Did he read you rules and

(03:32):
stuff about providing information? Did you sign anything? I'm just wondering,
we actually.

Speaker 5 (03:38):
Wanted to ask you about that. How How did us
two idiots get so lucky to meet him and be
able to receive.

Speaker 4 (03:46):
In Well, I I'm I am surprised by what he
has given you. My guess is you're, in some way,
shape or form, you're a source of his, and you
know he's made it perfectly clear that they are. I mean,
especially Ted wants as much information out there as possible
because that's the only way that people might find these

(04:11):
caches or other victims potentially that are out there. And
I think he's a firm believer in using the media
for that. And obviously, because you're covering it, he's given
you information that might help you in your endeavors, as
you know, in either covering the show or going out

(04:31):
on your searches that you're doing. That's my guess. But
usually if you are an FBI source, like an official source,
they have they have to read you a list of rules,
and maybe he doesn't read them verbatim, but it would
be like you're you know, you need to provide truthful
information to us. We cannot offer you any consideration if

(04:54):
you break the law that kind of thing. If he's
never said that those kinds of things too, you're probably
not in a Michel sours I was just wondering because
he's not going to tell us he's not allowed to.

Speaker 7 (05:10):
Don't you think so too, Julia? Because Keys is dead
and there's not going to be any kind of a
prosecution afterwards, that they're not as concerned, Well, they're not
concerned at all about an integrity of something that may
go forth into prosecution where him get providing you information
and even indirectly directing you to certain things that could

(05:31):
really disrupt the chain of custody. Were you guys to
if he was Israel, Keys was still alive and you
guys were to discover something that was critical to his prosecution,
the defense could argue that you were you had conducted
an illegal search or seizure at the direction, even if
it was indirect of the Bureau, and it could blow

(05:52):
the case, which is why they won't share anything. When
there's an investigation of a with a live object out there,
you've got to be very careful about that kind of
thing and the fact that Keys is gone, it would
be great to be able to solve these other cases
and be able to close them out and definitively say,

(06:13):
based on what has been discovered, Keys is responsible for this,
but it's not going to result in any prosecution. So
in that regard, he can be more open about you
know what he's telling you, at least as far as
Keys is concerned, right, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
And I think he made a good point that because
he's they're very busy, they've got current cases that they're
working on. They work a lot of violent crime in
their area, so they can't devote the amount of time
that maybe some of the citizens sleuths can out there,

(06:49):
and that's why they're reaching out to the public for
help as well.

Speaker 5 (06:54):
That's kind of been our impression is you can definitely
tell that he wants to solve their fore mortars that
I think happened in Washington, and he definitely wants to
solve them if he can. So it seems like just
because we're actually covering the cases specifically, do you think
that's like the best avenue to find some evidence potential evidence.
So that's the only thing we can think of, and

(07:14):
we feel pretty fortunate to have had the conversations we've
had with him so far. It's been pretty pretty wild,
to say the least.

Speaker 4 (07:24):
It's unusual. It is unusual, but that's that's cool that
you've gotten access like that, and he's been so helpful.
In my opinion, I think he's very forward thinking and
he realizes we're not going to do this on our own.
Did you guys get the images that they really did?

Speaker 10 (07:43):
I did?

Speaker 5 (07:43):
Yes? Okay, especially Denthala had shown us this photo. We
just asked basically if we could confirm what the word
was written on the wall because we had heard is
kind of like up in the air what the word was.
And instead the first thing he is he was just
presented the two photos of his cell to us, so
we weren't able to get the image on camera or

(08:04):
get a copy of the image, but we asked if
we were allowed to remake it, and we just happened
to hook up with this amazing artist that was able
to do a rendition of what we saw. And we
kind of just want to see the connection between the
suicide note and these new writings on the wall, and

(08:24):
maybe if there's a connection with the skulls that were
drawn in a cell. And then also I guess there
are two other letters which I think I sent a
clip as well. I don't know if you guys were
able to hear that, but it's especially Jahala talking about
a goodbye letter to kind of his family. And then
another letter that was ten pages long. It described in

(08:45):
great detail him murdering six victims, two of which were
William and the Rain Courier or the other one was
Samantha Konig. And then there was a couple that he
described murdering and then a single female. So we were
just kind of wonder if there's a chance, if there's
any if this new information from the cell has any
sort of tie into those other connections that were found

(09:08):
in a cell, and if there's anything that interesting that
you guys noticed from it, particularly the you know, cups
of blood and how clean the site was. But yeah,
I don't know, I don't know where you'd like to
start if or if there is any connection at all
that you guys think is worth talking about.

Speaker 4 (09:26):
Well, I have a question about the writing. Do they
believe that was done at the time that he killed himself. Yep,
that wasn't there found earlier or anything like that.

Speaker 5 (09:40):
Yep, and there were.

Speaker 6 (09:42):
The skulls were found months earlier and during a search,
but the riding on the wall was found during or
once he was discovered deceased.

Speaker 5 (09:55):
And the word charcle that's written, it's probably about seven
to nine inches in size, and it's written with maybe
at least two fingers, so it's a larger image. And
the line that's underneath it, it doesn't look like it's
actually an underline of the word. It was just a
swipe across the wall. And then the other line on

(10:16):
the side. If the only blood was mine, I would spill.
It looks to be written with just one finger, so
it's smaller letters and just tucked off the side. And
then the big blotch that's up on the upper left section.
It kind of looks like he had a wet shirt
and then was pressed against the wall and then came off,
so it was kind of more of just like an
impression of a wet, bloody shirt. So that's kind of

(10:36):
how all the different pieces relate to each other from
what we could tell. So I don't know if that changes.
I mean, it seems like Karakle was the most pronounced word,
the most visual probably could see that from outside the cell.
We're assuming, well.

Speaker 4 (10:51):
We know he has a flair for the dramatic. We
saw that in his We called it the suicide I note,
but I don't know that we consider it a typical
suicide note. And then the painting of the skulls and
blood very dramatic person So it's not surprising I think,

(11:16):
to any of us that his death would be dramatic
in this way. That's that's my initial impression.

Speaker 6 (11:26):
Do you think so with his.

Speaker 11 (11:29):
Want or need to stay out of the media, he
said that over and over again, that was his whole
bargaining chip or he wanted to trade his chips for
that to stay out of the media. How do you
think that this, like this behavior correlates with that, because
it seems like it's in direct contradiction. Because if you're

(11:50):
doing something this dramatic, like you said, it seems like this,
it would be more likely that people would get a
hold of this and talk about it, and it would
be more of a make a bigger deal of it
than it seems like he wanted to. Do you think
I mean, the two behaviors seem so opposite of each other,
and they are.

Speaker 4 (12:10):
And we know he's familiar with the true crime genre.
He talked about it, he called it. That's what the
other podcast, true Crime Bullshit was named after something that
Israel Key said. So he would know doing this, knowing
full well that this would likely end up in the
media and be newsworthy to people that follow true crime cases.

Speaker 9 (12:38):
What it is actually very useful in doing is pointing
out it's a great example of him saying one thing
express and verbally expressing desires that are in fact the
opposite of true desires in his actions. So he makes

(13:01):
a deal because he doesn't want any press and he
doesn't want a lot of attention. We know that's not true.
And you need to be aware that sometimes the best
liars will sprinkle actual fact or give you valid examples
of why you should trust them, only to mislead and

(13:25):
manipulate further and exaggerate and you know, deny things they did,
take credit for things they did not do, hint and
play games and all that stuff, all because the focus
on him is intoxicating, highly desirable. In his case, the

(13:51):
idea that he would be focused upon for years after
his death is just a fantastic aspect of the whole
thing for a guy like him. So the maddening part
is because he gave some things that were verified and
seemingly reliable, that the tendency of authorities, etc. Is to

(14:18):
assume that anything he says falls into that category. And
those were probably things that he was throwing out there
to develop them that response in authorities and in the
press and in the public. But they could just be

(14:39):
one or two offs, and the rest he might not
have done anything. He might have done them all. He
might have done other ones and not these. He might
have done the ones he's talking about, and others we
don't know, and he certainly, if he's the only source
we still don't know, is absolute no credibility.

Speaker 7 (15:02):
First, I got to ask a quick question. Can you
hear Emerson in the background? No, Okay, because he's been
commenting quite a bit. That's what I want to make
sure that he's not interfering with the recording.

Speaker 4 (15:16):
I heard him only only because I'm used to him.

Speaker 9 (15:20):
Our cat is pretty up to speed on the case,
and yes, at times to comment.

Speaker 7 (15:24):
Yes, are you guys familiar with the term duping delight?
I think in partially what he's referring to you, especially
when he was alive, but it actually continues after his death.
Is the idea that people are going to be continuing
to look at this and by sprinkling stuff out there,

(15:48):
some of which is obviously true or or there is
can somewhat be corroborated, but in other cases it can.
And he's while he's doing this, he's getting in jointment
out of it in watching the reactions of the people
that he's trying to manipulate. It's it's another whole part

(16:08):
of his psyche. I mean, even I was listening prior
to this to some of the little segments that you
had in your podcast and where he's the phrase in
particular where he goes, now you can go out and
talk to as many people as you one who think
they know me, but nobody knows me. Only I know me.
You know, the only person you're going to get the

(16:29):
real Israel Keys from is me. You know, that's all
part of this manipulation of his.

Speaker 9 (16:38):
And it's IMA's discrediting any source that might oppose his story.
So you know, he tells you this and says, look,
I'm leveling with you. I'm the only one who knows me,
and I'm the only one who knows what I've done,
and I am I am beyond human capability of figuring

(17:00):
me out. Only I know. So regardless of the number
of sources or even physical evidence out there, you can't
trust them unless I verify it, because I'm the only
one who knows. Now. In the cases that he did
that he confessed to in that case, he turned out

(17:23):
to be the only one who knew. Again carefully chosen
so that anything that he said in furtherance of his
manipulation would be believed based on the accuracy of what
he said in those two.

Speaker 5 (17:41):
Cases, Can I ask really quick? So in the case
of the couriers, is there a reason why he If
he's trying to be in control and trying to act
as though he has everything under control during during his murders,
then why would he admit to like Lorraine potentially getting
away at the beginning of the night, and he's same

(18:04):
with Samantha that she gets away. I guess that what
you probably see on video cameras, So that would be
a reason for him to mention that. But why would
he show that he is fallible in certain cases like that?

Speaker 9 (18:15):
Well, he's not fallible.

Speaker 8 (18:17):
He's made.

Speaker 9 (18:18):
He has the ability to adjust his plan. What he's
telling you is, I have the ability to adjust my plan.
I can react effectively in cases of surprise or momentary
loss of you know, control over someone. I'm still in control.
I just have to refocus, but I can do that

(18:41):
very quickly and effectively. So these people that I'm speaking of,
they tried their best, but I was I was right
on it. So it seems it's like someone who sure,
if you were in high school, you heard when someone
missed a pass on a weekend football game and they said, well,

(19:08):
you know, and let's say someone else makes the touchdown
because of that. Well, I saw that he was going
to get hit really badly, so I threw myself in
front of that guy, which allowed him to catch it
and get But you know what, all the credit goes
to him because he got the touchdown, and you're and
you're left with this feeling of what a great guy

(19:31):
and he you know, if if he weren't so selfless,
he'd have got the touchdown. And you hear things like
that or someone saying, yeah, I did get beat up
the other night, but you know when the fifth guy
joined in against me. I really knew I was I
was cooked. And you're going, wow, he fought four guys off.

(19:51):
You know. It's that kind of stuff. And Keys does
it all the time. If you listen with that thought
in mind, he does it all the time.

Speaker 4 (20:01):
Humble brag. Yes, it's a humble brag and he does
do it all the time. It's very obvious.

Speaker 9 (20:10):
One thought about the the about what how do you
pronounce it? How do you pronounce it? Carosol a cara
call call. One thing about writing that is it expands
himself geographically. He is an international threat. I mean, you know,

(20:35):
I guess he he could have written disney World and
then he'd have from Alaska to you know, to to
California or Disneyland and down to Florida. But he he
names the place. It's not just a country, it's a
specific part of a country. He he has some familiarity

(20:56):
with I guess, and he mentions that, and it's like that,
you know, it's very cryptic. He doesn't explain it. He
never talks about it before. I really think the thought
in doing a lot of this was to continue his
significance in investigators minds and to make himself seem larger

(21:26):
and scarier than life, and to continue his control somewhat
over people who have a certain amount of power. So
he keeps he's still in control. He's dead, but he's
still in control. He's still the puppeteer who's making them

(21:47):
go to these places and follow up his clues. What
better thing for a guy who loves to manipulate and
a guy who likes to lie his lies live on
these years later. I guess anything that he says rather
than he looked at as okay, he's left us a clue.

(22:09):
It may very well just be just a misleading It's
just part of his overall desire to mislead and manipulate
and empower himself.

Speaker 5 (22:26):
How does that relate to his daughter and the idea
of him trying to say that he doesn't want this
to get out because he doesn't want his daughter to
find out. Do you think there's any truth to that
at all? Or is that just completely no? Wow?

Speaker 4 (22:42):
No, I just clearly I don't.

Speaker 7 (22:48):
And part of that too, you have to go to
a place where you got to imagine someone There are
other individuals that might come to mind that think about that,
think about nothing but themselves. There is no emotion, none,

(23:09):
no empathy. You can have the children, but there is
no care feeling of caring, truly caring for them. You
may look at.

Speaker 8 (23:20):
Them as.

Speaker 7 (23:23):
An advantage to you, as in something that they maybe
can do for you later on in life, but no,
true there's no empathy inside that individual. They can learn
how to act like it the good ones and watch
other individuals to learn how to act and respond appropriately

(23:43):
in public settings, but they.

Speaker 6 (23:46):
Truly have.

Speaker 7 (23:48):
There's no caring, there's no empathy, there's no emotional attachment
to other individuals. The focus is entirely egocentric and the
motivation is entirely to their benefit. So to hear words
about I don't want to upset my family, I don't

(24:09):
want my children living with this legacy, et cetera, that's
just that, it's just bs. It's it's again a manipulation
to try and make himself look good, and it's something
I believe he knows. If he throws that out there,
then then people go, oh, well, okay, he wasn't really

(24:31):
such a terrible monster. He loved his kids, or he
loved his child. You see, it's he knows that that
would make him look better and that's why he says
it when in fact he doesn't feel it at all.
You know, was he was he thinking about his daughter
when he took Samantha in the shed behind the house,

(24:52):
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
Other respect for the victims, we try to avoid playing
clips of Israel describing his acts of violence, but we
felt with this clip embodies everything that the console team
is talking about. If you wish to avoid hearing this
next clip, fast forward two minutes.

Speaker 9 (25:12):
What would you do.

Speaker 12 (25:22):
Well, I wouldn't tell you this part, except we're gonna
find out anyway.

Speaker 8 (25:26):
So why wouldn't you tell her? I told you this
stuff was private. There's too many people in here. But
I had sex with her re corps and then it

(25:47):
was by then it was getting late in the morning, and.

Speaker 12 (26:02):
Uh, I remember it was I guess I lost track
of time and came out and knocked on the door
of the shed and I said, oh, yep, go back
to the side to eat your breakfast. And cause she
was I mean, at that point, anytime I opened the door,

(26:24):
she was like right there. So anytime I came in
and out of the shed, and I kind of slip
out without opening the door very much, and alright, so yeah,
I just left her there. After that left her there,
went inside.

Speaker 13 (26:46):
Uh boy after that, see that woulda been uh what
do we say? The nineteenth Monday was the nineteenth, so
that would have made it the twentieth.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
Here he describes committing an act of necrophilia, and moments
later he laughs as he recalls his young daughter coming
to the shed and knocking on the door looking for
him as he sends her a way to go eat breakfast.

Speaker 7 (27:13):
You know, were any of these people that we've dealt
with in our you know, it was a classic thing
when I was working some white collar crime crises, and
once these guys got convicted, they'd get up on the
stand and during their sentencing it would be all about, oh,
please consider home confinement, and please consider this, and that
I want to be able to go to my kids
graduation from high school, and I want to be able

(27:35):
to go to you know, my mother is dying and
blah blah blah. Because I would sit there thinking, why
weren't you thinking about any of these people when you
were ripping the government off for millions of dollars? And
in this case, this is this is very much the
same thing, just in a different setting.

Speaker 11 (27:54):
So using those relationships is a part of his ask
or a part of his disguise, and using it to
manipulate how people perceive him.

Speaker 4 (28:07):
Yeah, it goes back to what we were talking about
earlier about how said he said he didn't want things
to get onto the media, but yet he does these
very over the top things that he knows full will
will be reported on and will be reported on very widely.
But he's saying, I don't want all this to get
out because I am concerned about my daughter. Yet he's

(28:29):
still doing these things. Why is he doing that? Because
he doesn't really care about his daughter, and it's really
disheartening to hear anyone suggest that he actually cared about
her in the way that we are interpreting his actions.
Because he didn't, So he's he's not a good person.

(28:52):
He did not have the same caring feelings for his
daughter that quote unquote normal people would have, and his
actions tell us that that's why we see these things
that seemingly make no sense. Well, he says this, but
he does that it's because he's manipulating people.

Speaker 9 (29:13):
I just just a quick example. We've all worked with
people who worked undercover, and I remember this one case.
This is many years ago, but it was a good
friend of mine and he was working undercover and he
was the target. Was a kind of a lonely person

(29:37):
but was moving a lot of drugs. And he befriended
this person and used to go to his house all
the time. They hung out together, they listened to music together.
He had a conflict with someone, and my friend as
in his undercover role, like gutting the guy's face and

(30:00):
like backed him off. And I mean, this guy thought
that my friend was his best friend and was when
the arrest went down and the whole group went down,
he actually started crying when he found out that my

(30:23):
friend was an undercover and because he had lost his
best friend. But the thing is, what my friend said
is what if you need someone to believe you in
a role, then you do everything that the person that
you're pretending to be would do as much as you can.

Speaker 8 (30:42):
I can't.

Speaker 9 (30:42):
I mean, obviously cops are restricted.

Speaker 7 (30:45):
But.

Speaker 9 (30:47):
So if you're surrounding yourself with a quote normal family
and you're supposed to be living a quote normal life,
because you're facilitating your real self, which is a person
who likes to go around and statistically murder people. Then
if you're an intelligent person and you really study, which

(31:11):
I think it's fair to say that Keys was was
pretty intelligent about it. All of that, having a having
a wife, having having children, that was all, I mean,
all he had to do is is remember all the
examples that he watched and studied and how how good

(31:35):
parents handled their children and act that way, because even
though he didn't care about it, the more effectively he
acted that way, the more freedom he had to live
his life, the real life that he wanted to live.

Speaker 7 (31:55):
Bt K is another example of that. Married children, church goer,
gainfully employed home in the same area for many, many years.

Speaker 9 (32:06):
Yeah, you could go back to any of them moneyed
Ted Bundy is like, you know, the poster child, but
but there will Angelo, Yes, John, John, Wayne Gacy, you
name them all. They all have false identities basically that
they're they're living as another person. I know the bt

(32:31):
K when asked specifically, if you could choose between your
family and the good life you lead and the other
life you lead, which where would you put all your time?
And without even hesitating, He's like, oh, I'd definitely be
He'd definitely be hunting people down, killing him. That was

(32:53):
what he that's what he wanted to do, and that's
what in That's what they that's who they are, and
then it's a matter of well how do I get
away with it? And usually giving a false appearance is
integral in their success.

Speaker 10 (33:11):
Su a side note, that wasn't that didn't focus anything
on his family. It focused on his prowess as a killer.
Basically so or is alleged suicide note. Whatever they found
beneath him was not a heartfelt I'm so sorry I
put you through this. You know, I've always hated myself

(33:32):
for being this way and never understood it. No, it's
all about what he did reliving it, and nothing about
his family.

Speaker 7 (33:43):
I was just going to add. I think it's it's
so hard, I think for the majority of us to
get our heads around that, because you can't imagine going
through life not having feelings for anybody but yourself, which
is why when you see something that they've written or
it makes it look like that maybe you know they

(34:06):
they were as a part of them that was normal.
We sort of grab on to that because it the
idea of not having that empathy or emotion is so foreign,
and then unfortunately those guys know that. I mean the
ones that have been successful in what they did were
able to read what they needed to do and how
to act, et cetera, and then create that persona in

(34:29):
order to be successful in what they really in, who
they really wanted to be, and what they wanted to do.

Speaker 5 (34:38):
With BTK, one thing Israel had said in one interview
was that or one interrogation is that when he was
talking about assaulting the ring courier, that the ropes that
he had tied around her, he didn't want them to
be too tight because he didn't.

Speaker 6 (34:54):
It was weird.

Speaker 5 (34:55):
I didn't want to hurt her, even though I knew
he was going to kill her. I didn't want her
to be in pain. And I think BTK said something
very similar to like to that as well another interview.
I'm assuming that's all just alive, But is there anything
like why why even say something like that?

Speaker 9 (35:10):
What is that?

Speaker 5 (35:11):
What comes from something like that? Because it just seems
so odd.

Speaker 9 (35:15):
Again, he might be throwing that out there, who can't.
You can't really pin down his motives for saying or
doing anything, But what you can say is whether he's
manipulating the person who's receiving the story, or he's manipulating
her to be more cooperative because he doesn't seem like

(35:35):
he's going to be brutal, or both, or see none
of the above, but still some manipulative reason. That's the
reason why he does not care about her comfort unless
it's something either connected to his fantasy or he feels

(35:56):
will make it easier, more successful, et cetera. Those are
his considerations how he tells the story. It's going to
be what works best for him at the time.

Speaker 7 (36:09):
With someone who's a sadistic type individual, and think, in
some cases, first allow the individual to feel like they
might be able to come out of this alive, or
if they just cooperate or I'll be nice to you know,
and they think, Okay, if I go along and if I
don't fight to her, maybe I'll have the opportunity to

(36:30):
get away from this. And with the whole idea that
later on he's going to get that look when they
realize that they're not going to get away and they
are going to be tortured or they're starting to be
tortured or they're killed whatever, that's actually a very erotic
or pleasurable experience for him to see that individual go

(36:52):
from having some sort of hope that they might survive
to realizing that they're going to be killed. So it
could be for that reason as well.

Speaker 9 (37:02):
It's sadism has its true basis is true focus in
psychological pain, which can be produced in a lot of
different ways, including physical pain. But that's just that's a
that's a method, not the true goal. The true goal

(37:24):
is psychological pain of the victim.

Speaker 4 (37:27):
Well, you'll see different killers. There will be some killers
that are gratified by inflicting pain during the assault and
prior to the murder, and then you have other killers.
For example, jody'angelo was described during his sexual assaults by
some victims as being gentle and while he's assaulting them.

(37:52):
So it just manifests different. But it is still it
really is based in the individual's fantasy, and only they
truly know what that is. And I think I did
hear somewhere that he didn't. Fantasy didn't play a big
role in Israel Key's crimes. I don't know who said that.

(38:15):
I did hear that somewhere like that's it's all that
played a role in this. It's so much fantasy, even
to the going back to his kits and the cashes.
I mean, he talked about as a young child, fantasizing
about finding hidden treasure and burying these kids is all

(38:35):
part of this process. And there's his fantasies are specific
to him and how he's developed and what's important to him.
And so as Bob and Sue were pointing out, it
could just be manifesting different and that idea of making

(38:55):
them feel like potentially they're going to be okay and
then that realization, that moment when they realize they're not.
Is that what he's specifically looking forward to potentially?

Speaker 5 (39:10):
How important is that? Is that fantasy part of the life.
Because Dakota and I were just talking about this just
the other day. He seems to have put a lot
of his time like building structures or or you know,
everything seems to be like a custom build, like his
trailer for work, his he made the shelter that he

(39:31):
ice shelter to be able to dispose of Spantha. Konig
talked about building different kinds of canoes that he hoped
to be able to take island CAMPI and stuff. Is
that like day to day mindset of like doing these
little things that are will eventually be used in a murder.
Is that is that it seems like that's super important
or is.

Speaker 11 (39:51):
That like it's part of the fantasy, Yeah, building up
to it.

Speaker 9 (39:58):
Not everything that he not every activity that he engages
in is in service to his to his killing and
his his uh murderous sexual fantasy. Some of it is
just I mean, like anyone else, you have an overwhelming
primary interest, say in life, but you have other interests

(40:22):
and some like that one. He could put that comfortably
in his daytime life, his his quote ordinary life, and
when he needed to, he could borrow from it for
his for his real activities, such as where he put
Samantha Cone. You know, nothing suspicious about a guy doing

(40:47):
his own woodworking and doing a great job at it
and being a great handy man, et cetera. But these things,
these things served a double purpose. For one thing, it
looked like, okay, this with this, this is what this
guys about. I mean, he seems to have a real
passion for this stuff, and at the same time it
can easily be converted into into facilitating his his real desires.

(41:10):
So it's not necessarily he doesn't have in mind, I'm
going to use these canoes to take bodies out somewhere
and dump them, but they could be used that way
if he decided that would be the best thing. He
did seem to.

Speaker 7 (41:22):
Take a lot of pride in his in his skill,
and that wouldn't surprise me. I'm sure he probably thought
in a lot of these cases he could do the
job better himself than anyone else. Yeah, and and so
that's why you do it. And that would kind of
go along with the sort of self centered in the
in the ego. But he clearly had I mean, he
people that he did jobs for said he did a
good job, you know, so there was there was probably

(41:45):
some pride and and maybe he got some satisfaction out
of out of doing you know, working with wood or
you know, like I said, he seemed to be a
guy that was very prideful as far as being self
sustaining and being able to get by himself, et cetera.
And like Bob said, but it also came in really
handy when he was planning his more nefarious activities.

Speaker 9 (42:09):
Well, if you're not like anyone else, and you know
you're not like anyone else, you don't think like them,
you don't feel like them, you don't get the same
pleasure as they do.

Speaker 8 (42:19):
You don't you.

Speaker 9 (42:20):
Get pleasure in things that they absolutely be revulsed by.
There's two choices, and you can say, some kind of
a sick monster of a being, I am beneath humanity,
or you could say all that stuff is trivial and meaningless.

(42:47):
I am actually a superhuman and I am much more
intelligent and much more capable than any other person in
the world. And it's not really a tough decision when
you when you apply that dichotomy to which one Israel
you choose is what do you know? He just happens

(43:10):
to be the smartest, most skilled person that ever existed
on the planet, and he's he's unfettered by these these
trivial and meaningless feelings that other people have. And he
I mean, he sits back and in an expansive way

(43:33):
and tells his tales, and he's enjoying himself, and he's
smoking cigars, and he's he's presenting this look I am I.
No one could deny that I'm different, but I'm different
in a fascinating superhuman way. In everything he says if
you look at it through that, through that filter, everything

(43:55):
he says, everything he reveals the fact that I'm sure
if he had instances where victims actually were trying to
escape and he had to chase him, I'm sure he
was panicked. But he's not gonna tell it like that.
He's gonna say, oh, I turn my back for a minute,

(44:16):
and she's running down I just had to run down
there and catch him. You know. I was right by
the road, you know. But it was no real problem.
It's just, you know, another one of my trivial situations
that I had to handle and of course excel at
because nothing bothers me and no one really outwits me.

(44:37):
And the only reason that you're we're even talking is
because I decided to, By the way, can I get
a light for the cigar you bought me?

Speaker 5 (44:47):
So with the with the cell writings and that that
new piece of information. If the only blove is mine,
I would spill it. What value does that have? Because
it's is it just that if I was the only one,
I would still do this, or or I mean, because
it's it's just a really kind of dumb thing. I
guess I just personally don't understand the value in it
at all.

Speaker 9 (45:07):
I think you're right in that there is no value
in it. It doesn't point to anything. It's not particularly profound.
I'm sure he thought it was dramatic and poetic. Like
Julia pointed out, he's he's a drama queen. And I'm
sure that he thought that this is this is gonna

(45:28):
stump philosophers, and you know, in centuries to come, they're
gonna they're gonna be pondering the wisdom of Israel Keith.
In fact, it was a stupid thing to say. And
if your blood was your if that was the only
blood to spill, don't we all wish right? But it wasn't.
You spilled good people's blood. And now and now you're

(45:54):
killing yourself. And that's not selfless either. That's escaping penalty,
which again is self serving, surprise and the easiest way out.
How many people if they gave you a choice right
now to life in prison or a quick execution, I

(46:15):
would say it most people would opt for a quick execution,
which was what he was asking for and what he
ended up giving himself.

Speaker 7 (46:26):
That's what he wanted, was he wanted a quick exit.
You didn't want to spend the rest of his life
that would have driven him crazy. He didn't want to
spend the rest of his life in jail.

Speaker 9 (46:34):
And he read enough about serial killers to know they're
not revered in prisons. There they fall into the pervert
category and they get harassed no end. I mean, Ted
Bundy was constantly humiliated by other people in that prison,

(46:55):
and he could come off as as this evil genius
when he was talking to people about his cases, etc.
But when he went back there, his stuff was gone,
or somebody had done something to his stuff, or they
did something to him when you know, I mean, you

(47:16):
have that status when you're a captured serial killer and
there's such a public fascination with them, and they seem
like the evil, omnipotent genius. But that doesn't really fly
in prison if you're a sex offender, and that's what
they kind of fall into. They're not a murderer like

(47:38):
somebody who's knocking off a bank and shoots a cop.
They have status. Someone who sneaks into a woman's house
and strangles her, he's a pervert in the parlance of
the prism, and they do not go to the top
of the list. In fact, if they weren't always in isolation,

(48:01):
they're gonna beg to be because they just get you know,
Jeffrey Dahmer another situation, they don't do well in prison,
or they take on another persona like a David Berkowitz
who claims that he was reborn and now runs around

(48:22):
prison and praise with people.

Speaker 7 (48:25):
You know.

Speaker 9 (48:25):
But if you stay, if you're looking for respect for
being a serial killer within the walls of a prison,
you're not. It's it's a it's not good time, and
the easiest thing to do, and the most selfish thing
to do is to kill yourself. And once again we
find Israel first in line for that.

Speaker 11 (48:49):
Josh mentioned earlier. I was when I was looking at
the picture, I was trying to the picture of the cell.
I was trying to kind of figure out the order
that like, the time line of things. And as Josh
mentioned earlier, the smaller writing off to the side is
done with one finger, and it's smaller and maybe a

(49:09):
little bit more detailed. But the larger writing on the
back wall, the charra call is done with two fingers,
much larger. To me, that kind of seemed like maybe
that that was that the smaller writing may have been
done first, and then as he's losing blood, he.

Speaker 6 (49:34):
Is maybe.

Speaker 11 (49:38):
Coming closer to losing consciousness. Then that's when maybe he
does he writes Kara call.

Speaker 6 (49:46):
Would that.

Speaker 11 (49:49):
Imply anything about the meaning of that specific word, like
maybe that that has more value than the phrase does.

Speaker 4 (49:59):
I don't have an amp I mean about that other
than I think that these things had meaning for him,
But I don't think it's some deep, mystical type of
meaning versus I might try to throw people off, or
maybe you know, I enjoyed my trip to Belly's. I

(50:20):
don't know, but I don't see necessarily any deep meaning.
It just goes right back to what we've seen from
him from the very beginning, where he's trying to appear
deep and mystical and mysterious and smarter than everyone else.

(50:41):
And I don't see a lot either way. Maybe just
like oh, I need to write another word, and that's
what came to mind, or maybe it had special meaning
to him for some reason, But I don't think that
there is a real deep meaning to that. That's my
impress and just based on everything that we've seen on

(51:04):
of keys.

Speaker 5 (51:05):
The word characle has a few different meanings too. It's
a place in beliefs, but it's also like a curl
lock of hair, which seems like that was hair may
have been important to him, since he cut Samantha Koenig's
hair and talked about using human hair as disguises to
Rob Banks. It's also a directional term, like a military

(51:26):
directional term, like a forty five degree angle turn, and
it's a snail a decomposer, So it has like multiple meanings.
So I didn't know if like, maybe one of those
other meanings could potentially have more of a connection than
it just trying to be the obvious connection to believes,
or is that all the same thing?

Speaker 4 (51:45):
Just well, here we go again with something he's thrown out,
and we have all these different possibilities of what it
could be, and we're all talking about it all these
years later, which was his purpose. So maybe that's the
reason he chose that word, because there's multiple meanings, and
I'm going to throw everybody off, and they're going to
be thinking about this four years, they're going to be

(52:06):
talking about it, they'd be debating it. That's my impression.
I could be wrong, but it just goes back to
his trying to be larger than life when he's really not.

Speaker 11 (52:20):
Yeah, and don't get us wrong, I think that we
definitely agree with that point of view. We just wanted
to make sure that since we were offered this information,
that we do diligence and make sure that and eliminate
any kind of investigative value to it.

Speaker 4 (52:36):
Now, I wouldn't say just rule it out there's no
investigative value. There might be. There might be some hidden
meaning that we're not aware of. But I think if
you took any word that he wrote on that wall,
you might be able to intertwine it into his deeds
that he'd done over the years and come up with
meaning or multiple meanings of a word, or could this
mean that? But you know there is a reason he

(53:00):
that word. Why is there some investigative value? I don't know.
But I also think that that word was chosen specifically
because it's a kind of word multiple meanings, and I
can just confuse the issue. But I think he could
have chosen just about any word, and we'd be going

(53:21):
down many rabbit holes trying to figure it out. Now,
as an investigator, I think you have to explore all
those possibilities and meanings of these words, and how does
it tie into his life and his prior travels and
what was important to him? I think you have to
do that as an investigator, but it may not be

(53:42):
anything more than I just wanted to put a confusing
word on the wall so that all of these people
would be thinking and talking about me. So many years later.

Speaker 8 (53:54):
The.

Speaker 9 (53:56):
Possible value of the word would be found through interviewing
people he was he associated with in his life. And
if that, if that had significance to them because of
something that experienced with him or something he said to them,

(54:17):
or something that happened at Karakol when he was visiting there,
then there's meaning. But what he does is he throws
a cryptic phrase and it's meant for someone, but we
don't know who. I mean. Investigators, yes, they well, prison
personnel find it, investigators look at it, but you know,

(54:39):
family members, et cetera eventually are going to see it,
and maybe it has a message or a meaning to
someone who had been associated with him. That's the way
you find out what it means. Other than that, it's
where where we're guessing, because and again, it had meaning

(55:04):
for him, whether the meaning be to mislead, whether the
meaning be to aggrandize himself, or whether it had a
specific meaning for some recipient out there. Maybe or maybe
some combination of that. But short of someone corroborating or
explaining what it means, who has knowledge that that was

(55:29):
imparted to them or observed by them of keys, you're
not really gonna know.

Speaker 5 (55:36):
I think that makes a lot of sense. One with
with Joseph di Angelo. Listening to episodes you guys had
done on that, I was really surprised when you described
how he was. Really I'm afraid and nervous, and because
the going in and messing with two people at one

(55:57):
time just seemed so brazen and out of control or
so we have to be so in control to do
something like that. But the way you explained it, I
think was just really well done. And with keys, there
are two instances where he had a couple and each
time he prematurely killed the mail before his plan was
set out. Is that a similar thing to you know?

(56:18):
But like one person, he said, the guy was beginning unruly,
so he hit him in the head with the shovel,
was just trying to take him out of the scene
or take him out of action, up killing him. And
then obviously William Courier, causing disturbance the basement, comes down
and shoots him is that a similar type of thing,
or is there any value to that at all as
to kind of understanding how he operated.

Speaker 4 (56:43):
The problem is we're relying on his telling of these stories,
so we don't know that they're true. With Jody Angelo,
it was different because we had so many survivors that
could describe what had happened, So it's hard to say
for sure did that actually happen. He says, this was

(57:04):
his plan and my plan went awry, and so I
had to take care. That's his story, so is it true.
It might be, but it goes back to him saying,
we'll see how I adapt Look how capable I am
at adapting to an ever changing situation.

Speaker 7 (57:26):
Some of the truth in that might be that places
where we do have cooperating Evan Tweet, I mean, and
just looking at these cases, it probably never goes exactly
how someone visualizes it.

Speaker 9 (57:36):
Whether it's a.

Speaker 7 (57:38):
Sexually sadistic thing or a bank robbery or whatever. There's
always a plan, there's a visualization of how it's going
to go and how it'll play out, and then they
never plan for the what ifs one hundred percent effectively,
So you know, some of that could be playing in
there as well. He may have selected He may very

(57:58):
well have selected the couriers because he thought they would
be easily controlled, and then they turned out to be
not as easily controlled as he had planned on. And
then that's where some of the then putting a certain
slant to the story comes in to make sure that
he looks like the big bold, uh you know, serial
killer as opposed to a guy who was going, oh

(58:22):
crap several times during the whole time that this is
happening because everything that he thought he had under control
was not under control. And it you know, he's flying
by the seat of his pants in some cases. So
it could be a mixture of all of that, but
it's until it finally comes down in real life, you're

(58:44):
never going to be able to know, you know, one
hundred percent exactly how it's going to happen. He probably
learned as he went along, he got more effective or
efficient in controlling people, but then there's always the person
that acts one hundred percent differently than what you thought,
or you got a little overly confident because as the
last one went so well.

Speaker 9 (59:02):
Well, he neutralized what he perceived to be the greatest
threat too, so that he could he could engage in
at least a percentage of what he had planned. So
William Currier, who he said, well, he wasn't in great shape,
he was an older guy, and he didn't look like
too much of a problem ended up to be kind
of a tough guy. And under those circumstances at least

(59:26):
he was given keys a run for his money. He's
was supposedly in great shape and much younger and a killer.
Well what's he do? He runs, He's by his own description,
he runs upstairs and gets his gun. He doesn't beat
the guy to death, he doesn't strangle him. He doesn't
want to mess with that because he's not a gambler.

(59:49):
He's he doesn't even if the odds are with him,
if he doesn't have one hundred percent, then he doesn't
want to play. So this guy actually looked like he
wanted he wanted to mix it up with him. I'm
sure he didn't want to, but I mean, under the circumstances,
he felt, if it's all I got, I'm going to
do it. And instead of engaging the guy, he goes upstairs,

(01:00:13):
according to him, and gets a gun and comes back
and shoots the guy. That's that's not what I would
call this all powerful person. That's what I'd call a
scared reaction, and one where he might have had plans
for William Curry to at least be a in some

(01:00:40):
form or other, maybe just hearing, but being some kind
of a witness to whatever he was going to do
to the Lorraine. But it became too much of it,
there was too much risk involved, so he neutralized the threat.

Speaker 7 (01:00:53):
And that's if any of what went on inside that
house or after he abducted him is close to the
truth of what actually happened.

Speaker 9 (01:01:03):
He I don't think he would have said that if
he knew that's how it was going to be interpreted. Yeah,
I think he thought that that would make him sound
just like, you know, I have an I have an
answer to any alternative to any occurrence. So he's gonna
he wants to fight, I'll just shoot him, and and
he does. But in truth, if you think about how

(01:01:28):
how someone who is confronted reacts, that's kind of a
that's kind of a wimpy way to react. For lack
of a better term, it is it is kind of
a scared way to and he neutralizes the primary threat,
which it would have been nice. If he could take
this guy, huh, wrest the power from him and then

(01:01:52):
have him listen or see as he tortues his wife.
That would have probably been really great in his book.
But because Courier is a threat, he gets rid of them,
and that will happen that I think that would happen
in any scenario where his control is really tested. He

(01:02:18):
doesn't want to take any chances, and he doesn't want
to certainly doesn't want to take a chance of losing
a battle.

Speaker 5 (01:02:24):
Instead of being adaptable, he's just more of a coward.
Like you're saying, yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker 9 (01:02:30):
Well, he reacts in a cowardly way. He's still I mean,
I get he still controls things, but he does it
by you know, upping the violence incredibly. He abducted them both. Clearly,
he could have just shot William at his house and
taken his wife. He had plans for William, but he

(01:02:53):
had to abort those plans because William was a handful
and he would never tell the story that way. But
there's no other reason why you would, you know, leave
their house to be bothered enough to take this guy along,
only to kill him in another location. He William messed

(01:03:15):
up his plans and scared him. So William paid the
ultimate price because William wasn't just gonna lay down.

Speaker 4 (01:03:29):
And when Keys talks about his crimes and the commission
of them, he talks about in such a nonchalant way.
He laughs inappropriately. It's almost like he's downplaying what actually happened.
But this probably was a great deal of stress to

(01:03:50):
him if this unfolded the way he said it did
with Bill. But I agree with Bob, why take Bill
if you don't have plans for him? So to your point, Joshua, yes,
in some ways it is like Joe DiAngelo in that

(01:04:11):
the ultimate act is just based on fear.

Speaker 3 (01:04:24):
Our conversation continues next time as the consult team discusses
how they would go about searching for a cash and
we continue to examine Israel suicide. As always, we'd like

(01:04:55):
to give a very special thank you to our Patreon producers,
Heather Horton, Whedon, Nicole Gooseman, Colleen Sullivan, Linley tushaf A Tarman,
Caitlyn James, Stephanie Maximo, Brian Hannah, Kathy Nation, Allie Pink,
Trista Dale Axton, and Corey Dealey.

Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
Last week, we received some sad news. We lost a
team member and a friend. This week's episode is dedicated
to Albert. Rest in peace, Albert