November 10, 2025 • 50 mins
A childhood friend of Israel's comes forward to discuss his time in Colville, Christian Identity, the Keyes family, Israel's early crimes, and more.
This episode was written, edited, and produced by Josh Hallmark.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
True crime Bullshit is off this week, but I wanted
to pop in and announce my newest Trova trip. On
June thirteenth of twenty twenty six. We are going to Iceland,
And when I say we, I mean you, Me and
Shana and Tooks from the research team, and Sydney Copp
who helped identify Christopher Roof. For as long as I
(00:25):
can remember, Iceland has been number one on my travel
list and it still somehow eluded me for all these years.
So I'm inviting you to come experience Iceland with me
for the very first time. Will visit secret geothermal lagoons, waterfalls, geysers,
the Continental Rift, and black sand beaches littered with icebergs.
(00:46):
We'll take a private boat tour, see the glaciers, see
puffins and hang out and rekivic. It will be I'm
sure a life changing six days. Tickets go on sale
at noon Eastern today, but because of pre sale there's
actually only a few tickets left, so reserve your spot asap.
Check out the link in the show notes or on Instagram.
(01:08):
I cannot wait to see you in Iceland. This is
(01:29):
a studio both and production. Well, why don't you start
with you know, how did you come to know Israel
Keys and his family? In January of twenty twenty five,
I got an email from a childhood friend of Israel
(01:50):
Keys who were calling Scott. Scott had just listened to
the season six episode two hundred seconds, and he thought
he might have some helpful information surrounding Israel's February two
thousand and four trip to Utah. Scott's parents have been
friends with Heidi and John Jeffrey Key since the seventies,
(02:11):
and his mother is still in contact with Heidi to
this day. Scott grew up in Utah, but he and
his siblings spent their summers on the Keys compound in Calville,
specifically in the mid nineties, during both Scott's and Keys'
most formative years. The more that Scott and I talked,
(02:32):
the more clear it became that he had a lot
of very important information beyond just the scope of that
two thousand and four Utah trip, not just in understanding
Keys and his family dynamics, but also in understanding his
crimes and in some critical cases, even his timeline. We
(02:54):
were at first just going to use segments of this interview,
and then we decided to play the entire interview following
our look into Hunters and the Christian identity movement. But
as the researchers and I re listened to my two
hour conversation with Scott, it became clear that this would
best set the stage for any and all future conversations
we had about Hunters, Calville, Christian identity, the Keyho Brothers,
(03:21):
and that general time and place in Keysa's life. Because
of the interview length, I've split this up into two episodes,
both of which are available now. In the first episode,
we discussed Keys's early crimes, his relationship to the land
and culture that he grew up in his time in Utah,
(03:42):
pipe bombs, and more. And in the second episode, we
dive into moments in Keysa's childhood that would be greatly
impactful in his adult years, and the Keys We've all
come to know through the lens of his crimes and interviews,
most specifically his sexuality, his victimology, his relationship with his parents, religion,
(04:05):
and the first time that Israel Keys ever branded himself
This is true crime Bullshit. The serialized Investigation into Israel
Keys Season seven, Episode six, My Friend Israel, Part one.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
My parents met and were married in nineteen seventy nine
and Northern Utah, both having lived there at the time.
I am frankly not sure how they came to know
Heidi and Jeff. One of the earlier memories I have,
which is not a memory I enjoy, I think potentially
(04:51):
would have included or revolved around Heidi and one other
person from the Northern Utah community, I and my sister.
I'm the second of nine children, so my sister and
I were both taken with my mom up to the
Utah State Capitol, which is directly that way, and we're
giving out small footprint pins as part of the Utah
(05:13):
Eagle Forum protesting certain you know, very pro life, and
of course I would learn later on in life that
that the pins they were giving out had no representation
of the vibus's actual size during abortion and plenty of
other things like that. So we were eventually homeschooled. I
(05:34):
lived in Northern Utah all of my life growing up,
but my parents had, through whatever channels, gotten to know
Heidi and Jeff. I think had a little bit of
like almost a romantic association with that kind of devotion
or something I guess you could say, to a lifestyle,
and so I never saw Colville until their full cabin
(06:00):
had been built, So I want to say this is
probably ninety two or ninety three. Frankly, you might know
some of that time frame better than I do. And
if you know or have seen the pictures of the
tiny little cabin the Israel built up at the higher elevation,
so that that showed up in between, you know, we'd
(06:22):
go spend a fair amount of our summers up there,
and so it was right around that time, and I
would say some of the unique behaviors were certainly exacerbated
once he had that separate space and everything else. So yeah,
so I learned through over hearing phone calls and stuff
(06:44):
like that. I think my parents were not supporting them financially,
but we're kind of contributing in certain ways, including just
you know, sending money basically to the Keys family, and
I think part of that was, you know, they they
believed in certain.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Aspects of that.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Although I think I'm one of maybe two or three
of my siblings that was born in a hospital. My
dad was in the military when when I was born,
and my parents were super young at that time, so
so lots of similarities. There One one funny story funny
to me now that I want to get out of
the way. Is I love bikes. I've always loved bikes.
(07:25):
They didn't have a ton of stuff like that bike
was the only one that was available to me, and
so I was just cruising around their roads and wiped
out hitting a big rock, basically off roading on a
bike that was not at all meant for it. And
Heidi and my mom, I think already felt this was alright,
I think to do but put cayenne pepper onto my
(07:47):
open wound on my knee, which which was not very comfortable,
but that was the you know. So I've made the
joke since then that you know, if I got hurt,
we would just like kind of rub a stick over it,
and you know that would help it. I did attend
a couple of what I would call a religious events
(08:07):
with them when we were up there, so I don't
know if that was ARC. I don't know if that
was something else, but I know it was very weird
and my family and a number of my family are
still lds. But so there was some code switching that happened.
And I'm observing this even as a child, because I'm
just like this isn't like our normal game plan. And
(08:31):
I have met and spent time with Shane and Chevy Keyhoe.
During some of this time. They had a red Chevy
box truck at a time that did not have a
back window at all, and I thought they were joking
about it having been shot out. That probably could be true.
I figured they were just you know, I was fair
a bit younger than that group, and so I figured
(08:52):
they're just having fun with the younger guy, that not
that they have to let hang out. I was like
close enough in age that I wasn't like, Okay, we
have to take this guy with us.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
But I also wasn't like in their peer group.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Right, Yeah, they were all several years older than me,
so Israel being about five years older than me.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
So when I first.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Met him going up to you know, he was probably
fourteen or fifteen about that time frame.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I already have a ton of questions. So let me
know that it's more helpful. Do you want to circle
back or do you just want to keep talking and
then circle back.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
At the end, I will say I've been swimming a
little bit. There's huge parts of my childhood that are
just gone to begin with, So it is a little
bit of a a grasping at straws at times. But
why don't we Yeah, why don't we go through some
questions and then I think, if anything, that'll help refine
where I can be helpful and and where you know,
(09:51):
I cause to just to cover the two hundred seconds episode.
I was, ironically enough, living in Maine at the time
as an LDS missionary and didn't even realize that Heidi
and Jeff and you know, I guess Jeff had passed
by that time, did not even realize that they were
in the area. But so I thought that was ironic.
(10:14):
But that's where I was when when Israel visited. The
most interesting piece of information I know for sure is
that Israel gave my brother Chris, who's now the physician, right,
Chris being a fake name, but so he Israel purchased
a parasunglasses off of my brother, which I thought was
(10:34):
interesting because you know, you had the credit card receipt
and cell phone pings and whatever, and so anyways, part
of me was just trying to think through that of
I was like, that seems like interesting behavior because I
can see why he wants different, you know, different things
to have on hand, but it was strange, and my
brother would would tell you he.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Was fairly insistent about it for whatever reason.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Like was it was very clear that he really liked
that pair of sunglasses for whatever set of reasons.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
So do you remember what kind of glasses they were
or what they looked like.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I actually was talking with my mom earlier, and I'm
trying to find out if we have pictures from around
that time.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
They were certainly not the I think.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
I think Heidi and others were there during that time,
but I was I was hoping to find something like that,
and you know, or maybe asked my brother and get
a better sense of that, but I haven't hadn't had
a chance to ask him. It would also be interesting
to find, you know, there's several different pictures of him,
and I could also put a few of those in
(11:43):
front of him and just be like, any of this
of interest to you, are recognizable.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
To you well, and I would love to see him
as well. So, yeah, during that weekend in February of
four he stayed with your parents in Logan. Do you
remember which days are? For how long.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I got the impression that it was it was more
or less one day. I don't know that for sure,
and I don't know the time period specifically, which is
a little bit funny to me because my mom, when
I had mentioned it to her, she's like, oh, yeah,
She's like, I bet I could figure that out almost
exactly because I had a sister. I think this is
(12:22):
part of what interrupted our our lives and kind of
our pattern of visiting in the summers. But I had
a younger sibling who passed in February of nineteen ninety seven,
and so having passed on the tenth of February, funeral
on the fourteenth, and so kind of my mom has
certain rituals and whatever around that that you know, it's
been part of her process. So I think that's why
(12:44):
she was saying that, you know, she thought about it.
She could get the exact date. So yeah, I I
want to I almost want to talk to my brothers
a little bit more. I'd tried prouting with her a
little bit, and I would say, it's quite out of
character for me to be too interested in any of this,
and so like, I think it's a little bit strange
for my parents. But my brothers, I could be a
(13:06):
little bit more, and a lot of them would have
lived at home at that time.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
And do you I mean you probably don't, but it
would be great. Do you recall, you know, why he
said he was in town or if he said he
was going anywhere before or after his visit.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
That's that's a such a normal question to think of,
And that didn't didn't come to my mind at all
when I was, you know, casually bringing this up with yeah,
when we have the family get together, and thankfully my
brother was interested in looking for that. I don't know
what to call it, like machete or small scord whatever
(13:46):
like so, but.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Oh, that's a good point.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
I don't think I remember hearing any semblance of why
he might have needed to be in the area, And.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
It wouldn't would it be characteristic of your family's relationship
with him specifically for him to come just to visit
your family.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
It strikes me as very weird, Okay, I the and
And what's interesting is I think when when this all
hit the news, you know, or it was known to people,
you know, like Heidi was very resistant, you know, probably
understandably so in a way, but like it kind of
(14:28):
offended my mom in certain ways. There are still components
of that my mom still actively tries to maintain a
relationship with her. They are still friends on Facebook. You know,
when I've revisited this here and there right I've tried
to find like just like see what else they've done.
They're kind of just younger and just older than me.
(14:49):
So that's where I fell in the age range. And
I honestly had forgotten about. He was probably born during
the time frame that we were visiting, And so when
Israel will talk about his brothers, it would always throw
me off because I'm like, I feel like there's just one.
But I was like, yeah, I there's probably so many
(15:11):
things about his family and timeline that you could you
could run circles around me.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
But did you in Israel like keep in touch or
was it just kind of like when your families got
together you saw each other.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
It was really just when our families got together. I
can't believe I didn't start out with this.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
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Speaker 2 (16:44):
So I was always weird about the trips up to Washington, right.
I was like, I'm the second oldest of our family,
and it was, you know, whatever we have. We live
in a fairly normal suburban area of northern Utah, and
this is not how other kids are spending their summer
and just like it always struck me as weird, and
(17:05):
I had plenty of other reasons to have friction with
my parents' homeschool around the sixth grade became very burdensome
to me, and that became a pretty big kind of
whatever you want to call it, a wedge between us,
I think is the word I was looking for. So ideologically,
I've always differed from my parents in that way, and
(17:29):
I am a more sensitive soul. So as part of
all of that, when Shane and Chevy were in the
news for their crimes, you know whatever, the first ones
that I heard about were in like two thousand and
five or so, the chain of events was my parents
to my older brother, my older brother to me, and
so the same thing happened when after Israel's death, and
(17:52):
the one I think the one direct conversation I've had
with my dad about it was this event where he
talks about how he's known that he was too people
and he tells the story of tying the cat up
to the tree, shooting it and kind of the strong
reaction from you know, these neighbor friends, and my Dad's
just like.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Do you think that was you?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
You know, like, and I just was like, in my head,
I just thought it was very funny to me that
my dad hears that story and it's like, oh, it
sounds like that bitch Scott like.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
So, but I actually don't think that was me.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
If it was, I'm totally comfortable in my ability to
block things out that it could have been me and
I and I don't have to believe that for myself,
but it would not have been uncharacteristic of me if
if that happened in front of me. There certainly were
other things that were along the same lines, but that
particular story I can't I can't say with any certainty
(18:46):
involved our family.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yeah, you mentioned in the pre interview that you had
some thoughts about crimes that he may have committed prior
to leaving Callville.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, the honestly the very first summer because everything's like
so new, right, I'm seeing like bare wood floors, maybe
they're staying, maybe they're not right. There's we're doing kerosene lamps,
like there's not really running water the way we think
about like just everything so like new and weird, and
(19:18):
so we turned the upstairs in the house kind of
becomes just a giant open studio, which it kind of
already was, and I think it was even just the
first night, and he like procures from somewhere like a
bottle of wild turkey, and so it's like a fifty
you know, fifteen year old kid. You'll never believe how
(19:40):
he came across this. He found it in the woods, right,
somebody had a basically full bottle of wild turkey whiskey.
Was like, I'm probably gonna walk this trail again later.
Let me just put this bottle here. It'll be there
when I want it, when I come back for it.
And then you know, Israel stumbles upon it, I guess
is the story. And it wasn't. It wasn't purely performative.
So this is obviously a very low level crime, but
(20:01):
it's it's where where I think is helpful to start,
you know, Like it wasn't like he wanted everybody else
to drink it, or like isn't this this cool, weird
like subversive thing, like nobody tell mom and dad, like
let's all like take a little sip, you know, kind
of like that trying to get the cop to take
a hit of the joint, right, Like I need you
guys in on this so that we're you know, we
(20:22):
have our secret. I think it was plenty enough for
him that he had it. I'm sure he had drank
some prior to that, but it seemed important to be like, hey,
I found this, I'm going to drink a little bit
of it. Oh it does burn like that kind of thing,
almost like a status setting of sorts. So I thought
that was very interesting. Other crimes that I'm like very
(20:47):
much aware of, we had so one thing I'll mention
I we pretty much always had guns on us. The
style of gun that you see in his kill kit
that was recovered, Like he had a black, you know,
plastic rubber coated whatever you want to call it, ten
twenty two with a folding stock, and that's like what
(21:10):
I would use all the time. We would shoot, you know,
soda cans or whatever else, and we could, you know,
we were kind of just living out our wild West
dreams in some ways, and so as part of our
those shenanigans. There were different times this wasn't a super
common thing, but I remember maybe like the third or
(21:33):
fourth year that we had gone up here up there,
and it's basically ninety two to nineties. I'm trying to
think if we would have been up there in ninety seven,
so it was probably ninety two to ninety six. We're
up there, like, you know, somewhere between a week to
three weeks, kind of depending on what's going on at
the time, and so we you know, Israel's like aware
(21:58):
of this cabin. We go there. We destroyed property. I
participated in that. It's what was happening. There'd be like
someone who's in the process of building, whether it's a
hunting cabin or something else. But there were windows that
were like stacked in a certain area of it. We
damaged the windows the other things, and we were making
a fire basically out on the front steps. We're not
even hanging out in this like slowly being built cabin
(22:21):
and just making a fire whatever. Like I just think
of that later on in life, like what that must
be like to come back to being like I have
this really remote asking, like I didn't even think of
this as a possibility, like who's even.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Wandering around here kind of a thing.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
And the interesting thing is this is totally fictional, although
maybe informed by reality. I'm sure we told ghost stories.
We were there late, right, we kind of claimed the
places our own in my mind and so clearly that
it feels like it's an actual memory. He had a
(23:01):
like a snub nose thirty eight like revolver that pretty
much was always shoved in a pocket or in front
of his pant like whatever. He's just always had it
on him'd be very strange for him to not And
I remember he like was playing with it in a
way that like I think caused me to be nervous
or like lose attention to anything else because I'm just like,
(23:23):
we're not about to shoot cans or whatever else, Like
why is this guy like you know, like somebody might
fidget with a pocket knife or something. Yeah, but in
my mind's eye, and I don't remember what would have
really happened, but this is the memory I walked away
with to kind of be quate. I guess maybe my
level of discomfort was, like I'm sitting on a sideways
turned log right kind of upright, so I'm sitting on
(23:45):
it like a stool, and you know, he's saying whatever
kind of not really intimidating. He was never outright like
mean or controlling or like you know, anything like that
that to me directly, But this weird kind of control
thing and then he basically just like berries like one
of the shots into the stump that I'm sitting on,
(24:07):
and I somehow like you know, imprinted this is a
memory of like, you know, maybe it was one of
my potential concerns and I was like had long enough
to contemplate it that it like felt very real. That
feels like a funny story to tell you in a
way because it didn't actually happen, but it's it's very
you know, recurring thing for me and a strange, strange event.
(24:32):
So as far back as the first year we were there,
we would make pipe bombs. That was like, you know,
I don't even know how to equate it, right, but
it was just like kind of a fun thing. We
had BB guns. They had access to black powder because
they would reload some of their own shells for like
hunting rifles and stuff like that. So when we'd be
done with the CO two cartridge from like a BB
(24:55):
gun or something like that, we'd fill it up with
black powder. They had like waterproof wick and we'd put
like a little bit of clay around it, and a
lot of times what we would do is like cut
different lengths of wick and just go shove it deep
into the mud where he built that smaller that smaller cabin,
and then just see how big of a crater it
would blow in the dirt. And then two or three
(25:19):
years later, whenever it was in this he would take
us to like a fence line and you know he
had already blown the lock off, or he would do
it while we were there, and he'd like, go up
and do it. Well, we're all hanging back kind of
a thing, and then we'd go explore this other property.
He did keep a couple of quote unquote trophies from
(25:40):
birds that he should not have killed. I don't know
that he ever, you know, intentionally, well, I don't know
that he ever killed a bald eagle period. I know
it was a conversation. I know there were some other
protected birds that he had killed that were like, you know,
he'd put like one of the claws on a necklace
or something, and he could have been telling us stories too,
but that was kind of this.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Is more more run of the mill.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
But yeah, those were a number of the things.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
I forgive this as a an uninformed question, but like,
how big would these craters be that he was blowing
up into the ground.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
And I'm trying to think, I don't know if you're
a cyclist or if you've seen the CO two cartridges. Yeah,
so it's it's a fairly sizable amount of black powder,
right And in terms of like and maybe I want
to say it's terrible analogy to use, but it's what
came to my mind, but like maybe like a home
(26:44):
depaut bucket, like right, if it's like if it's very
soft soil and stuff like that, if if we were
putting it into pact or I don't know what that
would have been, but you know it was it was
enough to be impressive to us, and it was maybe
somewhere around that that kind of side certainly could could
cause bodily harm. The other story that I do not
(27:07):
remember that did happen, But my brother is the type
of person I completely trust that he would not lie
about this, and I kind of remember the the after effects.
But some of the shenanigans we would get into is
we would have BB rifles, and I think my family
basically acquired BB guns from like going up and visiting
(27:31):
there was a store in Colville or I'm trying to
remember the other town up there. There was a big
sporting goods store, and we would sometimes like basically bring
them supplies, right, whether it was like ammunition or other things.
It was not uncommon for us to kind of make
a stop and then haul all that with us up
the mountain. But so we would we would have these guns,
(27:52):
these rifle BB guns that you would pump up, right,
so rather than the SEO two, you're just creating some
air pressure. So we would set the rules you can
only pump it twice, and then we played tag with
BB guns.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Right. We'd have our.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Sunglasses or actual safety like construction glasses on and do.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
All of that.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
And the way I remember the story from talking with
my brother about it, I think I got something on
Israel that he probably didn't think I would get and
took it a little personally and I'm like hiding in
a bush and he shot me in.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
The face with a BB gun. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
So the joke that my family's gotten around to making
is just like I think my sister even one time said, oh, yeah,
I forgot you were shot in the face by a
cereal killer. Like it just that always weirds me out
when it's just like this is two comfortable guys like
I don't like this.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
We've we've we've stumbled past my comfort zone.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
But so yeah, so those were and we still did
it afterwards, and I don't remember, like, I genuinely.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Don't remember being hit by it. I don't remember the
pain or exactly.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
I believe it was my forehead, but uh yeah, I was. Yeah,
an interesting memory, and I guess maybe a good example.
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Speaker 2 (30:53):
I have, I have good positive memories of Israel. I
have confusing memories. I have you know, the whole Gamut, right,
he's he's a person, he was an adolescent, you know,
developing team. And he's right, he's very tall, and you know,
I think that was part of why I felt like
I was ten years younger than him sometimes rather than
(31:14):
half of that.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Did you know the key Ho brothers through the Keys
family or independently.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Yes, okay, you the Keys family.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Would you classify as Israel being close with them?
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Yeah, that.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Is an interesting question because it's not as though Israel
was close with many people. So in relative terms, they
were best friends, whether they saw each other once a
month or a couple of times a year, like, I'm
not sure what that looked like, but.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
Yeah, that was.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
And I didn't spend enough time with them to have
a real sense other than they just did seem like
kind of rough, unpredictable, kind of more grown up people
than me and probably not something I would be able
to handle if I was, you know, on my own,
like just just rougher than I would want to hang
out with. And I'll say, one of the weird aspects
(32:16):
of in many parts of my life, being a you know,
assists straight. I'm I'm placed myself on the A sexual
spectrum and I will say Israel is probably no small
part of that. There's also lds members of my extended
family that have what I think are credible sexual assault
claims and so just always convoluted that. But part of
(32:38):
it was really just the way they would talk about
some of those things, and none of it was super
graphic or whatever else, but just kind of in general.
I could kind of already sense of just like, oh
if this is like the way guys act when they're
on their own, like I'm not going to be good
at this, SORR like whatever, Like this is like huh okay,
(32:59):
I'm gonna have to remember that this is like how
people want to be when they're you know, because I'm
I'm obviously still very much early in my development and
not a very not a very good reference point.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
I mean that begs, you know, not the lightest of questions.
Did you ever get a sense or did you know
that there was any sort of sexual abuse within the
Keys family.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
I it was very clear to me that there were
two classes of people in the family, and that was
very much gender lines, and then there was maybe some
cachet around age, but very much And it's kind of
(33:48):
interesting in certain ways. I it would not be.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
For my observations, it would not surprise me if there
were issues within the family or or within you know,
broader community, whether that was their church or whatever else.
I don't think I'm aware of anything directly, but I
(34:14):
do feel like there were a number of like you know,
not even will tell you when you're older kind of stuff.
But it's just like, you know, you'd observe things or
whatever and just be like, I don't understand why Jeff
just said that to to Isaac or is or like
whatever else it was, you know, whoever it was. I'm
obviously focusing on Israel here, but it there was certainly
(34:37):
room for that, and it was certainly clear to me
that it was not It's something I was meant to
understand or you know, might might be able to so,
But I I don't have any direct knowledge of that,
and I've I've thought this is this is obviously not
what the topic of this is about. But I was
listening to a podcast, you know, three months ago is
(35:02):
as recent as this was, and this woman was telling
this story about her realization that she had been sexually
molested and in order for her to believe it like
it was a horrible scenario, like it was her, it
was her dad, and he had filmed it and somehow
this had been discovered by you know, a cousin's whoever
(35:26):
that like, so anyways, and they and you know, she
was talking about the kind of her being baffled about that,
and I and I so I've since tried to search
my because I found that arresting in a certain kind
of way. And I want to say, that's more so
because it seems so difficult to believe in a way
(35:48):
that like something so significant could happen and your mind
just decides to protect you from that. So I took
a different lens at the time, and it was just like,
thinking of some of the people I do in my neighbors.
There was actually a homeschool mom that was also eventually
served time from our community up in northern Utah who
had been you know, like teaching i'll say, like fitness
(36:10):
or swimming or gymnastics or like something along those lines,
and had been you know, sexually assaulting kids, and so
thinking of some of the people in the family whatever else,
I was like, I think it was just stand out
to me in other ways, And I've been searching my
memory recently to think like, were there ever any instances
(36:31):
where Israel and I would have even been alone, or
is there anything I can think of from my side
that would have been you know, like questionable on hindsight of.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Just like, wait, that's not normal. Now.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
What could be totally possibility is that we're out hiking
and we're doing something funny like hey, let's all pee
in the same spot or whatever else, right, and like
very well could have been something like that, and that's
not going to stand out to me. But yeah, so
I thought about that, you know, is as much as
I thought it made sense to and I couldn't arrive
(37:04):
at any reasonable, you know, way to think I had
ever been victimized or that I'd ever been present during
during something like that. But I think from some of
the conversations and and other things it was I don't
know where I was trying to get with that, but like,
(37:24):
I know, all of that was a lot for me,
even just even just.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
What it was for for a kid of my age.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
You had said that keys played no small part in
you being asexual? Can you say more about that?
Speaker 2 (37:39):
I so, in a in a weird way, I think
what I will say is made me more comfortable with that.
It gave me more license to be okay with that,
and that's really I I've been married for almost twenty years.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
I wanted.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
One of the only Mormon things I ever did was
get married at a fairly young age, although I was
not Mormon at the time, just culturally, it wasn't out
of the way, uh, And I've always yeah, there's just
always been differences between where I was at my friends
and everything else. But it always felt like an important
(38:27):
thing and like felt like, you know, like that project
do you like need to get to at some point,
and so like in a weird way, some of the other.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Things and.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Some of the other things, including this, like has I
guess given me more license to be like there it's
fine where there's people all along the spectrum and like
this is maybe in some ways like a very so anyways,
I try to I try to think of it now
(39:00):
is something that I can leverage in different environments or
places that I'm in. It's not ever out front, right,
you're like now maybe one of like five people. It's
even because it's just not a topic that ever has
to be addressed, right, it doesn't affect my life partner
choice or any of those things. But I think there
(39:22):
probably was any any direct linkage to my developmental years.
I would say there probably was like a level of
fear for me created around that from just the way
some of the stuff was talked about, and it just
seems so you know, I didn't like the way things
(39:43):
were talked about by the men, and that includes that,
you know, the adults, like maybe even Jeff and others,
and the treatment of you know or at least like
the separate class of citizen towards towards women, and certainly
(40:05):
like the over white so like over white supremacy. A
lot of that stuff was very difficult. I will say,
to Israel's credit, I don't think that ever, like really
jazzed him up like I think it was there, It
was around him, and he didn't, you know, care to
come up with a with a different game plan. But
(40:27):
so yeah, I did never I did never get him
from that. I would say I got much more of
a sense of that from you know, what little time
we spent with Shane and Chevy and certainly through whatever
quote unquote church activities that we were a part of.
But yeah, so I think that's the best I can say,
(40:49):
is it probably contributed to a level of fear or
I'm this may not be for me kind of a feeling.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
That makes sense. Yeah, Is it just kind of like
the standard toxic masculinity stuff or did it go deeper
than that?
Speaker 2 (41:05):
I think it's I think it's in a way it's
oxygen starved toxic masculinity. Right, So like there's the you know,
kind of like what you'll see online. In some ways,
you get certain groups that are insulated enough that like
it's allowed to like go off the rails in a
different kind of way, and like if you let any
(41:27):
sunlight in through, you're just gonna be like that, this
is this is strange, Like we're so many layers away
from these things you think you're upset about. Right, if
you take in cell culture, it's like, how are you
getting somewhere with this plan?
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Right? This this doesn't doesn't even add up?
Speaker 2 (41:43):
And so I think I think there was a version
of of that, which is only having so many you know,
sources of information and you know, I do get cognizant
enough eventually with these trips that it's just like like
is there almost like a mor big curiosity on their part?
About like you know, in the back of their head,
(42:03):
like they probably don't know what Seinfeld is, right, but
like in the back of their heads are just like
I wonder if these people like watching Seinfeld or like
doing some of these other like terrible Like I don't
know what that would have been like to them, but
I'm sure that was like a you know, an interesting
dynamic for them because we would we would infiltrate their
their lives in a way, right, And and I think
(42:24):
it was what they wanted in a lot of ways,
but I'm sure it was also I would say I
think I observed some code switching on their part too,
where like maybe even some of the girls in the
family were would maybe say things they may not have
said if there weren't other people around. And I wish
I could think of an example or whatever, but I
feel like you could almost see like some of that
(42:45):
like frustration or the like, you know, not quite so
over as to be like you're lucky either here or
like I would let you have it kind of thing,
but like kind of get that sense of it when
it Israel As talking through in the FBI interviews about
Bill and Lorraine career, and he talks about a couple
(43:08):
different things where it didn't quite go as planned. Like
that was one of the I would say the most
triggering things, even though some of the other descriptions are
horrific and so dehumanizing and whatever else, like that for
me was very difficult because, like I've I've watched that
from him, you know, in different ways, whether we're you know,
(43:29):
sometimes we go mind fences, we would try you know,
we would go help milk the goats and some you know,
other care for animals or some of the farming stuff
that we would do while we were there, and you know,
like again, he was never like lashing out on me
directly whatever else, but it was like a kind of
frustration and like kind of.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
It.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
It was like you would be aware of it and
like it was enough for gravity in the room and
so hearing him even telling that story, and maybe there
are other times where he got a little bit more
stern with the interviewers or something, those were always the
most arresting because it was just a little bit weird
of like I know that voice. I've kind of watched
some of this dynamic happen, even though it was around
(44:14):
you know, trying to put together, you know, a lamp
or something whatever, you you know, whatever the example would be.
But that was that was weird. That was the most tactile.
I was like, oh, I have direct experience with that. Again,
not in a way that was ever harmful to me,
but it was just like, you know, it was like
a there was all of a sudden, like a much
(44:35):
shorter distance between the story I was listening to and
kind of my own life in a way.
Speaker 3 (44:39):
That was a weird experience to have.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
That makes total sense. Not in the same way, but
I've had that same experience. You talked about your family
providing financial support to the Keys family. Can you elaborate
on that? I guess, like, in what ways what kind
of financial burdens were the Keys family under? How close
were like were they very close? Because it seems like
(45:03):
and again I'm not fundamentalist Mormon or you know, yeah,
but I even my closest friends I would financially support.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Yeah, yeah, I had one hundred percent. So so here
it's maybe not shocking. Later in life, I'm now a
CPA numbers I'm fine with I understand. I actually quized
myself with my mom. We were talking about something else
and you know, she was bringing something up about the
(45:34):
house and I was like, I've heard a weird question
for you.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
I was like, I think I know what you paid
for this house. And I was ten years old.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
When we bought it, so nineteen ninety three, and I
told her and she's like, oh, I'm not sure. She's like,
but that seems like you know, basically the number. And
so having seven siblings younger than myself and you know,
I would want to do soccer or whatever else, and
like finances were always a concern. So I was I
(46:04):
was overly attentive to this issue, right to the point
where I'm like thirteen, and I have this really deep seated,
you know, sal sales pitcher rant about the fact of
like there's we can't afford it, and we're not prioritizing
that right and it's nobody's ever willing to say the
second one. It's just we can't afford that. And it's like, anyways,
(46:25):
you can tell where someone that's going from. So I
believe at different periods of time there was a cadence
where my parents and the keys would be on the
phone together. Now for Heidi and Jeff to use the phone,
they would basically traverse down the mountain to like a
small like four by four shed that was near like
(46:47):
you know, a telephone line or whatever else. They would
have a car battery for to hook up whatever else
they had in that little shed, but that was there
was a phone there that could be used. So to
my knowledge, that that's where they would have gone to
to communicate with them, and so they would stay in touch,
you know, some of these these ways. And so I'm
(47:09):
not sure what the hook was, but I believe what
I heard from my parents, probably because I was prying
or whatever else, because it's you know, I'm sitting there
looking at and be like, you know, shine, pads, aren't
that expensive? If we got money for Jeff and Hid
like what it sounds like soccer's happening this year, right,
whatever it is. And but in my parents' minds, in
(47:33):
the audio's faith, you would tithe ten percent back to
the church.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
So I literally think, if I'm if my memory is correct,
and I'm not inventing this, that there was some amount
that my parents were would send them in the form
of check or you know, I would assume it's that way.
I don't think they're using money and then the other way,
hopefully they weren't mailing cash, but and then my parents
would just like kind of deduct from that what they
(47:58):
would then pay into the church or so to speak.
So in a way, it's like we you know, we're
not out any money, we're just doing it differently.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
Right.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
It's like me paying five thousand dollars a year to
Planned Parenthood and then underpaying my own federal taxes five
thousand dollars and being like, hey, like.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
Let's call it square.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Yeah, totally in a way.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
And so like, I, yeah, I wish I could understand
that hook I mentioned earlier. I think there's like kind
of this romanticized version of this, like kind of living
purely or like living off the land, like some of
that that my you know, my parents weren't willing to
(48:41):
go that far. My parents were still what I would call,
you know, main street Mormon or whatever.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Like we were not.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
In any weird offshoots or whatever else that I'm that
I'm aware of other than you know, each community is
going to have its own unique bent to a degree.
But so so there was you know, some some code
switching there, and I think by then, I don't think
Heidi and Jeff were even really considering themselves to be
(49:10):
Lds or anything else. So I don't I'm not sure
what that tether is other than like kind of yeah,
kind of like this romantic version of like, we're trying
to do what you know, God has told us is
important for our family, and here are the hurdles that
are being thrown in our way, and you know, we
want to be able to show that we're stronger than that, right,
(49:30):
and can you assist and assist in that? That's my
that's my best best guess for some of that, And
then the other the other ways were like I said, right,
if we were coming up for the visit and they said, hey, whatever,
twenty two or nine mili need or whatever else, like
you know, then we'll figure it out when you get
(49:50):
here kind of thing. And one year I think we
even maybe we had already bought the trailer for something else,
but my dad found an old, like nineteen seventies dirt bike,
so we towed it all the way from Utah up
to Washington for their family. And again maybe they worked
out payment for that. I'm doubting that they did. I
(50:12):
think that was more of a contribution. But then Israel
would have had a motorcycle. I think it was mainly
for Israel at that point.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
For the rest of my conversation with Scott, listen to
My Friend Israel, Part two, available right now.
True crime Bullshit is off this week, but I wanted
to pop in and announce my newest Trova trip. On
June thirteenth of twenty twenty six. We are going to Iceland,
And when I say we, I mean you, Me and
Shana and Tooks from the research team, and Sydney Copp
who helped identify Christopher Roof. For as long as I
(00:25):
can remember, Iceland has been number one on my travel
list and it still somehow eluded me for all these years.
So I'm inviting you to come experience Iceland with me
for the very first time. Will visit secret geothermal lagoons, waterfalls, geysers,
the Continental Rift, and black sand beaches littered with icebergs.
(00:46):
We'll take a private boat tour, see the glaciers, see
puffins and hang out and rekivic. It will be I'm
sure a life changing six days. Tickets go on sale
at noon Eastern today, but because of pre sale there's
actually only a few tickets left, so reserve your spot asap.
Check out the link in the show notes or on Instagram.
(01:08):
I cannot wait to see you in Iceland. This is
(01:29):
a studio both and production. Well, why don't you start
with you know, how did you come to know Israel
Keys and his family? In January of twenty twenty five,
I got an email from a childhood friend of Israel
(01:50):
Keys who were calling Scott. Scott had just listened to
the season six episode two hundred seconds, and he thought
he might have some helpful information surrounding Israel's February two
thousand and four trip to Utah. Scott's parents have been
friends with Heidi and John Jeffrey Key since the seventies,
(02:11):
and his mother is still in contact with Heidi to
this day. Scott grew up in Utah, but he and
his siblings spent their summers on the Keys compound in Calville,
specifically in the mid nineties, during both Scott's and Keys'
most formative years. The more that Scott and I talked,
(02:32):
the more clear it became that he had a lot
of very important information beyond just the scope of that
two thousand and four Utah trip, not just in understanding
Keys and his family dynamics, but also in understanding his
crimes and in some critical cases, even his timeline. We
(02:54):
were at first just going to use segments of this interview,
and then we decided to play the entire interview following
our look into Hunters and the Christian identity movement. But
as the researchers and I re listened to my two
hour conversation with Scott, it became clear that this would
best set the stage for any and all future conversations
we had about Hunters, Calville, Christian identity, the Keyho Brothers,
(03:21):
and that general time and place in Keysa's life. Because
of the interview length, I've split this up into two episodes,
both of which are available now. In the first episode,
we discussed Keys's early crimes, his relationship to the land
and culture that he grew up in his time in Utah,
(03:42):
pipe bombs, and more. And in the second episode, we
dive into moments in Keysa's childhood that would be greatly
impactful in his adult years, and the Keys We've all
come to know through the lens of his crimes and interviews,
most specifically his sexuality, his victimology, his relationship with his parents, religion,
(04:05):
and the first time that Israel Keys ever branded himself
This is true crime Bullshit. The serialized Investigation into Israel
Keys Season seven, Episode six, My Friend Israel, Part one.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
My parents met and were married in nineteen seventy nine
and Northern Utah, both having lived there at the time.
I am frankly not sure how they came to know
Heidi and Jeff. One of the earlier memories I have,
which is not a memory I enjoy, I think potentially
(04:51):
would have included or revolved around Heidi and one other
person from the Northern Utah community, I and my sister.
I'm the second of nine children, so my sister and
I were both taken with my mom up to the
Utah State Capitol, which is directly that way, and we're
giving out small footprint pins as part of the Utah
(05:13):
Eagle Forum protesting certain you know, very pro life, and
of course I would learn later on in life that
that the pins they were giving out had no representation
of the vibus's actual size during abortion and plenty of
other things like that. So we were eventually homeschooled. I
(05:34):
lived in Northern Utah all of my life growing up,
but my parents had, through whatever channels, gotten to know
Heidi and Jeff. I think had a little bit of
like almost a romantic association with that kind of devotion
or something I guess you could say, to a lifestyle,
and so I never saw Colville until their full cabin
(06:00):
had been built, So I want to say this is
probably ninety two or ninety three. Frankly, you might know
some of that time frame better than I do. And
if you know or have seen the pictures of the
tiny little cabin the Israel built up at the higher elevation,
so that that showed up in between, you know, we'd
(06:22):
go spend a fair amount of our summers up there,
and so it was right around that time, and I
would say some of the unique behaviors were certainly exacerbated
once he had that separate space and everything else. So yeah,
so I learned through over hearing phone calls and stuff
(06:44):
like that. I think my parents were not supporting them financially,
but we're kind of contributing in certain ways, including just
you know, sending money basically to the Keys family, and
I think part of that was, you know, they they
believed in certain.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Aspects of that.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Although I think I'm one of maybe two or three
of my siblings that was born in a hospital. My
dad was in the military when when I was born,
and my parents were super young at that time, so
so lots of similarities. There One one funny story funny
to me now that I want to get out of
the way. Is I love bikes. I've always loved bikes.
(07:25):
They didn't have a ton of stuff like that bike
was the only one that was available to me, and
so I was just cruising around their roads and wiped
out hitting a big rock, basically off roading on a
bike that was not at all meant for it. And
Heidi and my mom, I think already felt this was alright,
I think to do but put cayenne pepper onto my
(07:47):
open wound on my knee, which which was not very comfortable,
but that was the you know. So I've made the
joke since then that you know, if I got hurt,
we would just like kind of rub a stick over it,
and you know that would help it. I did attend
a couple of what I would call a religious events
(08:07):
with them when we were up there, so I don't
know if that was ARC. I don't know if that
was something else, but I know it was very weird
and my family and a number of my family are
still lds. But so there was some code switching that happened.
And I'm observing this even as a child, because I'm
just like this isn't like our normal game plan. And
(08:31):
I have met and spent time with Shane and Chevy Keyhoe.
During some of this time. They had a red Chevy
box truck at a time that did not have a
back window at all, and I thought they were joking
about it having been shot out. That probably could be true.
I figured they were just you know, I was fair
a bit younger than that group, and so I figured
(08:52):
they're just having fun with the younger guy, that not
that they have to let hang out. I was like
close enough in age that I wasn't like, Okay, we
have to take this guy with us.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
But I also wasn't like in their peer group.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Right, Yeah, they were all several years older than me,
so Israel being about five years older than me.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
So when I first.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Met him going up to you know, he was probably
fourteen or fifteen about that time frame.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I already have a ton of questions. So let me
know that it's more helpful. Do you want to circle
back or do you just want to keep talking and
then circle back.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
At the end, I will say I've been swimming a
little bit. There's huge parts of my childhood that are
just gone to begin with, So it is a little
bit of a a grasping at straws at times. But
why don't we Yeah, why don't we go through some
questions and then I think, if anything, that'll help refine
where I can be helpful and and where you know,
(09:51):
I cause to just to cover the two hundred seconds episode.
I was, ironically enough, living in Maine at the time
as an LDS missionary and didn't even realize that Heidi
and Jeff and you know, I guess Jeff had passed
by that time, did not even realize that they were
in the area. But so I thought that was ironic.
(10:14):
But that's where I was when when Israel visited. The
most interesting piece of information I know for sure is
that Israel gave my brother Chris, who's now the physician, right,
Chris being a fake name, but so he Israel purchased
a parasunglasses off of my brother, which I thought was
(10:34):
interesting because you know, you had the credit card receipt
and cell phone pings and whatever, and so anyways, part
of me was just trying to think through that of
I was like, that seems like interesting behavior because I
can see why he wants different, you know, different things
to have on hand, but it was strange, and my
brother would would tell you he.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Was fairly insistent about it for whatever reason.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Like was it was very clear that he really liked
that pair of sunglasses for whatever set of reasons.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
So do you remember what kind of glasses they were
or what they looked like.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I actually was talking with my mom earlier, and I'm
trying to find out if we have pictures from around
that time.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
They were certainly not the I think.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
I think Heidi and others were there during that time,
but I was I was hoping to find something like that,
and you know, or maybe asked my brother and get
a better sense of that, but I haven't hadn't had
a chance to ask him. It would also be interesting
to find, you know, there's several different pictures of him,
and I could also put a few of those in
(11:43):
front of him and just be like, any of this
of interest to you, are recognizable.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
To you well, and I would love to see him
as well. So, yeah, during that weekend in February of
four he stayed with your parents in Logan. Do you
remember which days are? For how long.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I got the impression that it was it was more
or less one day. I don't know that for sure,
and I don't know the time period specifically, which is
a little bit funny to me because my mom, when
I had mentioned it to her, she's like, oh, yeah,
She's like, I bet I could figure that out almost
exactly because I had a sister. I think this is
(12:22):
part of what interrupted our our lives and kind of
our pattern of visiting in the summers. But I had
a younger sibling who passed in February of nineteen ninety seven,
and so having passed on the tenth of February, funeral
on the fourteenth, and so kind of my mom has
certain rituals and whatever around that that you know, it's
been part of her process. So I think that's why
(12:44):
she was saying that, you know, she thought about it.
She could get the exact date. So yeah, I I
want to I almost want to talk to my brothers
a little bit more. I'd tried prouting with her a
little bit, and I would say, it's quite out of
character for me to be too interested in any of this,
and so like, I think it's a little bit strange
for my parents. But my brothers, I could be a
(13:06):
little bit more, and a lot of them would have
lived at home at that time.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
And do you I mean you probably don't, but it
would be great. Do you recall, you know, why he
said he was in town or if he said he
was going anywhere before or after his visit.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
That's that's a such a normal question to think of,
And that didn't didn't come to my mind at all
when I was, you know, casually bringing this up with yeah,
when we have the family get together, and thankfully my
brother was interested in looking for that. I don't know
what to call it, like machete or small scord whatever
(13:46):
like so, but.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Oh, that's a good point.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
I don't think I remember hearing any semblance of why
he might have needed to be in the area, And.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
It wouldn't would it be characteristic of your family's relationship
with him specifically for him to come just to visit
your family.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
It strikes me as very weird, Okay, I the and
And what's interesting is I think when when this all
hit the news, you know, or it was known to people,
you know, like Heidi was very resistant, you know, probably
understandably so in a way, but like it kind of
(14:28):
offended my mom in certain ways. There are still components
of that my mom still actively tries to maintain a
relationship with her. They are still friends on Facebook. You know,
when I've revisited this here and there right I've tried
to find like just like see what else they've done.
They're kind of just younger and just older than me.
(14:49):
So that's where I fell in the age range. And
I honestly had forgotten about. He was probably born during
the time frame that we were visiting, And so when
Israel will talk about his brothers, it would always throw
me off because I'm like, I feel like there's just one.
But I was like, yeah, I there's probably so many
(15:11):
things about his family and timeline that you could you
could run circles around me.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
But did you in Israel like keep in touch or
was it just kind of like when your families got
together you saw each other.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
It was really just when our families got together. I
can't believe I didn't start out with this.
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Speaker 2 (16:44):
So I was always weird about the trips up to Washington, right.
I was like, I'm the second oldest of our family,
and it was, you know, whatever we have. We live
in a fairly normal suburban area of northern Utah, and
this is not how other kids are spending their summer
and just like it always struck me as weird, and
(17:05):
I had plenty of other reasons to have friction with
my parents' homeschool around the sixth grade became very burdensome
to me, and that became a pretty big kind of
whatever you want to call it, a wedge between us,
I think is the word I was looking for. So ideologically,
I've always differed from my parents in that way, and
(17:29):
I am a more sensitive soul. So as part of
all of that, when Shane and Chevy were in the
news for their crimes, you know whatever, the first ones
that I heard about were in like two thousand and
five or so, the chain of events was my parents
to my older brother, my older brother to me, and
so the same thing happened when after Israel's death, and
(17:52):
the one I think the one direct conversation I've had
with my dad about it was this event where he
talks about how he's known that he was too people
and he tells the story of tying the cat up
to the tree, shooting it and kind of the strong
reaction from you know, these neighbor friends, and my Dad's
just like.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Do you think that was you?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
You know, like, and I just was like, in my head,
I just thought it was very funny to me that
my dad hears that story and it's like, oh, it
sounds like that bitch Scott like.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
So, but I actually don't think that was me.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
If it was, I'm totally comfortable in my ability to
block things out that it could have been me and
I and I don't have to believe that for myself,
but it would not have been uncharacteristic of me if
if that happened in front of me. There certainly were
other things that were along the same lines, but that
particular story I can't I can't say with any certainty
(18:46):
involved our family.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yeah, you mentioned in the pre interview that you had
some thoughts about crimes that he may have committed prior
to leaving Callville.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, the honestly the very first summer because everything's like
so new, right, I'm seeing like bare wood floors, maybe
they're staying, maybe they're not right. There's we're doing kerosene lamps,
like there's not really running water the way we think
about like just everything so like new and weird, and
(19:18):
so we turned the upstairs in the house kind of
becomes just a giant open studio, which it kind of
already was, and I think it was even just the
first night, and he like procures from somewhere like a
bottle of wild turkey, and so it's like a fifty
you know, fifteen year old kid. You'll never believe how
(19:40):
he came across this. He found it in the woods, right,
somebody had a basically full bottle of wild turkey whiskey.
Was like, I'm probably gonna walk this trail again later.
Let me just put this bottle here. It'll be there
when I want it, when I come back for it.
And then you know, Israel stumbles upon it, I guess
is the story. And it wasn't. It wasn't purely performative.
So this is obviously a very low level crime, but
(20:01):
it's it's where where I think is helpful to start,
you know, Like it wasn't like he wanted everybody else
to drink it, or like isn't this this cool, weird
like subversive thing, like nobody tell mom and dad, like
let's all like take a little sip, you know, kind
of like that trying to get the cop to take
a hit of the joint, right, Like I need you
guys in on this so that we're you know, we
(20:22):
have our secret. I think it was plenty enough for
him that he had it. I'm sure he had drank
some prior to that, but it seemed important to be like, hey,
I found this, I'm going to drink a little bit
of it. Oh it does burn like that kind of thing,
almost like a status setting of sorts. So I thought
that was very interesting. Other crimes that I'm like very
(20:47):
much aware of, we had so one thing I'll mention
I we pretty much always had guns on us. The
style of gun that you see in his kill kit
that was recovered, Like he had a black, you know,
plastic rubber coated whatever you want to call it, ten
twenty two with a folding stock, and that's like what
(21:10):
I would use all the time. We would shoot, you know,
soda cans or whatever else, and we could, you know,
we were kind of just living out our wild West
dreams in some ways, and so as part of our
those shenanigans. There were different times this wasn't a super
common thing, but I remember maybe like the third or
(21:33):
fourth year that we had gone up here up there,
and it's basically ninety two to nineties. I'm trying to
think if we would have been up there in ninety seven,
so it was probably ninety two to ninety six. We're
up there, like, you know, somewhere between a week to
three weeks, kind of depending on what's going on at
the time, and so we you know, Israel's like aware
(21:58):
of this cabin. We go there. We destroyed property. I
participated in that. It's what was happening. There'd be like
someone who's in the process of building, whether it's a
hunting cabin or something else. But there were windows that
were like stacked in a certain area of it. We
damaged the windows the other things, and we were making
a fire basically out on the front steps. We're not
even hanging out in this like slowly being built cabin
(22:21):
and just making a fire whatever. Like I just think
of that later on in life, like what that must
be like to come back to being like I have
this really remote asking, like I didn't even think of
this as a possibility, like who's even.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Wandering around here kind of a thing.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
And the interesting thing is this is totally fictional, although
maybe informed by reality. I'm sure we told ghost stories.
We were there late, right, we kind of claimed the
places our own in my mind and so clearly that
it feels like it's an actual memory. He had a
(23:01):
like a snub nose thirty eight like revolver that pretty
much was always shoved in a pocket or in front
of his pant like whatever. He's just always had it
on him'd be very strange for him to not And
I remember he like was playing with it in a
way that like I think caused me to be nervous
or like lose attention to anything else because I'm just like,
(23:23):
we're not about to shoot cans or whatever else, Like
why is this guy like you know, like somebody might
fidget with a pocket knife or something. Yeah, but in
my mind's eye, and I don't remember what would have
really happened, but this is the memory I walked away
with to kind of be quate. I guess maybe my
level of discomfort was, like I'm sitting on a sideways
turned log right kind of upright, so I'm sitting on
(23:45):
it like a stool, and you know, he's saying whatever
kind of not really intimidating. He was never outright like
mean or controlling or like you know, anything like that
that to me directly, But this weird kind of control
thing and then he basically just like berries like one
of the shots into the stump that I'm sitting on,
(24:07):
and I somehow like you know, imprinted this is a
memory of like, you know, maybe it was one of
my potential concerns and I was like had long enough
to contemplate it that it like felt very real. That
feels like a funny story to tell you in a
way because it didn't actually happen, but it's it's very
you know, recurring thing for me and a strange, strange event.
(24:32):
So as far back as the first year we were there,
we would make pipe bombs. That was like, you know,
I don't even know how to equate it, right, but
it was just like kind of a fun thing. We
had BB guns. They had access to black powder because
they would reload some of their own shells for like
hunting rifles and stuff like that. So when we'd be
done with the CO two cartridge from like a BB
(24:55):
gun or something like that, we'd fill it up with
black powder. They had like waterproof wick and we'd put
like a little bit of clay around it, and a
lot of times what we would do is like cut
different lengths of wick and just go shove it deep
into the mud where he built that smaller that smaller cabin,
and then just see how big of a crater it
would blow in the dirt. And then two or three
(25:19):
years later, whenever it was in this he would take
us to like a fence line and you know he
had already blown the lock off, or he would do
it while we were there, and he'd like, go up
and do it. Well, we're all hanging back kind of
a thing, and then we'd go explore this other property.
He did keep a couple of quote unquote trophies from
(25:40):
birds that he should not have killed. I don't know
that he ever, you know, intentionally, well, I don't know
that he ever killed a bald eagle period. I know
it was a conversation. I know there were some other
protected birds that he had killed that were like, you know,
he'd put like one of the claws on a necklace
or something, and he could have been telling us stories too,
but that was kind of this.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Is more more run of the mill.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
But yeah, those were a number of the things.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
I forgive this as a an uninformed question, but like,
how big would these craters be that he was blowing
up into the ground.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
And I'm trying to think, I don't know if you're
a cyclist or if you've seen the CO two cartridges. Yeah,
so it's it's a fairly sizable amount of black powder,
right And in terms of like and maybe I want
to say it's terrible analogy to use, but it's what
came to my mind, but like maybe like a home
(26:44):
depaut bucket, like right, if it's like if it's very
soft soil and stuff like that, if if we were
putting it into pact or I don't know what that
would have been, but you know it was it was
enough to be impressive to us, and it was maybe
somewhere around that that kind of side certainly could could
cause bodily harm. The other story that I do not
(27:07):
remember that did happen, But my brother is the type
of person I completely trust that he would not lie
about this, and I kind of remember the the after effects.
But some of the shenanigans we would get into is
we would have BB rifles, and I think my family
basically acquired BB guns from like going up and visiting
(27:31):
there was a store in Colville or I'm trying to
remember the other town up there. There was a big
sporting goods store, and we would sometimes like basically bring
them supplies, right, whether it was like ammunition or other things.
It was not uncommon for us to kind of make
a stop and then haul all that with us up
the mountain. But so we would we would have these guns,
(27:52):
these rifle BB guns that you would pump up, right,
so rather than the SEO two, you're just creating some
air pressure. So we would set the rules you can
only pump it twice, and then we played tag with
BB guns.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Right. We'd have our.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Sunglasses or actual safety like construction glasses on and do.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
All of that.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
And the way I remember the story from talking with
my brother about it, I think I got something on
Israel that he probably didn't think I would get and
took it a little personally and I'm like hiding in
a bush and he shot me in.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
The face with a BB gun. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
So the joke that my family's gotten around to making
is just like I think my sister even one time said, oh, yeah,
I forgot you were shot in the face by a
cereal killer. Like it just that always weirds me out
when it's just like this is two comfortable guys like
I don't like this.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
We've we've we've stumbled past my comfort zone.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
But so yeah, so those were and we still did
it afterwards, and I don't remember, like, I genuinely.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Don't remember being hit by it. I don't remember the
pain or exactly.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
I believe it was my forehead, but uh yeah, I was. Yeah,
an interesting memory, and I guess maybe a good example.
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Speaker 2 (30:53):
I have, I have good positive memories of Israel. I
have confusing memories. I have you know, the whole Gamut, right,
he's he's a person, he was an adolescent, you know,
developing team. And he's right, he's very tall, and you know,
I think that was part of why I felt like
I was ten years younger than him sometimes rather than
(31:14):
half of that.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Did you know the key Ho brothers through the Keys
family or independently.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Yes, okay, you the Keys family.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Would you classify as Israel being close with them?
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Yeah, that.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Is an interesting question because it's not as though Israel
was close with many people. So in relative terms, they
were best friends, whether they saw each other once a
month or a couple of times a year, like, I'm
not sure what that looked like, but.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
Yeah, that was.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
And I didn't spend enough time with them to have
a real sense other than they just did seem like
kind of rough, unpredictable, kind of more grown up people
than me and probably not something I would be able
to handle if I was, you know, on my own,
like just just rougher than I would want to hang
out with. And I'll say, one of the weird aspects
(32:16):
of in many parts of my life, being a you know,
assists straight. I'm I'm placed myself on the A sexual
spectrum and I will say Israel is probably no small
part of that. There's also lds members of my extended
family that have what I think are credible sexual assault
claims and so just always convoluted that. But part of
(32:38):
it was really just the way they would talk about
some of those things, and none of it was super
graphic or whatever else, but just kind of in general.
I could kind of already sense of just like, oh
if this is like the way guys act when they're
on their own, like I'm not going to be good
at this, SORR like whatever, Like this is like huh okay,
(32:59):
I'm gonna have to remember that this is like how
people want to be when they're you know, because I'm
I'm obviously still very much early in my development and
not a very not a very good reference point.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
I mean that begs, you know, not the lightest of questions.
Did you ever get a sense or did you know
that there was any sort of sexual abuse within the
Keys family.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
I it was very clear to me that there were
two classes of people in the family, and that was
very much gender lines, and then there was maybe some
cachet around age, but very much And it's kind of
(33:48):
interesting in certain ways. I it would not be.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
For my observations, it would not surprise me if there
were issues within the family or or within you know,
broader community, whether that was their church or whatever else.
I don't think I'm aware of anything directly, but I
(34:14):
do feel like there were a number of like you know,
not even will tell you when you're older kind of stuff.
But it's just like, you know, you'd observe things or
whatever and just be like, I don't understand why Jeff
just said that to to Isaac or is or like
whatever else it was, you know, whoever it was. I'm
obviously focusing on Israel here, but it there was certainly
(34:37):
room for that, and it was certainly clear to me
that it was not It's something I was meant to
understand or you know, might might be able to so,
But I I don't have any direct knowledge of that,
and I've I've thought this is this is obviously not
what the topic of this is about. But I was
listening to a podcast, you know, three months ago is
(35:02):
as recent as this was, and this woman was telling
this story about her realization that she had been sexually
molested and in order for her to believe it like
it was a horrible scenario, like it was her, it
was her dad, and he had filmed it and somehow
this had been discovered by you know, a cousin's whoever
(35:26):
that like, so anyways, and they and you know, she
was talking about the kind of her being baffled about that,
and I and I so I've since tried to search
my because I found that arresting in a certain kind
of way. And I want to say, that's more so
because it seems so difficult to believe in a way
(35:48):
that like something so significant could happen and your mind
just decides to protect you from that. So I took
a different lens at the time, and it was just like,
thinking of some of the people I do in my neighbors.
There was actually a homeschool mom that was also eventually
served time from our community up in northern Utah who
had been you know, like teaching i'll say, like fitness
(36:10):
or swimming or gymnastics or like something along those lines,
and had been you know, sexually assaulting kids, and so
thinking of some of the people in the family whatever else,
I was like, I think it was just stand out
to me in other ways, And I've been searching my
memory recently to think like, were there ever any instances
(36:31):
where Israel and I would have even been alone, or
is there anything I can think of from my side
that would have been you know, like questionable on hindsight of.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Just like, wait, that's not normal. Now.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
What could be totally possibility is that we're out hiking
and we're doing something funny like hey, let's all pee
in the same spot or whatever else, right, and like
very well could have been something like that, and that's
not going to stand out to me. But yeah, so
I thought about that, you know, is as much as
I thought it made sense to and I couldn't arrive
(37:04):
at any reasonable, you know, way to think I had
ever been victimized or that I'd ever been present during
during something like that. But I think from some of
the conversations and and other things it was I don't
know where I was trying to get with that, but like,
(37:24):
I know, all of that was a lot for me,
even just even just.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
What it was for for a kid of my age.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
You had said that keys played no small part in
you being asexual? Can you say more about that?
Speaker 2 (37:39):
I so, in a in a weird way, I think
what I will say is made me more comfortable with that.
It gave me more license to be okay with that,
and that's really I I've been married for almost twenty years.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
I wanted.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
One of the only Mormon things I ever did was
get married at a fairly young age, although I was
not Mormon at the time, just culturally, it wasn't out
of the way, uh, And I've always yeah, there's just
always been differences between where I was at my friends
and everything else. But it always felt like an important
(38:27):
thing and like felt like, you know, like that project
do you like need to get to at some point,
and so like in a weird way, some of the other.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Things and.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Some of the other things, including this, like has I
guess given me more license to be like there it's
fine where there's people all along the spectrum and like
this is maybe in some ways like a very so anyways,
I try to I try to think of it now
(39:00):
is something that I can leverage in different environments or
places that I'm in. It's not ever out front, right,
you're like now maybe one of like five people. It's
even because it's just not a topic that ever has
to be addressed, right, it doesn't affect my life partner
choice or any of those things. But I think there
(39:22):
probably was any any direct linkage to my developmental years.
I would say there probably was like a level of
fear for me created around that from just the way
some of the stuff was talked about, and it just
seems so you know, I didn't like the way things
(39:43):
were talked about by the men, and that includes that,
you know, the adults, like maybe even Jeff and others,
and the treatment of you know or at least like
the separate class of citizen towards towards women, and certainly
(40:05):
like the over white so like over white supremacy. A
lot of that stuff was very difficult. I will say,
to Israel's credit, I don't think that ever, like really
jazzed him up like I think it was there, It
was around him, and he didn't, you know, care to
come up with a with a different game plan. But
(40:27):
so yeah, I did never I did never get him
from that. I would say I got much more of
a sense of that from you know, what little time
we spent with Shane and Chevy and certainly through whatever
quote unquote church activities that we were a part of.
But yeah, so I think that's the best I can say,
(40:49):
is it probably contributed to a level of fear or
I'm this may not be for me kind of a feeling.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
That makes sense. Yeah, Is it just kind of like
the standard toxic masculinity stuff or did it go deeper
than that?
Speaker 2 (41:05):
I think it's I think it's in a way it's
oxygen starved toxic masculinity. Right, So like there's the you know,
kind of like what you'll see online. In some ways,
you get certain groups that are insulated enough that like
it's allowed to like go off the rails in a
different kind of way, and like if you let any
(41:27):
sunlight in through, you're just gonna be like that, this
is this is strange, Like we're so many layers away
from these things you think you're upset about. Right, if
you take in cell culture, it's like, how are you
getting somewhere with this plan?
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Right? This this doesn't doesn't even add up?
Speaker 2 (41:43):
And so I think I think there was a version
of of that, which is only having so many you know,
sources of information and you know, I do get cognizant
enough eventually with these trips that it's just like like
is there almost like a mor big curiosity on their part?
About like you know, in the back of their head,
(42:03):
like they probably don't know what Seinfeld is, right, but
like in the back of their heads are just like
I wonder if these people like watching Seinfeld or like
doing some of these other like terrible Like I don't
know what that would have been like to them, but
I'm sure that was like a you know, an interesting
dynamic for them because we would we would infiltrate their
their lives in a way, right, And and I think
(42:24):
it was what they wanted in a lot of ways,
but I'm sure it was also I would say I
think I observed some code switching on their part too,
where like maybe even some of the girls in the
family were would maybe say things they may not have
said if there weren't other people around. And I wish
I could think of an example or whatever, but I
feel like you could almost see like some of that
(42:45):
like frustration or the like, you know, not quite so
over as to be like you're lucky either here or
like I would let you have it kind of thing,
but like kind of get that sense of it when
it Israel As talking through in the FBI interviews about
Bill and Lorraine career, and he talks about a couple
(43:08):
different things where it didn't quite go as planned. Like
that was one of the I would say the most
triggering things, even though some of the other descriptions are
horrific and so dehumanizing and whatever else, like that for
me was very difficult because, like I've I've watched that
from him, you know, in different ways, whether we're you know,
(43:29):
sometimes we go mind fences, we would try you know,
we would go help milk the goats and some you know,
other care for animals or some of the farming stuff
that we would do while we were there, and you know,
like again, he was never like lashing out on me
directly whatever else, but it was like a kind of
frustration and like kind of.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
It.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
It was like you would be aware of it and
like it was enough for gravity in the room and
so hearing him even telling that story, and maybe there
are other times where he got a little bit more
stern with the interviewers or something, those were always the
most arresting because it was just a little bit weird
of like I know that voice. I've kind of watched
some of this dynamic happen, even though it was around
(44:14):
you know, trying to put together, you know, a lamp
or something whatever, you you know, whatever the example would be.
But that was that was weird. That was the most tactile.
I was like, oh, I have direct experience with that. Again,
not in a way that was ever harmful to me,
but it was just like, you know, it was like
a there was all of a sudden, like a much
(44:35):
shorter distance between the story I was listening to and
kind of my own life in a way.
Speaker 3 (44:39):
That was a weird experience to have.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
That makes total sense. Not in the same way, but
I've had that same experience. You talked about your family
providing financial support to the Keys family. Can you elaborate
on that? I guess, like, in what ways what kind
of financial burdens were the Keys family under? How close
were like were they very close? Because it seems like
(45:03):
and again I'm not fundamentalist Mormon or you know, yeah,
but I even my closest friends I would financially support.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Yeah, yeah, I had one hundred percent. So so here
it's maybe not shocking. Later in life, I'm now a
CPA numbers I'm fine with I understand. I actually quized
myself with my mom. We were talking about something else
and you know, she was bringing something up about the
(45:34):
house and I was like, I've heard a weird question
for you.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
I was like, I think I know what you paid
for this house. And I was ten years old.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
When we bought it, so nineteen ninety three, and I
told her and she's like, oh, I'm not sure. She's like,
but that seems like you know, basically the number. And
so having seven siblings younger than myself and you know,
I would want to do soccer or whatever else, and
like finances were always a concern. So I was I
(46:04):
was overly attentive to this issue, right to the point
where I'm like thirteen, and I have this really deep seated,
you know, sal sales pitcher rant about the fact of
like there's we can't afford it, and we're not prioritizing
that right and it's nobody's ever willing to say the
second one. It's just we can't afford that. And it's like, anyways,
(46:25):
you can tell where someone that's going from. So I
believe at different periods of time there was a cadence
where my parents and the keys would be on the
phone together. Now for Heidi and Jeff to use the phone,
they would basically traverse down the mountain to like a
small like four by four shed that was near like
(46:47):
you know, a telephone line or whatever else. They would
have a car battery for to hook up whatever else
they had in that little shed, but that was there
was a phone there that could be used. So to
my knowledge, that that's where they would have gone to
to communicate with them, and so they would stay in touch,
you know, some of these these ways. And so I'm
(47:09):
not sure what the hook was, but I believe what
I heard from my parents, probably because I was prying
or whatever else, because it's you know, I'm sitting there
looking at and be like, you know, shine, pads, aren't
that expensive? If we got money for Jeff and Hid
like what it sounds like soccer's happening this year, right,
whatever it is. And but in my parents' minds, in
(47:33):
the audio's faith, you would tithe ten percent back to
the church.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
So I literally think, if I'm if my memory is correct,
and I'm not inventing this, that there was some amount
that my parents were would send them in the form
of check or you know, I would assume it's that way.
I don't think they're using money and then the other way,
hopefully they weren't mailing cash, but and then my parents
would just like kind of deduct from that what they
(47:58):
would then pay into the church or so to speak.
So in a way, it's like we you know, we're
not out any money, we're just doing it differently.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
Right.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
It's like me paying five thousand dollars a year to
Planned Parenthood and then underpaying my own federal taxes five
thousand dollars and being like, hey, like.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
Let's call it square.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Yeah, totally in a way.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
And so like, I, yeah, I wish I could understand
that hook I mentioned earlier. I think there's like kind
of this romanticized version of this, like kind of living
purely or like living off the land, like some of
that that my you know, my parents weren't willing to
(48:41):
go that far. My parents were still what I would call,
you know, main street Mormon or whatever.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Like we were not.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
In any weird offshoots or whatever else that I'm that
I'm aware of other than you know, each community is
going to have its own unique bent to a degree.
But so so there was you know, some some code
switching there, and I think by then, I don't think
Heidi and Jeff were even really considering themselves to be
(49:10):
Lds or anything else. So I don't I'm not sure
what that tether is other than like kind of yeah,
kind of like this romantic version of like, we're trying
to do what you know, God has told us is
important for our family, and here are the hurdles that
are being thrown in our way, and you know, we
want to be able to show that we're stronger than that, right,
(49:30):
and can you assist and assist in that? That's my
that's my best best guess for some of that, And
then the other the other ways were like I said, right,
if we were coming up for the visit and they said, hey, whatever,
twenty two or nine mili need or whatever else, like
you know, then we'll figure it out when you get
(49:50):
here kind of thing. And one year I think we
even maybe we had already bought the trailer for something else,
but my dad found an old, like nineteen seventies dirt bike,
so we towed it all the way from Utah up
to Washington for their family. And again maybe they worked
out payment for that. I'm doubting that they did. I
(50:12):
think that was more of a contribution. But then Israel
would have had a motorcycle. I think it was mainly
for Israel at that point.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
For the rest of my conversation with Scott, listen to
My Friend Israel, Part two, available right now.
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