Aftermath

Previously on happy Face.

Today I find out if my worst fears and insecurities are true. If I'm capable of being like my dad.

You would never do what your father's done, and you could never.

Be what he is.

I would like to tell my story, the writer of the letter begins. The exclamation point is all his, so is the labored printing, and the odd mixture of capital and lowercase letters.

Are hurt people.

But I'm scared of You're not like him.

Because of that, our universe has a plan for each and every one of us.

I wish I could see this.

I want to help you feel it. You have to let me.

The letter has a happy face at the top of the first page, two tiny circles for eyes, an upturned sliver of a moon for mouth.

Have a nice day.

Doctor James Fallon is a neuroscientist at the University of California.

So here you are, and here's the normal. And it turns out yours is completely normal.

That's amazing. Yeah, with the sun, I don't know shine.

Oh I.

Mm hmm.

You told me once that being the daughter of a serial killer isn't something you grow out of, it's something you grow into.

Yes, you just can't run it. You can't even when he dies.

One day, when he dies.

Those swimmories will still be there. I mean, I don't think about the future with hit my.

Dad in it.

I live my life by my own desires and I own attentions, and I could get everything I want, except forgetting things.

As Arthur Golden writes and Memoirs of a Geisha. After all, when a stone is dropped into a pond, the water continues quivering even after the stone has sunk to the bottom. I'm Lauren Brighte Pacheco, and this is happy face. While having the brain scan last week removed certain doubts from Melissa, the healing is still a process. Even simple things like a happy memory of her dad and the smell of house paint as he painted the walls of her childhood home are tainted by his crimes.

I remember when we took possession of the house, my dad painting the walls white, and it came to my mind.

Sorry, it came to my mind. This weekend.

I I bought a fixer upper in Ohio, and when I entered the fixer upper, I thought, this needs gallery white walls.

I just see it's had beautiful arches.

I saw white. The walls would need to be white, So I started painting.

The walls white.

And for hours, I says, painting, I saw my dad and the smell of the fresh paint and my dad's care and painting the walls white in this.

Farmhouse is one of those good memories, you know, of my dad taking care of a property.

And he's the one who taught me, or instilled in me, this love for real estate and this love for fixing up properties. And that's something that I've had to reconcile because a lot of things that I love are rooted back to my dad.

Now, every time Melissa looks at white paint, those good memories are overridden by what she learned that Keith used paint to cover over the splattered blood after killing Tanya Bennett.

And that's not the first thing that happened. But on my birthday was just a couple weeks ago, and my boyfriend bought me a road bike. And I grew up with my dad cycling, and he bought me the cycling shoes, and the first thing that went into my mind was Tanya Bennett and my dad saying I would wear my cycling shoes so when it leave the soul print and.

I it's it's so.

Hard because I love these things.

Everything.

I love.

It.

I've tried, I've tried a run.

I can't and I'll never I'll never put those shoes, all those cycling shoes and not think of Tanya.

I'll never be able to.

I want to.

But Melissa, you didn't kill Tanya Bennett.

I know.

Maybe it's a question of going back to those memories and just trying to take the good from them. You cannot take responsibility for your father's actions. For Keith's family, shaking off guilt isn't easy. Here's Melissa's mother Rose talking about it.

Well, everybody assumes you are guilty by association just because you knew him. Because I was his wife.

I knew everything that he did. I knew he murdered those women.

I knew, and I had no clue he.

Had a second life.

Over the years, accusations have come in that Melissa wants attention for her father's crimes. People attack her on social media or flood the comment sections on websites. Even her own father has accused her of trying to profit off of his murders. In his letters to her. But the truth is Melissa's whole career has been a way to atone for her father's sins, and that's true of her

Have you written to my father since our conversation?

No, I haven't been in touch with him for years. I've done a number of things since then. But you know, to say the least, we're dealing with a split personality here, someone driven by some pretty serious unconscious compulsions. So that's one side of it, and the other side of it was every once in a while, this monster from the unconscious would break through.

At one point, Keith was allegedly offered the opportunity to give false testimony against Phil in exchange for favorable treatment in prison, and to his credit, driven by some strange moral code, he refused.

But there's also the chance that someone who's as mentally unusual as obviously he was might also have been interested in just playing more games and keeping people in the air.

When you met Jasperson, you had read those letters. So was there that moment of authenticity that you knew he was the author? And what did that feel like? Because I can imagine that those letters were terrifying to read.

I knew from my own research that he had to be the guy. I mean, there were times when I was talking with him, when he was talking to me about what he had done, that I had those skin crawling moments, that's for sure. When he talked about killing one of the truck stop whores in the cab of his truck and he watched it from twenty feet above. That's when I realized that this is a very strange.

Person, and regardless of everything Melissa has undertaken and tried to prove, that very strange person will always be her father.

Well, how I even started my whole beginning was when my daughter asked me a question. She got off the school bus. She was learning about genealogy in the family tree, and they were being basic. Of course, the family tree is going up to your grandparents. So she filled out her dad's side, you know, samside, Nana, Papa, and then on my side Grandma rose me. And then she realized there's a miss grandfather here. She said, you know, mom, everybody has a daddy. Where's your daddy? And I wasn't

I didn't want the last name.

From there, I went to the libraries, I went everywhere, just scouring for information about how do I reconcile this for myself so that I can tell my child this in a way that she can understand without terrifying her. And I didn't want to be public because at this point I had nobody knew I had a business, Nobody knew who my father was.

We had bought our house, our first home.

My daughter was happy and well adjusted in kindergarten. None of my friends knew, my church groups didn't know. But I kept thinking about my daughter's question.

What do you want your children to take away from your journey?

Finding out that I'm not a psychopath liberated me too as a parent, because my son was scared, and I think my son was asking a very complex question when he asked, like, is it a choice or is it something that you are?

He wants to know more about his grandfather, my dad, and I had to keep telling him you're nothing like him, You're nothing like him.

As both Leroy and Don Findley made a huge impact on the Happy Face team, and he stayed in contact with both Melissa and me.

Is it Don or is it Leroy?

Well, you know what, after talking to you, I started telling people my real name.

Really, Yes, ma'am, why did you start doing that?

Someone pointed out to me that, well, if LeRoy's really healed, why don't you just start introducing people who don't.

Know you as who you are.

Because I'm back to where I was before it happened, and I saw myself changing.

I felt it in my energy.

People who were They're like, something's different about you.

So this whole thing was like because of.

Meeting Melissa amazingly lifted off my shoulders, because she answered the questions that I needed answered. And God, the universe has rewarded me in so many ways. He's like, I put you through hell, you have come out smelling like carnations. Now it's time for you to be rewarded. So I've turned into a whole different person. But at the same time, I'm still same spirit and soul.

So it sounds like you went back to your former name, but you've gotten a new life, yes, ma'am. And it would seem that Don had left a huge impression on Melissa as well.

You were in my thoughts last night actually when I went to this floating restaurant on the water and I thought, oh, the last time I was here was a puffins with Don, and I remembered that whole experience and how intense it felt leading up to that moment. I was terrified, absolutely terrified to meet it up with you because it I didn't know. I didn't know what you would think of me, And I've already dealt with so many people having preconceived

I didn't need I know.

What you mean on some level, Don. I think Melissa's biggest fear was that twenty years ago when she read your words in the newspaper. Yeah, she knew that you were speaking the truth. She knew that you saw through everything, and the narrative that she'd been fed by her father all those years was not the truth. So her fear in facing you was that you would look in her face and you would see the face of her father, and that you would blame her for his horrible crimes.

And I fully understand that because people, like I said, don't know how to take me. And everybody in society always prejudges everybody and assumes that they know about everybody, but they don't know about themselves, and now Melissa learned that none of it's true. Everybody has assumptions, everybody's gonna come up with their own ideas, but it's only us as individuals that we can do for ourselves. I'm trying to word this the right way, but we all know I'm the Stone or Yogi so.

Perfect.

But if they understand it's cool, they don't.

That's their problem, Melissa, because they're not the ones having to live in our body or walk our shoes.

As we set out to make this series, we wanted to give Melissa the tools and opportunity to understand and confront her dad, the man she hadn't seen in so many years, but still had such control over her and her life choices. What Melissa ultimately got, though, was actually much better, a release from Keith's manipulation and the confidence to create her own narrative. In the end, it was

I'm trying to find words of what that experience was. I think that I have found that meeting to be a sacred meeting, and I felt like it was a crossroads moment in my life.

That was a gift.

I thought you would blame me and see my father and me, and I said, I wanted to go to this doctor to find out if I am biologically hardwired to be like my dad, And you said, well, your brain may be, but your heart isn't.

I said, you may have his blood, but you don't have his heart, mind, or soul, because you wouldn't do what you do for others. So when you told me that you were going to go to the doctors and get that checked out, I believe I told you that you're not and I never got the answer to see if I was correct or wrong.

Well, you were correct.

My brain is perfectly normal and not hardwired to be a psychopath. And what gave me the courage to go do that was actually your statement to me after that though. I mean, it is like history just erased. Like there was this pressure that I always felt walking around this world, feeling like I have to prove myself.

That's a lot of energy.

To take into every encounter and it's unconscious that this point has been decades, so it's just well left this void like this open space. And I felt it all sudden. These wonderful things in the world just started to pour into that space. And yes, yes, I didn't know I was going to meet you this summer. I didn't know that the universe had this in store for me, and I didn't know that was worthy of this gift.

You don't have to say no more. I am so happy, I really am.

I'm not scared of my dad anymore. The Eliza has told me. I believed them, and I allowed him to shape me and put me in this place, this box. And I was terrified of him because everybody believed his narrative always, and so I couldn't outrun even his lies. And now he could say whatever he wanted to say and.

I would be fine.

During that conversation, Melissa brought up the fact that my dad, my father, had taken very seriously ill. She expressed her sentiments and almost envy that he had the benefit of being surrounded by his loving, proud family during this painful time and the sharp contrast to her own reality.

You know, Lauren, sitting across from me, and her dad right now is in the hospital.

Or in care, and.

Lauren and I have had quite an opposite of upbringing, and the love that she has for her father and the care that she has for her father and that he has for her makes it so that she's right now currently in the most intense grief and pain, and that her father is surrounded by beautiful daughters, a beautiful family that loves him, and my dad will never get that because he didn't deserve that, because he didn't create the life that her dad created.

And that's what I know.

You know what, I bet you, There's going to come a day where my dad passes away and I won't even know it, Like I won't even know my dad died because all these years will have passed and I didn't say a word to him, and he never said a word to me.

To be honest, I initially cringed and immediately felt protective of my privacy. Then my dad died the next day. Now that I've had the time to reflect, I realize Melissa was also grieving with me and for her father. Keith didn't just murder eight women. He killed the man Melissa thought she knew, and the father she dearly loved. Melissa's dad died when she was fifteen, and she's still

You know, an intimate partner, you hold each other and kindle each other. It was like, Okay, I'm gonna go watch TV.

It was robotic.

Yeah, or did you feel used?

No?

I just because I mean I never had men. I don't know what like, I'm a hooyfriend.

Yeah, how men are?

I thought that was the norm.

You must have been so lonely.

I was extremely lonely. Matter of fact, I would go to church and I knew my life was out of balance, but I just couldn't figure out why it.

Was out of balance.

But then I used to have a neighbor when we lived in Zilla, and there was a little old couple and summertimes they would sit out in the patio and play cards and they had their little lights on, you know, and I'd sit there and I'd listen to their conversation because they were so close, and I just thought, that's what our relations should be like, that you enjoy each

Like.

Melissa and Don were initially linked by Keith, but they're both determined and to transcend his effects on their lives.

Our gift now is to pass on the words of survival and that when you do make it through the tough times that are put in front of you that are out of your control, if you handle them in the right way.

You will be rewarded.

Whether you believe in God, the universe, aliens, birds.

The gypsy and cats, you will be rewarded.

And we are proof of that because both of us have lived in deep dark places.

I just you know, for me, it really is humbling to watch. It is the triumph of good over evil.

Ultimately, I mean, I really hope we can help not just each other grow further in our lives and stay connected, but to help other people.

And I did tell you you will love and you will care. So I said those words, but I didn't believe them one hundred percent. I had to tell myself that stuff for years to get through it, and when I met Melissa.

All those words were proven right. Does any of that make sense?

Absolutely? Absolutely?

The most telling change in Don was evident when confronted with the idea of being face to face with Keith present day.

If I met him in person, I would hope that my power and my strength would hold me back and I would say you lose me and your daughter win. But in honesty action at this very moment, my anger sight still would want to put him in some kind of other pain, but not kill him. You know, I'm not trying to be mean or angry, but my good side would say we win, you lose. I think that part is stronger than my angry part, so I wouldn't

Like he's not living rent free in your brain anymore. He's not controlling your thoughts, and that's all part of I think your acceptance of yourself and going back to Don and letting Leroy go.

Right, that's a great metaphor. I don't know how I didn't come up with it.

But yeah, I am able to be more free than I've ever been.

Now, what Melissa ultimately regained through the journey through Don, through everything, was to regain control of her own story without Keith. At points, you thought that you needed answers from your dad. How do you feel now, Yeah?

I thought that I asked my dad really honest questions and that he would give really honest answers. But through this journey, I found that he doesn't tell honest. He tells his own narrative, and that changes depending on what he wants from you. And even if I was to meet with him, he would spin me a tale. I don't need any more of his narrative.

That's control.

So has this journey given you the narrative back?

Yeah, me the freedom to tell my own story to myself, like who I really am who I intuitively thought I was, Like, this identity is really about our self beliefs, and we operate our lives by the beliefs we carry about.

Who we are.

And for so many years I operated my life with the story I told myself, which is I'm the daughter of a serial killer, Therefore I am bad. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I am part of that tree. And now that's no longer my story. I'm Melissa More, a mother, a woman, and that's what I am. There's no tagline like I don't. I don't have to carry daughter of a serial killer like I don't. It's just Melissa More. Just like you're Lauren. You don't have a

As sensational and at times surreal as Melissa's story has been, there's something very universal about her journey. It's really about the triumph of the human spirit over fear, shame, and ultimately grief. In the end, it's about hope, the hope that good can triumph over evil, or at least lesson its stinging.

Oh hey, can it be another way to punish me? A thousand lies, light years fly, dark years wander slowly by my broken voice.

It calls to me, what notes I'll never meet? I'll drift in words way out to see way out until I'm his story.

Happy Face is a production of How Stuff Works.

Executive producers are Melissa Moore, Lauren Bright, Pacheco Mangesha Ticketdour and Will Pearson.

Supervising producer is Noel Brown. Music by Claire Campbell, Page Campbell and Hope for a Golden Summer. Story editor is Matt Riddle. Audio editing by Chandler Mays and Noel Brown. Assistant editor is Taylor Chicogne.

Special thanks to Phil Stanford, the publishers of the Oregonian Newspaper, and the Carlisle family