Keith

Previously on Happy Face.

I got a phone call and this guy says, I know where you're at. You're in the kitchen and you're wearing this. Keith states that he hired somewhat.

My mom had just said that her and my dad were separating, which I did believe.

I wanted to keep like you guys's baby pictures, and he chucked out all up.

He wasn't exactly a faithful lust.

Oh absolutely not tell me about your wedding day. They were doing pictures of me, and I guess he was outside kissing the bridesmaids, my best friend.

After the second murder, the Happy Face killer says he realized he liked what he was doing.

This triggered something in me. He said, it was getting easy, real easy.

The first year with Melissa had went through two fires.

Keith Tait.

The vent I had a little toilet cover and it caught it on fire, and the whole bathroom was in golf. Then shortly after that we go camping and then I heard a bear. He cleaned fish in front of the cabin and he was sleeping in the car.

He started killing in nineteen ninety and he stopped in ninety five.

The five years is not an isolated event.

It was an escalation.

I think he was groomed to be who he is.

In the vite, in the fight with the Sun. I don't know, shine o.

Shiver oh.

Through.

One of the biggest questions you're faced with when looking at the lives of serial killers is where did it all begin? What makes a person become a killer? Is it something that's passed down through generations or is there a single moment that can turn someone from a normal human being with a job and a family into a monster? Are serial killers made or are they born? I'm Lauren brad Pacheco, and this is happy face.

I remember the first time I saw my father in prison, and the first thing he said to me was Missy, do you want to know why?

And at the time, I couldn't.

I couldn't handle the answer, and honestly, I thought whatever he was going to tell me would be just him trying to justify what he's done or to minimize what he's done, and so I didn't want some pacifying answer.

So I said no.

And I regretted that moment for so many years now because I want to know why.

Why about my father had.

An interest in crime was because he wanted to become a police officer in Canada. He wanted to be a Mountie, and he was declined from becoming that because of an injury he sustained in high school. What he told me is that in gym class, they do this rope exercise where they climb the rope to the ceiling of the gym, which is quite high.

They say, now when they interview killers, people who've been perpetually in jail, they have found that a large percentage of them had damaged their frontal lobe before they were twenty two, changes their whole personality. Keith fell in high school. I believe it was twenty five feet. He was on the very top of the rope and I let go. He fell to the gym floor.

He sustained a head injury and broke his hip, and this impacted his ability to join the force. I don't believe my dad ever got over that. It was something that he carried on in conversations, that there was a sense of resentment that he was now a long haul truck driver when he could have.

Had this other life that was just out of his grasp.

But as Melissa's mom, Rose told us, She really thinks that Keith was conditioned to be a killer, groomed to be one by his own father less, and that's something we felt we had to explore.

From I The Creation of a Serial Killer by Jack Olsen, The Jesperson children grew up in a rural atmosphere, first in Chiliwack, British Columbia, later two hundred and fifty miles south in Sale, Washington, an apple scented orchard community of ten thousand. Keith's perpetually mobile father built the family's Chiliwack home on land as ancestors homestead, and in nineteen oh nine moved the house from the city to a pastoral

If you read jack Olson's biography of Keith, the way in which he describes Keith's father less It's very clear that Less was a very resourceful, ingenious man, the kind of guy who could build a barn from scratch or create a water wheel to catch fish for dinner. But what also is clear is that he could be a monster.

We decided that we didn't want to live near your grandfather anymore.

Why he was horrible. I hated him. Really. Yeah.

He would without warning, open up the door to our house and he goes, we just sleep.

With me to you, to me, I had no idea.

Yeah, your father in law, Yes, your father in law hit on you, yes, more than once, Like well.

Yeah, I would be I'd be sitting right next to Keith and he would come and he'd pinch me, and I was thinking, Keith, what are you doing? And then I see his hand and they start giggling. I don't know who I was more angry with Keith for not protecting me or for Less for doing it.

So you think Keith knew his father would make passes at you.

Well he was right there, and they thought it was a joke. And the only time I was saved is when I was pregnant with Melissa. Then I was off the tables.

Keith's attitude towards marriage very much mirrored the relationship he saw unfold between his own father and his mother, Gladys.

I mean, I.

Knew that last beat the kids a lot. I don't know if he beat Gladys or not, but I know that there was problems between Gladys and least because when we were for married, Keith goes, I have to go down to the house and they go okay. So he went down to the house, came back and he was really visibly upset. I said, so what went on? He goes, yeah, mom and dad got in a fight, and I guess dad cut every telephone wire in the house.

Was less a drinker.

He was a heavy alcoholic.

One of the few people that Keith opened up to about his childhood was a true crime author and psychologist named al Carlyle. Melissa met him almost completely by chance.

I was invited to go to crime con and this gentleman approached the booth and he said, hey, you know, I've got this author who's working on serial killers. And he said, well, his name is al Carlyle and he studied Ted Bundy and he's working on a chapter of the serial killer named Keith Hunter. Jesperson so when I got that calm, I called him immediately, and I loved his perspective. He had stories that I've never even heard of before about the man I thought I knew.

Unfortunately, the night before we were supposed to interview Al Carlyle, he passed away in his sleep, and it was heartbreaking. He was such a fascinating, brilliant man. But we were able to reach out to Stephen Booth, his publisher, and also to Carrie Ann Keller, who was his researcher and writing assistant.

Keith felt that I had a real mission to understand bylent behavior, so that was their common ground. They each felt the other could provide valuable information. Once Al was up there interviewing Keith, and Keith said to Al, I could reach over this table and snap your head before the guard would even notice. I don't because I don't want to lose my privileges. He wasn't threatening Al, he was just making a point about his size. Okay, So that's how you have to understand how Keith could talk.

So it's like.

Being in a room with a loaded gun.

Oh yeah, for sure, definitely you feel it.

My name is Stephen Booth. I have been the publisher at Genius Book Publishing since twenty eleven. Keith Jefferson was in a situation where he had a very manipulative father. The father, by the way, freaks me out. He had a very manipulative father. He was required to be obedient at all times, he was given conflicting information about what ethical standards were and how to behave, and he was isolated from his family, even by his own siblings.

What's incredible, though, is that Al Carlisle's family gave us the tapes of his interviews with Jessperson in prison, and you can hear the intimate details and how much Keith opened up to him.

Brad the older, Brad was a younger. Bruce is the oldest. When did they start calling you? Igor?

Was my junior high I was in eighth grade, and then Brad was in the seventh grade and he wanted to be big with his friends, so he started calling me Igor because of the Monster movies, and I figured out was his psidekick. I was big physically at the time and slow slow physically.

Well, I was. I was. I was big, and I was not very well co ordinated.

No, not really intelligent. I'm very intelligent. But I just didn't adapt myself to it.

Keith was made to pay his own room and board when the other kids were not made to do that, so he would be an example to the other siblings.

And this was when he was twelve thirteen years old, precisely.

Yes, you know, the father forced him to work. He got paid a pittance. Most of that money went back to roomin to board, and whatever was left over the father basically took out of the bank account. And whenever he got into trouble, everybody pointed the finger at Keith. His siblings did, his father did, his friends did. He was isolated, harboring a lot of resentment, violent rage like

Oh, I have a memory that kid young.

Yeah, it was just he was every time he would say, well Keith did this, and Keith did that, and I'd get the belt and I'd get nailed and I'd get punished and so forth, he'd sit back laugh hah ha ha, this is funny. And one day, I caught him off the back door when he was ready to scream Keith did it and I was beating him, damn or to death.

You're old when I was about eight years old at the time, when you were eating the kid, did you feel you're in control? Did you just lose it with his song? I just lost it. I didn't. I didn't.

I don't think they had anything to do with control, and just had paybacks a bitch, you know. And I just grabbed him and just started wailing him. Of course I didn't know him to stop. I was going to beat him to death.

He was put in a position where he could not win, and he could not take his rage out on his father because father I had have dialed in. So he took his rage out on the closest person to him, who was embarrassing him.

You know, I sure taught him elast him. So even by the age of eight, it was a lot of anger.

Yeah, there was anger there, angers, Yeah you do me wrong.

It was like, yeah, I was you doing me wrong? I was I was gonna. I was bounding and determined to get even from I.

The creation of a serial killer by Jack Olsen, sometimes the Jesperson males proud the creek banks for muskrats. I'd yank one out of the water by its tail and throw it up on the bank. Then Dad or one of my brothers would club it to death. We also killed gophers, hundreds of them. They were a farm pest and nobody missed them. Dad has films of us boys blood splattered from k killing gophers and other varmints. It

Based on their jail health interview. What did al make of my dad's childhood.

He was fascinated by his passivity, you know, Keith's passivity as a child. This dichonomous behavior of a shy and passive child who becomes fully the opposite as an adult was very interesting to him. He understood how Keith was bitter about the control his father had over him. He knew he wasn't able to stand up to his father's dominance, but Keith accepted it, you know, as his lot.

In life and he kind of liked it because well he did full trapped by his father. He was afraid of his father. He also had a strong desire to have his dad love him.

I feared my grandfather like even though he never hit me, I was terrified at my grandfather being angry with me because I don't know what he would do.

Maybe even know about the motorcycle story.

I do. I do. So he has this motorcycle, Keith that he saved up money for a brand new motorcycle. Okay, it's not a piece of junk like from cobble together Junkyard.

And I had bought it in a seven p fifty hand a motorcycle. It was a seventy four brand new gold Mati orange, you know, like a bright orange colored.

It was a beautiful bike.

And it came hunting season and I was working for Dad at the time, and Brad and I wanted to go hunting over on the coast by Klama. Of course, we need a four wheel drive and I was gonna use the company pickup. Well, I said, Dad, can I use the company pick up? And he says, shirkey, But one stipulation and I knew was coming, and he says, you leave me your motorcycle so I could go on

Oh I am gonna drink. And I said no, I false promises.

You know, well, in order for me to get to pick up, I had to give him the bike. So I get to pick up, and I load up and the Honting supplies and we take off over the Klama. We have a hell of a nice time all weekend long. I got in the morning on Monday morning, I go back to the dump truck in the backyard. We have a swimming pool to dig that day. And I walked through the back door and I said, where the hell's dad at? And we got this swimming pool to dig over here, And Mom said, oh, you don't know.

He says he wrecked the motorcycle. He's in the hospital.

And I guess Keith was on an architect trip or something. What happened when he came back, do you know?

Well, then Keith had to run the businesses. He had to do everything. He was the sole provider for two families. His dad and mine.

Ours, and so I call up the company there.

The people that were going to do the swimming pool told me I wouldn't be there. My dad's in the hospital and I have to go take care of business. So I go to Sainte's hospital and there he his dad up there on the floor and he's they operated on reports blane and his face is all bandaged up, kind of nose and down are off.

He hit a bob wire and I cut up his intestines. He has a big stars. He had a big scar in his face.

I get up there and he's like looked at me, and I said, well, what happened?

Daddy?

You gotta you gotta get back that motorcycle you got. You gotta take care of all the evidence. Keith, you gotta take care of it. I said, what what do you mean to take care of us? Go get rid of it. So you've been drinkingnoyment? He said, just take care of it way you said, we.

Don't want that insurance company knowing that I was riding drunk.

Right.

Did Keith drink No?

No, it was absolutely like no alcohol.

He was the only one out of all my aunts and uncle said, didn't drink at all. I I grew up and you didn't drink either. You and dad didn't drink at all.

And I'm growing up no, because my father was an alcoholic too, and so you either choose it or you don't. And I chose not to. And that's your dad chose not to drink either.

But I get up to my dad and I sat up to the hospital and my mom's there, and I said, well, Dad, I got rid of all that. And he said, good good, good goodness. Now, why were you drinking on my motor my motorcycle? Says I wasn't drinking on your motorcycle. Yes, your word, he says, prove it. You can't prove it. So you got rid of all the evidence, so you can't prove shit.

I'll give you your Cota Molliqua for your lotter olive.

You drunk of all up?

Whoa, And that's basically how it all lands up, says everything is.

I was covering up everything. I said. I was like eighteen at that time.

Yeah.

Less basically made Keith go hide the evidence so that he could get insurance money that it didn't know.

It wouldn't surprise me because LUs was very famous for that.

His business ethics of that was that the boss was always right and the employees were always wrong, which.

Man the employee took the heat. Yes, it did, and I'm just getting to that.

His idea was that if there's any problems that occurred on the job, that I would get shit on and he would get the glory of saying I'm sorry or whatever like that. I'll it'll never happen, you know, I'll just make sure my son never does this stuff again.

So I was like the blueted an idiot, you know, and doing all that.

And I kind of laughed one day because my dad was on the bacco when he was digging next to his house and he put the bucket right through the side of the house. He has no depth perception. That was one of his problems. That he stuck the bucket to the side of the house. And the people were in the house and they were looking out and they saw him running thebacco right and they come running out of the corner. But by the time they got around to who the bacca was, he'd already stop machine.

And he'd gotten me on that. And they were looking at.

Him and looked at me, and I said, I did it, and they were like, why do you put up with that?

I said, that's the way it is. I am the ship on.

Less told him this is the way what you're going to say in court, and Keith did in order for them to win a court case for the motilepart line or absolutely did it.

Seems like he wasn't the most honest man.

No, no, he wasn't. He swindled people. I called him a swindler, and he had a really good lawyer.

My understanding is that, how do I say this? Left to his own devices, Keith would have been a pretty happy kid. He described his childhood as being fairly happy, and he would have probably not Harvard as much rage. He probably would have been somebody who got along with people. But from al to me, from Keith to tell to me, his childhood was more a matter of he was the target. He was the scapegoat, for lack of a better word, of everybody's need to avoid Less's rage or manipulation or

There's an interview with your dad about your grandfather made him go visit a friend of your grandfather's who was dying, and your dad was really resentful because he had to go sit and make conversations with his dying man, because your grandfather said nobody should have to die alone. And your dad was talking to the guy before he realized he had already passed away.

I had no idea about this.

Dad still treated me like the run of the litter, Daddy's little helper. He dragged me to a nursing home to visit one of his hunting buddies. He said, my friend Smitty's not doing too good with his lung cancer. Keith, I'm going out in the hall talk to him, son. Nobody likes to die alone. I'm sitting there listening to the rattley breathing, watching his life draane out. After a while, Smitty goes limp. I'm holding his hand for ten or

My dad was really good about telling his story, his narrative, and he'd be everybody to the punch and it would just when his story came forward, people always judged everybody else's tail against what he had to say. My dad had ownership, like the truth was his. He owned the truth and it was not debatable. His air of certainty definitely played a part in other people believing in him and why probably his victims believed in him and trusted

Not really.

May I ask a question, Yes, why is it that when Rose left Keith and took the kids, she went over to Lesson's house?

What do you mean?

The story that I got was when she left and emptied the house, the first place she went was Less's house. That is a direct quote from the history that I was reading this morning, and I can share that with you if you need me to.

From from Keith.

Yeah, Oh, that's that's that's the story that I got. It could be wrong, but that's the story that that AL got.

That's interesting that he would say that I was there that didn't happen. Okay, I was there the day that they left. That would make sense that my dad was shared that's story to shame my mother and put her into that frame of light.

Oh.

I actually remember play by play, minute by minute of that day that they separated, And there was not one single time that we went over to my grandparents' house. Matter of fact, they were gone, and there was not anything that we cleaned out in that property because we left in the four Topaz, which is just a little family sedan. We didn't take a single item from that house other than the clothes that we needed for like a couple days. Wow.

So that is not the story that I got from al from Keith. Yeah, that's fascinating.

So that's interesting that he came up with this this new story, a new spin.

What happened?

Well, I'm glad I asked, because honestly, I bought the story that Keith gave out. You know, I mean, it seemed reasonable. She left, she took everything, whether she went over to the father's house. Some of this is fantasy. Some of this is making Keith feel better about himself. So how truthful, was he without?

Now it's all right to lie, it's all right to be gnising and so forth.

You can. You can do that because you're an adult, you know you can do that. But when you're a kid, you can't lie to your parents.

You know, because you know he called, you know he would call on hokus And I remember you comforting me after one particular phone call where we were living on a street over here.

And he called and said he was suicidal because of having paiy child support. And then he because it was such a burden for him, and it made me upset because I felt blamed. He's blaming me for having a pay child support. But then it went another step further. He said, you know, I drove past the prison today, the organ State Prison. I just like chewed my horn and said I'll be there soon, as we said in the call. But I remember crying and going to my

Felt the whole time he was playing on us. You know, I got pit child support, so.

You I separated in nineteen ninety and then he how did you find out in nineteen ninety five? Didn't you receive a letter from him?

I received a letter maybe a week before he got arrested. And in this letter it said, Rose, what I did is bigger than O. J.

Simpson.

He said, I'll probably be in hell forever Keith, and I thought, you are so full of crap. I mean, like, it's what this is supposed to mean? Right, shredded a piece through in the trash directly to you. It was directly to me.

I didn't say anything about us kids.

It just was like, I did something bigger than oh J.

Simpson gentle.

So you know God is a man, gentle.

Man, so you know God is a ansome.

I like Beddy good poet God.

That's song. So gots it's back Genzl people.

Who we was.

Oh Happy Face is a production of how Stuff For Executive producers are Melissa Moore, Lauren Bright Pacheco, Mangesh Hatiketur and Will Pearson. Supervising producer is Noel Brown. Music by Claire Campbell, Paige 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.