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Now perch is necessary if we were privateed by loss he Terms and Conditions eighteen plus. You are now listening to True Murder The most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zupansky,
Good Evening. He was a hard working small business owner, an army veteran, an attentive lover, and a doting father. But he was also something more, something sinister, A master of deception. He was a rapist, arsonist, and bank robber, and a new breed of serial killer, one who studied other killers.
To perfect his craft. He methodically buried kill kits containing his tools and murder years before returning to reclaim them. Viewing the entire country as his hunting grounds, he often flew across the country to distant locations where he would rent a car and drive hundreds or even thousands of miles before randomly selecting his victims. Such were the methods and madness of serial killer Israel Keys. Such were the
demands of the Devil in the Darkness. The book they were featuring this evening is Devil in the Darkness, The True Story of serial killer Israel Keys, with my special guests, journalist and author J. T.
Hunter.
Welcome back to the program, and thank you for agreeing to this interview.
J T. Hunter, Thanks for earing back. Then, thank you very much. DT.
Another amazing and wild story you've gotten your hands on and good for our audience and myself. So thanks very much. Let's start with We're going to jump right into this because there's a lot to cover it. It's a very very strange and odd and unique tale. Let's first talk about Bill and his wife Courier, and so let's talk about let's talk about this couple and what they were like. Because she was forty nine years old and Bill fifty five,
and we're talking about they live in Vermont. So tell us a little bit where they're living in Vermont and what this couple is like. I'll tell us a little bit about this these people.
Okay, yeah, Bill and Lorraine Courier, As you said, they were living in ethics Vermont, which is a smaller town not far from Burlington, and they were a married couple living together and Bill worked at the University of Vermont there in Burlington. He was an animal care worker technician, and Braine worked in the medical field also in the Burlington area.
There.
Now these people. You open the story basically or soon after in the book, you talk about Diana Smith calling police. It's her brother and sister in law didn't show up for work. And then a police are alerted. So take us to where the police are at this investigation. They've been called and they go to the home. Tell us what they find, what their conclusions are.
Tell us about that.
So when the police were called about had this missing person report, and they showed up at the courier's house and everything looked fine when they first arrived there, they you know, they started looking around the perimeter of the house there, and they peered into the garage one of the windows into the garage, and they noticed that there was broken glass on the floor in the garage inside
from the door connecting the garage to the house. Turned out it went from the garage into the kitchen of the home and the glass had been shattered out from that door, and they went from there. They went inside and they saw that it look like somebody had broke the window with a crowbar from the garage. And then we're able to unlock and open the door that way and get access to the house. And when they went inside the house, it looked looked like everything was pretty
much where it should be. It wasn't as if someone had ran backed the home or anything like that. But both Bill and the rain they were both missing, and their car was missing as well.
Now the police canvassed the neighbors and some of the neighbors said they had heard a gunshot around nine pm and someone had spotted someone driving the Courier's Saturn. They said a lone man was driving and there was a former cop was the witness. An accompass it sketch was made as a result. But tell us, again, this is a series of very frustrating things. But Detective Murdy was
curious about this tipster. So tell us what happened with this tipster and what seemed to be a pretty promising lead early on.
You're talking about the tipster of seeing the car being driven.
Yeah, it was a former police officer.
Yeah, Yeah, they had that information come in and you know, it turned out that they weren't sure how accurate that ended up being, but they did end up doing so. They ended up finding the car abandoned a few days after the couriers were abducted a few days after they reported missing. The car was found abandoned by a dumpster in a parking lot parking lot of an apartment complex in Essex. There So they did ultimately recover the car, but were not able to at that point ascertain the whereabouts.
Still a bill on the rain. So it was a very frustrating case, as I think you mentioned, especially for the chief detective involved in the case, George Murdy up there in the Essex Police Department, just really no solid leads whatsoever in the case. It was very perplexing case for him.
And they ran to the normal things.
They checked to computers and checked where they these people might have run into a potential perpetrator. And Murdy did call someone and had a consultation with the behavioral analysis unit in Quantico. And so what did the case, what did it look like in terms of amateurism, and what did it look like in terms of what did they have as a result of the crime scene itself. What real evidence of any did they have after this, Well, there.
Wasn't really a lot of evidence for them to go on, and that's part of why it was so frustrating. I mean, they had they had the evidence of the obvious break in, and there were some things missing from the home. For instance, Lorraine was known to have a handgun that was missing from the home, but a lot of things weren't weren't missing, and there wasn't a lot of evidence to try to connect to anyone. So that's what made the case so
frustrating for the officers working it. And as you mentioned, they to consult with the FBI, the Behavioral Analysis unit there, and they did get a report back from the FBI and that and the FBI made a bunch of suggestions and you know, offered their theory as to what sort of person may have done this. And one of the things the FBI advised Essex Police Department to do was to look into some of the activities that Bill and
Lorraine were involved in. For instance, Bill was online quite a bit, so they wondered, well, maybe did he meet somebody online somehow that led to this, and you know, Lorraine had become very vocal.
With respect to.
Conservative values and things, and so they wondered to somehow speaking out about this and somehow attract somebody's attention. So, but there wasn't any real solid leads, and the FBI had even offered the opinion that it was somebody that most likely had known them, because it would really be out of the ordinary, be quite extraordinary for it to be some sort of random abduction.
Now you jump to Anchorage, Alaska, and you describe and then you show a photo in the book as well as very interesting when you think of a coffee place, but this is an actual coffee stand that's sitting out in the streets, basically according at least according to the photo. So tell us a little bit about these coffee stands in Anchorage, Alaska, this common ground and a young girl that's eighteen years old named Samantha koning Yeah, So.
The couriers that disappeared in June of twenty eleven and then in February of the next year, of twenty twelve, Samantha Konig, who was eighteen year years old and who worked at one of these coffee shops. As you mentioned, these coffee shops are pretty common in the Anchorage area.
They're scattered around the city, different locations. And she worked at one called common Grounds, and it was stationed near a major intersection, in a parking lot at a major road intersection there in the city, and she worked there. She had been working there for a few months, I believe, and on a night in February, she was working there by herself, which was the common practice there at night.
And Israel Keys had scoped out the particular coffee shop a few days before and decided that he was going to do something to it. At first, he thought he would just rob it whoever was working there, but when he ended up actually going to commit the robbery, he decided to take it further, and he ended up abducting Samantha Koonik from the coffee shop there at gunpoint.
You describe the whole.
Thing because you have the benefit of having that incredible access to the information and won't give away how that happens, but at least you describe. And again this is the most moviesque portion of the book, I would think, and so profound is that he's at the stand but he realizes that there's someone across the street at a car dealership. And Samantha is eighteen years old, and obviously this person is older and more experienced. So what does this person
do to abduct someone? What does he have to what's the process he has to do to be able to get her to comply, not have this person be suspicious. You take us that into that in the book. Tell us what really happens and how to illustrate early on this killer.
Tell us what he does well.
The coffee shop, it's it's the type where they have the order window where you can drive up in order and then you drive off, or you can walk up to it to the window and order. And so he walked up there close to closing time and had had his own cup or mug for coffee, ordered to coffee, and then as she was fixing it, he pulled out the gun, told her to turn the lights off in
the store, which she did. And you know, one of the kind of tragic things was it turned out that right next to the light switches was the alarm for you know, an emergency. And you know, you can imagine though this eighteen year old girl, she's frightened at her
with someone holding a gun on her. So she didn't think to trigger the alarm there, but she turned the lights off, and he he noticed, as you said, this person in the car across the way, so he just kind of calmly stood there and talked to her and kind of acted like, you know, he was her boyfriend or some sort of acquaintance or friend or something, and they were just kind of chatting until the person in the car finally decided that must be what's going on
in fact, and then drove off and left. And then once the person in the car left, Ke's jumped in through the window and tied up Samantha Konig, using these plastic cable ties, tied her hands and bound her and then ended up walking her back to his truck, which he had parked not too far away in a parking lot, and took her away in his truck. And you know, and along the way he they encountered some people out going to stores and parking lots, you know, not too
far away from him. But he stayed very calm throughout the whole thing. Had the gun there, and that got her in the truck, even after she tried to get away one time. And then they drove around for a while and he ended up taking her back to his actual residence, which was the first time that he had
done this sort of thing. He kind of had a rule that he wouldn't take any victims anywhere near where he lived in the area he lived, but he got a little brazen and more bold as things went on, and so he took her back to his house and put her in a shed that was adjacent to the house there and ended up sexually assaulting her and ultimately killed her.
Now you talk about a heartbreaking part of it is her father, James Koning, didn't like her working alone in this and didn't even like her working at this place at all, had some kind of instinct that something might be He was very protective of her. He raised her himself as a single dad, and they were very close, as you talk about in the book. And so she also part of this compliance is is that he explains to her, he convinces her that this is a ransom.
So tell us a little bit about what she says about the phone call and about her dad and what she tries to do to try to worm away out of this situation, and what he tells her to even be more compliant and compliance is what's really turning them on about the situation, isn't it.
Yeah, as you said, he in order to keep her calmon, to have her be compliant with his demands, he did spend the whole thing as being an abduction purely for a ransom, and that that's what he was after. He just wanted money from her family. But all along, you know, he knew it was so baloney. He really wasn't the reason for take for taking her, but he did. He did tell her that was the reason and set set this whole thing up so that she would believe that's what he was going to do, so that she would
you know, she wouldn't freak out. You know, obviously she knew he was planning on raping her and killing her, then she probably would have been a little more aggressive in her actions to try to get away. At one point, even when they were in the truck together stopped at a stop light, a patrol car from the Anchoraged Police department pulled up right next to them, so you know, her potential rescuers were literally a couple of feet away there. But you know, she she didn't do anything to draw
draw attention to what was going on. Because you know, one she was afraid, obviously, and then two she thought she did what this guy said that you know, she would eventually be let go. He would let her go once, you know, the ransom came.
Now, she was eighteen years old. She had a boyfriend named Dwayne, and Dwayne she had given up her truck to Dwayne so that because he didn't have a vehicle, and she said, well, her cousin Dan would pick her up. But unbeknownst to her, the boyfriend Dwayne was going to pick her up and wanted to pick her up. And so tell us a little bit about Dwayne and him going to the stand and leaving work.
Yeah, as you said, he didn't have a working vehicle at the time, so she let him take his take her truck to his work, and he decided he was going to come by and pick her up after work because he didn't trust the person that was supposed to pick her up will be doing it. So so yeah, he came by the coffee stand after she had been abducted,
and of course found it. He found it dark, all the lights were off, but nothing really stood out that there was anything to be particularly alarmed about, because it looked like as far as he could. He it looked like she just closed the coffee stand down like she normally did so, but he did. He did stop by there, and he stood there appearing in the window, trying to trying to find her, and texted her and called her.
And of course meanwhile these texts and phone calls were going through to her phone that Israel Keys now had.
Now you go into great detail because again we have access Israel Keys, pardon me this, well, I've given it away, but obviously we mentioned his name. Anyway, Israel Keys, the very unique killer. And of course, like many, they want to talk later at some point. And this part of the fast fascinating part of your book is again access
to that kind of profound and shocking information. You talk about how she tries to deal with him when she realizes and she asks the question, and so I'll get you two to say what she asks of him and what his reaction is, and then the contraption. This guy's a very handy person. He's we'll talk about his skills later, but tell us what he has set up so that we understand the magnitude and the I guess the uniqueness of this killer.
What he's set up as far as you're talking about the shed, yes, So he had given a lot of forethought to what he was going to be doing. And you know, he was one of these organized serial killers plans these things out well in advance, So he had done this ahead of time, and he had prepared the shed for ringing whoever it was he ended up abducting.
Back over there, he had, you know, he had the floor lined so that there wouldn't be DNA evidence left there, and he had the whole thing set up for a sexual assault that he intended and and what he would be doing afterwards. And you know, once she got in there and realized that he was planning on raping her before, she tried to talk him out of it and pleaded with him, and you know, offered some some things to him and his uh which you know, I'll.
Leave for the book.
But he he he kind of laughed it off, basically, and and just went ahead with what he planned on doing.
Now, he strangles her, and he stuffs her in his cabinet, and he knows that the temperature is enough to be able to preserve her. That's what he believes. He stuffs her in, puts a top and then he leaves. But where does he go and how long does he go for before we talk about the incredible and bizarre thing he does when he gets back.
Yeah, so after he killed her, as he said, he stuffed her in a shed in a in a in the shed there, he had the cabinet there he put her in. And you know, it's Anchorage, Alaska in February, so it's it's cold. So he felt confident that her body would just kind of be preserved there by the cold, kind of a natural refrigeration, which which it did ultimately.
But yeah, he after he did that, he he caught a flight to Texas and ended up going on a cruise out of New Orleans and then flew back to back home, back to Anchorage about ten days later or so, and got her found her body there's frozen solid where he had left it, and he actually took it out and had the body start fawn out, had some heaters out to help thought out, and did some did some things to it then not only a very disturbed person would do, and then ultimately ended up dismembering the body
to dispose of it, dispose of the body parts, which he ended up doing he in a frozen lake not too far outside of anchorage.
Well, the truly bizarre thing is what he does before, because of course we skipped over what happens after Samantha Coining goes missing our father, So tell us about what happens with that investigation. And then when Israel Keys comes back from his cruise, what does he do in response.
To the reward for Samantha.
And even the idea that people don't know whether she's dead or not. What is going on at the same time he's on his cruise, and how does he respond when he comes back, and how does he respond with that body and what does he do?
Well, At first, nobody thought too much about Samantha's disappearance.
You know, her boyfriend was worried, was concerned. Her father thought maybe she was just kind of out with friends for the night, so he wasn't too concerned at first, but when she didn't show up, you know, by the next morning, they really got concerned, and they ended up contacting the employer, the owner of the common ground's copy shop, and the employer went back and reviewed the security camera video footage from the night she was abducted, and sure
enough they had it on tape that there she is being held up at gunpoint and this dark figure coming in the window of the shop and ultimately taking her away. And you can see video footage for one of the cameras outside the stand, you can see Israel Keys leading her away through the snow and the darkness to his truck.
And once he learned that there had been a big ransom formed and growing after she was missing, you know, as a reward for any information for her return, he got back to Alaska and decided he was going to go forward with this ransom idea after all. So he before he got rid of her body, he actually went to great lengths to apply various makeup to kind of style her hair to make it look like she was alive, to add color to her face to make it look
like he was actually alive. And he staged a photograph of her with a edition of the newspaper to make it appear that she was actually alive. And then he sent a left a ransom note along with the picture, demanding money for her return. So he fooled everybody that she was still alive. She made he made her father think that she was still alive. He made the Anchorage Police Department. Folks believed she was still alive, all for the purposes of getting this money from the reward fund
that had been growing. There was a huge support from the community to try to find her big out pouring a support from everybody around there, and a lot of people contributed to this reward fund. So he did leave the ransom note and the police recovered it, and I guess, sort of the ironic thing is that that's ultimately what led to his being captured eventually.
Now the thing is is that it's and it's interesting is that he can only get five hundred dollars that the stipulation is he has stolen her ATM card. So then he stipulates in the ransom that he wants that money put in her account so he can take it out. So of course the police react. What do the police
do with every ATM machine in Anchorage? And tell us what they get as a result, not to give it away, but tell us what they're looking for and how far are they behind this perpetrator and what is he doing to disguise his appearance.
So after he leaves the ransom note and the police get it and they start actually putting money into this account. As you mentioned, he starts taking money out from Samantha Kunig's bank account using her ATM card. And what he does is just starts going around different ATM machines in the Anchorage area and taking out little bits at a time, you know, the maximum amount he can because there's you know, the withdrawal limits that I guess all ATMs have. So
he starts doing that. But you know, of course, by the time the police ascertain where he's doing this, he's long gone by the time they can get to that particular location. And he's also you know, sometimes he disguises himself, wears a mask or whatnot so that the camera won't pick up his real face. But that is that's something that he does in Anchorage, and then he continues that when he he leaves and catches a flight to uh To,
Texas to to go to his sister's wedding there. He continues this these withdrawals of ATMs all over the area in Arizona, New Mexico, and ultimate only in Texas as well, which as I mentioned before, is what ends up leading to his capture because what happens is that one of the ATMs that he draws money from in Texas. The video cameras there are, the security cameras at the ATM at the bank capture an image of the car he's driving. It's a rental car, a white Ford Focus, and so
they get that on video. So finally, now the FBI and the other law enforcement evolved. Now finally they have something that they can work with to try to find them. He goes and tries to trade in the rental car, you know, not even knowing that he's been captured on a video, but you know, to help just help cover his tracks more. He goes and tries to trade in the rental car at a rental car agency. I think it was Herts in Texas there and the only car that they have at the location he goes to is
the same exact make and model and even color. Same thing. All they have is a white Ford Focus. So he does trade the car in for a different one, but it's the same same car basically. So the law enforcement is looking for this white Ford Focus and now they're still looking for a white Word Focus, so they're still
able to stay on his tracks. And sure enough, a few days later, several days later, they a member of the Texas High Patrol spots a car matching the description in the parking lot of a quality in hotel in the town in Texas there in Lufkin, Texas, and they end up following him when he leaves the hotel and are able to pull him over when he heeds a little bit and goes a few miles over this feed limit, so they're able to pull him over, and when they
ask for his license, of course, he produces this Alaska license, which sends up a big red flag too, and he's arrested. Ultimately arrested.
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Blue Apron a better way to cook now JT. We talked about finally the law catching up to Israel Keys. And part of this you chronicle in the book too, is that this guy has this and we'll talk about this double life a little bit more. But he had met this woman named Tammy and they had a serious relationship and there's a child involved here as well, and he is arrested and of course, as he talks about, there's going to be an awfully lot of people surprised by the rest of this person. So tell us about
that initial arrest my police and what they did. Just tell us about that initial arrest and what police are just beginning to learn about Israel Keys.
Well, after he was arrested, he was you know, he was arraigned and ultimately a complaint with fil against them in federal court based on his use of the ATM card,
so the Konigs ATM card. So he had the federal case brought against him, and he was ultimately sent back to Alaska, and he through the course of being interviewed with the both the Alaska Police Department members and also FBI agents and also the federal prosecutor, he ultimately ended up admitting killing Samantha Konig and revealed where he had hit her body. And there was an interesting dynamic that
was going on and during the interviews. On the one hand, Keys seemed excited when he talked about his crimes and things he had done. He grew visibly excited, you know, kind of came on the edge of his seat and really really seemed to enjoy talking about it. But then on the other hand, he was very concerned about what effect the information about his crimes would have on his daughter. As you mentioned, he had a he had a daughter.
And that's one of the really interesting things about Keys to me was, you know, when you think about these these serial killers, you know, they have these psychopathic personalities. They tend to not really have the sort of emotions that you or I might have or the empathy for other people. But in Key's case, he actually seemed to
be genuinely concerned about the welfare of his daughter. He really seemed to have true feelings for her, and from all accounts, he was a very good father, doting father to her. So that really struck me as really one of the fascinating aspects of Key's personality in the case was this concern for the daughter. So so there was this this dynamic going on during the course of all the interviews. He was always worried about trying to keep control of the information that was being let out about
the things he had done. He didn't want his name associated with these crimes. He wanted his name kept out of the media so that his daughter wouldn't have to read about the things he had done, you know, on Google or something online. So that was a big concern of his. During the course of his talks with law enforcement too.
He created conditions. Really manipulative and quite an intelligent guy, at least it seemed in these negotiations that he wanted conditions before divulging information to these officers. He had struck up a relationship with a detective Monique Dahl, and he only wanted to speak to her, and it was few people that he wanted to speak to, but those people he developed a relationship. He was very as you write, he was very calm, he was laughing, he was very thought.
It was enjoyable when he relived some of the things. But he wanted conditions on divulging. Based on that, he wanted to be executed, and he won assurances that execution and as you talk, he didn't want to go be tried in different states. He wanted federal charges, so he was informed of what the laws were. He knew a fair amount tell us as you do, about how he had set this up so that he had some semblance of control. He had control of the situation, at least in his mind.
Yeah, there were really there were two main points of agenda that he had. Two main things he really wanted. One was what I mentioned about the you know, protecting his daughter and family as much as possible. But the other one is this wanting to get the death penalty, and just that he wanted the death penalty, but he wanted it quickly. He wanted it to be imposed as fast as possible. He wanted he wanted to do whatever was possible to speed up the process, because you know,
the death penalty isn't something that's done very rapidly. It takes a long time to go through that process, and ultimately to even get to the point where the person who receives it actually is is executed, can take you know, decades in some cases. So he wanted to speed all that up. He wanted to get the death pinitty quickly. He wanted to be executed quickly. And he explained it in terms of he was used to, you know, being able to go wherever he wanted to and traveling around.
You know, he traveled all over the country for his killings, and he didn't want to be sitting around in some big kind of supermacs federal prison, you know, staring at the walls. He he wanted to he wanted to go out when, as he phrased it, when he still had his sanity, you know, while he still had good memories and things. He didn't want to kind of be dying inside while he was stuck in a cell. So he really pushed this this death penalty. So, you know, he
he used bargaining chips. He you know, he kind of played games with the investigators and tried to manipulate them and tried to get what he wanted, and you know, it all boiled back to control. A lot of these serial killers want control, and of course he wanted to have control as well, and so he would kind of tantalize the investigator from time to time, give him little hints of things he had done, give them a little
bit of information to keep them working with him. Uh And you know, out of the course of that he got talked into a few times actually revealing things. He did admit to killing Samantha Koonig, and it did ultimately tell the authorities where her body was and they went
and retrieved her her body parts. And he also ended up admitting ultimately to abducting and killing the couriers back in Vermont, in Essex, Vermont, which was which you know, really was a huge break for the Essex Police, you know, and Georgia Murdy and the others working on it, because you know, they had that There's no way in a million years they ever would have connected him to that case if he hadn't admitted to it. So so that was one of the bits of information he did provide.
He gave a lot of specifics about that case and went into great detail about how he abducted them and what happened later that night where he took them, what he did to them, and how he disposed of their bodies.
It was a it is a fascinating story where you talk about Israel telling the authorities again excitingly telling, recalling with no absolutely not a ounce of remorse, that they both tried to fight for their lives and escape, which didn't work, obviously, but they were the rain was struggling and almost got out of her zip ties, and he then subdued her. Bill the same thing and fought hard, and Israel went out of his went out of his emo and shot him numerous times, emptied his gun in Bill.
So it's interesting to hear those kinds of details as rare that you get those kinds of details via any method in a murder. So it's very it was at least, I don't know, some semblance of good that people had those details, at least to know what happened in the last hours of the courier's life.
Yeah, the shooting of Bill is really you know, he's you know, he said that that was the only time he had ever used the gun. He never had to shoot somebody. And the reason why was Bill was not doing things like he wanted to according to this plan that Keys had for what he was going to do
with Bill and Lorraine that night. Bill wasn't following the script so to speak, that Keys had thought out ahead of time, and so that just infuriated him because, you know, he wanted to have this control over the situation about what he would do when he would do it, and so Bill's resistance to that really screwed it up, and so Keys became furious and ended up getting the guns and shooting him. You know, he had tied Bill up, had him downstairs in the basement of an abandoned house
that he took the two of them too. He had Lorraine upstairs in the second floor in a bedroom where he sexually assaulted her. But while he was doing that, Bill got free in the basement he'd been tied up to a chair down there, and got out of the the tithe and was down there, you know, cosnic commotion, trying to get away, and so Israel Keys went down there and confronted him and ended up imphying the gun to kill him. At a rage.
Basically part of this too, that what Israel wanted and he tried to control, and he did control to a great degree. There were negotiations with these officers to get what he wanted. Was also that he wanted, and I thought it was incredible that they actually complied with this, is that they kept his name out of the media. They made an announcement that there was charges, but they didn't mention any name, which is what he wanted and what happened despite what he wanted.
Yeah, as you mentioned, you know, this was one of the key conditions that keeping his name out of the out of the media. And when he admitted to the killing the couriers, that was one of the big conditions he had on that that would.
Not be.
Revealed that he was the one who did it. And you know, law enforcement agreed to do that, and their rationale for doing that was to keep him talking, to keep him revealing information about other crimes he had committed about other victims, so that they could try to bring some sort of closure to the families of his other victims.
So they agreed to do this. They kept his name out for quite a long time and kept him talking, and of course it was It was hard for the folks back in Vermont to do that because you know, they wanted to be able to give the ultimate closure to Bill Moraine's family and let them know who it was who had done it, but that they had their hands kind of tied behind their back back due to the agreements that had been made with him on the federal level. So they went, they went along with it.
The family, a Courier family was told kind of what was happening, and they agreed to it as well because they wanted to try to help out other victims, the families of other victims as well, to try to try to get their loved ones identified. So so his name was kept out of the media for months and months as the as the FBI kept interviewing him, trying to get work with him to get more information.
Now, what ended this relationship that was developing and they were they were getting he was alluding to other crimes. He was promising he was going to reveal about other things if he just got his his conditions met. And what happened with this promise, Like I say, what happened despite the promise by police, by everybody's efforts, what happened.
Well, somehow his name was was learned, and it was.
It was.
Run and some me news media ran the story that his name, that he was the one that had had abducted them. But you know, of course they they they would not acknowledge or confirm that, but his name was out there, and when he saw that he was, he was furious about it, and it really caused him to clam up quite a bit for a while. He went and talked to the FBI or the prosecutors for quite a while after that, and they kind of had to get his trust back after that. For for a while, they had to work at it.
Now everybody's ready, they're they're working towards this deal. Despite this setback and he's imprisoned. Is there any you I guess I'm giving it away. But he's on a suicide watch, and obviously nothing happens while he's on that suicide watch. But what happens before this trial to change this entire story.
Well, even though he was on suicide watch and got off of it and was deemed no longer a risk to kill himself and was actually in a segregated unit, you know, in an isolated unit there at the anchorage, correctional complex where he was supposed to be you know, closely monitored and very restricted with what sort of things he had access to. He was ultimately able to kill
himself while he was in prison there. He ended up somehow getting a razor and used that to slit his wrist, and also ended up setting up a way that he would end up strangling himself as well. So he wanted to be you know, like everything else, he planned these things well ahead of time and planned out to make sure that when he tried to kill himself, he actually succeeded in doing it, so he had not just one way of doing it, but two ways of doing it.
So he did end up killing himself, and it was a huge blow to the investigators because they really thought they had this connection with him. They really were hoping to still get a lot of information from him about other victims, because he had dropped tidbits of information about quite a few murders that he had committed without giving
specifics or identifying the actual victims and things. So they were really hoping to get more information from him for this, but he ended up taking all that information with him, and you know, again that goes back to this control issue. It's control he had. He had the ability to keep that information for himself, and that's ultimately what he did. He even mentioned that at one point that you know, it's the victims' names and identities belonged to him unless he decided to reveal them.
Very profound scene in the book is that Tammy says that she talked to him a day or two before he seemed to be upbeat. She had maybe thought that he may commit suicide, but at least she didn't hear that in that conversation, and she said to him, don't kill yourself. You can raise our daughter from prison. Obviously they were still in contact. Very amazing that this woman
would still be in contact at the same time. But what do you think in terms of well not would you think he alluded to with those investigators though without giving again every detail that they obviously wanted. But there was a total that he had alluded to, and then investigators had thought that revised that number. So what was the number that he had alluded to? At least it seemed that he had given enough information to more than strongly suggest a number.
What were those numbers?
Yeah, so he gave he did give that information, and he gave specifics in a couple of them. Gave specific detailed information in the Samantha Cony case, he gave specific detailed information in the Courier case. So that was three murders between those. But then he also gave bits of information enough to convince the interviewer, there's interviewers that these
are things he'd actually done. So he ultimately admitted to about seven or eight murders, and the FBI believed, based on other things he had said and alluded to, believed that he had killed at least eleven people. Is ultimately what they decided. But unfortunately they weren't able to identify those other specific victims. He didn't give him enough information to do that. And you know, so by killing himself,
he was able to keep these cases unsolved. You know, it's unfortunate for the families of these victims, but that's something he chose that he wanted to do. He wanted to keep that to himself, and the investigators had even appeal tried to appeal to his you know, kind of better nature about giving some sort of closure to the victims' families. You know, they appealed to him about that you know, these families deserved to have some kind of closure and be able to put.
This behind them.
But so he thought about that, and then he came back the next day basically and said, you know, I've thought about this issue about closure. But he said, you know, if someone I loved was missing, you know, would I rather think that maybe that they're somewhere on a beach or something, or would I rather know that they were
horribly raped and murdered or something like that. So he decided that, you know, this issue of closure was not going to get him to reveal any of the other specifics about these other victims.
There was a suicide note soaked in blood. Again, they had to look at that for any kind of promising lead in terms of evidence of something he might have said, deathbed confession.
So they went through.
So the FBI grabs a tele what the FBI did and how they managed to get information from that note and what did this note contain.
Yeah, the note was multiple pages, handwritten on you know, kind of legal sized type paper, and as you said, it was saturated in blood. It couldn't be read when they first found it. It was so so saturated, so soaked. But they were able to send it back to their analysts and they were able to ultimately to decipher what was written there, and it's a really interesting suicide note
in terms of the things that he wrote there. They ultimately determined that there wasn't anything in the note that would help them find other victims or anything of that sort. But it is a very interesting note to read, nonetheless, and you know that the text of it is is included in the book as well.
He had tried to helps the police with Google maps and and talk of his kill kits, and we alluded to that, and again we've heard of kill kits. People are fans of true crime, noble kill kits. But what was the unique aspect of this guy and his kill kits.
Well, the really the really interesting thing about him. One of the other interesting things about him, and as you said, is probably unique, is that he had these kill kits. And what he would do is he would he would have, you know, one of these plastic buckets that you can get at Low's or home depot, and he would put items in there that he planned on using and committing his crimes, you know, be it cable ties or guns or duct tape whatever else.
They happened to be.
He would put that in there, he would seal it up, and he would he would then bury this bucket in the ground at a location that he determined that he would come back to in the future. So he buried these all over the country. A couple of them were recovered because he gave specific information about where to find them, and a bunch of them weren't, so they're you know,
they're still out there somewhere. But you know, a specific example of one is he had buried one of these kill kits in Essex, Vermont in April of two thousand and nine when he was in the area there, and then he came back over two years later in June of twenty eleven and dug up the kill kit and then ultimately used the things in it to abduct the courier. So this is something he planned out well over two
years in advance the commission of this crime. He buried this kill kit, came back, dug it up, and then used it in the future for this crime.
What about James Koning, This guy's a kind of a tough guy, or at least has a tough image a little bit, and he went his extraordinary effort to put out the word with the flyers and the rewards and everything that he tried to do to get his daughter back. You capture the almost pathetic the plea with the would be ransom or that would be kidnapper. Meanwhile his daughter
was already dead. What is his reaction to the authorities letting this guy that had stole the key and was placed in segregation and tried to escape one time and acted up at court breaking.
A leg shackle.
What was his reaction to this guy being able to escape justice?
He felt cheated. He felt that Keith had cheated him, had cheated his daughter Samantha, of their ability to receive justice, to see he to have Keys put on trial and to get some sort of closure in that respect, and to see him prosecuted. And so James felt very, very cheated. He was outraged. He really kind of understand how Keyes was able to get this razor that he used to kill himself. So he was he was outraged, he was angry,
he was mad. He felt cheated. He felt as if you know, Keys had committed another crime, basically had robbed him of the opportunity and his daughter of the opportunity for justice.
Now we talked to I mentioned his Key's girlfriend, Tammy, and they had the daughter. Tammy had gone through Key's journals and she was privy to his past. And so you talk about in the book and again with your incredible access, not that any and can explain this kind of behavior and this kind of need to kill or want to kill, But tell us what you found anyway in terms of the background of this guy, his religious family.
Tell us about.
Not that it can explain anything, but tell us about his curious and interesting background that you talk about in the book.
Well, he came from a very large family. He had nine siblings. He was the oldest son, and he was homeschooled for most of his life. And his parents were very strict, especially his mother. They were religious, a very strict sort of religious environment in the home there. And Keith came to resent this, this imposition of this religion on him, and that became a big part of his
personality that he developed. And you know, as he as he went through his adolescence and as he got into his teenage years, he began to see that he was different than most people. That he he was he didn't see things the way other people did. And you know, there's one story in particular he related to the investigators and it's in the book as well as how when he was fourteen, it was really the kind of the moment that he really knew that there was something different
about him, that he wasn't like other people. And it was a story about you know, animal torture. Again, this is one of the things we hear about a lot, right with serial killers, is that you know, if they're torturing animals when they're kids, then that's a big should raise a big red flag. So sure enough, he has a story about torturing a cat, and you know, seeing the reaction of the people is with when it happened. You know, most of them are kind of freaking out
or getting physically ill even from it. They're so traumatized by the experience, whereas he thought the whole thing was funny, you know. And that's when he realized that he was way different than a lot of other people.
And he also realized at that time that because he was way different than other people, almost like the story in Dexter, that he should remain again a solo act, not try to tell people or not divulge this stuff to anyone. So the next time he the first time he ever talks about this to anyone, is not his wife, it's not his girlfriends, it's not in a drunken slip up to friends. And that's what he talks about when he when he first gets arrested, that people won't believe
that this is me. They're going to be quite shocked. So he really dedicated in his life to being very very meticulous and careful in and methodical as you describe most methodical serial killer ever really in that he was very very careful, methodic, and traveled and did, like we alluded to in the beginning, studied other serial killers, and it seemed to be that he understood other people's mistakes and didn't want to make them.
Yeah, and this this ability to maintain these dual lives, to to have this this life, this this quote normal life where he was living with his girlfriend, Tammy Hawkins, who they actually ended up getting engaged. That's all discussed in the book as well. So he he he had this life, this normalcy life where he lived with her, where he had a daughter, where he had a you know, a job, where he was well liked in the community.
All these sorts of things seemed, you know, like the kind of a normal person he had that life, but then he had this this dark side where he was, you know, brutally murdering people. And he really enjoyed that. He enjoyed the knowledge that he was able to fool
all these people. He talked about that how you know, he would be out with with some friends, you know, having a beer or whatever, at a party or something, and you know, he would he would enter his mind while that was going on that you know, none of these people really know know me. You know, I'm fooling all these people. You know, I've been able to to maintain this, this this dual life without anybody knowing. And that really that really excited him that he was able
to do that. He really took a lot of satisfaction from the fact that he was able to do that, and he did it so well. He was able to fool this woman that he lived with for you know, for years, she had no idea that he was doing these things, committing these terrible acts, and and he fooled a lot of people that way.
Didn't He also will say that that part of this was that he was an inconsequential and a son of a person not to be noticed, wasn't Didn't he make that profound statement as well?
Well, he did say that if after he was arrested in everything, and during one of the univies, he did mention that when investigators went back, as he knew they would, and you know, went back and looked into his background and his past and started talking to people who knew him and all this sort of thing, that there wouldn't be a lot there, you know, for much of his.
Life, that he was.
Really kind of off the off the grid, so to speak, for much of his life. So he he did comment about that, yeah, at one point, that there wouldn't be a whole lot there that they would be able to find out, and that they wouldn't be able to learn anything about his other victims unless he chose to reveal information about them. He was so meticulous and so careful to make sure he covered his tracks.
What I thought was interesting too, and quite unique, is I've heard people I read about people inappropriately laughing or again almost jovial in the recounting of murders. But this guy laughed a lot, and smiled a lot, and winked a lot, didn't.
He yeah, he really enjoyed talking about it. You know, he he felt a lot of satisfaction in doing these things, and you know, exhibited the classic traits of not feeling any kind of remorse for these brutal acts that he had committed. You know, he enjoyed doing them. He enjoyed telling them about him. And it was interesting too. He actually revealed his his motivations for the killings too. He was asked about, you know, why are you why did
you do it things? I mean, why do you why do you why did you keep killing these people and doing these these terrible things, And he said, uh, he said it was a combination of things, really, he said, he said, it's not just about the sexual fantasy, you know, this kind of rape fantasy, of this having this power over and over human being sort of thing. He says, it's not just about the sexual fantasy. And it's definitely
not about the money. You know, he got the money, he got the money from ransoms or from robbing banks that he did and these sorts of things. And he said, it's not just about the adrenaline. You know, obviously he he got this these adrenaline surges doing these things, you know, kind of like a drug. You know, there's an addiction there with that. So he said, it's not just this, it's not just that. It's not just that. He said,
it's all those things together. He said, it's the it's the sexual fantasy component, it's the money, it's the adrenaline, the high he gets from doing it. It's all those things together is what him doing it. And he said, he said, once he started, he said, there was nothing else like it, So that's why he kept doing it.
One last thing, he there is a again a profound short discussion on whether he was born A detective thought maybe he was not born a monster, but he was created and what did Israel keys? How did he respond to that?
Yeah, early on in the interview process, I think it was a detective doll from the Anchorage Police Department. I mentioned that that she didn't she thought that they were they were monsters, were were created somehow, and so he he he wanted to to give her an answer to that, and his response was, you know something along the lines of, you know, that's that's just that's who I am. That's how I've always been and that's how I always will be.
Yeah, basically, you talk about to the it's very very odd again the response from the Keys family. I mean, only you talk about just a handful of people attending the funeral, and then there's their response. So before we wrap it up, what you write about it? What was their response to this whole thing to their family member.
Yeah, there weren't a lot of people that attended his funeral. Barely any of his family attended. And you know, his as I mentioned earlier on his his mother was had these very strict religious views and you know, not even not even really kind of your your normal sort of religious beliefs and viewpoints. And she was very very much of the belief that Keys, that her son was, you know, would would essentially be burning in hell for all eternity
for what he had done. And so she she didn't have the sort of emotional parental reaction that you might expect that a mother might have. You know, a lot in a lot of these cases or these where people do terrible things, the you know, the mother in particular, you hear them still saying I still love my child even though they did these things. But you didn't get that from her. You know, she was more of you know, he he was a bad person. He was a sinner
and now he's paying for what he did. You know his soul was going to be eternally tormented.
Yeah, yes, very interesting case. I want to thank you very much JT for coming on and talking about Devil in the Darkness, true story of serial killer Israel Keys. For those that might want to find out more about your work, do Facebook, you have a website, tell us about that.
Yeah, I am on Facebook. You just google JT. Hunter. But the easiest way to do it is through Amazon dot Com. If you go on there and you know, you can type in the book title Devil in the Darkness, it'll pop up, or you can just type in JT. Hunter and it'll take you to my author page and it has a Devil in the Darkness on there, as well as the other books I've written as well, you know, including The Vampire next Door, which was my first one from a few years back.
Absolutely, yeah, it was fascinating. Well, I want to thank you very much, JT. I hope to speak to you again soon. I know you're a prolific writer, so we will be talking to you again in near future. But thank you very much for this, and you have a great evening, good night.
All right, Dan, Thanks for having me on I enjoyed it, Take care.
Thanks all life
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