Dead Men Talking

by Christopher Berry-Dee

  There can be no doubt that Jablonski’s parents were dysfunctional. His father, for the most time drunk, often driving a car at the same time, would brandish a handgun at every opportunity. He would make his children sit and listen to him haranguing them for the slightest infraction. Point the weapon at his kids, he would call the boys ‘bastards’ and the girls ‘whores’…they were useless, worthless and that they didn’t deserve to have been born or to live.

  My family raised chickens, rabbits and us children were expected to help butcher the animals and during the task our dad would tease us by slinging blood on us, or pulling the tendon of a dismembered chicken’s leg to make the claw move, while he chased us around the yard. We had a pig. We kept it as a pet, not to eat or sell. When it was fully grown we’d ride on it, but then my dad butchered it and forced us to eat it. Many families in the neighborhood raised chickens and killed them. In an ostentatiously sadistic way in front of us, my dad would not merely wring the neck of the chicken, but tearing off the head and watching the decapitated body run around the yard until it killed over [sic].

  Phillip Jablonski, letter to the author.

  Then, on the same page, Jablonski instantly reverts to a matter less upsetting. He talks about home-built scooters the kids had, playing marbles and how they all made roller skates out of wood and small wheels.

  Whatever the matter, clearly the young Phillip didn’t excel at school, for he was held back from entering the second grade and was joined by a sister who was younger than him. When his father learned of this, he thrashed Phillip and sent him ‘straight to bed after dinner’.

  Throughout all of Jablonski’s letters, it is not long before yet another allegation of rape is recorded on the written page, and his teacher (named removed for the obvious reasons) was next in the firing line:

  The teacher who lived next door would come over and set on our porch and drink beer with my dad and listen to radio and watch us kids play. My dad mention during one of their communications about my bad grade, and the teacher said all I needed was someone to set down with and take the times to explain to me and go over my class work and homework, and I would be just fine. He said that he had extra time to tutor me in his free time.

  So next night my dad told me gather up my books and any class work or homework and he was taking me to next door for the teacher.

  That evening Phillip says his assignment was reading and writing, and that the teacher promised he would walk him home.

  Jablonski also says that he was brutally raped.

  ‘The teacher said, “Now that we are alone, I’ve been eyeing you and like what I have seen. Special the way you fill your pants and fantastic how it would be to have you in bed with me”.’

  Once again, what followed in Jablonski’s letter is a sickening account of the alleged abuse he suffered over the next two hours. Jablonski rounded off this account, adding: ‘He said before he was done with me, I would be looking forever in pleasing any man in his bed. I would be gay forever.’

  Mr Jablonski’s letters ceased at this point, and the story is that the California Department of Corrections closed the guy down.

  CHAPTER 4

  KEITH HUNTER JESPERSON

  THE HAPPY FACE KILLER

  I placed my fist into her throat and locked my elbow and leaned on her neck with my upper body weight. After a little over four minutes I smelled urine as Bennett peed into her jeans. I believed she was dead and stood up over her…one good reason I had the rope around Bennett’s neck was to secure her stomach contents should my moving of the body cause what she drank to move out of her… I had no idea.

  Keith Jesperson, on the killing of Taunja Bennett, in a letter to the author.

  I have travelled through Oregon many times whilst making documentaries and researching previous books and I always refuse to be co-opted into advertising good eating establishments by the management. I will certainly not mention that the Flying J restaurant, in Troutdale, does a fabulous prime rib and eggs breakfast, or that their strawberry shortcake alone is well worth the stop. So, in the knowledge that Keith Hunter Jesperson frequently visited this eatery, and that we did at least have one thing in common, I thought I’d write to him and tell him just that.

  As the start of this hearts and minds exercise, I wrote and told him about the Flying J restaurant’s fabulous breakfast and strawberry shortcake. Bearing in mind that Keith is a self-professed man’s man, not a pansy, I thought that he might appreciate this no-nonsense approach, which was followed up, in short order, with an over-easy, ‘Hey, buddy, you wanna work with me on a chapter for a book?’

  What followed – one might call it a meal with six courses – has been quite an interesting and exhausting exercise for me, and this chapter is, but a taste, of his second autobiography. Please allow me to explain.

  Jack Olsen and I have both danced with the Devil, the Devil being Keith Hunter Jesperson. Many years back, the award-winning and truly notable true crime writer, Jack Olsen, worked with Jesperson on his autobiography, ‘I’ – The Creation of a Serial Killer. It was a remarkable piece of work, as is all of Jack’s writing. Sadly Jack would never see his book in print as he passed away on Tuesday, 16 July 2002, shortly before its publication in the August of that year. Some may call this ‘the Jesperson curse’. I have experienced working with this killer for a considerable period of time and the stress, combined with the sheer, overwhelming influence of this manipulative and highly intelligent psychopath, is enough to drive any writer – as he did his victims – to their grave.

  There can be no doubt that Jack Olsen was a writer to be admired; his literary achievements are well covered elsewhere, so I will not repeat them here. His book, written with the complete cooperation of Jesperson, who had sight of the final edit, has become the empirical work on, perhaps, one of the most twisted killers of modern times. Today, however, Keith Jesperson rails against Mr Olsen, who is unable to defend himself. This chapter, in Jack’s memory, hopes to redress that balance.

  When I began corresponding with Keith Jesperson, I told him a little white lie: that I had never read Olsen’s book. I said that I wanted to hear his life story, warts and all, from the man himself. For his part, Keith promised me that he would tell the complete truth. What followed were months and months of never-ending letters, diagrams, prison photographs, newspaper cuttings, pictures of the scores of women who wanted to marry him, and his new, second autobiography – amounting to some 2000 double-side pages. He forwarded scores of letters he has received from people around the world, most of them social misfits, some of whom must have had, ‘I AM A NUT BALL’ tattooed on their Neanderthal-shaped foreheads, and it appears that any scrap of paper that he didn’t want in his cell, he posted to me. This deluge of frequently illegible correspondence caused me sleepless nights, a premature eyesight test, brought my postman to his knees and cost me a fortune in aspirin. To cap it all, he even sent me his prison ID card with the suggestion I might use it in this book, which resulted in him being punished by the Oregon Department of Corrections (ODOC). When Jesperson was fined $25 and suffered the loss of all privileges for ten days, he berated me for asking the ODOC for permission to use the item in this book in the first place.

  This transference of blame syndrome somewhat sums up Keith Hunter Jesperson. The man is totally unable to accept responsibility for any wrongdoing whatsoever. ‘Jack Olsen got his book completely wrong,’ says our Happy Face Killer. Day-after-day Keith criticised me for making the smallest error, such as a comma in the wrong place, during my ‘translation’ of his scrawled autobiography. My own attention to detail was constantly at fault… I should ‘buck up’ and ‘learn how to write’. ‘Have you got my instructions clearly?’ he heatedly penned. ‘It is really quite fucking simple if you follow my instructions. Christopher, I was going to post this to you yesterday, but slept on in. Then I wake up in the middle of the night. YOU REALLY MUST pay ATTENTION to my instructions.’

  Keith really does go on and on, so I wro
te back, ‘Fuck you, too, Keith.’

  Indeed, if Jesperson is to be believed, his father, Les, was a brutal patriarch; his entire childhood was a mess; he was bullied and treated like a work-slave by him. Jesperson’s own wife, Rose, was apparently less than forthcoming in any way. In his new autobiography, it was always his victims who were responsible for being murdered…they ‘pissed him off’, tried to ‘pussy-whip’ him, make unwarranted demands of his generosity. In a nutshell, Keith Jesperson is always right and everyone else is wrong. Indeed, if he were to have things his way, he should be called ‘Mr Perfect’. His actions have damaged his own daughter’s life and wrecked the lives of his victims’ families. Is there any remorse? No!

  Apart from the immeasurable loss of human lives, this former 6ft 5in trucker has cost the honest, American taxpayer millions of dollars by running rings around the judicial system. And let us not forget the tens of thousands of bucks to keep him fed, fit and well at the Oregon State Penitentiary, where he enjoys, among other things, painting (he earns a good living flogging his artwork on the internet) and attending car shows. According to the ODOC’s form CD 103D 10/04, he has the following activities and perks at his disposal: ‘hobby shop; canteen; card-room; picture-taking programme; telephone privileges; dayroom (movies/television); recreation, multipurpose activities, including the gym; library, substantial visitation; and all other inmate organization meetings including AA/NA [Alcoholics Anonymous / Narcotics Anonymous]’. Indeed, the only thing he seems to lack is sex with a female, but then he freely admits to frequently masturbating to his fantasies of murdering and torturing his victims, which he says, ‘keeps me with a hard-on’. In truth, it seems to me that Keith Jesperson is not being punished for his sins, he’s being rewarded for heinously wiping out eight innocent lives, and that may be just the tip of the iceberg, because at one time he admitted over a hundred.

  * * *

  As for the smiley face on your letter, I don’t really like it. Like it is rubbing it into me. Most people who write me, they make a point to put a J somewhere. And I just don’t see the humor in it. SORT OF PISSES me OFF!!!

  Keith Jesperson, letter to the author, 20 February 2008.

  Keith Hunter Jesperson was born Wednesday, 6 April 1955, in the city of Chilliwack, British Columbia. He is known as the ‘Happy Face Killer’ because he sent taunting letters to the newspapers with a ‘smiley’ drawn on them. Not that he has much to be happy about these days; he is serving natural life sentences for murdering eight women from as far afield as Nebraska, California, Florida, Washington and Oregon, during a killing spree that started on 21 January 1990 and continued until 1995, when he was finally arrested.

  The Jesperson family name originated in Sweden, where the name is not uncommon. The clan migrated to Denmark, New Zealand, USA, and Canada. Keith’s immediate ancestors left Denmark in the late 1880s, entered the USA and, apparently driving Conestoga wagons (I prefer to think it was actually in a box car), they eventually rolled onto the west coast where they took a left turn and settled in San Francisco for a short while. Deciding that the hot climate wasn’t quite to their taste, the Jespersons headed north to colder climes. After months on the trail, these determined pioneers crossed into Canada and arrived in the Fraser Valley, settling just north of Chilliwack in the province of British Columbia.

  Keith Jesperson devoted some 300 double-sided pages to his ancestors. His great-great-grandparents, great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, school teachers, friends, relations, workmates, and just about every person he has ever met gets a mention in his new autobiography. He recounted pretty well every movement he made during his formative years. He can recall just about every single trip he made as an interstate trucker. To give you a taste of this, instead of just saying that he drove a truck, he would come up with: ‘I landed my dream job driving a massive plum-colored, dripping in chrome, Peterbilt that had a four-hundred-horsepower Cat engine, a twelve-ton cherry picker for loading heavy equipment. The tractor had twin sticks with nine forward speeds. Truck and trailer had twenty-six tires and hauled loads up to 210,000 pounds.’ The only things he missed out was the tyre pressures, all 26 of them… which I considered a major oversight on Keith’s behalf, and it was all I could do to prevent myself asking him, ‘Did you inflate or deflate the tyres according to load and road conditions, and what happened in snow or icy conditions?’ -but I didn’t.

  Of course Keith had blessed what must have been an extremely patient Jack Olsen with exactly the same methodical exercise years ago. For the record, and to gain a better understanding of Mr Jesperson’s penchant for writing, it is worth pointing out that in any one year he will mail out some 400 letters and will receive treble that number in return. He makes around 500 collect telephone calls a year, and he will send out War and Peace-length correspondence to anyone who shows the slightest interest in his life and crimes. However, with that being said, I can tell you –

  in an extremely abridged form – that his family have always been hardworking, mostly prosperous, and never afraid of getting their hands dirty when he came to earning a living off the land.

  Fast-forwarding several generations, we come to Keith’s father, Les Jesperson. A former blacksmith who joined the Merchant Marine during the Second World War, he was a hardworking and industrious giant of a man who liked his drink. He married Gladys Lorraine Bellamy and they raised five children: Sharon, Bruce, Keith, Brad and Jill.

  One could say that Les Jesperson was the pillar of any community he lived in. For example, in Chilliwack he was a ‘home builder’ and a local businessman. He was one of the youngest members of the city council, and the first man to join the volunteer Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He founded the Chilliwack Boxing Club, was a co-sponsor of the Chilliwack Hockey Club, and, as of 2007, was the last surviving charter member of the Lions. And, if he wasn’t fully enough occupied with all of that, he started the Fraser Valley Rescue Service, which is well respected to this day.

  So, with the genes of generation after generation of decent, hardworking and totally respectable parents and ancestors in his blood, how did Keith make out? Within the space of a few years, he trash-canned the historic reputation of one of British Columbia’s most illustrious families.

  Struggling through Keith’s voluminous correspondence concerning his formative years – and we really don’t have the time to go through it all here – it seems that when one sorts the wheat from the chaff, he had an idyllic childhood. He was raised in the great Canadian outdoors, he was healthy, and much loved and hand-reared by his doting parents. His schooling was normal, and with an adventurous inheritance attached to his genomic sequence. He played truant, poached for Chinook salmon and Steelheads, plagued the neighbourhood with his slingshot and BB gun, made camp by the sparking rivers, perilously swung from tree swings across deep drops and occasionally fought with his peers. The family had their own boat and went on long vacations in their camper-trailer. While Mrs Jesperson made clothes and cooked simple, decent food, Mr Jesperson worked, drank, and ruled the roost, sometimes employing a heavy hand and a leather belt to enforce domestic law. Indeed, I have come to the conclusion that Keith Jesperson was more or less graced with a run of formative years most youngsters can only dream of. But he had a fatal flaw, a fault line that ran very deep indeed.

  Keith Hunter Jesperson, like so many young boys who fledge into serial killers, was a sadist. By the age of six he had started killing animals by smashing in the heads of gophers and other small creatures, a barbaric trait which he would return to when his family moved to a Washington State trailer park in the coming years. He would drag stray dogs and cats into the fields where he would beat them to death with a shovel, strangle them with his bare hands, or shoot them with his BB gun. His friends remembered that he ‘enjoyed it’. In later years, when boasting to a news reporter, Jesperson had this to say:

  I was Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was like I was playing war. When I looked at those dogs, they would squat and pee. They’d be so sc
ared they would tremble. You come to the point where killing something is nothing. It’s the same feeling whether I was strangling a human being or an animal. You’ve already felt the pressure on the throat of them trying to grab air. You’re actually squeezing the life out of these animals and there isn’t much difference. They’re gonna fight for their lives just as a human being will.

  Keith Jesperson, in a letter to the author.

  It is a well-recognised fact today that those who have shown a propensity towards violence and abuse of animals during their formative years sometimes move on to more violent crimes later in life that are directed at their fellow man. Even Jesperson agrees with this: ‘It’s in the crime journals of all major law enforcement agencies. Abusive behavior towards animals is one of the symptoms on the road to being a murderer.’

  In his prison journal, Jesperson alleges that it was in his early childhood that his aggression towards animals began when his father witnessed him throwing a cat against a pavement to finish it off. ‘My father was very proud of how I dealt with the cat, and he boasted to others about how I cleared the neighborhood of any stray cats and dogs in the mobile park where we lived,’ he wrote. When Les Jesperson was asked to confirm this, he categorically denied his son’s allegation: ‘If I had seen any of that I would have thrashed Keith until he couldn’t stand up.’