At 5:57 A.M., as another guard performed a security check and head count, he “saw what looked like blood” in Keyes’s cell. He said he called for help, hollered to Keyes, and after there was no response, touched the body, still cocooned. Keyes was facedown with his head turned to the right, arms crossed underneath his chest. He was slathered in blood.
“His body was stiff,” this guard said. When the nurse arrived, the guard yanked off the bedcover. “It was evident from looking at prisoner Keyes he was deceased. He had no pulse and no color to his skin.” In her statement, the nurse reported the body cold and in rigor mortis, the face blue. That would mean Keyes had been dead for at least three to four hours. A large amount of blood, she said, had soaked through the upper part of his quilt and more was pooled on the floor.
The prison went on lockdown.
When paramedics arrived at 6:10 A.M., they found a curious scene. Blood was not just all over the bunk but contained in two cups, size unknown, and two milk cartons. By 8:25 Alaska State Troopers, US Marshals, and FBI agents were on the scene, Jeff Bell among them.
The last time Bell had spoken to Keyes was days ago, just before Thanksgiving.
“Your intent is still to tell us everything, right?” Bell asked.
“Yes,” Keyes said.
He had taken a razor blade, embedded it in a pencil, and used it to slash his left wrist—Bell’s worst fear. As insurance, Keyes had looped a bedsheet around his neck and tied it to his left foot, strangling himself. He left behind a multipage suicide note soaked in blood, and the portions released by the FBI offered little in the way of clues. One forensic psychiatrist believed Keyes used specific verbiage—calling one or more of his victims “my dark moth princess,” “my pretty captive butterfly”—in hopes he’d forever be linked with the novel and film adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs, in which such imagery abounds.
Keyes also indicted the United States, for which he harbored a near-lifelong hatred. “Land of the free, land of the lie, land of the scheme Americanize!” he wrote, a refrain that appeared twice. “Consume what you don’t need, stars you idolize, pursue what you admit is a dream, then it’s American die.”
* * *
—
This case provoked the FBI to beg for the public’s help—but just as quickly, they decided to obscure much of the case and Israel Keyes from public view. Approximately forty-five thousand pages of case files remain unreleased by the Department of Justice, under claims of national security. The official timeline of Keyes’s travels, issued by the FBI shortly after his death, remains heavily edited. Knowledge of any terrorist activities or potential plots remains secret.
* * *
—
In his very last interview, three days before his suicide, Keyes was openly contemptuous of the investigators, sorry, he said, only for giving them the Curriers and not murdering more people.
Jeff Bell believes that Keyes took his own life to condemn what he saw as the ridiculousness of the American justice system. More likely Keyes saw his suicide as a final expression of control and cruelty—his ultimate act of sadism.
Would we have learned much more had he lived? Possibly not. It took months for the FBI to realize that Keyes was less interested in confessions than he was in manipulating and frustrating them. Perhaps he would have identified other victims, but the notion that he would have disclosed all of them is hard to believe. He coveted them; even in death, he said, his victims belonged to him.
Much information about his childhood came from the psychiatric evaluation, and even there Keyes only revealed as much as necessary. Beyond that, agents learned very little about his life or family or inner workings—in fact, the more he sensed they wanted to understand him, the less he was willing to illuminate. Keyes understood how to tell a story, and for nearly two decades, how to survive: study CSI, FBI profilers, and other horrors like him to become an analog killer in a digital age. He was a better monster because of that.
He admired Ted Bundy and H. H. Holmes for what he saw as ingenuity, and Keyes wanted his own recognized. He told agents of an imminent plan: he was going to leave Alaska and become an itinerant carpenter. What better cover for traveling often and extensively than extreme weather patterns? Where better to take people than disaster areas, where the missing are presumed dead anyway? He later planned to build a house with a dungeon, as Holmes had, to keep his victims alive for much longer.
What else he had planned we may never know, as we will never know his full victim count. But just as Keyes told his stories backward—starting at the end—the end of his life is perhaps another beginning. He made sure of it, dropping clue upon clue before committing suicide, certain of one outcome: His case will never be closed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am deeply grateful to the FBI special agents and other investigators who spoke to me for this book. Steve Payne in particular was steadfast and loyal, spending nearly every week for more than one year submitting to interviews. Jeff Bell not only did the same but toured me through Anchorage’s creepiest Keyes-related sites. Payne and Bell are brilliant minds and generous folks. Both have my eternal gratitude.
Thanks to Jolene Goeden, Kat Nelson, and Liz Oberlander. Bobby Chacon shared not just tactical expertise but the deep emotional toll of his work—that’s bravery. Thanks also to Charles “Bart” Bartenfeld, Joe Allen, and the agents and law enforcement in multiple states who helped solve this case and re-created it here: Texas Ranger Steve Rayburn; Deb Gannaway; and Kevin Pullen; Lieutenant George Murtie in Vermont; Chris Iber; Michelle Delpha in the Albany, New York, FBI field office (though she does not appear here, her insights were helpful); and Ted Halla and Colleen Sanders, who also toured me through the uppermost western parts of Washington State related to this case.
The great FBI profiler and author Roy Hazelwood spoke to me for this book in March 2016. For someone who spent the majority of his life confronting the worst of humanity, he was one of the kindest, most joyful people I have ever encountered.
Thanks to Heidi Keyes for speaking to me about Israel’s childhood, their life in Colville, and what she called his evil. I hope her willingness to help may extend to help other investigations.
This book had many gifted minds guiding it: Emily Murdock Baker, the editor at Viking who acquired it; Melanie Tortoroli, who inherited it and whose edits were generous and invaluable; and Laura Tisdel, who executed the heavy lift and saw it to completion with sharpness and care. Amy Sun, Jane Cavolina, and all at Viking—I am deeply grateful.
Huge thanks to my warrior-agent Nicole Tourtelot. Every author should be so lucky—Nicole is who you want on your side of the table.
Thanks too to David Kuhn for encouraging this book at the outset and Dana Spector for seeing its potential.
First Amendment lawyer nonpareil Kate Bolger and her team embarked on a lengthy Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) battle with the Department of Justice on my behalf almost pro bono, simply because they believed it was the right thing to do. Eternal thanks to Kate and attorneys Patrick Kabat, Matthew L. Schafer, and Matthew E. Kelley for shaking loose case files, FBI witness interviews, and countless documents that had never been released, filling in gaps of knowledge that were otherwise cavernous.
In Anchorage, attorney Jeffrey W. Robinson and his team did the seemingly impossible, swiftly winning our challenge in federal court to obtain interviews with Keyes that had been kept secret for years. Jeff, too, took me on at a generous rate; my education was a bonus. Kate and Jeff: You are my heroes.
Thanks to J.T. Hunter, author of Devil in the Darkness: The True Story of Serial Killer Israel Keyes, for his research assistance. Interviews he conducted with Tammie in particular helped flesh out an essential part of the narrative. Reporters Michelle Theriault Boots and Casey Grove covered this case in Anchorage and shared their recollections and advice, helping whenever asked—not often the case among competitive journalist
s.
At the New York Post I have learned from some of the toughest and smartest editors around. Steve Lynch allowed me to pursue this story first for the Post in 2012 and then as a book; his whipsaw first-read helped narrow my focus, and he has my profound thanks for his support. Paul McPolin has one of the finest investigative minds I have ever encountered and the questions he asked made this book a deeper, richer read. Margi Conklin offered a closer edit than her time surely allowed and helped redirect the book’s final chapters at a crucial moment. To my great friend Susannah Cahalan, who read several drafts and offered edits while pregnant with twins and working on her own book—you’re a marvel. And cheers to my former Post colleague and Alaska native Josh Saul and his family for watching out for me in Anchorage.
Finally, to all my family and friends who offered support, interest, encouragement, and optimism when most needed—especially my dad, who defied all medical diagnoses and prognoses to (among other things!) read this book—thanks and love.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cleckley, Hervey. The Mask of Sanity: An Attempt to Clarify Some Issues about the So-Called Psychopathic Personality, Eastford, CT: Martino Fine Books, 2nd Edition, 2015.
Douglas, John, and Mark Olshaker. Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, New York: Scribner, 1995.
Geberth, Vernon J. Practical Homicide Investigation: Tactics, Procedures and Forensic Techniques, Fifth Edition, CRC Press, 2015.
Hazelwood, Roy, and Stephen G. Michaud. Dark Dreams: Sexual Violence, Homicide and the Criminal Mind, New York, Macmillan, 2001.
Hunter, J.T. Devil in the Darkness: The True Story of Serial Killer Israel Keyes, Toronto: RJ Parker Publishing Inc., 2016.
Kahn, Jennifer. “Can You Call a 9-Year-Old a Psychopath?” The New York Times Magazine, May 11, 2012.
Koontz, Dean. Intensity: A Novel, New York: Knopf, 1996.
Michener, James. Alaska: A Novel, New York: Random House, 1988.
Rosenbaum, Ron. Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil, Boston: Da Capo Press, 1998.
Samenow, Stanton E., PhD. Inside the Criminal Mind, New York: Crown, revised edition, 2004.
Smith, Sonia. “Sinners in the Hands: When is a Church a Cult?” Texas Monthly, February 2014.
Thomas, M. E. Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight, New York: Crown, 2013.
A NOTE ON SOURCE MATERIALS
This book is based on hundreds of hours of original interviews, as well as thousands of previously unreleased documents. These include the Samantha Koenig confession, provided to me by an anonymous source; Lieutenant George Murtie’s personal diary of the Currier investigation and his own interrogation of Keyes via phone; the FBI’s internal timeline based in part on Keyes’s journals, FBI witness statements, lab reports, affidavits and search warrants, emails, court documents, contemporaneous news reports, Keyes’s arrest records and military records, and portions of the original Anchorage Police Department case file. Though names had been largely redacted, it was easy to identify sources based on information I had obtained through investigators.
Monique Doll declined to speak for this book. Her part in the investigation is based on the APD case file, one unpublished interview with me, previously published interviews she has given, interview transcripts with Keyes, and recollections from other investigators who closely worked the case with her. James Koenig also declined, and I relied upon previous interviews he has given, along with the APD case file and the recollections of Payne, Bell, and Goeden.
I interviewed Kevin Feldis for my original article in 2012 but he opted not to participate in this book. I did reach out to him again in December 2018 to ask if he would explain his thinking, as federal prosecutor, to not only be present in most of the Keyes interrogations but often lead them. He would not comment.
Thirteen hours of hidden interviews with Keyes were made public after my lawyer requested a hearing in Alaska federal court in 2018. These had never been officially logged or docketed with the court, which meant that there was no way to know of their existence. (Previously released interviews, plus documents unsealed through the Freedom of Information Act, allowed me to piece together references to those missing interrogations. I have since learned that such obfuscations are more common than we know.) After the interviews were released, my lawyer asked the prosecutor’s office several times if any others remain hidden. We have not received a response.
The psychological evaluation, also unsealed due to that same federal court order, is the greatest known self-report we have of Israel Keyes’s upbringing and development. Perhaps at some point the FBI will release the contents of his journals, in part if not in full.
Details of what happened at the Anchorage Correctional Complex during Keyes’s incarceration and the night of his suicide came from the Special Incident Report, news reports, and were also provided directly by anonymous sources. Yet much of what actually happened, and who was responsible for Keyes obtaining razor blades, remains a mystery. One source maintains that Keyes’s blood was visibly leaking out of his cell that night as guards routinely walked past.
After Keyes’s suicide the FBI was finally able to communicate with law enforcement all over the United States and in other countries. In many cases, local police and surviving family members reached out to the FBI first, curious as to whether Keyes could be responsible for specific unsolved missing persons and murders. The cold cases revisited in this book are largely ones in which agents or law enforcement suspected Keyes. The Boca Killer is the exception here, considered for multiple reasons: Jeff Bell’s interest in Florida, the strikingly similar MO, and the undeniable resemblance between Keyes and the police suspect sketch.
So far, the FBI is comfortable naming only Debra Feldman, whose body was recovered in New York, as another victim of Israel Keyes.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maureen Callahan is an award-winning investigative journalist, author, columnist, and commentator. She has covered everything from pop culture to politics. Her writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, New York, Spin, and the New York Post, where she is critic at large. She lives in New York.
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