Israel Keyes
Israel Keyes was an American serial killer, rapist, bank robber, burglar, arsonist and kidnapper.
He murdered at least four people, and law enforcement investigators believe he committed at least 20 other crimes across the United States from the late 1990s to February 2012, including arsons, burglaries and bank robberies. Keyes was arrested in March 2012 and killed himself while awaiting trial. Evidence in his jail cell led the Federal Bureau of Investigation to believe that Keyes may have murdered as many as eleven people.
Early life
Childhood
Israel Keyes was born in Richmond, Utah, on January 7, 1978, the second of ten children of Heidi Keyes and John Jeffrey "Jeff" Keyes. His parents lived in Torrance, California, and were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his father had served a church mission in Germany.Keyes and his siblings were homeschooled until 1983. After leaving the LDS Church, Keyes's father moved the family to a remote plot of land north of Colville, Washington, in Stevens County when Israel was five years old. Isolated from society, the family lived in a one-room cabin without electricity or running water on Rocky Creek Road. Following his arrest, investigators, as well as Keyes's former commanding officer, claimed that they suspected Keyes may have been abused by his father.
In Colville, the family attended services at a church called The Ark, which subscribed to white supremacist Christian Identity ideology. Keyes later described The Ark as practicing a lifestyle similar to that of the Amish who are known to subscribe to a life devoid of the conveniences of modern life. During this period of attending The Ark, the Keyes family befriended the neighboring family of Chevie Kehoe, who was later convicted for a 1996 triple murder.
Adolescence
The Keyes family eventually left The Ark for the Christian Israel Covenant Church, which also ascribed to the white supremacist ideology. Keyes later alleged this church to have been militia-like.For years, some of the Keyes children were forced to sleep in a tent due to the cabin's small size. They were also made to hunt for their own food, chop firewood and work on local farms to help support the family.
Keyes was known to hunt "anything with a heartbeat" and later freely admitted to telling his peers within the Christian Israel Covenant Church that he'd skinned a live deer. As a result, he was ostracized by other children, with one girl recounting that Keyes's presence "made my skin crawl."
Keyes, who was by the age of 14, admitted to shooting at his neighbors' houses with his BB gun, as well as starting fires in the woods. He also broke into houses with another youth, who subsequently avoided Keyes after witnessing him shoot an animal.
Around this time, Keyes's parents discovered a cache of guns he'd stolen from a neighbor and forced him to return the guns and apologize to the neighbor. Keyes also sold stolen guns to local residents.
Also around this time, Keyes's parents provided shelter to family friends, whose children, along with Keyes's sister, witnessed him torturing a cat by tying it to a tree with a parachute cord and shooting it with a.22 revolver, which he found greatly amusing. Keyes claimed that this incident led directly to his increasing need for isolation, as well as his burgeoning desire to cover up or mask his anti-social behavior. Keyes also stated that he felt "different from his peers" and ultimately kept his antisocial behavior to himself.
In addition, his mother began to notice "some troubling signs" in her son at this time, after he began tuning into various "radio stations and different things."
By his teenage years, Keyes had become a skilled carpenter, building his first wooden cabin at age 16. He also worked for a Colville contractor from 1995 to 1997.
Around this time, Keyes started keeping a journal, that included biblical quotations, where he documented daily sins he'd committed for which he felt shame, such as lusting after his girlfriend. Later, the family relocated to Smyrna, Maine, where they collected sap for maple syrup production in a mostly Amish community. Due to their mother's religious zealousness, the Keyes children were forced to hide from their parents to watch movies with friends and were forbidden to learn musical instruments, as she believed that doing so "was against God". Some time during this period, Keyes renounced his Christian faith.
Keyes declared his atheism to his parents—both of whom he had previously made tireless and constant efforts to please—after an intense argument. This led them to evict Keyes for blasphemy; they then instructed his younger siblings, who looked up to Keyes, to never have contact with him again. Keyes then became interested in Satanism, and planned to commit a ritualistic murder.
Adulthood
Deschutes River assault
In the summer of 1997 or 1998, Keyes sexually assaulted a teenage girl, estimated age 14 to 18, who had been tubing with her friends down the Deschutes River in Maupin, Oregon. Keyes admitted that he stalked her from a tree line before threatening the girl with a knife and "very violently sexually assaulting" her. Originally planning to murder her as part of a Satanic ritual, Keyes let her go in the river tube he had abducted her from. "I was too timid. I wasn't violent enough," he told investigators. "I made up my mind I was never going to let that happen again."Military service
On April 22, 1998, Keyes enlisted in the U.S. Army in Albany, New York under the Delayed Enlistment Program, reporting for basic training on July 9, 1998. He served as a Specialist in Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division. He passed a month-long preliminary course for Army Ranger training. He was stationed at Fort Lewis and Fort Hood, also spending some time abroad. While stationed in Sinai, Egypt, Keyes befriended several soldiers, informing one of them that he would "like to kill" him.While at Fort Lewis, Keyes served on a mortar team. Former Army friends of Keyes have noted his quiet demeanor and habit of keeping to himself. On weekends, he was reported to drink heavily, consuming entire bottles of his favorite drink, Wild Turkey bourbon; in February 2001, Keyes was arrested in Thurston County for driving under the influence. Pursuant to a plea agreement, he was fined $350. Keyes was also a fan of the hip hop duo Insane Clown Posse and displayed posters of the musical act in the barracks.
Keyes was awarded an Army Achievement Medal for his service as a gunner and assistant gunner from December 1998 to July 2001. He was then honorably discharged and relocated to Neah Bay, Washington.
Personal life
For a period, Keyes had lived in the Makah Reservation community of Neah Bay, on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. He had a Native American girlfriend, named Tammie Hawkins, who he had met online in late 2000 and subsequently had a daughter named Laney with. Keyes and Hawkins broke up, and at the time of his arrest he was dating Kimberly Anderson who worked as a nurse. Keyes enjoyed watching violent movies and listening to heavy metal bands such as Megadeth and Lacuna Coil, often blaring their music through his truck's speakers.In 2007, Keyes started a construction business in Alaska called Keyes Construction, while working as a handyman, contractor, and construction worker. He was generally regarded as a skilled and trustworthy worker, but several female customers reported Keyes exhibited brief facial expressions or dark moods that made them uncomfortable. Around a year before his arrest, Keyes and Kimberly broke up.
Keyes also had seasonal depression, even threatening to kill himself when his girlfriend had taken his whiskey from him, and he had also not shown up for work much during the winter season.
Keyes also had ties to New York; he owned and a dilapidated cabin in the town of Constable.
Criminal history
Keyes targeted random people all across the United States to avoid detection, planning for months before he committed a particular crime. He specifically frequented campgrounds and isolated locations. He claimed to only use guns when he had to and preferred strangulation; this was due to the pleasure he derived from witnessing victims lose consciousness in the struggle. He claimed to not kill children or parents of children, primarily because of his daughter, whom he feared finding out about him and his crimes. However, police and FBI investigators were skeptical of this claim and suspected Keyes of killing several teenagers and children.Keyes did not admit to any murders during his three years in the United States Army. However, he did confess to attempting to rape a sex worker while on leave in Egypt, as well as a college student he met while on leave in Israel. He also confessed to committing bank robberies in New York and Texas. The FBI later confirmed that Keyes robbed the Community Bank branch in Tupper Lake, New York in April 2009. He also told authorities that he burglarized a Texas home and set it on fire. An FBI report stated that Keyes burglarized twenty to thirty homes across the United States and robbed several banks between 2001 and 2012. Keyes also admitted to stalking multiple people in Anchorage and Texas, such as couples and women, and even two police officers at one point.
Keyes is believed to have begun killing in 2001 following his discharge from the Army. He has been held responsible for as many as eleven deaths in the United States. Unlike most serial killers, he did not have a victim profile, stating that he chose victims randomly. Keyes’s method was considered highly elusive; he would often fly into a city, rent a car, and drive long distances to select a victim, then return home to Alaska, leaving few traces that would connect his crimes. On his murder trips, he kept his mobile phone turned off and paid for items with cash. For the Currier murders, Keyes flew to Chicago, where he rented a car to drive to Vermont. He then used a "murder kit" he had hidden two years earlier to execute the murders.