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Welcome to Murderous Minds, a documentary series started by the Top 5's YouTube channel back in 2018, dedicated to exploring the twisted minds of serial killers. The following podcast episode is the audio version of our video series over on the Top 5's Patreon page. If you would like to watch the video instead of just listening, and would also like to support our show, then please head on over to Patreon using the link in the show notes. Thank you for joining, and now let's take a journey into the minds of murderers. When 34 year old Israel Keys was pulled over by police, he had no idea that his crime spree was about to be foiled. After slaying an 18 year old, he had collected ransom money from her family and was quickly found by authorities with die-stained bills from a bank robbery, a gun and the victim's phone and debit card. While no one knew who Keys was, law enforcement quickly realized that this wasn't his first murder and that he was the perpetrator behind various crimes and, worse yet, he targeted no one in particular. He didn't follow a method or pattern like most violent criminals. Even today, keys is considered one of the most peculiar and horrifying serial slayers we know of. But who was Keys and what led him to this point. In this episode of Murderous Minds, we aim to shed light on these questions and more, as we examine the life and crimes of Israel Keys.
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Israel Keys was born on January 7th 1978 to John Jeffrey Keys and his wife Heidi, raised in Richmond, utah. He was the second of 10 children and his parents were originally from Torrance, california. Keys spent his youth being homeschooled along with his siblings. He was taught about Mormon's belief and had a strict religious upbringing during his early years, when Keys was still a toddler, around the ages of three or four, his parents abandoned the Mormon faith, although they remained Christians, and moved to a remote property north of Colville Washington. Here they lived in a one-room cabin that had no running water or electricity. It was very rural and isolated, and their social life boiled down to weekly church services at the Ark. Instead of peddling love and hope, however, the Ark pushed white supremacist Christian identity ideology and was later described by Keys as an Armesh-like environment. Keys and his family later befriended their neighbors, the family of Cevai Kehoe. Kehoe is a Floridian native who was raised with extremist, white supremacist and anti-government beliefs and had a desire to overthrow the US government with its Aryan People's Republic militia. In 1995 he kidnapped and robbed a Jewish couple who ran a store where he was once employed. And in 1996 things escalated further when Kehoe, with the help of an accomplice, murdered a 52 year old gun dealer in Arkansas, william Mueller, along with his wife and 8 year old child. They robbed the family afterwards, disposed of their bodies and went on the run. But Kehoe was arrested in 1997 and is currently serving life in a prison in Indiana as a teenager.
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Keys' family began attending another church in the Coalvale area. The Christian Israel Covenant Church taught British Israelism, which is a belief that the people of Great Britain are genetically, racially and linguistically the direct descendants of the 10 lost tribes of ancient Israel. The belief dates back to the 16th century and in the US sparked the beginning of the Christian identity movement. The Christian Israel Covenant Church had many racist and controversial beliefs. It stated that mixed-raced couples and children were cursed and that Anglo-Saxons were to rule over inferior races. Meanwhile, life in the cabin was no picnic for Keys and his siblings. Due to the home's small size, he and some of the other children were forced to move from the cabin and live in tents in the garden. They were also made to hunt their own food and work on local farms as a means of financially supporting the family.
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Keys took a particularly deep interest in hunting. He claimed to go after anything with a heartbeat and would openly discuss the time when he either skinned or gutted a deer while it was still alive, describing it in grotesque detail to other churchgoers. Due to his odd nature and seeming taste for violence and brutality, the other children at the church began to give Keys a wide berth. One girl said that his presence made my skin crawl. For his part, he said of his ostracisation I've known since I was 14 that there are things that I thought were normal and okay that no one else seemed to think were normal and okay. So that's when I just started being a loner.
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But it wasn't just his overly keen interest in hunting that set Keys apart. He would also shoot at neighbours' houses with his BB gun, start fires in the woods and break into houses for fun. Another neighbourhood boy spent a short period of time assisting Keys in these breakings but ultimately parted ways with him after watching him shoot an animal. On one particular occasion, keys even stole guns from his neighbours' home. However, his parents found the weapon stash and forced him to apologise and return everything he'd taken. He was also known to sell stolen weapons to locals. Keys became a full-time social outcast after one particular event that horrifically involved him tying a cat to a tree and stabbing it with a.22 revolver. He found this to be funny and had carried out the brutality in front of two young children, as well as one of his sisters. One of the young children vomited after witnessing the event and told his father about it. It was at this point that Keys realized how truly different he was from his peers and, as a result, he kept his increasingly disturbing behavior away from the eyes of others.
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As a teen, keys struggled with what his faith considered sinning. He was shameful of the fact that he lusted after his girlfriend. This was documented in a journal in which he had begun writing during his early childhood. It was filled with Bible scriptures, and he documented his daily sins and grappled with what he actually felt and what he was supposed to feel. One useful skill Keys took away from his youth was carpentry. He became highly adept at carving and building, putting together his first wooden cabin at the age of 16. During the mid-1990s, keys also worked for a coal vile contractor. However, shortly afterwards he moved with his family when they relocated to Morpin, oregon. They stayed here briefly before moving again to Maine. In this tiny town, which today consists of just 439 residents, the family earned money by collecting sap for maple syrup production in a mostly armish community.
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Life for the children was difficult. They were not allowed to enjoy secular movies or music, and they often snuck out to visit friends and experience things that their parents had forbidden, including learning to play musical instruments, which were against God. As Keys became an adult, however, he became tired of struggling with his religion and renounced his Christian faith. He eventually revealed to his parents that he now considered himself an atheist, which displeased his father more than his mother. It led him to throw Keys out of the house for his sinful actions, and he also ordered Keys' younger siblings to cut off contact with him.
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After this time, keys began developing an interest in Satanism. He told FBI investigators after his arrest that during this period of his life, he began to feel as though he could rape or kill and get away with it, and that his fascination with Satanism led him to begin planning a satanic ritual killing involving a young woman. During this same interview, keys revealed that while staying in Oregon, he had committed his first sexual assault. At the time, young people liked to flock to the Deschutes River where they would go tubing, and for Keys this was the perfect opportunity to carry out the crime. While standing on a beach along the river, keys spotted a teen girl he thought would make a perfect target. He waded out, grabbed her and dragged her to a remote campground bathroom. After tying her up with ropes, keys raped her and planned to strangle her after. He even had knives with him which he intended to use when making his sacrifice. Keys told investigators that the young girl some of between the ages of 14 and 18, was really scared, he noted she kept saying she wasn't going to tell anybody. He reportedly told it a shut up, but she kept talking. He told the FBI she was pretty smart, it worked. Things never really got violent like they could have if she had been fighting me. Ultimately, keys let the young girl go. She recalled I was too timid, I wasn't violent enough. I made up my mind I was never going to let that happen again. Keys was never charged with a sexual assault and it's unclear if his victim was ever identified.
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On July 9th 1998, keys moved to New Jersey and enlisted in the US Army, where he served as a specialist in Alpha Company, first Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment. He wound up being stationed at Fort Lewis and Fort Hurd and was also sent abroad, to Sinai, egypt. While enlisted, he became friends with numerous soldiers, but his antisocial behavior never subsided. He told one soldier who had angered him that he would like to kill him. Other former Army friends, however, described Keys as quiet and somebody who kept to himself On weekends. He was known to drink heavily, consuming entire bottles of bourbon, and he was open about his favorite musical artist, insane Clown Posse. He pinned posters of them to the barracks walls.
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In 2001, keys was honorably discharged from the Army. Earlier that year, in February, he was arrested for driving under the influence in Thurston County, washington. He was fined $350 after agreeing to a plea deal, and he was later awarded an Army Achievement Medal for his service as a gunner, an assistant gunner from December 1998 to July 2001. After he departed from the military, keyes relocated to near Bay, washington, and began living on the Makka Reservation on the Olympic Peninsula, where he did carpentry work for the Native Americans who resided there. He was on the reservation that he met a woman who would soon give birth to their child. Six years later, in 2007, he moved to Anchorage, alaska, with a new girlfriend as well as his daughter. Here he started a construction business named Keyes Construction. He took on jobs as a handyman, contractor and construction worker and appeared to be living a quiet, ordinary life. But we now know that he had been an active killer for years leading up to this point, and his crime did not stop when he moved to Anchorage.
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Despite being one of America's most heinous killers, the information available about much of Keyes' criminal activity is somewhat vague. He is believed to have killed his first victim when he was still a teenager living in Coalville between 1996 and 1997. Julie Harris, a 12-year-old Special Olympics medallist in skiing, vanished on March 3, 1996. The case was quickly classed as a homicide when her back and two artificial feet and lower legs were discovered a month later close to the junction where the Coalville River meets Lake Roosevelt at Kettle Falls. Julie remained missing for a year and during that time her mother, sherry, was subject to what she felt was police harassment as investigators tried to frame her boyfriend, don Sacks, who lived with the pair. Sherry initially thought her daughter might still be alive, as she could get around without her artificial limbs. She wondered if the 12-year-old had returned to Oregon where her family used to live. It's unclear why she thought this or what reason Julie would have to return to Oregon.
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Coalville law enforcement turned their attention to Don Sacks when he revealed that the pair had fought the day she went missing. He stated that he was urging her to do her homework when she became angry Disturbingly. The Spokesman Review reported on May 7th 1997, one year after Julie's disappearance, that Sacks was due to return to court as he was charged with fourth-degree domestic assault after he attacked Julie's younger brother, clifford, who was just 10 years old. He was accused of grabbing Clifford by the neck, headbutting him twice and kneeling him in the upper left thigh. Sacks maintained the position that he didn't assault Clifford but merely restrained him. The children's mother, sherry, claimed that Clifford had a long and documented history of violent rages and claimed that he had struck her in the chest when she tried to get him to do his homework, which is when Sacks intervened. Sacks was still a person of interest in Julie's case in 1997. Sherry described Julie as an upbeat child who had won several trophies, including a gold medal in the Special Olympics, but that she became bitter and depressed in the weeks before she vanished she had also begun struggling in school and running into trouble. Julie's former babysitter called her very sweet, quick to make people laugh and also very stubborn.
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The search for Julie came to an end just over a year after she went missing. Her remains were found in April of 1997 by children playing in the vicinity of Hauler Creek Road and Ridel Creek in Coalvale. Her dental records were used to confirm the match. According to media reports at the time, julie's body had not been buried and a cause of death has not been publicly released. Then, on June 27, 1997, a trailer home five miles south of Coalvale was destroyed. After it was set on fire Inside, the body of a 29-year-old mother, of one named Marlene Emerson was discovered.
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It quickly came to the attention of authorities, however, that Marlene had a 12-year-old daughter who was missing from the scene. They feared Cassie Emerson had been kidnapped, but her body was discovered by horseback riders five miles from her home in a heavily wooded area in late July. Her remains were badly decomposed and had been scattered by wildlife. Like Julie, her body had not been buried. No evidence was found in the woods and her body gave nothing away the cause of death of both Cassie and her mother, marlene, was unknown by police officers in 1997. It's unclear if it was ever determined.
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Law enforcement treated the case as a double homicide and news reports from 1997 note that Cassie was the second 12-year-old girl to be killed in Coalvale since 1996 when Julie died. However, the investigating authorities Stevens County Sheriff's Office did not believe the cases were linked. They had no person of interest in the deaths of Cassie and Marlene but believed the killer was likely someone they knew. Detectives noted that Marlene had a turbulent lifestyle, stating she'd been in quite a lot of trouble over the years. Marlene had a lot of people that didn't get along with her. She'd served a stint in jail shortly before her death after breaking into a tattoo shop and stealing supplies. Authorities were considering that a drug deal had gone wrong or that Marlene had a violent ex-boyfriend. Both Judy's case and the case of Marlene and Casey remain unsolved.
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Keys did not admit to killing any of the victims, but claimed that the first act of arson was with the trailer. Similarly, while in custody, keys did not confess to any murders while he was in the military, but admitted to the attempted rapes of two women, one woman who was a sex worker he met while he was stationed in Egypt. While the other was a college student, he met in Israel. Keys also revealed to investigators that he had killed a middle-aged couple in Vermont in 2011. They were last seen on June 8th.
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Bill and Lorraine Currier lived in Essex, and Keys targeted them for no other reason other than the design of their home, which had an attached garage, making it easier for him to enter and exit unseen. In preparation for the killings, he flew to Chicago and rented a vehicle which he used to drive 1,000 miles to Vermont. Two years earlier, in 2009, he had stashed what was dubbed his kill kit in the area. It contained a handgun, silencers, ligatures, ammunition and bin bags. He used this to carry out the murder. According to Keys, he cut the phone lines before bursting into the bedroom with a couple slept. He allowed them to put their slippers on before forcing them to walk across broken glass into their car. From here, keys transported the pair to an abandoned farmhouse. He bound Lorraine and bludgeoned Bill in the basem*nt before shooting him.
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Keys described Lorraine as feisty because she fought back against him. He sexually assaulted her before strangling her to death. Afterwards he poured Drano, a chemical drain cleaner, over their bodies before placing them in bin bags. Keys was so calm throughout this event that he even stopped in the middle of all of it to stand outside and smoke a cigar as it rained heavily around him. The remains of Bill and Lorraine Currier have never been found. After telling investigators about this crime, which is by far the most detailed description of events he has ever given, he stated "'The things I've done, I don't feel bad about them. I did them for myself. It's better for me to keep them to myself. They're mine'". Keys admitted to investigators that he killed four people in Washington State. He added that he was the subject of an active investigation by both state police and the FBI, but it's still unknown who his victims were.
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Keys is also a suspect in a series of slayings that took place in Boca Raton, florida, in 2007. It's been suggested that he was behind the slaying of Randy Gorenberg, who vanished from his shopping center car park in March of that year. She was shot twice and her body was dumped an hour after she went missing. The second victim in the Boca Killer Crimes was an unidentified woman who claimed she and her toddler son were taken from a shopping center car park on August 7th. The woman described the culprit as tall and athletically built, with long hair, he wore a mask and sunglasses and forced the woman to withdraw cash, but let her and her son go afterwards. The final victims were Nancy Boca Chio, a 47-year-old, and her 7-year-old daughter, joey. They were found fatally shot in their vehicle, again in a shopping center car park on December 12th.
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Keys also had ties to New York. He owned 10 acres of land and a dilapidated cabin in the town of Constable. He admitted to at least one murder in the state and, while the victim is unknown, the confession is considered credible. He also took responsibility for several bank robberies that had occurred in New York and Texas, including the Community Bank Branch robbery in Tupper Lake, new York, which had taken place in April of 2009. Keys claimed to have burglarized a Texas home and set it on fire, and is thought to be responsible for the killing of a woman Keys believed to be Deborah Feldman in April 2009 in New Jersey. Keys is also linked to numerous other crimes that have taken place between 2001 and 2012, including 20 to 30 burglaries and 11 deaths across the US. Investigators have suggested that he may be responsible for more murders outside of the country.
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Unlike most other serial killers that we know of, keys did not have a distinguishing MO or a particular kind of person he targeted. He was indiscriminate, preying upon all sorts of individuals across the country so that he could avoid detection. He spent weeks and months planning a crime before he carried it out. He often visited campgrounds and isolated locations, something he'd likely picked up from his six years of living on the Makka Reservation, where he spent much of his time picking his way through the forest and mountain trails of the Olympic Peninsula. He recalled feeling a certain way about his time on the Reservation, telling investigators I just accepted it was a matter of time and opportunity before I did something again. Keys also told them he had a rule about never killing too close to home, that he only used guns when absolutely necessary. He preferred to take lives via strangulation, as he found pleasure in seeing his victims lose consciousness. He claimed he didn't kill children or the parents of children, mostly because of his daughter. Law enforcement, however, doesn't believe Keys. They suspect that he was involved in the deaths and disappearances of several minors. Keys also never killed in the same area twice, always paid for supplies with cash and turned his mobile phone off when he planned to commit a crime.
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At a young age, keys read Mindhunter inside the FBI's elite serial crime unit, the 1995 non-fiction crime book written by retired FBI agent John E Douglas, who was credited as one of the first criminal profilers. He appeared to enjoy the detailed study of serial slayers and idolized Ted Bundy most of all. He felt that the two had much in common they were both methodical and spoke about the feeling of power they experienced by killing. Keys admired other serial killers and even despised some. He labelled Dennis Rader, the BTK strangler, a wimp for apologizing in court and showing remorse for his crimes. He also expressed respect for those who haven't been court yet. Despite his strong interest in other murderers like himself, keys was notable for the fact that he didn't want any media or public attention. This was largely because he didn't want his daughter to grow up knowing what he'd done. He told investigators I want my kid to have a chance to grow up. She's in a safe place now. She's not going to see any of this. I want her to have a chance to grow up and not have all this hanging over her head. As a result of this, following his arrest, he agreed to tell investigators everything they wanted to know and more, with the promise that the details would be kept out of the media.
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Keys' last known victim was 18 year old Samantha Conan. As she finished up her shift at the Common Grounds coffee stand in Anchorage on February 1st 2012, she was approached by Keys, who was wearing a ski mask, and ordered a coffee. As Samantha handed over the drink, she was shocked to find that he had pulled out a gun. He demanded money from the register and, terrified, she promptly did what he wanted. Keys, however, didn't just want money. He pushed his way into the kiosk and used zip ties to keep Samantha's wrist bound together. She was then forced into a white fought focus where she tried and failed to escape. In response to her attempts to fight back, keys held a gun to her head and said he'd kill her if she tried to flee again. He then explained his plan to her that she was only being taken for ransom money. He promised that if she cooperated she would go back home unharmed.
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Samantha was kept alive for a brief period after her abduction. Keys had to drive back to the coffee stand to retrieve her mobile phone, which he used to text her boyfriend to tell him not to pick her up after her shift At his property. He tied Samantha up in a shed before turning up the radio to drown out her screams for help. He then demanded to know her address, which she reluctantly gave. Armed with this information, keys made his way there. He needed her bank card from her boyfriend's truck. While stealing the debit card, keys was confronted by Samantha's boyfriend, assuming he was an ordinary burglar attempting to steal his car. He ran inside for help, giving Keys ample opportunity to flee Back at home. He returned to the shed and sexually assaulted Samantha before strangling her to death.
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Some reports state Samantha was killed the following morning, on February 1st. Bizarrely, shortly after the murder had taken place, keys went into his home and packed for a family cruise in the Gulf of Mexico. Keys simply left Samantha's body in the shed and went on holiday for two weeks. He returned to Anchorage on February 17th, where he immediately began preparing the ransom note for Samantha's loved ones. However, an idea seemed to strike him. As he did so, he pulled the 18-year-old's body out and applied makeup to her face. Even more eerie is the fact that he sewed her eyes open with a fishing line to make it look as if she was alive. He then took a photograph of her clutching a recent copy of the Anchorage Daily News.
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Keys' typed ransom note demanded $30,000 from her family. He attached the staged photograph he'd taken off her corpse and placed the items in a park under a memorial flyer of a dog named Albert. He then sent a text to Samantha's boyfriend using her phone, which read Connor Park sign and a pic of Albert Aint she Pirty. A few days passed before Keys considered the fact that he still had Samantha's body. He decided to drive her remains out to Matansuka Lake, where he cut a hole in the ice and then dumped her in the water. While this was ongoing, samantha's father, james Cohen, deposited the ransom money into an 18-year-old's account, as instructed. He believed the chilling photograph of his daughter was proof she was still alive and managed to gather up $30,000 in donations from concerned members of his community.
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Keys was arrested by two members of law enforcement in the car park of the Cotton Patch Cafe in Lufkin, texas, on the morning of March 13th 2012, less than a month after he dropped off the ransom note. Investigators at the time had circulated images of the suspect's car, which they'd caught on CCTV from when Keys was withdrawing the ransom cash from Samantha's account. His vehicle was stopped after he drove slightly over the speed limit. Officers searched his vehicle and discovered dye, stained bills from a bank robbery, a gun, a ski mask and Samantha's phone and debit card. He was immediately arrested. Following his arrest, keys, who was 34 at the time, was extradited to Alaska, where he admitted to Samantha's murder. He was charged with the horrific crime and his trial was set to begin in March of 2013.
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During his time in prison, keys had lengthy discussions with law enforcement, where he confessed to numerous crimes, but often failed to give details, leaving investigators no nearer to closing the cases that he was involved in. Keys complained that prison guards were watching him like a hawk and stated that he wanted the death penalty within a year because he had no long-term interest in survival while in prison. Anchorage homicide detective Monacute Doll said of Keys he didn't kidnap and kill people because he was crazy. He didn't kidnap and kill people because his diet he told him to or because he had a bad childhood. His real keys did this because he got an immense amount of enjoyment out of it, much like an addict gets An immense amount of enjoyment out of drugs. In a way, he wasn't addict and he was addicted to the feeling that he got when he was doing this. When investigators asked why he did it, he simply replied why not? Keys generally stopped cooperating with the police once his identity was discussed in the media During a routine hearing on May 23, 2012,.
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He used wood shavings from a pencil to pick his cuffs. However, the authorities were able to subdue him using a taser. Samantha's body was recovered by divers at Matanuska Lake on April 2, 2012. While awaiting trial, keys was held at the Anchorage Correctional Complex. He managed to conceal a razor blade in his cell, something he was not allowed. He was supervised when using an electric razor. Keys died by suicide on December 2, 2012 after he cut his wrists and attempted to strangle himself.
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Before he died, keys penned a suicide note, but it gave investigators no clues about other possible victims or information on those that they are unclear about. Abc News described the letter as being like a creepy ode to murder. His blood was smeared on the note and it contained lines which clearly showed how much he enjoyed killing. It read in part you may have been free. You loved living your life. You loved living your life. Fate had its own scheme crushed like a bug. You still die. At another point, he wrote about his victims in paragraphs such as I looked in your eyes. They were so dark, warm and trusting, as though you were not a warrior of care. The more guilless the game, the better potential to fill up those pools with your fear. And your wet lips were a promise of a secret, unspoken nervous laugh as it burst like pulsar blood from your throat. There will be no more laughter here.
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The four-page document was made public in February 2013 and was written on a yellow legal pad. The police noted that the pages were found under Keyes' body, making parts of it illegible. It was sent to an FBI lab for processing, however, which made it mostly legible for analysis. In later paragraphs of the letter, keyes criticized the lives of ordinary citizens, stating Land of the free, land of the lie, land of scheme Americanized. Consume what you do not need. Stars you idolize. Pursue what you do not need. Stars you idolize. Pursue what you admit is a dream. Then it's American die. Dr Phil Resnick, the director of forensic psychiatry at University Hospital's Cased Medical Center in Cleveland, stated it's more of a final statement of contempt for the American style of life, and I think the other thing he emphasizes is his own superiority that he has guile and can take advantage of people who are naive and trusting of him. Another forensic psychiatrist, dr Steven Montgomery, who was based in Nashville, said he's writing this so that people will find it and talk about it and further magnify his own self-worth. And, of course, it has no remorse, no regard for human life or the victims, and that fits with that type of psychopathic personality.
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In 2020, the FBI released the drawings of 11 skulls and one pentagram, which had been drawn in blood and found underneath Keyes' jail cell bed following his death. One of the images including the phrase we are one written at the bottom. Investigators believe the number of skulls correlates with the total number of his victims, but we cannot be sure.
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Israel Keyes is perhaps one of America's most bone-chilling killers. He may not have had as many victims as Ted Bundy or Gary Ridgway, but the fact that he was so indiscriminate in choosing his victims and the precise, particular nature of how he carried out his crimes Is nothing short of horrifying. If not for his carelessness when withdrawing the ransom money from Samantha Corring's bank account, he may not have been caught and he may still be at large today, killing dozens of more people. The FBI are still investigating Israel Keyes and his potential victims, and this case is very much alive. If you have any information about this case, you can contact the FBI at the number on the screen or visit the website in the description. The FBI are currently investigating Israel Keyes, who is the victim of the murder of a man in a car. He is the victim of the murder of a man in a car. He is the victim of the murder of a woman in a car. He is the victim of the murder of the woman in a car.
