﻿When a serial killer amasses a body count into the double digits, it becomes reasonable to assume
that they would become an infamous household name along the same lines as Jefferey Dahmer,
Ted Bundy, or John Wayne Gacy. Somehow, this is not the case for disturbing
American serial killer Israel Keyes. While his brutal murders were reported on in the news at
the time of their uncovering, Israel’s crimes are largely unknown by much of the American public;
however, by the end of this video, we hope to shed light on these horrific crimes
and honor the many victims who lost their lives to this monster.
Israel Keyes was born on January 7th, 1978, in Richmond, Utah. John and Heidi Keyes,
Israel’s parents, were incredibly Mormon and religious and intended to have a big family,
making Israel the second of ten children, all of whom would end up being homeschooled.
Sometime in 1983, when Israel was around five years old,
the family gave up their Mormon beliefs and moved to a one-room cabin near Colville, Washington,
with no running water or electricity. It was here that the family began attending church again,
going to the Ark and the Christian Isreal Covenant Church,
both of which taught beliefs centered around white supremacy and antisemitism.
While living here and attending church, the family also made good friends with Chevie Kehoe,
a man who would eventually be known for his intense supremacist values and plans to take over
the American Government, as well as for torturing and murdering a family near Tilly, Arkansas.
Israel described his family life as ‘militia like and ‘Amish’ and soon found a distaste
for the lifestyle, eventually naming himself an atheist and growing an interest in satanism. Later
studies, determined in a several-hour evaluation by Washington psychologist Dr. Ronald Roesch,
found that Israel was at the high average for intelligence and possibly could have escaped his
oppressive home life to start a brighter future; however, this is not what would happen.
In 1998, at 20 years old, Israel left his family behind and enlisted in the military,
where he would serve on a mortar team in Fort Lewis before eventually moving to Fort Hood and
eventually Egypt. Friends and fellow army men who knew Israel at the time noted his quiet demeanor
and anti-social tendencies, stating that he mostly kept to himself, listened to Insane Clown posse,
and drank heavily, often consuming entire bottles of whiskey by himself in single sittings.
Despite the drinking, Israel caused no problems while in the military
and was honorably discharged in 2001 before moving to Neah Bay, Washington. According to
Israel in later interviews with investigators, it was here that he committed his first murder,
although incredibly little is known about this murder, including the identity of the victim.
When questioned about his murder for this killing, Israel simply responded,
“Neah Bay’s a boring town.” Keyes would go on to claim that he had
committed a total of four murders while living in Washington over the course of seven years,
all while remaining completely anonymous to the local police department.
In 2007, Israel would end up moving to Anchorage, Alaska, where he began his own contractor business
titled Keyes Construction. No one in town had any reason to suspect Israel’s sordid past,
especially once he became a family man and moved in with his girlfriend and young daughter.
In order to continue killing without alerting the police, Israel would travel to various
locations across the U.S and choose his victims at random. He was also incredibly methodical when
it came to preparing for his crimes, placing “murder kits” filled with shovels, guns, and
other devious tools around the country, sometimes years before ever committing a crime there.
In April of 2009, Israel reportedly killed a woman along the East Coast before taking her body across
state lines and burying her in upstate New York. While the woman’s identity is not currently known,
Police have strong reason to suspect it was 49-year-old Deborah Feldman. It
was also around this time that Israel robbed the Community Bank in Tupper Lake, New York,
as well as apparently burglarizing a house down in Texas before setting it on fire.
Two years later, in June of 2011, Israel went to Chicago before renting a car and
driving all the way to Essex, Vermont, where he dug up one of his “murder kits” and broke
into the home of Bill and Lorraine Currier. He took both of the Currier’s hostage and drove
them up to an abandoned Farmhouse where he shot and killed Bill before assaulting
Lorraine and strangling her to death. Despite the large amount of information given
to police about the murders by Israel himself, the police have still been unable to track down
the location of the victim’s bodies. Despite the number of interviews and interrogations
he had with investigators, very little is know about the majority of Israel’s murders.
However, the number of victims is believed to be around 12. However, much is known about
Samantha Koenig, Israel’s final victim and the one who finally got him caught.
In 2012, Israel made a sudden departure from his previous modus operandi and began looking
for places to kill around Anchorage, where he was living. He would eventually settle on the Common
Grounds Espresso Stand, due to the fact that it kept late hours and was relatively secluded.
He decided to strike on February 1st and prepared by placing two heaters in the shed outside the
house he shared with his girlfriend and daughter to keep it warm, as well as placing a tarp down on
the floor to preemptively deal with any blood. He then sat and waited for the perfect moment,
which eventually arrived when he heard of a big event going on on the other side of town
which would take up the local law enforcement’s attention. He drove over to the coffee shop,
unsure of how many workers there might be that late into the night, and to his sick delight,
found out there was one lone 18-year-old girl working that shift: Samantha Koenig.
He went up to the counter and ordered a drink, which Samantha happily began making;
however, when she turned around to give the man his drink and collect payment,
she was met with a gun in her face. Israel ordered her to turn off the lights, to which she complied,
and Israel then jumped into the coffee shop via a window. As Israel was binding Samantha up with the
intent of kidnapping her for ransom, Samantha made a last-ditch attempt to save her own life
by saying her Dad would arrive at the shop soon to pick her up. While Israel did hesitate for a
moment, he would tragically decide to ignore the warning and go through with his plan,
leading Samantha to his car after he finished tying her up and drove her to his house where
he would keep her in the shed. Once Samantha was stuck in the shed,
he interrogated her for information, and using this information, located her boyfriend’s truck,
broke in, and stole her debit card. Israel planned on ransoming Samantha,
having the ransom paid to Samantha’s own account, and then withdrawing it himself using her card.
After attaining the card, he returned to Samantha in the shed, assaulted her, and choked her until
she died. After she had died, he turned off the heaters in the shed, wrapped her body in a tarp,
and locked her in a cabinet with only the freezing Alaskan cold to help preserve the body,
while he took a two-week cruise with his family in the Gulf of Mexico.
Israel returned to his home on February 19th, where he removed Samantha’s body from the
cabinet and had sex with it. He then proceeded to apply makeup to her corpse, sew her eyes open,
and pose her in such a way that she still looked alive in order to take a photo of her alongside a
recent edition of the Anchorage Daily News. The chilling photo was accompanied by a letter to
Samantha’s loved ones that if they wanted to see her alive again, then they would have to
deposit $30,000 dollars into her bank account. The photo and ransom note was left in a dog park that
Israel directed Samantha’s boyfriend to by sending him a disturbing text from her phone that read,
“Conner park sign under pic of albert aint she pretty”. A few days after the text had been sent,
Israel decided to cut up Samantha’s body and dump the pieces in Matanuska Lake,
just north of Anchorage. In March, just a month after the
kidnapping of Samantha, Israel went to Las Vegas and rented a car to drive to Arizona, not unlike
what he did before his killing of the Curriers, and used Samantha’s debit card to withdraw $400.
While Israel thought he could outsmart the ATM’s camera by wearing a disguise,
the camera was still able to capture the white Ford Focus he was driving, although the
license plate was sadly not visible. Israel then drove down to Texas, where he
withdrew more money using Samantha’s card, and the FBI was able to alert the Texas police that
someone using Samantha’s card was in the area and was likely still driving that same rental car.
On March 13th, 2012, a Texas Highway Patrol Man spotted a White Ford Focus at a motel
and recognized it as the kind of car they had been warned to watch out for.
Keeping this in mind, the patrolman followed the car discreetly as it left the motel and
soon noticed that it was driving three miles over the speed limit. The patrolman quickly used this
as an excuse to pull the car over, and although at first, it didn’t seem like anything was out
of the ordinary with the car or the driver, when the Patrolman asked to see the suspect’s license
and registration and saw that the license was from Alaska, he knew he was in trouble.
Israel was soon arrested by Texas Law enforcement, and in his car,
they found a stained roll of bills from a recent bank robbery, the mask that Israel
had been seen wearing on the ATM cameras, a gun, and Samantha Koenig’s debit card.
Israel was soon flown back to Anchorage for detainment, where he would eventually confess
to Samantha’s murder, as well as several other crimes. On May 23rd, Israel appeared before a
judge in Federal Court as they held a hearing to set a date for his trial. At some point,
Israel managed to escape his leg shackles before jumping into the first row of seats in the court
gallery in an attempt to make his escape but was soon tackled and recaptured by police.
On December 12th, 2012, at 5:57 AM, a guard doing a routine sweep of the block Israel was being
held in noticed an odd stain on the floor coming from Israel’s cell. Once he looked into the cell,
he discovered Israel’s dead body. Israel had slit his left wrist with a razor blade attached to a
pencil, and had laid on his stomach and tied a bedsheet around his neck, bent his left leg back,
and attached the other side to his ankle. This meant that when Israel passed out from the loss
of blood, he would be able to use the weight of his own body to strangle himself to death.
The FBI was able to recover a suicide note that had been left nearby. However, the note,
unfortunately, contained no information regarding the many other unexplained murder victims Israel
claimed to be responsible for. So, with his own death, Israel inadvertently killed any chance
of solving the multitude of cold cases he had left in his murderous wake.
Leave your own thoughts on the case in the comment section below, and tell us any other cases you
would like us to work on in the future. If you enjoyed the video and want to see more
just like it then consider liking the video, subscribing, and ringing the notification
bell to get notified whenever we post, and we’ll see you in the next video.