July 17, 2024 • 42 mins
Israel Keyes was an American serial killer, bank robber, burglar, arsonist, kidnapper, and sex offender.
Guest Bio and Links:
Andrew Iden is a veteran journalist and award-winning podcaster with over 20 years of experience at CNN and HLN. Dan Szematowicz is a seasoned audio producer and editor with experience at CNN, NPR, and Warner Bros. Together, they have teamed up to host the new podcast "Deviant" a true-crime podcast series that focuses on telling stories about deviant and unusual criminals.
Listeners can learn more about Deviant on YouTube, IG @deviant.podcast, or wherever you enjoy your podcasts!
In this episode of Zone 7, Crime Scene Investigator Sheryl McCollum dives into the bone-chilling world of true crime with Andrew Iden and Dan Szematowicz, hosts of the new podcast, Deviant. They discuss the life and crimes of Israel Keyes, a meticulous and calculating serial killer. They also cover Keyes' upbringing, his modus operandi, the complexities of profiling such a criminal, and the challenges faced by law enforcement.
Show Notes:
- (0:00) Welcome back to Zone 7 with Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum
- (2:30) Sheryl introduces guests, Andrew Iden and Dan Szematowicz and the premise of their new podcast, Deviant
- (5:40) Discovering Israel Keyes
- (8:10) Keyes' unique methods and meticulous planning
- (12:00) Keyes' psychological profile
- (17:15) The making of a serial killer
- (26:30) The ongoing search for other potential victims
- (35:00) Deviant podcast
- (36:00) Ongoing investigations
- (39:00) Final thoughts
- (42:02) “Some people are wired for good. Some people are wired for bad, and some people are wired to be deviant.” -T.D.P
- Thanks for listening to another episode! If you’re loving the show and want to help grow the show, please head over to Itunes and leave a rating and review!
---
Sheryl “Mac” McCollum is an Emmy Award winning CSI, a writer for CrimeOnLine, Forensic and Crime Scene Expert for Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, and a CSI for a metro Atlanta Police Department. She is the co-author of the textbook., Cold Case: Pathways to Justice. Sheryl is also the founder and director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute, a collaboration between universities and colleges that brings researchers, practitioners, students and the criminal justice community together to advance techniques in solving cold cases and assist families and law enforcement with solvability factors for unsolved homicides, missing persons, and kidnapping cases.
Social Links:
- Email: coldcase2004@gmail.com
- Twitter: @ColdCaseTips
- Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum
Instagram: @officialzone7podcast
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Y'all, there's a new true crime series. They dive into
the dark corners of what human beings are capable of.
And I'm quoting straight off their website, good stories about
bad people who do very bad things. Now, I'm going
to tell you, in my business, I see a lot
(00:31):
of what bad decisions, bad relationships, bad car wrecks, bad people,
bad drugs. Everything that is bad, I see it, and
I can tell you there is a difference between bad
and devent. The name of this new podcast is Devent
(00:53):
and that ought to tell you right there that the
two hosts that have over sixty years experience in journal, TV,
radio podcasting. Y'all, they're going to bring you some stories. Y'all.
Just ain't ready, That's all I can tell you. Honey,
y'all just got to listen, and you know, turn the
lights out, get your blanket, and be afraid because it's coming. So.
(01:17):
I have known Drew for over twenty years. When we
first met, he was working with Nancy Grace And let
me tell you a story. You know, you don't always
trust everybody around your children, But there was occasion that
I would be on the show and I did not
have a babysitter. My husband wasn't home, my sisters weren't available,
(01:40):
and I would have to take hunting Caroline with me.
When they were really small, drew with babysit for that hour.
He would entertain them in the green room. They would
play soccer with a Pham coffee cup. He told them
to play that football game where you fold the thing
in paper and a train and flick it. They just
(02:02):
adored hanging out with him. He was always so kind
and so sweet to them, and always a professional because
let me tell you, he's been a writer, a producer,
a journalist over twenty years at CNN and h O N.
He is a veteran of the true crime space. He
is an award winning podcaster. He is part of the
(02:24):
podcast Down the Hill with our friend Barbara McDonald and
y'all know how stellar that was. Also, he has been
part of My Zone seven for twenty years, so I
cannot wait to welcome him along with his buddy and
co host Dan. Let me tell you about Dan. He
(02:44):
has spent his entire career in audio production. He's been
a producer, he's been an editor. He also has been
with CNN, American Public Media and MPR, or should I
say and MPR. Most recently, he was the head of
(03:04):
audio for Warner Brothers Discovery. I mean, y'all, they know
what they're doing. They know how to put these stories together.
They are visual people, but they bring it to the
audio version and they paint a picture for you. It
is just stellar. Dan and Drew. I cannot thank you
enough for being here with me on Zone seven.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Well, Cheryl, it's good to be here.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
We're gonna with that, We're gonna exit.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Hey, I left a lot of stuff out because I'm
gonna tell you we have a lot of friends in common.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
We do.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
We do.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Barbara McDonald, who I've already mentioned, Susan Hendrix who everybody loves, Indoors,
Nancy Grace. So again, y'all have worked with a lot
of people. So if the reputation wasn't exactly what I said,
we'd know it by now.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
We still have time to ruin it.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, absolutely, just wait, there's always time, Dan.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, thanks so much for having us. We really appreciate
your time. And when you told me how old Huck
and Caroline are now and about made me keel over.
I'm glad. I'm glad to hear that they're doing well. So, yeah,
thank you so much for having us. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I want to tell you y'all are doing this thing right,
because I always preach there's nothing like going to a scene.
You've got to walk it, you've got to absorb it
to truly understand it. But when you get the people
that are from that place, from that town, from that city,
from that street, that's when you really get to the
heart of the matter. And that is something y'all do
(04:37):
on Deviant that is just extraordinary. So tell us a
little bit, and I'll just start with you, Drew. How
y'all came to this podcast, this way of doing it
and getting to the people.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah, well, I mean I think when Dan and I.
Dan and I have obviously, as you said at the top,
we worked on Down the Hill together and he and
I had been talking about doing a show, another show
of some kind for a long time, and frankly, I
had been, you know, towards the end of my time
at HLN, I had been reading and listening to the
Israel Keys Case a lot, and just kind of I
(05:11):
was really fascinated with it because the interesting thing about
it is that you don't often get the volume of
sound from someone who has done the things he's done.
And I thought, there's got to be something we can
do with this, and it's tailor made for a podcast, right.
So Dan and I'd been talking about a show and
doing some stuff, and I finally said, look, there's this
(05:32):
interesting case of this guy who you know, I have
heard of just because I've been in the true crime
space for so long. But I don't know if most
people know who this guy is, and b I don't
know that they know that readily available is the ability
to hear all of the things he is saying about
what he's.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Done, like fifteen hours worth, right.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
And so I think what we determined was what better
way to build a new show than around this this content.
And I want to be clear, like Dan and I
from the jump, this is not an attempt to like
grandstand or glorify or give someone a platform that doesn't
deserve it. I think what we wanted to do really
(06:15):
was we wanted to take these tapes in this sound
from this guy and try to use it as an
opportunity to learn about people who operate this way, right,
And because I think that one of the important things
is like, you know, just listening to it for listening's
sake is not really doing anything. We wanted there to
be value, and I think there's value in hearing what
someone like this thinks, does, says and trying to apply
(06:38):
that to the larger world and the people that operate
this way, because unfortunately there are more people like Israel Keys.
We just don't know about them, right, So that was
kind of our goal. I think Dan might have some
more to add, but that's that's the way we kind
of approached it.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, there are a couple things about Israel Keys that
intrigued me once once Drew started talking to me about him.
There was all the wrong material, Like there was just
hours and hours and hours of tape of him in
the interrogation room after he was captured, right, So we
had that to sort of work off. But the overarching
story of him is also fascinating too because it's a
(07:14):
continuing and ongoing mystery. He was an active serial killer
from about two thousand and one until twenty and twelve
is what the FBI believes. He was captured in twenty twelve,
and he actually killed himself in prison after about eight
or nine months in custody, so we didn't get his
full sort of body of work, if you will. We
(07:36):
know about some of his crimes at the very beginning
of his life, and we know about some of his
crimes at the very end of his life. He's admitted
to three of those murders. But it's this big in between,
the sort of decade in between, which we sort of
call our trail of maybes, that we're trying to make
sense of. And that's sort of the big question we're
asking in the show is just how far did Israel
(07:56):
Keys go? You know, how many people did he actually
how many people did he actually victimize? And to do that,
you know, we listened to the tapes, We dove through
all the FBI documents and police documents we got a
hold of. That's about four thousand documents there, and we
talked to the people who actually knew him, and the
police who captured him, and the police who interrogated him,
(08:17):
and for FBI profilers, you know, we just really want
to understand this person to try to answer that question,
to chase the truth about how far did he actually go?
The FBI thinks he killed eleven and they think that
because a few months before his suicide, they during a
jail cell check, they uncovered eleven skulls, a drawing of
(08:38):
eleven skulls, you know, drawn in his own blood, with
the phrase we are one, also drawn in his blood.
So that's why they think it was eleven. Because his
mo was so unique and meticulous, unprecedented.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yes, agreed, next level, And you know, I want to
mention or piggyback I guess on something that Drew was
talking about. I think it's equally as important that we
talk about the entire scope of this person because he
is next level. There was nobody like him. He did
study other criminals. And you know we've already mentioned my children,
(09:15):
but you know, when they were tiny, I never told
them there was no such thing as monsters because I
knew better. There absolutely are.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yeah, and I mean that's the only word to really
use to that qualifies for him.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I want young detectives to listen to his own seven.
I want police officers that are rookies to listen to
his own seven because they may think they know Israel Keys,
but they may not realize he was also a bank
robber and a narsonist and a burglar. So again, you
may go man, I want to be on homicide. I
don't want to work burglary squad. Don't sleep on book
(09:50):
the burglar, honey, because that might be your serial killer.
That could be your serial rapist.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
When he was captured, they had no idea what they
had on their hand, right, they were trying to track
down a kidnapping and you know, he had taken a
girl named Samantha Konig from Anchorage, Alaska, and he was
captured via a kidnapping investigation and manhunt. There was a
suspicion that, you know, she may be deceased, but they
(10:17):
didn't know that there was hope that she would be
captured alive. And they had no idea that he was
a serial killer, nun. He flew totally under the radar,
you know, and that's because his mo again was so meticulous.
He would bury kill kids and random locations across the country,
you know, and then just leave them there and come
back a couple of years later dig him up. And
he had no victimology whatsoever, So he would just kill
(10:39):
was seemingly random people that he would come across.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
He was terrifying, and Dan, that's something that is terrifying
because you're talking about somebody that has the self control
to wait two years.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, that's not something you've seen in serial sexual offenders
very often.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Right, that's right, Cheryl.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
You mentioned control, which is a very very important part
of this conversation about Israel Keys, because he was you know,
we say meticulous, like he was almost neurotic about his planning.
He was, you know, ocd to the core about making
sure he didn't do things where he lived, making sure
that he didn't bury kill kids near where he lived,
(11:14):
making sure that he covered his tracks. I mean when
you look at his travel, I mean it's efficient is
not the word. He would fly to you know, fly
to Chicago, drive to New England, commit a murder, drive
back to Chicago, fly back to Alaska. I mean everything
about him was control, right, But what tripped him up
in the end, the reason he and the metaphor we
(11:37):
use in the podcast is the reason he was a
shark under the water for so long is because he
did it that way. But what prompted him to come
to the surface was he finally lost control. And what
he did is he used a debit card, and he
used it a few too many times, and he was
also and he says in these conversations that he was
at a point in his string of crimes where he
(12:00):
was getting a little bit irrational. He was getting a
little bit I guess sloppy for lack of a better term,
and he lost control and he used Samantha Koenigg's debit card,
and he used it all throughout Texas and the Southwest.
And that's why the FBI was able to catch it
because for so long this guy who was such a
control freak and so you know, detail oriented, completely lost Great.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Now, Dan, let me ask you something. In all of
y'all's research, did you see anything in his background when
he was younger, anything that you flagged is oh, this
started this whole path to be in a killer.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
That's a great question. There's the classic debate about these
sorts of offenders. You know, are they born or are
they made right? And the answer for Israel Keys, you know,
could be yes both. Because he had a very unusual upbringing.
He was one of nine children and his parents were
(13:04):
it's the best way to put this, It was sort
of cult hop right from the late seventies. Israel Kis
was born in early seventy eight nineteen seventy eight and
his parents were originally associated with Mormonism, and eventually they
joined a sect of Mormonism that was too extreme for
even Mormons, and.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
They were even in the Amish community at one point
too right, and sort of where they landed.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
They landed in Colville, Washington, in Washington State, which is
sort of the north central right north near the Canadian border,
part of Washington State. And he spent a long time
there as a child, and it was there that his
parents and his family's hooked up with this Christian identity movement. Now,
if you're not familiar with Christian identity, that's you know,
(13:49):
it's rooted in white supremacy and anti semitism and anti government. Right,
we're talking about the Timothy McVay types. And that's sort
of the environment in which he grew up and talked
to people who knew him during that time and who
were also part of the community, and he was extreme
even for them from an early age. Right. You know,
they would they would get together and you know, for
(14:11):
social events, you know, and you know he would come
out and just say these you know, we're talking about
the twelve thirteen, fourteen years old. He would come out
and talk about, you know, just horrible things. You know,
there's a story where he this is always a difficult
one for me to handle, I'm bed with animal abuse,
but there's a story where he tells, you know, a
(14:32):
story about where he did horrible things to a cat
in front of an audience and of kids that were
around thirteen fourteen years old with him, and you know,
the kids were throwing up, and that was a lesson
for him that he was unusual, he was not normal.
That he needs to start hiding his behaviors. He needs
to start being careful about talking about you know, burgling
(14:53):
and burning things down and telling people about it or
telling people about it or trying to get them to
participate with him. Right, So he knew he was different
from an early age. Now, it should be noted that
with all that background, he did have eight siblings, none
of them are serial killers. Right, So was he born broken?
Was he born a monster? Or was he made into one?
(15:14):
I'm guessing this is just me. I'm guessing that you know,
that environment, if you're inclined to become that sort of person,
that's the kind of environment that could grow that seed
if you will.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
He also those early years, like he didn't go to school.
He was homeschool and you know, he was not around
I presume there was not a lot of socialization, right, Like,
there was not a lot of like hanging out with
a big group of kids and like learning the social
skills that come with going to school. He was a loner.
The family didn't have electricity. At one point they found
(15:48):
guns of his and as a result, he actually moved
into his own kind of cabin on the family property.
So everything about his upbringing and adolescence and youth is
very much rooted in kind of an isolationist ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
You know, it's interesting when you listen to the interrogation tapes,
there is never you know, if he is to be believed,
and that's always a big question with these you know,
serial killers lie, right, that's just part of their makeup,
so they're crafting their own narrative. But if he is
to be a belief when he's talking about his own childhood,
you hear no regret. No, I knew something was wrong
(16:24):
with me, I knew I had to change. I felt
guilty about feeling this. There was none of that. There
was just a pure recognition and embrace like I'm different,
this is who I am, and you know what, I'm
okay with that. I just have to hide it because
no one else feels like that. But this is who
I am, and let's go.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
One of the other interesting things that we kind of
delved into, Cheryl is that from the people we spoke with,
his father, from all indications, was a pretty domineering force
in the house and was and I think from what
we've learned is there was some contention between Israel and
his father. And you know, whether that was rooted in
(17:02):
whatever they were doing spiritually and religiously, I'm not sure.
But there was something that jumped out of me in
some of the tapes that we were listening to when
Keys was talking about his youth and he was talking
about Arson specifically, and one of the things he wanted
to do early on was he wanted to set fire
to a church. And Dan and I were listening to that,
and the first time we listened to it, it kind
(17:23):
of went right past us. But upon second listen, I
said to Dan, I was like, wait a second, I
think that might be some sort of projection of like
his disdain for religion, his disdain for that entire part
of his life and I think that all is baked
into who he was and who he became. And he
even alludes to a period of his life where he
(17:45):
dabbled in Satanism.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yeah, he branded himself with a pentagram and an upside
down cross. You know, he did that stuff too.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
So religion was actually, even though he wasn't involved in
it towards the later part of his life, that had
a huge bearing impact, some sort of influence on him
from an early age.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
So I'm basically hearing no red flags at.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
All, right exactly if that's another thing like where he
grew up, there was no one to raise red flags.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Right, No, of course, But I mean saying bouncing around.
You know, I got a buddy, Betsy Ramsey, that has
what she calls the too theory. When somebody is too religious,
too mean, too crazy, too rich, too arrogant, you know,
too mean, whatever it is, you know, you focus on
that to look for the other obvious flags. So here
(18:37):
you have a child that bounces around, has no real friends.
I'm not talking about siblings. I'm talking about, like Drew
was talking about, being social with people. The religious aspect
is clearly something that is too, that's over the top. Right,
most people don't have to go from being hey, we're
going to be Mormon today and now we're going to
(18:59):
be a Quaker and we're going to be Methodists. I
mean that's a pretty good jump, right, So the family
was jumping for some reason. And if the dad is,
you know, too authoritative. There's animal cruelty obvious. And this
always strikes me when somebody says, well, I didn't know
it was wrong. So you're going to take a live
animal and harm that animal in front of other people
(19:23):
when you've never seen that, You've never seen another child
do that, no matter what church you've ever been in,
no matter what organization y'all been in, but you do it,
and then you're shocked at their reaction. There's a lot
of flags here that I think even the family had
to know about.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, in some ways, you know, there are many ways
in which he is different and unique as a serial killer,
but there are some ways there were some similarities too.
Right out of the few of her crossed paths with
Mary Ellen O'Toole, formerly the FBIBA Behavior Analysis Unit, she
talked to us about Key and you know, we sort
of catalogue some of the things these behaviors as you know,
(20:05):
when he was a kid, and very classic in some ways, right,
he has harmed animals, He loved to burn things down,
He was breaking into houses. His first major crime was
a sexual assault, and you know, you could see that
pattern of vescalation, right. And he talks about and this
is one of the things, you know, we're really trying
to get our hands around, and I don't think we
(20:27):
have it. We're still working on it. Is. He talks
about how when he joined the army in nineteen ninety
eight or so, so he would have been you know, twenty,
that was sort of the period of his life where
he learned to embrace who he was, right, you know,
he went from acceptance to okay, now I know who
I am. This is where I'm going to start planning
how to do things right. We don't know if he
(20:48):
committed any murders or major crimes in the army. We've
heard whispers, we've heard rumblings, we've tracked his movements, but
there's been nothing, just like the FBI. And if the
FBI can't do it, it's tough for out to do it,
you know, tie any one particular thing to him. But
this is the period when he came out of the army.
That's when people started disappearing.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
You know. And that's interesting because what in Timothy McVeigh
in the military too, he.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Was and he was also very much involved in groups
that were fringe on the outside of you know, government
and religion and all of that stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Well, I mean, he's not the only killer obviously that
joined the Armed Services. So did BTK, so did Leonvey Oswald.
That's a whole that's a whole other thing that while
they would be attracted to that entity. But you know, again,
what Timothy McVeigh keeps coming up, and y'all touched on
the fact that Israel had this group that was anti government,
(21:45):
you know, hated everybody. But I don't know if y'all
come across this in your research, but McVeigh joined the
clan and they basically threw him out because they're like, hey, dude,
you're a little out of bounds.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
For us for the Klan. Wow, it's a little much.
It's a little much for us.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah, yeah, I mean what kind of calling card is that? Dan?
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Right?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
And it should be noted the people we talked to
that New Keys when they were in this community, they
are no longer a part of that community. They have
since disavowed all those beliefs. They've since completely left that
organization and are very vocal about you know, what that
group preaches and does to people. What I just wanted
to say is that coming up in that group, he
(22:28):
actually you mentioned Cheryl that he didn't have any friends.
One of his friends was a guy by the name
of Chevy Keyho who has been convicted for killing an
entire family in Arkansas in the name of white supremacy.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
They ran around the woods together, Chevy brother in Israel Keys.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Yeah, Chevy So chevy Key, Oh, for those that don't know,
is a pretty well known white supremacist, anti government convicted Murty. Yeah,
he's kind of in that McVeigh mold. And so he
was friends with Israel Keys and they ran around the
woods together, and so you know, you got to wonder
what kind of influence did that have on him. So
it was it was really this oxix swirl of all
(23:02):
of these things on top of like Dan said, you know,
are you are you born this way or you built
this way? If he was born this way, this toxic
swirl on top of that was just the perfect storm,
right right.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
And you know, I want to clarify when I said
he didn't have any friends, I meant like going to school,
playing Little League, joining boy Scouts. I meant that kind
of thing, like you know the kids down the street,
y'all grow up together, regular socialization. Right, Yeah, he had
zero with that. But again for him to hook up
with that person you want to talk about, that just
had to make the devil so happy. One thing that
(23:40):
y'all do on Deviant that I think is so brilliant,
Like you already mentioned talking to Agent O'Toole, but y'all
have also talked with Detective Jeff bell An FBI agent
Jolene Godin. And again I know both of you and
y'all have the natural ability to not just talk to people,
(24:01):
but get people to talk to you. And I tell
young officers and young detectives all the time if you
have that, it's a gift. You can't teach it. You
just can't. People are either going to trust you and
want to talk to you or they don't. And both
of you have that. So when y'all get these folks,
I think it's brilliant the way you bring them in
(24:24):
and assist you in understanding the overall tell us about
issual Keys.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
From your point of view my philosophy, and I think
Drews as well, the best thing you can do is
a storyteller, is get out of the way, be the
connective tissue between the actual people in places that were involved.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
It makes perfect sense, it does.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
And honestly, you know, just from a practical standpoint, you
know interviewing these people. Interviewing is hard, right, and getting
people you know to feel comfortable is not easy. But
like it's all about people skills. D and I've had
this conversation of like it's really just you know, I
am a journalist as a journalist, and we're sitting down
and talk to an FBI agent. But like, at the
(25:02):
end of the day, we're just people, man, We're just
having a conversation. I also subscribe to Dan's point, which
is that you do get out of the way, like
you just lob it up there and you let them go, right,
and so yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
And you also have to meet them where they are
in a certain way because you know, while they're professionals,
talking to people like Israel Keys or for people who
knew them, knew him as a friend, like this is
a pretty intense part of their life, right, it probably
means something to them that we can't understand. So you know,
we can't go into talking with these to these folks
(25:35):
with an agenda we need to get this like we
need to show ourselves as the master interviewer. No, Like,
what we need to do is just give them the
space and conference to tell their story, their way, with
their truth, because their truth is the in their perspective,
is the only one that they can share. And that's
what that's what we want.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
No, I agree, you know, and I say all the time,
who cares what I think? Especially if I wasn't there.
I want to hear from those people too. So again,
the way that y'all provided for everybody listening, I think
is just the best way to truly understand and make
your own mind up.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
And that that's the thing, like making your mind up
is the entire Israel Keys sort of conundrum, right, Because
you know, I said earlier, the FBI thinks he did eleven.
But just because of the way his mo was right,
he could in the way that serial killers, you know,
mix the truth with falsehoods. It could be less, it
(26:31):
could be more, it could be eleven. He said, things
like you know, yeah, but Canadians don't count, right, Uh,
we know he had extensive travel in Canada, So I
mean there's all sorts of what ifs. Maybe could this
be true about him? His you know, death at his
own hand really cut off the primary flow of information.
And there's still kill kids out there, Cheryl. There's still
(26:53):
kill kids out there, and there's probably still victims out
there that you can say there might still there's probably
still bodies out there, definitely still out there if you
believe eleven, because they only know about.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Four, right, And you remember Bundy when Bundy was asked
the number and he said at a zero. But again,
what's true what's not true?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, Bundy loved Bundy.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Bundy did love Bundy well.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
And Israel Keys loved Israel Keys, And Jeffrey Dahmer loves
Jeffrey Dahmer and John WAYN. Gasey loves John Wayne Gasey.
It's a classic. Although what's interesting about Keys that is
different from those guys that we just mentioned is that
Keys was not really a glory hound, right, Like, he
was not seeking adulation and adoration and like you know,
(27:38):
like BTK got in trouble because he wrote the letter
to the news station again like he got tired of
not being paid attention to Israel Keys seemed to be
perfectly content.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I'm just doing this for me and Drew.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
That is so smart because if you look at BTK
and Zodiac and Son of Sam, they were so arrogant
they gave themselves nicknames. Here's my moniker, call me this.
Israel Keys was so far under the radar. He didn't
want you to know nothing about it.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
No, he said in interrogation tapes that he got a thrill,
he got adrenaline rushes. You know, part of what he did,
why he did what he did, in his words, is
that he was able to fool people. He loved people
not knowing who he actually was, being able to fool people, right,
being those two separate people like that was part of
the thing that drove him, and you know, gave him pleasure,
(28:30):
right just hiding it for people successfully.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
And he told investigators multiple times like he was like, look,
I know what you're gonna do. You're gonna go talk
to my army buddies. You're going to go talk to
my family, You're going to go talk to my coworkers.
But he was very clear, and he says it, and
we got it in the show. Is like, he's clear
about saying, you aren't going to find anybody. You can
go as far as you want into my past, but
you're not going to find anybody who's going to go. Yeah,
(28:57):
I knew that was him. He's like nobody, with the
exceptions of maybe the folks in his early teen years,
he thought he was a little bit creepy, but he
was like, I know you're going to ask everybody you
can find, but I'm telling you now, I'll say ive
you all the work. Nobody's going to tell you that
I am who I really am.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
And because he was so flawless with his execution, he
knew it. And you know, here's the thing. I've heard
a ton of people say that Coburger is a criminal
mastermind because of his master's degree and his PhD work,
and they believe that he's just killed all these people
all over the United States. But I've said, there ain't
(29:35):
no way that's true because he ain't good at it, right.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
He got caught in and is uh probably you know
I think that I think those were that was.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
His first crime the first time out me too well.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
And also and also no disrespect to people who have
multiple degrees. But having a PhD does not make you
a genius.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Preach Israel. He's had a ged and that's it.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
And not having a PhD doesn't mean you're not a genius.
It works both ways. But if you work and look
at how he accomplished this, if he is guilty that
using his own car, using his own cell phone, you know,
leaving the knife sheet behind, getting traffic tickets, being around
there eleven straight days before, I mean, that's horrible work
(30:19):
if you're a seasoned serial.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Killer, especially someone who studied serial killers right as Coburger
allegedly did it. Right, It's interesting you mentioned that Keys
also studied serial killers. He talks about that, right, he
talked about That's why.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
I'm bringing it up. But he truly studied Bundy. That's
the difference.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, Yeah, he studied Bundy. He studied his favorite. His
favorite killer was h. H. Holmes. He says he hated BTK.
That's an interesting serial killer on Serial Killer Drama. He
hated BTK because BTK showed remorse.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
He also said when they asked him about his favorite ones,
he said, my favorite favorites are the ones that haven't
been caught. And so yeah, he did have this reverence
for all these people that we that we know of
the John Wayne Gacies and Dammers. He didn't have reverence
for them at all. He actually there was like a
it was a disdain because it was like, oh, they're amateurs.
They got caught. But what I was going to say
is that, you know, we were talking about how he
(31:12):
is not He was not a glory hound. What is
evident though, is that when he gets in the interrogation
room with investigators, that is where he finds his glory.
And for hours throughout the entire process of being questioned
by Detective Jeff Bell, Agent Joelane godin the US Attorney's office,
(31:33):
it's a constant negotiation. It is a push and pull,
it's a tug of war, and there's oftentimes he's in control.
You can hear him completely seize control of the conversation.
And his bargaining chip was what was interesting too, because
what he was seeking was his own death. He wanted
the federal government to execute him, right, and he you know,
(31:54):
he couldn't understand why that was such a difficult request.
So he was, you know, kind of holding the information
hostage that he had to share until you know, the
federal government was able to commit to giving him an
execution date. But he doesn't understand. He wasn't savvy enough,
or maybe he did know.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
I don't know. We can never know that. That's it's
just not that easy. The you know, the Justice Department
can't just say, okay, we'll kill you in a year, right,
It's it's not that easy. Right, they're automatic appeals, you know,
Presidents and judges have to agree to that kind of stuff. Yeah,
clearly this is something he seemed to genuinely want. But
you could hear as the tapes progress over time, over
(32:35):
a period of months, that he is getting more frustrated
with the lack of movement there, and you know he
does shut down for a little bit. You know, it's
just so a lot of these tapes, it's not all
him admitting to horrible things. A lot of it is
just negotiation and you know, back and forth, back and
forth about how much media coverage he's getting or not
getting about an execution date, about what Vermont Wanter doesn't
(32:59):
want to you know, relation into one of the crimes
he did. It's a lot of that, right, But those
moments where he does sort of lock in and talk
about the things he actually does. You can almost hear
his voice change, right, detectives who are in the room,
you know, and you probably experienced this first hand, Cheryl say,
you know that when these folks start talking about the
things that they did, you can almost see their eyes change, right,
(33:22):
their physical change.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
They have tails, There's no doubt about it.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, you know, Keys was like so excited. You could
see him like rubbing the he you know, we were
told that he rubbed some of the wood off the chair, like,
well he was talking about this stuff.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Well, you know, I say it all the time, but
it's the biggest, most important thing they will ever do
in their life. This is it. Nobody's going to ask
him about construction work, nobody's going to ask him about
his childhood, nobody's going to ask him about his education.
This is all they care about with him, and that's
really all he cares about. Nobody is a part time
serial killer. This is what he did twenty four to seven.
(33:58):
It's what he thought about, it's what he prepared for,
it's what he practiced, it's what he educated him. Cell phone,
this was it, This was everything.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Last time we talked to Cheryl, I remember you talking
about your approach to assessing a crime scene and assessing cases.
And forgive me if i'm is it the three sixty
vour text? Is that what it's called?
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Yeah? Three sixty one, Yeah, three sixty.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
One vourtext part of me. I remember you talking about
that and how you did that, and that was in
my head as we started diving in on this stuff.
And you know, I sort of used a you know,
bastardized version I suppose of that of of what you did. So,
but I just try to look at all these things,
and you know, the paperwork in the in the and
the documents, and you know, the tapes of this person
(34:41):
and that person this person, just kind of look at
it from all sorts of different angles, look at it
from every direction, right And I still can't say right
now because we're still making the show. You know, we're
making an episode by episode whether or not we're going
to come to any conclusions about Israel. Keys definitely did
this that that that you know, FBI hasn't confirmed. I
think we have some lean but you know, we're still
working on that process. We're at the very beginning of
(35:04):
our journey here and we've read our first two episodes
are out now or for third episode is about to release,
and you can get it. You can listen to it
anywhere you get podcasts, anywhere you get podcasts. So you know,
please check it out. If you like it, give us
a follow or subscribe and leave a rating and review.
That really helps to you know, interact with us too.
(35:25):
We're pretty active on social on Instagram and on TikTok.
We are at deviant dot podcast and come talk to us.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
You know. I have four sisters and there was one
summer we were all at the pool and my mom
was a lifelong educator, and we all had like different
magazines like I guess my sisters had teen or whatever,
and I was reading a comic book and one of
the other moms there was like, I can't believe you,
as a teacher would let her read a comic book,
(35:58):
like I should be reading more and page or something.
And my mom was like, reading is reading, and if
she's excited about it, that's the point. Well. I always
have subscribed to Training is Training. So again, if we
have a rookie officer or a young detective hearing this
show and they go wait a minute, I got to
(36:18):
click over to Deviant real quick. I want to hear
these tapes. Training is training is training. So I appreciate
y'all given this in a way that people could get
to it and absorb it and hopefully understand what am
I looking for and if I do have this person
that's the killer, should I look at bank robbers? Should
(36:39):
I look at burglaries? Should I look at rapes?
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Yes, because nobody starts, nobody debuts as a murderer necessarily.
I mean, it's always an escalation, right. And one of
the things I wanted to mention is that the other
thing that is fascinating about these tapes is not just keys,
but what you hear is you know, I think we
even at beginning about you, Cheryl, so you've seen everything, right,
(37:02):
Police officers, detectives there was like we've seen everything. They
haven't seen everything, and what they saw in Keys was
something they had never seen before. And Joline Goden, the
FBI agent who we talked to, she talked about, you know,
there's a point when they were all sitting in that
room and they were like, this is way more than
a man who abducted a girl from a coffee shop
(37:24):
and killed her. This is an unprecedented, without question, unique
scenario that none of us will ever see again. And
there was a realization point for all of them of
seeing clearly that the Samantha Conic abduction was literally the
tip of the iceberg and everything else underneath the water.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
It just kept going. And from a training and investigative standpoint, Cheryl,
it's interesting to watch those tapes because you know, there
are playbooks for interrogation rooms, there are playbooks for certain
types of suspects, right, and they have to kind of
make it up as they went, as they learn more
about him, because a lot of the normal stuff didn't
apply to him, and you know, investigators who are in
(38:09):
the room with him, there's a live audio feed to
people you know in the next room and out to
the bau at Quantico, right. You know, everyone's trying to
figure out how to crack this guy. And Keys knew
it too, So he was playing the game. He was
playing a game with them, and you know, the investigators
we talked to will use that term as well. It
was a game that he was playing and at a
(38:29):
certain point they will say like they lost control unintentionally, right,
And it is a struggle to seize it back, and
some are unconvinced that they ever did. Listening to those tapes,
understanding how he operated just from an interrogagent perspective, you know,
you could see disagreements and it's great improvisational police work. Right.
(38:51):
They did get a lot out of him. They didn't
get everything, but they did get a lot. If I
mean investigators are listening to this. If you look at Keys,
you know he was also a person patterns, right. You know,
he killed the way he killed, and he planned his
crimes the way he planned his crimes. But after he
committed murder, he had a pattern of sort of losing
control and going wild a little bit, right. You know,
(39:13):
it is easy to correlate a murder with all of
a sudden a bank robbery and then a narson right afterwards. Right,
Like he had to It was almost like a doom
quake in a way. Right, it was something he had
to just let out and kept coming after the murder. Right,
he had to keep doing these things until he ran
out of gas. There are patterns that extend beyond murder.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Do either one of you just have a final word?
Anything you want to be sure you said.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Sure, yeah, I mean just to talk a little bit
more about the show and what we're going for as
you listen. So our first seven episodes are dedicated to
Israel Keys and sort of trying to figure out how
far he went, and the concept of deviant is we
only want to tell a story for as long as
it is good. And you know, a lot of times
in the podcast industry, the business of it is such
(39:59):
that you know you're expected to do eight to ten
episodes for your season, and then you go off and
you spend a year and you do your next story,
and you come back then and hopefully you come back
and you do another season on another story. And then
there's the other side of sort of the true crime
and podcast genre, where it's you know, two people cracking
Mike and talking, which is much easier to sustain in
(40:20):
the long term. Nothing wrong with it, just different. We're
trying to combine the two. So for our first seven episodes,
we're talking about Israel Keys, and then when we're done
with that, maybe it'll go eight, depends how our Chase
goes or die. I hope it doesn't go die, but
we're going to move on to another story, and that
we'll tell that story over how many episodes it's good
for it.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
Yeah, And I think that two things Dan and I
are you know, we mentioned at the top, we're approaching
this thing with a journalistic prism. That's what we do,
that's what we know. So that's the way we're going
about this. It's not we're going to We're not going
to be in the ramp and speculation game about things.
The second thing I wanted to mention is that we've
talked a ton about Israel Keys and rightfully so. But
(41:00):
I think it's imperative that we remind people that Bill
and the Rain Courier were victims of his and they
were a married couple that lived in Essex, Vermont. Bill
was a vettech, the rain worked in the financial services industry.
And his other victim that the other victims we know
were Samantha Koenig, who is a young team an eighteen
year old girl in Anchorage, Alaska, had her whole life
(41:21):
in front of her, wanted to work with animals, loved animals,
wanted to go into the Navy. And then his other
victim that we know is Deborah Feldman, who was a
woman in New York, New Jersey area, and so I
just want I just we talk a lot about Israel Keys,
but I want to be clear that there are victims
here that need to be mentioned.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
To the FBI tells us, and we say this at
the top of the show too. Even though he's been
dead for twelve years now, this is still an active
and ongoing investigation. The FBI wants tips if this is
ringing a bell for anyone, if anything that they hear says,
oh yeah, this reminds me of this or that or
the other, like I think when it comes to Israel Keys,
no tip is too small, right, They're looking. The FBI
(42:00):
still wants to find his victims, y'all.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
I'm going to end Zone seven the way that I
always do with a quote. Some people are wired for good,
some people are wired for bad, and some people are
wired to be Deviant the Deviant Podcast. I'm Cheryl McCollum,
and this is Zone seven.
Y'all, there's a new true crime series. They dive into
the dark corners of what human beings are capable of.
And I'm quoting straight off their website, good stories about
bad people who do very bad things. Now, I'm going
to tell you, in my business, I see a lot
(00:31):
of what bad decisions, bad relationships, bad car wrecks, bad people,
bad drugs. Everything that is bad, I see it, and
I can tell you there is a difference between bad
and devent. The name of this new podcast is Devent
(00:53):
and that ought to tell you right there that the
two hosts that have over sixty years experience in journal, TV,
radio podcasting. Y'all, they're going to bring you some stories. Y'all.
Just ain't ready, That's all I can tell you. Honey,
y'all just got to listen, and you know, turn the
lights out, get your blanket, and be afraid because it's coming. So.
(01:17):
I have known Drew for over twenty years. When we
first met, he was working with Nancy Grace And let
me tell you a story. You know, you don't always
trust everybody around your children, But there was occasion that
I would be on the show and I did not
have a babysitter. My husband wasn't home, my sisters weren't available,
(01:40):
and I would have to take hunting Caroline with me.
When they were really small, drew with babysit for that hour.
He would entertain them in the green room. They would
play soccer with a Pham coffee cup. He told them
to play that football game where you fold the thing
in paper and a train and flick it. They just
(02:02):
adored hanging out with him. He was always so kind
and so sweet to them, and always a professional because
let me tell you, he's been a writer, a producer,
a journalist over twenty years at CNN and h O N.
He is a veteran of the true crime space. He
is an award winning podcaster. He is part of the
(02:24):
podcast Down the Hill with our friend Barbara McDonald and
y'all know how stellar that was. Also, he has been
part of My Zone seven for twenty years, so I
cannot wait to welcome him along with his buddy and
co host Dan. Let me tell you about Dan. He
(02:44):
has spent his entire career in audio production. He's been
a producer, he's been an editor. He also has been
with CNN, American Public Media and MPR, or should I
say and MPR. Most recently, he was the head of
(03:04):
audio for Warner Brothers Discovery. I mean, y'all, they know
what they're doing. They know how to put these stories together.
They are visual people, but they bring it to the
audio version and they paint a picture for you. It
is just stellar. Dan and Drew. I cannot thank you
enough for being here with me on Zone seven.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Well, Cheryl, it's good to be here.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
We're gonna with that, We're gonna exit.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Hey, I left a lot of stuff out because I'm
gonna tell you we have a lot of friends in common.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
We do.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
We do.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Barbara McDonald, who I've already mentioned, Susan Hendrix who everybody loves, Indoors,
Nancy Grace. So again, y'all have worked with a lot
of people. So if the reputation wasn't exactly what I said,
we'd know it by now.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
We still have time to ruin it.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, absolutely, just wait, there's always time, Dan.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, thanks so much for having us. We really appreciate
your time. And when you told me how old Huck
and Caroline are now and about made me keel over.
I'm glad. I'm glad to hear that they're doing well. So, yeah,
thank you so much for having us. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I want to tell you y'all are doing this thing right,
because I always preach there's nothing like going to a scene.
You've got to walk it, you've got to absorb it
to truly understand it. But when you get the people
that are from that place, from that town, from that city,
from that street, that's when you really get to the
heart of the matter. And that is something y'all do
(04:37):
on Deviant that is just extraordinary. So tell us a
little bit, and I'll just start with you, Drew. How
y'all came to this podcast, this way of doing it
and getting to the people.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah, well, I mean I think when Dan and I.
Dan and I have obviously, as you said at the top,
we worked on Down the Hill together and he and
I had been talking about doing a show, another show
of some kind for a long time, and frankly, I
had been, you know, towards the end of my time
at HLN, I had been reading and listening to the
Israel Keys Case a lot, and just kind of I
(05:11):
was really fascinated with it because the interesting thing about
it is that you don't often get the volume of
sound from someone who has done the things he's done.
And I thought, there's got to be something we can
do with this, and it's tailor made for a podcast, right.
So Dan and I'd been talking about a show and
doing some stuff, and I finally said, look, there's this
(05:32):
interesting case of this guy who you know, I have
heard of just because I've been in the true crime
space for so long. But I don't know if most
people know who this guy is, and b I don't
know that they know that readily available is the ability
to hear all of the things he is saying about
what he's.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Done, like fifteen hours worth, right.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
And so I think what we determined was what better
way to build a new show than around this this content.
And I want to be clear, like Dan and I
from the jump, this is not an attempt to like
grandstand or glorify or give someone a platform that doesn't
deserve it. I think what we wanted to do really
(06:15):
was we wanted to take these tapes in this sound
from this guy and try to use it as an
opportunity to learn about people who operate this way, right,
And because I think that one of the important things
is like, you know, just listening to it for listening's
sake is not really doing anything. We wanted there to
be value, and I think there's value in hearing what
someone like this thinks, does, says and trying to apply
(06:38):
that to the larger world and the people that operate
this way, because unfortunately there are more people like Israel Keys.
We just don't know about them, right, So that was
kind of our goal. I think Dan might have some
more to add, but that's that's the way we kind
of approached it.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, there are a couple things about Israel Keys that
intrigued me once once Drew started talking to me about him.
There was all the wrong material, Like there was just
hours and hours and hours of tape of him in
the interrogation room after he was captured, right, So we
had that to sort of work off. But the overarching
story of him is also fascinating too because it's a
(07:14):
continuing and ongoing mystery. He was an active serial killer
from about two thousand and one until twenty and twelve
is what the FBI believes. He was captured in twenty twelve,
and he actually killed himself in prison after about eight
or nine months in custody, so we didn't get his
full sort of body of work, if you will. We
(07:36):
know about some of his crimes at the very beginning
of his life, and we know about some of his
crimes at the very end of his life. He's admitted
to three of those murders. But it's this big in between,
the sort of decade in between, which we sort of
call our trail of maybes, that we're trying to make
sense of. And that's sort of the big question we're
asking in the show is just how far did Israel
(07:56):
Keys go? You know, how many people did he actually
how many people did he actually victimize? And to do that,
you know, we listened to the tapes, We dove through
all the FBI documents and police documents we got a
hold of. That's about four thousand documents there, and we
talked to the people who actually knew him, and the
police who captured him, and the police who interrogated him,
(08:17):
and for FBI profilers, you know, we just really want
to understand this person to try to answer that question,
to chase the truth about how far did he actually go?
The FBI thinks he killed eleven and they think that
because a few months before his suicide, they during a
jail cell check, they uncovered eleven skulls, a drawing of
(08:38):
eleven skulls, you know, drawn in his own blood, with
the phrase we are one, also drawn in his blood.
So that's why they think it was eleven. Because his
mo was so unique and meticulous, unprecedented.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yes, agreed, next level, And you know, I want to
mention or piggyback I guess on something that Drew was
talking about. I think it's equally as important that we
talk about the entire scope of this person because he
is next level. There was nobody like him. He did
study other criminals. And you know we've already mentioned my children,
(09:15):
but you know, when they were tiny, I never told
them there was no such thing as monsters because I
knew better. There absolutely are.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yeah, and I mean that's the only word to really
use to that qualifies for him.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I want young detectives to listen to his own seven.
I want police officers that are rookies to listen to
his own seven because they may think they know Israel Keys,
but they may not realize he was also a bank
robber and a narsonist and a burglar. So again, you
may go man, I want to be on homicide. I
don't want to work burglary squad. Don't sleep on book
(09:50):
the burglar, honey, because that might be your serial killer.
That could be your serial rapist.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
When he was captured, they had no idea what they
had on their hand, right, they were trying to track
down a kidnapping and you know, he had taken a
girl named Samantha Konig from Anchorage, Alaska, and he was
captured via a kidnapping investigation and manhunt. There was a
suspicion that, you know, she may be deceased, but they
(10:17):
didn't know that there was hope that she would be
captured alive. And they had no idea that he was
a serial killer, nun. He flew totally under the radar,
you know, and that's because his mo again was so meticulous.
He would bury kill kids and random locations across the country,
you know, and then just leave them there and come
back a couple of years later dig him up. And
he had no victimology whatsoever, So he would just kill
(10:39):
was seemingly random people that he would come across.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
He was terrifying, and Dan, that's something that is terrifying
because you're talking about somebody that has the self control
to wait two years.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, that's not something you've seen in serial sexual offenders
very often.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Right, that's right, Cheryl.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
You mentioned control, which is a very very important part
of this conversation about Israel Keys, because he was you know,
we say meticulous, like he was almost neurotic about his planning.
He was, you know, ocd to the core about making
sure he didn't do things where he lived, making sure
that he didn't bury kill kids near where he lived,
(11:14):
making sure that he covered his tracks. I mean when
you look at his travel, I mean it's efficient is
not the word. He would fly to you know, fly
to Chicago, drive to New England, commit a murder, drive
back to Chicago, fly back to Alaska. I mean everything
about him was control, right, But what tripped him up
in the end, the reason he and the metaphor we
(11:37):
use in the podcast is the reason he was a
shark under the water for so long is because he
did it that way. But what prompted him to come
to the surface was he finally lost control. And what
he did is he used a debit card, and he
used it a few too many times, and he was
also and he says in these conversations that he was
at a point in his string of crimes where he
(12:00):
was getting a little bit irrational. He was getting a
little bit I guess sloppy for lack of a better term,
and he lost control and he used Samantha Koenigg's debit card,
and he used it all throughout Texas and the Southwest.
And that's why the FBI was able to catch it
because for so long this guy who was such a
control freak and so you know, detail oriented, completely lost Great.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Now, Dan, let me ask you something. In all of
y'all's research, did you see anything in his background when
he was younger, anything that you flagged is oh, this
started this whole path to be in a killer.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
That's a great question. There's the classic debate about these
sorts of offenders. You know, are they born or are
they made right? And the answer for Israel Keys, you know,
could be yes both. Because he had a very unusual upbringing.
He was one of nine children and his parents were
(13:04):
it's the best way to put this, It was sort
of cult hop right from the late seventies. Israel Kis
was born in early seventy eight nineteen seventy eight and
his parents were originally associated with Mormonism, and eventually they
joined a sect of Mormonism that was too extreme for
even Mormons, and.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
They were even in the Amish community at one point
too right, and sort of where they landed.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
They landed in Colville, Washington, in Washington State, which is
sort of the north central right north near the Canadian border,
part of Washington State. And he spent a long time
there as a child, and it was there that his
parents and his family's hooked up with this Christian identity movement. Now,
if you're not familiar with Christian identity, that's you know,
(13:49):
it's rooted in white supremacy and anti semitism and anti government. Right,
we're talking about the Timothy McVay types. And that's sort
of the environment in which he grew up and talked
to people who knew him during that time and who
were also part of the community, and he was extreme
even for them from an early age. Right. You know,
they would they would get together and you know, for
(14:11):
social events, you know, and you know he would come
out and just say these you know, we're talking about
the twelve thirteen, fourteen years old. He would come out
and talk about, you know, just horrible things. You know,
there's a story where he this is always a difficult
one for me to handle, I'm bed with animal abuse,
but there's a story where he tells, you know, a
(14:32):
story about where he did horrible things to a cat
in front of an audience and of kids that were
around thirteen fourteen years old with him, and you know,
the kids were throwing up, and that was a lesson
for him that he was unusual, he was not normal.
That he needs to start hiding his behaviors. He needs
to start being careful about talking about you know, burgling
(14:53):
and burning things down and telling people about it or
telling people about it or trying to get them to
participate with him. Right, So he knew he was different
from an early age. Now, it should be noted that
with all that background, he did have eight siblings, none
of them are serial killers. Right, So was he born broken?
Was he born a monster? Or was he made into one?
(15:14):
I'm guessing this is just me. I'm guessing that you know,
that environment, if you're inclined to become that sort of person,
that's the kind of environment that could grow that seed
if you will.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
He also those early years, like he didn't go to school.
He was homeschool and you know, he was not around
I presume there was not a lot of socialization, right, Like,
there was not a lot of like hanging out with
a big group of kids and like learning the social
skills that come with going to school. He was a loner.
The family didn't have electricity. At one point they found
(15:48):
guns of his and as a result, he actually moved
into his own kind of cabin on the family property.
So everything about his upbringing and adolescence and youth is
very much rooted in kind of an isolationist ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
You know, it's interesting when you listen to the interrogation tapes,
there is never you know, if he is to be believed,
and that's always a big question with these you know,
serial killers lie, right, that's just part of their makeup,
so they're crafting their own narrative. But if he is
to be a belief when he's talking about his own childhood,
you hear no regret. No, I knew something was wrong
(16:24):
with me, I knew I had to change. I felt
guilty about feeling this. There was none of that. There
was just a pure recognition and embrace like I'm different,
this is who I am, and you know what, I'm
okay with that. I just have to hide it because
no one else feels like that. But this is who
I am, and let's go.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
One of the other interesting things that we kind of
delved into, Cheryl is that from the people we spoke with,
his father, from all indications, was a pretty domineering force
in the house and was and I think from what
we've learned is there was some contention between Israel and
his father. And you know, whether that was rooted in
(17:02):
whatever they were doing spiritually and religiously, I'm not sure.
But there was something that jumped out of me in
some of the tapes that we were listening to when
Keys was talking about his youth and he was talking
about Arson specifically, and one of the things he wanted
to do early on was he wanted to set fire
to a church. And Dan and I were listening to that,
and the first time we listened to it, it kind
(17:23):
of went right past us. But upon second listen, I
said to Dan, I was like, wait a second, I
think that might be some sort of projection of like
his disdain for religion, his disdain for that entire part
of his life and I think that all is baked
into who he was and who he became. And he
even alludes to a period of his life where he
(17:45):
dabbled in Satanism.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yeah, he branded himself with a pentagram and an upside
down cross. You know, he did that stuff too.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
So religion was actually, even though he wasn't involved in
it towards the later part of his life, that had
a huge bearing impact, some sort of influence on him
from an early age.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
So I'm basically hearing no red flags at.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
All, right exactly if that's another thing like where he
grew up, there was no one to raise red flags.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Right, No, of course, But I mean saying bouncing around.
You know, I got a buddy, Betsy Ramsey, that has
what she calls the too theory. When somebody is too religious,
too mean, too crazy, too rich, too arrogant, you know,
too mean, whatever it is, you know, you focus on
that to look for the other obvious flags. So here
(18:37):
you have a child that bounces around, has no real friends.
I'm not talking about siblings. I'm talking about, like Drew
was talking about, being social with people. The religious aspect
is clearly something that is too, that's over the top. Right,
most people don't have to go from being hey, we're
going to be Mormon today and now we're going to
(18:59):
be a Quaker and we're going to be Methodists. I
mean that's a pretty good jump, right, So the family
was jumping for some reason. And if the dad is,
you know, too authoritative. There's animal cruelty obvious. And this
always strikes me when somebody says, well, I didn't know
it was wrong. So you're going to take a live
animal and harm that animal in front of other people
(19:23):
when you've never seen that, You've never seen another child
do that, no matter what church you've ever been in,
no matter what organization y'all been in, but you do it,
and then you're shocked at their reaction. There's a lot
of flags here that I think even the family had
to know about.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, in some ways, you know, there are many ways
in which he is different and unique as a serial killer,
but there are some ways there were some similarities too.
Right out of the few of her crossed paths with
Mary Ellen O'Toole, formerly the FBIBA Behavior Analysis Unit, she
talked to us about Key and you know, we sort
of catalogue some of the things these behaviors as you know,
(20:05):
when he was a kid, and very classic in some ways, right,
he has harmed animals, He loved to burn things down,
He was breaking into houses. His first major crime was
a sexual assault, and you know, you could see that
pattern of vescalation, right. And he talks about and this
is one of the things, you know, we're really trying
to get our hands around, and I don't think we
(20:27):
have it. We're still working on it. Is. He talks
about how when he joined the army in nineteen ninety
eight or so, so he would have been you know, twenty,
that was sort of the period of his life where
he learned to embrace who he was, right, you know,
he went from acceptance to okay, now I know who
I am. This is where I'm going to start planning
how to do things right. We don't know if he
(20:48):
committed any murders or major crimes in the army. We've
heard whispers, we've heard rumblings, we've tracked his movements, but
there's been nothing, just like the FBI. And if the
FBI can't do it, it's tough for out to do it,
you know, tie any one particular thing to him. But
this is the period when he came out of the army.
That's when people started disappearing.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
You know. And that's interesting because what in Timothy McVeigh
in the military too, he.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Was and he was also very much involved in groups
that were fringe on the outside of you know, government
and religion and all of that stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Well, I mean, he's not the only killer obviously that
joined the Armed Services. So did BTK, so did Leonvey Oswald.
That's a whole that's a whole other thing that while
they would be attracted to that entity. But you know, again,
what Timothy McVeigh keeps coming up, and y'all touched on
the fact that Israel had this group that was anti government,
(21:45):
you know, hated everybody. But I don't know if y'all
come across this in your research, but McVeigh joined the
clan and they basically threw him out because they're like, hey, dude,
you're a little out of bounds.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
For us for the Klan. Wow, it's a little much.
It's a little much for us.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah, yeah, I mean what kind of calling card is that? Dan?
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Right?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
And it should be noted the people we talked to
that New Keys when they were in this community, they
are no longer a part of that community. They have
since disavowed all those beliefs. They've since completely left that
organization and are very vocal about you know, what that
group preaches and does to people. What I just wanted
to say is that coming up in that group, he
(22:28):
actually you mentioned Cheryl that he didn't have any friends.
One of his friends was a guy by the name
of Chevy Keyho who has been convicted for killing an
entire family in Arkansas in the name of white supremacy.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
They ran around the woods together, Chevy brother in Israel Keys.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Yeah, Chevy So chevy Key, Oh, for those that don't know,
is a pretty well known white supremacist, anti government convicted Murty. Yeah,
he's kind of in that McVeigh mold. And so he
was friends with Israel Keys and they ran around the
woods together, and so you know, you got to wonder
what kind of influence did that have on him. So
it was it was really this oxix swirl of all
(23:02):
of these things on top of like Dan said, you know,
are you are you born this way or you built
this way? If he was born this way, this toxic
swirl on top of that was just the perfect storm,
right right.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
And you know, I want to clarify when I said
he didn't have any friends, I meant like going to school,
playing Little League, joining boy Scouts. I meant that kind
of thing, like you know the kids down the street,
y'all grow up together, regular socialization. Right, Yeah, he had
zero with that. But again for him to hook up
with that person you want to talk about, that just
had to make the devil so happy. One thing that
(23:40):
y'all do on Deviant that I think is so brilliant,
Like you already mentioned talking to Agent O'Toole, but y'all
have also talked with Detective Jeff bell An FBI agent
Jolene Godin. And again I know both of you and
y'all have the natural ability to not just talk to people,
(24:01):
but get people to talk to you. And I tell
young officers and young detectives all the time if you
have that, it's a gift. You can't teach it. You
just can't. People are either going to trust you and
want to talk to you or they don't. And both
of you have that. So when y'all get these folks,
I think it's brilliant the way you bring them in
(24:24):
and assist you in understanding the overall tell us about
issual Keys.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
From your point of view my philosophy, and I think
Drews as well, the best thing you can do is
a storyteller, is get out of the way, be the
connective tissue between the actual people in places that were involved.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
It makes perfect sense, it does.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
And honestly, you know, just from a practical standpoint, you
know interviewing these people. Interviewing is hard, right, and getting
people you know to feel comfortable is not easy. But
like it's all about people skills. D and I've had
this conversation of like it's really just you know, I
am a journalist as a journalist, and we're sitting down
and talk to an FBI agent. But like, at the
(25:02):
end of the day, we're just people, man, We're just
having a conversation. I also subscribe to Dan's point, which
is that you do get out of the way, like
you just lob it up there and you let them go, right,
and so yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
And you also have to meet them where they are
in a certain way because you know, while they're professionals,
talking to people like Israel Keys or for people who
knew them, knew him as a friend, like this is
a pretty intense part of their life, right, it probably
means something to them that we can't understand. So you know,
we can't go into talking with these to these folks
(25:35):
with an agenda we need to get this like we
need to show ourselves as the master interviewer. No, Like,
what we need to do is just give them the
space and conference to tell their story, their way, with
their truth, because their truth is the in their perspective,
is the only one that they can share. And that's
what that's what we want.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
No, I agree, you know, and I say all the time,
who cares what I think? Especially if I wasn't there.
I want to hear from those people too. So again,
the way that y'all provided for everybody listening, I think
is just the best way to truly understand and make
your own mind up.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
And that that's the thing, like making your mind up
is the entire Israel Keys sort of conundrum, right, Because
you know, I said earlier, the FBI thinks he did eleven.
But just because of the way his mo was right,
he could in the way that serial killers, you know,
mix the truth with falsehoods. It could be less, it
(26:31):
could be more, it could be eleven. He said, things
like you know, yeah, but Canadians don't count, right, Uh,
we know he had extensive travel in Canada, So I
mean there's all sorts of what ifs. Maybe could this
be true about him? His you know, death at his
own hand really cut off the primary flow of information.
And there's still kill kids out there, Cheryl. There's still
(26:53):
kill kids out there, and there's probably still victims out
there that you can say there might still there's probably
still bodies out there, definitely still out there if you
believe eleven, because they only know about.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Four, right, And you remember Bundy when Bundy was asked
the number and he said at a zero. But again,
what's true what's not true?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, Bundy loved Bundy.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Bundy did love Bundy well.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
And Israel Keys loved Israel Keys, And Jeffrey Dahmer loves
Jeffrey Dahmer and John WAYN. Gasey loves John Wayne Gasey.
It's a classic. Although what's interesting about Keys that is
different from those guys that we just mentioned is that
Keys was not really a glory hound, right, Like, he
was not seeking adulation and adoration and like you know,
(27:38):
like BTK got in trouble because he wrote the letter
to the news station again like he got tired of
not being paid attention to Israel Keys seemed to be
perfectly content.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I'm just doing this for me and Drew.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
That is so smart because if you look at BTK
and Zodiac and Son of Sam, they were so arrogant
they gave themselves nicknames. Here's my moniker, call me this.
Israel Keys was so far under the radar. He didn't
want you to know nothing about it.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
No, he said in interrogation tapes that he got a thrill,
he got adrenaline rushes. You know, part of what he did,
why he did what he did, in his words, is
that he was able to fool people. He loved people
not knowing who he actually was, being able to fool people, right,
being those two separate people like that was part of
the thing that drove him, and you know, gave him pleasure,
(28:30):
right just hiding it for people successfully.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
And he told investigators multiple times like he was like, look,
I know what you're gonna do. You're gonna go talk
to my army buddies. You're going to go talk to
my family, You're going to go talk to my coworkers.
But he was very clear, and he says it, and
we got it in the show. Is like, he's clear
about saying, you aren't going to find anybody. You can
go as far as you want into my past, but
you're not going to find anybody who's going to go. Yeah,
(28:57):
I knew that was him. He's like nobody, with the
exceptions of maybe the folks in his early teen years,
he thought he was a little bit creepy, but he
was like, I know you're going to ask everybody you
can find, but I'm telling you now, I'll say ive
you all the work. Nobody's going to tell you that
I am who I really am.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
And because he was so flawless with his execution, he
knew it. And you know, here's the thing. I've heard
a ton of people say that Coburger is a criminal
mastermind because of his master's degree and his PhD work,
and they believe that he's just killed all these people
all over the United States. But I've said, there ain't
(29:35):
no way that's true because he ain't good at it, right.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
He got caught in and is uh probably you know
I think that I think those were that was.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
His first crime the first time out me too well.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
And also and also no disrespect to people who have
multiple degrees. But having a PhD does not make you
a genius.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Preach Israel. He's had a ged and that's it.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
And not having a PhD doesn't mean you're not a genius.
It works both ways. But if you work and look
at how he accomplished this, if he is guilty that
using his own car, using his own cell phone, you know,
leaving the knife sheet behind, getting traffic tickets, being around
there eleven straight days before, I mean, that's horrible work
(30:19):
if you're a seasoned serial.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Killer, especially someone who studied serial killers right as Coburger
allegedly did it. Right, It's interesting you mentioned that Keys
also studied serial killers. He talks about that, right, he
talked about That's why.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
I'm bringing it up. But he truly studied Bundy. That's
the difference.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, Yeah, he studied Bundy. He studied his favorite. His
favorite killer was h. H. Holmes. He says he hated BTK.
That's an interesting serial killer on Serial Killer Drama. He
hated BTK because BTK showed remorse.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
He also said when they asked him about his favorite ones,
he said, my favorite favorites are the ones that haven't
been caught. And so yeah, he did have this reverence
for all these people that we that we know of
the John Wayne Gacies and Dammers. He didn't have reverence
for them at all. He actually there was like a
it was a disdain because it was like, oh, they're amateurs.
They got caught. But what I was going to say
is that, you know, we were talking about how he
(31:12):
is not He was not a glory hound. What is
evident though, is that when he gets in the interrogation
room with investigators, that is where he finds his glory.
And for hours throughout the entire process of being questioned
by Detective Jeff Bell, Agent Joelane godin the US Attorney's office,
(31:33):
it's a constant negotiation. It is a push and pull,
it's a tug of war, and there's oftentimes he's in control.
You can hear him completely seize control of the conversation.
And his bargaining chip was what was interesting too, because
what he was seeking was his own death. He wanted
the federal government to execute him, right, and he you know,
(31:54):
he couldn't understand why that was such a difficult request.
So he was, you know, kind of holding the information
hostage that he had to share until you know, the
federal government was able to commit to giving him an
execution date. But he doesn't understand. He wasn't savvy enough,
or maybe he did know.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
I don't know. We can never know that. That's it's
just not that easy. The you know, the Justice Department
can't just say, okay, we'll kill you in a year, right,
It's it's not that easy. Right, they're automatic appeals, you know,
Presidents and judges have to agree to that kind of stuff. Yeah,
clearly this is something he seemed to genuinely want. But
you could hear as the tapes progress over time, over
(32:35):
a period of months, that he is getting more frustrated
with the lack of movement there, and you know he
does shut down for a little bit. You know, it's
just so a lot of these tapes, it's not all
him admitting to horrible things. A lot of it is
just negotiation and you know, back and forth, back and
forth about how much media coverage he's getting or not
getting about an execution date, about what Vermont Wanter doesn't
(32:59):
want to you know, relation into one of the crimes
he did. It's a lot of that, right, But those
moments where he does sort of lock in and talk
about the things he actually does. You can almost hear
his voice change, right, detectives who are in the room,
you know, and you probably experienced this first hand, Cheryl say,
you know that when these folks start talking about the
things that they did, you can almost see their eyes change, right,
(33:22):
their physical change.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
They have tails, There's no doubt about it.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, you know, Keys was like so excited. You could
see him like rubbing the he you know, we were
told that he rubbed some of the wood off the chair, like,
well he was talking about this stuff.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Well, you know, I say it all the time, but
it's the biggest, most important thing they will ever do
in their life. This is it. Nobody's going to ask
him about construction work, nobody's going to ask him about
his childhood, nobody's going to ask him about his education.
This is all they care about with him, and that's
really all he cares about. Nobody is a part time
serial killer. This is what he did twenty four to seven.
(33:58):
It's what he thought about, it's what he prepared for,
it's what he practiced, it's what he educated him. Cell phone,
this was it, This was everything.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Last time we talked to Cheryl, I remember you talking
about your approach to assessing a crime scene and assessing cases.
And forgive me if i'm is it the three sixty
vour text? Is that what it's called?
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Yeah? Three sixty one, Yeah, three sixty.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
One vourtext part of me. I remember you talking about
that and how you did that, and that was in
my head as we started diving in on this stuff.
And you know, I sort of used a you know,
bastardized version I suppose of that of of what you did. So,
but I just try to look at all these things,
and you know, the paperwork in the in the and
the documents, and you know, the tapes of this person
(34:41):
and that person this person, just kind of look at
it from all sorts of different angles, look at it
from every direction, right And I still can't say right
now because we're still making the show. You know, we're
making an episode by episode whether or not we're going
to come to any conclusions about Israel. Keys definitely did
this that that that you know, FBI hasn't confirmed. I
think we have some lean but you know, we're still
working on that process. We're at the very beginning of
(35:04):
our journey here and we've read our first two episodes
are out now or for third episode is about to release,
and you can get it. You can listen to it
anywhere you get podcasts, anywhere you get podcasts. So you know,
please check it out. If you like it, give us
a follow or subscribe and leave a rating and review.
That really helps to you know, interact with us too.
(35:25):
We're pretty active on social on Instagram and on TikTok.
We are at deviant dot podcast and come talk to us.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
You know. I have four sisters and there was one
summer we were all at the pool and my mom
was a lifelong educator, and we all had like different
magazines like I guess my sisters had teen or whatever,
and I was reading a comic book and one of
the other moms there was like, I can't believe you,
as a teacher would let her read a comic book,
(35:58):
like I should be reading more and page or something.
And my mom was like, reading is reading, and if
she's excited about it, that's the point. Well. I always
have subscribed to Training is Training. So again, if we
have a rookie officer or a young detective hearing this
show and they go wait a minute, I got to
(36:18):
click over to Deviant real quick. I want to hear
these tapes. Training is training is training. So I appreciate
y'all given this in a way that people could get
to it and absorb it and hopefully understand what am
I looking for and if I do have this person
that's the killer, should I look at bank robbers? Should
(36:39):
I look at burglaries? Should I look at rapes?
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Yes, because nobody starts, nobody debuts as a murderer necessarily.
I mean, it's always an escalation, right. And one of
the things I wanted to mention is that the other
thing that is fascinating about these tapes is not just keys,
but what you hear is you know, I think we
even at beginning about you, Cheryl, so you've seen everything, right,
(37:02):
Police officers, detectives there was like we've seen everything. They
haven't seen everything, and what they saw in Keys was
something they had never seen before. And Joline Goden, the
FBI agent who we talked to, she talked about, you know,
there's a point when they were all sitting in that
room and they were like, this is way more than
a man who abducted a girl from a coffee shop
(37:24):
and killed her. This is an unprecedented, without question, unique
scenario that none of us will ever see again. And
there was a realization point for all of them of
seeing clearly that the Samantha Conic abduction was literally the
tip of the iceberg and everything else underneath the water.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
It just kept going. And from a training and investigative standpoint, Cheryl,
it's interesting to watch those tapes because you know, there
are playbooks for interrogation rooms, there are playbooks for certain
types of suspects, right, and they have to kind of
make it up as they went, as they learn more
about him, because a lot of the normal stuff didn't
apply to him, and you know, investigators who are in
(38:09):
the room with him, there's a live audio feed to
people you know in the next room and out to
the bau at Quantico, right. You know, everyone's trying to
figure out how to crack this guy. And Keys knew
it too, So he was playing the game. He was
playing a game with them, and you know, the investigators
we talked to will use that term as well. It
was a game that he was playing and at a
(38:29):
certain point they will say like they lost control unintentionally, right,
And it is a struggle to seize it back, and
some are unconvinced that they ever did. Listening to those tapes,
understanding how he operated just from an interrogagent perspective, you know,
you could see disagreements and it's great improvisational police work. Right.
(38:51):
They did get a lot out of him. They didn't
get everything, but they did get a lot. If I
mean investigators are listening to this. If you look at Keys,
you know he was also a person patterns, right. You know,
he killed the way he killed, and he planned his
crimes the way he planned his crimes. But after he
committed murder, he had a pattern of sort of losing
control and going wild a little bit, right. You know,
(39:13):
it is easy to correlate a murder with all of
a sudden a bank robbery and then a narson right afterwards. Right,
Like he had to It was almost like a doom
quake in a way. Right, it was something he had
to just let out and kept coming after the murder. Right,
he had to keep doing these things until he ran
out of gas. There are patterns that extend beyond murder.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Do either one of you just have a final word?
Anything you want to be sure you said.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Sure, yeah, I mean just to talk a little bit
more about the show and what we're going for as
you listen. So our first seven episodes are dedicated to
Israel Keys and sort of trying to figure out how
far he went, and the concept of deviant is we
only want to tell a story for as long as
it is good. And you know, a lot of times
in the podcast industry, the business of it is such
(39:59):
that you know you're expected to do eight to ten
episodes for your season, and then you go off and
you spend a year and you do your next story,
and you come back then and hopefully you come back
and you do another season on another story. And then
there's the other side of sort of the true crime
and podcast genre, where it's you know, two people cracking
Mike and talking, which is much easier to sustain in
(40:20):
the long term. Nothing wrong with it, just different. We're
trying to combine the two. So for our first seven episodes,
we're talking about Israel Keys, and then when we're done
with that, maybe it'll go eight, depends how our Chase
goes or die. I hope it doesn't go die, but
we're going to move on to another story, and that
we'll tell that story over how many episodes it's good
for it.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
Yeah, And I think that two things Dan and I
are you know, we mentioned at the top, we're approaching
this thing with a journalistic prism. That's what we do,
that's what we know. So that's the way we're going
about this. It's not we're going to We're not going
to be in the ramp and speculation game about things.
The second thing I wanted to mention is that we've
talked a ton about Israel Keys and rightfully so. But
(41:00):
I think it's imperative that we remind people that Bill
and the Rain Courier were victims of his and they
were a married couple that lived in Essex, Vermont. Bill
was a vettech, the rain worked in the financial services industry.
And his other victim that the other victims we know
were Samantha Koenig, who is a young team an eighteen
year old girl in Anchorage, Alaska, had her whole life
(41:21):
in front of her, wanted to work with animals, loved animals,
wanted to go into the Navy. And then his other
victim that we know is Deborah Feldman, who was a
woman in New York, New Jersey area, and so I
just want I just we talk a lot about Israel Keys,
but I want to be clear that there are victims
here that need to be mentioned.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
To the FBI tells us, and we say this at
the top of the show too. Even though he's been
dead for twelve years now, this is still an active
and ongoing investigation. The FBI wants tips if this is
ringing a bell for anyone, if anything that they hear says,
oh yeah, this reminds me of this or that or
the other, like I think when it comes to Israel Keys,
no tip is too small, right, They're looking. The FBI
(42:00):
still wants to find his victims, y'all.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
I'm going to end Zone seven the way that I
always do with a quote. Some people are wired for good,
some people are wired for bad, and some people are
wired to be Deviant the Deviant Podcast. I'm Cheryl McCollum,
and this is Zone seven.
Host
Sheryl McCollum
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