Keith Hunter Jesperson (bornApril 6, 1955) is a Canadian-American serial killer who murdered atleast eight women in the United States during the early 1990s. He wasknown as the "Happy Face Killer" because he drewsmiley faces on his many letters to the media and prosecutors. Manyof his victims were sex workers and transients who had no connectionto him. Strangulation was his preferred method of murdering, the samemethod he often used to kill animals as a child.
After the body of his first victim,Taunja Bennett, was found, media attention surrounded LavernePavlinac, a woman who falsely confessed to having killed Bennett withthe help of her abusive boyfriend, John Sosnovske.
Jesperson was upset that he was notgetting any media attention. On a bathroom wall hundreds of milesfrom the scene of the crime, he drew a smiley face and wrote ananonymous letter in which he confessed to killing Bennett andprovided proof. When that did not elicit a response, he began writingletters to the media and prosecutors.
His last victim was the crime thatultimately led to his capture. While Jesperson has claimed to havekilled as many as 185 people, only eight murders have been confirmed.
Early life
Keith Hunter Jesperson was born onApril 6, 1955, to Leslie (Les) and Gladys Jesperson in Chilliwack,British Columbia, Canada, the middle child with two brothers and twosisters. His father was a domineering alcoholic and Jespersonclaimed that his paternal grandfather was also violent. Les Jespersondenied being an abusive parent; however, while investigating for hisbook on Jesperson, author Jack Olsen was able to confirm much of theclaimed abuse with other family members.
Treated like an outcast by his ownfamily and teased by other children for his large size at a youngage, Jesperson was a lonely child who showed a propensity fortorturing and killing animals. Despite consistently getting intotrouble in his youth, including twice attempting to kill children whohad crossed him, Jesperson graduated from high school, secured a jobas a truck driver in 1974, got married a year later, and had threechildren. In 1990, after 15 years of marriage, Jesperson was divorcedand saw his dream to become a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman dashedfollowing an injury. After returning to truck driving, it was thatyear that Jesperson began to kill.
In his younger years, Jesperson wasgiven less attention than his siblings and treated differently by therest of his family. After moving to Selah, Washington, Jesperson hadtrouble fitting in and making friends because of his large size. Hisbrothers did not help him, instead they nicknamed him "Igor"or "Ig", a name that stuck throughout his schoolyears. Because of this, he was a shy child, content to play byhimself much of the time. He would often get into trouble forbehaving badly, sometimes violently, and would be severely punishedby his father. This included beatings (sometimes with a belt in frontof others) and, in one case, he received an electric shock from hisfather.
At a very early age—as young asfive—Jesperson would capture and torture animals. He enjoyedwatching animals kill each other as well as the feeling he got fromtaking their lives. This continued as he got older. He would capturebirds and stray cats and dogs around the trailer park where he livedwith his family, severely beating the animals and then stranglingthem to death, something for which he claims his father was proud ofhim. In the years following, Jesperson said he often thought aboutwhat it would be like to do the same to a human.
That desire manifested in two attemptedmurders. The first happened when Jesperson was around 10 years old.He was friends with a boy named Martin, and the two would often getinto trouble together. Jesperson claimed he was punished many timesfor things Martin had done and blamed on Jesperson. This ledJesperson to attack Martin, violently beating him until his fatherpulled him away. He later claimed his intention was to kill the boy. Approximately one year later, Jesperson was swimming in a lake whenanother boy held him underwater until he blacked out. Some timelater, at a public pool, Jesperson attempted to drown the boy byholding his head under the water until the lifeguard pulled him away.
Jesperson reported that he was raped atthe age of 14. He graduated from high school in 1973, but did notattend college because his father did not believe he could do it. Although he was not successful with girls in high school, havingnever even attended a school dance or his prom, he did enter into arelationship after high school. In 1975, when Jesperson was 20, hemarried Rose Hucke, and the couple had three children—two daughtersand one son. Jesperson worked as a truck driver to support thefamily.
Several years later, Hucke began tosuspect Jesperson was having affairs when strange women would call.Tension in the marriage increased, and after 14 years, whileJesperson was on the road, Hucke packed up her and her children'sbelongings and drove 200 miles away to live with her parents inSpokane, Washington. The oldest child, Melissa, was 10 years old. Jesperson continued to spend time with his children when he was intown. The couple divorced in 1990.
At the age of 35, standing 6 feet 7.5inches (2.02 m) and weighing approximately 240 pounds (110 kg), Jesperson began working toward the goal of being a Royal CanadianMounted Policeman, but an injury suffered while training ended hisdream. He then sought work again as an interstate truck driver afterrelocating to Cheney, Washington. Jesperson soon realized that thisjob afforded him the opportunity to kill without being suspected.
Crimes
His first known victim was TaunjaBennett on January 23, 1990, near Portland, Oregon, United States. Heintroduced himself to Bennett at a bar and invited her to the househe was renting. He brought her home with the idea of having sexualintercourse with her, and when Bennett refused, he proceeded tostrike and beat her. Worried that she would report this to the policehe then 'put his fist in her mouth' and killed her. He established analibi by going back out for some drinks, being sure to converse withothers, before returning to retrieve Bennett's body and belongings todispose of them. He was back on the road the next day. The body wasfound a few days later, but there were 3 suspects and 666 leads.
It was two and a half years after hisfirst kill when Jesperson killed again. On August 30, 1992, thecurrently unidentified body of a woman he raped and strangled wasfound near Blythe, California. He says the Jane Doe's name wasClaudia. A month later, in Turlock, California, the body of CynthiaLyn Rose was discovered. He claims she was a sex worker who enteredhis truck at a truck stop while he slept. His fourth victim wasanother sex worker, Laurie Ann Pentland of Salem, Oregon. Her bodywas found in November of that year. According to Jesperson, sheattempted to double the fee she charged for the sex he had beenengaged in with her. She threatened to call the police, and hestrangled her.
It was more than six months before hisnext victim was found in June 1993, another unidentified woman, a"street person," in Santa Nella, California, who heclaimed was named "Carla" or "Cindy".Police originally considered her death a drug overdose. More thanone year later, in September 1994, another Jane Doe was found inCrestview, Florida. Jesperson claims her name was Susanne.
Jesperson was arrested on March 30,1995, for the murder of Winningham. He had been questioned by policea week before, but they had no grounds to arrest him after he refusedto talk. In the days following, Jesperson decided that he wascertainly going to be arrested, and after two suicide attempts, heturned himself in hoping it would result in leniency during hissentencing. While in custody, Jesperson began revealing details ofhis killings and making claims of many others, most of which he laterrecanted. Also, a few days before his arrest, he wrote a letter tohis brother. In it, he confessed to having killed eight people overthe course of five years. This led police agencies in several statesacross the country to reopen old cases, many of which were found tobe possible victims of Jesperson.
Although Jesperson at one point claimedto have had as many as 185 victims, only the eight women killed inCalifornia, Florida, Nebraska, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming havebeen confirmed. He is serving three consecutive life sentences at theOregon State Penitentiary in Salem. In September 2009, he wasindicted for murder in Riverside County, California, and wasextradited to California to face the charges in December. Jespersonwas convicted of this murder and received a fourth life sentence inJanuary 2010.
Laverne Pavlinac
Early in the investigation of TaunjaBennett's murder, Laverne Pavlinac read the news reports surroundingTaunja Bennett's death and saw it as an opportunity to force an endto the long-term abusive relationship she had been in with herlive-in boyfriend, John Sosnovske. She set up a meeting with theinvestigating detectives and gave a false confession, using thedetails she had read in reports to give a detailed story of howSosnovske forced her to help him rape, murder, and dispose ofBennett's body. Pavlinac and Sosnovske were both arrested on March 5,1990 and both were convicted of the murder on February 8, 1991. Toavoid the possibility of facing the death penalty, Sosnovske pleadedguilty. He was sentenced to life in prison, while Pavlinac wassentenced to no less than 10 years, much more than she hadanticipated.
She soon admitted to making it all up,but her claims were ignored.
On January 7, 1996, more than fiveyears since their conviction, Pavlinac and Sosnovske were releasedfrom prison after Jesperson and his attorney offered his confessionwith convincing evidence of his guilt. He had given police officersthe location of the victim's purse. The purse had not been found, andits location was considered information only the killer would know.
"The Happy Face Killer"
Following Taunja Bennett's murder, asall the attention was going to Pavlinac and Sosnovske, Jespersonwrote a confession on the bathroom wall of a truck stop and signed itwith a smiley face. When that did not create the attention hedesired, he wrote letters to media outlets and police departmentsconfessing to his murders, starting with a six-page letter to TheOregonian in which he revealed the details of his killings. He signedeach letter with a smiley face. This led Phil Stanford, thejournalist working the story for The Oregonian, to dub Jesperson "TheHappy Face Killer".
Jesperson's daughter
In November 2008, Jesperson's daughter,Melissa G. Moore, appeared on the Dr. Phil Show to talk about herfather. She was also featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show on September17, 2009, the Lifetime Movies network series Monster in My Familyepisode titled "Happy Face Killer: Keith Hunter Jesperson",on July 1, 2015 and a 20/20 special on August 20, 2010.
In 2008, Moore published a book titled,Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer's Daughter.Moore lived with her father until her parents' divorce in 1990. Moorenoticed her father was different when she was in elementary school.Their house bordered an apple orchard, and her dad killed stray catsand gophers that wandered nearby. One day, she watched, horrified, ashe hung stray kittens from the family's clothesline. She ran to gether mother, and when they returned, the kittens lay on the grounddead. He had watched and laughed as the kittens clawed each other toescape, then he killed them.
She wrote an article about her fatherfor the BBC in November 2014.
In March 2018, she was featured in anepisode, titled "Put on a Happy Face", of the truecrime series, Evil Lives Here.
She was also a correspondent forCrimeWatchDaily.
In September 2018, podcast networkHowStuffWorks began releasing a show called Happy Face featuringinterviews with Melissa about her childhood and her father.
Further reading
Moore, Melissa G. & M. BridgetCook (2009). Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of the Daughter of aSerial Killer. Cedar Fort. ISBN 978-1-59955-238-5.
Olsen, Jack (2002). I: the creationof a serial killer. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-24198-8.