52 Lock Up: Israel Keyes

Welcome back to 52 Lock Up, I am your Appletini Cadma of Bitten Apple TV. 52 lock up is a series I started to talk about one of my biggest passions of true crime. A new episode on every Cadmaniac Monday for 52 Mondays. Hope you guys enjoy, be sure to comment feedback, like and subscribe. And just in case for those curious, viewer discretion is advised.

Today’s episode begins with Israel Keyes was born on January 7th 1978 in Cove, Utah. His family was a Mormon family of 10 kids to the parent Heidi Keyes and Jeffrey Keyes. Heidi and Jeffrey were Mormon expats from Torrance.

The kids were homeschooled. Until 1983 when Israel Keyes was about 5 years old his family no longer participated in Mormonism and moved to Colville in Washington state to a small cabin that had no electricity or running water; they were completely off the grid. At the new town they had attended two church services particularly at Ark and the Christian Israel Covenant Church which actually practices white supremacist Christian Identity Ideology. If you look this church up they have Keyes’ name next to it all over the internet. In the future, Keyes would describe the church as a militia Amish like community; which is strange given the circumstances the Amish are defined by being Anabaptism.

It is a greek term that means “again/anew, baptism”; so one who baptizes again. It is a class of Christians who perceive baptism in it’s infancy stages as invalid. Anabaptists do not validate infant baptism because the infant does not have a choice. It is really interesting but before I become side tracked. Anabaptist or Amish, they do not do militia, law enforcement, war; anything like that. I presume what Keyes would mean in his description is that they picked out what they wanted from the Amish and sprinkled the military forces on top of it.

During this time Israel became good friends with his friend Chevie O’Brien Kehoe; who was born January 29th 1973. They were close in age and in birthdays.

Fun, not so fun fact, Kehoe was an American white supremacist who was convicted of murder in 1996 for kidnapping, torture and murder of William Mueller and his family; with another friend Daniel Lewis Lee another American white supremacist during a robbery in Arkansas.

They were all members of the Christian Identity Ideology. I can cover Chevie or Daniel on another 52 lock up moment. But I guess birds of a feather huh…I digress, During this time of growing up Israel was breaking into neighbors homes to steal their guns and particularly took a liking to hunting; and happily would pursue anything that had a heartbeat. He was fine with torturing animals, which has become a common highlight when narrowing down psychopathic people who end up becoming serial killers. In the future, Israel states that “I've known since I was 14 that … there were things that — that I thought were normal and that were OK that nobody else seemed to think were normal and OK."

Israel renounces his Christian faith when he is a teenager and grows an interest in Satanism; which his parents were not having and he was thrown out of his parents home. When he became a legal adult and for his adult like he moved to Makah Reservation community in Washington state. The Makah Reservation is an Native American Indian reservation for the Makah tribes; they are infamous for their whale hunting skills that included even going out as far from 30 to 100 miles to hunt the grey whale. He lived there with the mother of his daughter.

In 1998 Israel joined the Army when he was 20 years old until he was about 31 years old. He was stationed at Fort Lewis, Fort Hood and Egypt. His further Army friend describe Keyes as someone with a quiet demeanor and traditionally kept to himself, but he was a heavy drinker on the weekends; apparently his favorite bottle was Wild Turkey bourbon. His Army career ends with an honorable discharge in 2001 but I was unable to confirm what the honorable discharge was about; besides a DUI while in the army he never seemed to appear to be in trouble.

In 2007 he began his own construction business, obviously called Keyes Construction. He started the business from the bottom and worked as a handyman, contractor and construction worker. Sounds like everything is going well and nothing is wrong right?

It’s unfortunately too good to be true. However, in later interviews Israel stated his first killing was in 1998; this would be around the time before or after he joined the Army. It is unknown if it had anything to do with being in the Army or not, but he did state he paused for three years while he served in the United States Army before resuming his killing spree in 2001 following his discharge. I’m guessing it is before but it could have been at the same time of the signing up or shortly after signing up. It seems keeping him in the Army kept him busy enough to not kill. He does not talk about who it was.

After 2001 Israel had a bevy of victims he would randomly pick across the United States. He did this during travels in order to avoid detecting. He hunted for people in isolated locations and campgrounds. His preference to killing was strangulation because he genuinely enjoyed the victims losing consciousness during their struggle to live. Out of his killings, he stated he had one rule that he was not going to kill children or the parents of children; apparently his daughter had that affect on him. It is a scary thought to think of all the women he did kill, how many more he would have killed without that rule.

Let’s talk about the victim that exposed his name because it is evident that he was not going to stop.

Samantha Koenig is her name and she was your normal brown eyed brunette, bubbly 18 year old Anchorage Barista at Common Grounds Espresso at 630 East Tudor Road. Anchorage has more coffee shops than any other state and that includes Alaska, but these coffee shops are like small drive throughs that only permit one employee at a time to work there.

Samantha landed the job and was excited about working and saving up money for the dreams and goals she had in mind like any other excited 18 year old. Her father, however, did not share her enthusiasm. He wasn’t pleased to learn his daughter would be working alone at night, but Samantha pleaded and assured him the stand was equipped with surveillance cameras as well as a panic button should a barista need to summon the police. She would be working there only for a month and had several loyal customers who loved to see their favorite barista.

On February 1st, 2012, Samantha was scheduled to work the late shift at the coffee stand and was scheduled to be there until closing time at 8:00 p.m. She didn’t have a car, but her boyfriend promised to stop by the stand and give her a ride home. While Samantha was planning on seeing her boyfriend that evening Israel who had moved to Anchorage Alaska by then was planning on burglarizing the coffee stand for the last few days. Israel grabs his ski mask to cover his face and parks his car down the road and walks over to the stand by 7:55 p.m.

5 minutes before she was supposed to clock out. Israel approaches smiling Samantha and orders an Americano. Samantha being the outstanding barista she is, she happily made him the drink but when she turns around Israel is holding a .22 Taurus handgun. He told her to cut the lights off and when she did, he pulled himself through the window inside the coffee stand with Samantha. She was so terrified that she didn’t hit the panic button that was there for her; she’s an 18 year old girl about to be picked up by her boyfriend and that one thing could have saved her life. I can not say confidently it would have, but every bit of help would have helped.

Israel tells Samantha that it was a robbery and she said that her boyfriend or father was coming to pick her up. Israel begins second guessing if he’s going to kidnap her. Apparently, he had 2 ground rules to his human hunting it was to never hunt close to home (he also never killed more than twice in the same area) and to never use his own vehicle for an abduction. He broke his first rule and then decided he was going to break the second one. He knew all he had to do was convince Samantha to walk to the car with him. He later told investigators he lost control, and was overwhelmed with a burst of adrenaline and decided to take the chance on abducting Samantha; I wish he hadn’t.

He has Samantha walk out of the coffee stand with his arm around her and gun pointed at her side. She actually broke away from him but unfortunately was unable to out run him in the weather and he caught her. He promised her that if she tried it again he would kill her if she would try again. Once they get to his truck he secures her inside and demanded her debit card; but her debit card was inside of her boyfriend’s truck. This was parked in front of her father’s house later in the evening.

They drive off as Samantha’s boyfriend is pulling in. The scene looks off. It’s the beginning of February. Samantha has no car or no way to travel. No coat, no nothing. The coffee shop looked like someone just walked out and didn’t lock up or do anything else but leave. Samantha’s boyfriend’s mind is racing Where is Samantha? Her boyfriend begins to freak out. Her boyfriend did receive a text message from Samantha’s phone saying she was going on vacation; which was ringing a big alarm to everyone that something was severely wrong.

Israel actually drove Samantha to the house he shared with his girlfriend and young daughter and placed her into the shed next to the house. He told her if she would scream then he would kill her. He turned on the radio in the shed to cover up the noises in the shed.

He then proceeds to drive to Samantha’s home to find her boyfriend’s truck, just to break into it to get her debit card. Her boyfriend is freaking out and worried because Samantha was not at work and trying to figure out what is the next step. He hears a noise and when he looked out he spots Israel near his truck and he yells “What are you doing?”. Israel manages to grab the debit card and takes off before anyone can ID him. He has the audacity to return home and carefully climbs upstairs not to disturb his family.

He grabbed a glass of wine and went to the shed. Apparently he was sipping on wine while repeatedly raping Samantha; and when he was done raping her he strangled her. He then wrapped her body in a tarp and shoved her body in a cabinet in the shed. Woke up the next morning to play the doting father to his daughter by waking his daughter up for school and called a cab for a ride to the airport to head to New Orleans for a cruise he booked months earlier; you know cause that’s what you do; go on vacation with your family.

He returns after his cruise was over and drove to Aledo, Texas and burglarized and burned down a house; then robbed the National Bank of Texas. He then simply drove to Houston and flew back to Anchorage; like life is good. It seems his crimes around this time begin to pick up and I think it is because there is an air of confidence he is getting from getting away with these crimes. There was no concern for the cameras at the coffee shop, about going to Samantha’s home to steal her debit card specifically, then robbing and burning down a house in Texas then robbing a Texas bank; he was on a roll.

18 days later on February 19th, 2012, Israel drops his daughter off at school for daddy brownie points and returns home to remove Samantha’s body from the cabinet; to have sex with her frozen corpse. I really struggle to comprehend necrophilia and there are some things in life I’m never going to understand; that will be one of them!

A few days later, apparently he decided to apply makeup to her face to give her a lively appearance, sew her eyes open with a fishing line, photograph her with a recent newspaper demanding ransom of $30,000 from the grieving family. When he demanded it sent the boyfriend a text message stating “Conner park sign under pic of Albert aint she purty” on February 24th 2012 7:45 p.m. The family flies to the park and when they saw the evidence on the park, they called the cops.

There is a sub level of cruelty to do this. This presented to the family, friends, boyfriend, loved ones of Samantha to think she is still alive; that is beyond fucked up. He should have shown she was dead by doing that for the sake of a measly $30K; he gave them a deep sense of false hope and ripped it from them. I do not know if there is enough therapy or coping mechanisms to aide the people who were left behind. Israel had the intention of using Samantha’s debit card to withdraw the $30K from her account; which in hindsight his supercilious aura is on God mode in his head to think this was going to work. Several hours later Samantha’s father deposited $5K into Samantha’s account thinking that since the newspaper clipping was dated February 13th and the text is February 24th; that perhaps their daughter is alive. A few hours after that, money is withdrawn.

A few days later over a course of 3 trips, Israel decides to cut up Samantha’s body and dump her remains in the Matanuska Lake near Anchorage using wire and weights to go ice fishing and drop her body in the lake after drilling a hole in the ice. He actually caught fish and took the fish home to eat.

March 7th has now rolled around and Israel flies out to Las Vegas, rents a car to drive to Wilcox Arizona where he was going to withdraw $400 from Samantha’s debit card. 90 minutes later he is Lordsburg, New Mexico withdrawing more money. He wore a disguise when he made the transactions anticipating the ATM security cameras, but he did not expect one of the ATM’s to pick up his white Ford Focus rental that he was driving; there was no license plate in the photo but a lead is a lead.

Señora Karma starts putting on her heels to head toward Israel because ironically he had mechanical problems with his car and returned it to the agency to exchange for another vehicle and he was given another white Ford Focus. March 9th, Israel withdrew more money at another ATM in Humble City Texas; I assume with all of this driving what did he tell his girlfriend and daughter why daddy couldn’t be there.

I digress from my curiosity, FBI gets an alert to be on a look out for a White Ford Focus. March 13th Texas Highway Patrol Corporal Bryan Henry spots the car at a hotel parking lot and follows him and saw that he was traveling 3 miles over the speed limit. Henry trusts his instinct to stop the car and is handed an Alaskan driver’s license.

**Sirens** Henry calls for backup and knew in his gut this guy had something to do with the alerts sent out to Texas from a crime in Alaska. Henry is looking at Israel’s license plate, the car and the fact that he looked like the photos of the disguised individual from the ATM camera’s taking Samantha’s card to withdrawal. Henry felt he had probable cause to hold Israel and search the car and found a dye stained roll of bills from a bank robbery, the mask Israel worn during his bank withdrawals, a gun and Samantha’s debit bank card. Bam! Arrested and sent back to Alaska! Got ‘EM!

In the beginning, Israel is trying to play hard ball with the investigators and not speak with them; but he caves in on March 31st to talk. I’m not sure how he planned on getting out of it. Matching mask. Gun. Consistently making bank withdrawals and Samantha’s card. How did Samantha’s card get out there bro? She took a stop to Texas before her boyfriend could pick her up; a flight like that from Texas is at least 6 hours.

**dramatic eye roll** March 31st, he admits to abducting her and said he would give more details to the investigators as long as they kept his case quiet and away from the press. He was very concerned about what his daughter would think of him but not concerned not enough to not do it. He was also worried about his friends and neighbors that he was worried about and his business with really happy clients, you know except the neighborhood barista but okay whatever; maybe I’m being too passionate.

He needed time for the reality to set that everyone was going to know that he was the monster not under the bed but in sheep’s clothing. Investigators low key had to want to slap him for “needing time”; I mean Samantha wasn’t given much time but sure let’s make demands. The investigators wanted confirmation if Samantha was dead or not and he wasn’t read to give details. He said, “I’ll tell you everything you want to know. I’ll give it blow by blow if you want. I have lots more stories to tell.” Investigators are more intrigued and came to the realization, this is a messy first timer criminal; they may have an arrogant serial killer on their hands. Israel described himself as two people and personally enjoyed being completely two different people and those who trusted him not have a clue who he truly was.

Israel came out with his list of demands like they were Santa Claus and he wanted a speedy trial and the death penalty, and he wanted the death penalty carried out within a year. Second, he wanted to keep the details of his crimes secret from the news media. He assured investigators that unless they met those two demands, he would not divulge information about other crimes he might have committed.

He did agree to tell the investigators the details of his abduction and murder of Samantha Koenig as well as where to find her body, and a few days later, police recovered her remains from Matanuska Lake in ten hours; at least to recover what they could. His biggest concern was what negativity he daughter would face by him being ID’ed and her knowing dad’s the boogeyman in random people’s closet.

Police are tired of his nonsense and found information on his computer about a missing Vermont couple, they confronted him with the evidence. He smiled at them and said “You’re lucky, I was going to throw the computer into a landfill when I returned back to Anchorage from Texas.” They must have wanted to sock him in the face and have so many questions at the same time too. At first, he told them he would only talk about the Vermont case if they scheduled his execution date and promised he would be executed within a year. Finally, though, he told them he left the bodies of Bill and Lorraine Currier in an abandoned farmhouse near Burlington, Vermont.

When the prosecutor asked Keyes how he knew the Curriers and why he decided to murder them, Keyes became annoyed with what he considered was a stupid question. He said he didn’t know the Curriers. “It was just random.”

He is an opportunistic killer. He had no type. He just picked much like the infamous Night Stalker Richard Ramirez of California. He broke into their home on June 8th 2011, tied them up before driving them to an abandoned farmhouse. He shot the husband Bill and then sexually assaulted the wife Lorraine; and of course strangled her as well. Their bodies were never found. Apparently it was learned that in 2009 Israel hid his murder kit near their home and after he murdered them, he simply moved the contents to Parishville NY; which is where they remained until he was arrested. He planned their death 2 years prior and flew to Chicago to rent a car and drive 1,000 miles to Vermont to get the kill kit he had buried.

Quickly to dive into the other deaths. It’s believed that Israel also murdered Debra Feldman in April 2009 after he started his business, but she was killed in New Jersey and buried near Tupper Lake, New York. With all this plotting you could have simply followed the code of Harry but instead you chose innocent people; because they were home. He apparently admired Ted Bundy even though when you look at them they were very different killers.

Israel was avoiding detection by traveling. Bundy killed across the country because he moved a lot. Bundy focused on women. Israel just picked people because the wind blew in a different direction. However, he frowned at the famous Dennis Lynn Rader The BTK killer, bind, torture, kill killer or the BTK Strangler; apparently he thought of him as a wimp for apologizing in court. I think if he was really bad ass he should have said it to his face instead of asking for death within a year; just saying like if you’re going to talk trash about another serial killer have the balls to say it to their face. He was cooperating a lot with the police and then his name was leaked in the media and he decided “ugh you guys didn’t keep your end of the bargain!”. **blink blink**

Samantha’s family had her cremated and held a memorial service for her on Easter Sunday. During Israel’s trials and routine hearing on May 23rd 2012 he attempted to escape and broke his leg irons, jumped over the railing but was tasered to the floor. It must have dawned on him that he was not going to get a quick death and seemed to be fearful of staying in prison and would much prefer death. While being held in jail at the Anchorage Correctional Complex on suspicion of murder he concealed a razor blade and killed himself on December 2nd 2012. He left a suicide note “ode to murder” and left no other clues about his other possible victims.

Only recently had it been released to the public the weird drawings he made with his own blood that were left in his cell of pentagrams, satanic drawings and 11 skulls; since he never confessed it is believed that his total number of victims was 11 murdered.

As additional information, in The Sun Emma Dunn wrote an article about Cristina Alverson believes she was a potential victim of Israel Keyes. Emma Dunn reports that Cristina Alverson stated that she was visiting her grandfather’s grave on his birthday to pay her respects at Restlawn Cemetery in Vider, Texas; when she suddenly felt like her life was in danger.

When she looked up she noticed a man was staring at her before he began to sprint at her in full speed. She leaped up and began to run to her car as fast as she could. She immediately locked her doors. The unknown male at the time was about 50 feet from her and when she was in her car he apparently threw his arms in the air like his favorite team has lost. She then drove off quickly after she got a good look at the man who pursued her; they both never broke eye contact. Four years later after his death and trials became media news, she came across the article online only to realize it was Israel Keyes.

Cristina also discovered that a man went missing the same day she was nearly abducted by Keyes and believes he could have been another victim to Israel. It seems the man who disappeared had traveled into Texas for a wedding in a city not too far from where Cristina lived and he disappeared; and his family had no idea where he was. There are no mentions of this man being found.

Potential Victim Photos of people who went missing while he was in their state; his case is still active to discovering what happened to these missing people.

References

https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/israel-keyes

https://www.alaskapublic.org/2012/12/04/police-release-detailed-account-of-koenig-murder/

https://nypost.com/2019/06/29/a-chilling-inside-look-at-one-of-americas-most-infamous-serial-killer-cases/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-keyes-fbi-evidence-serial-killer-unknown-victims-48-hours/

https://robinbarefield76.medium.com/israel-keyes-the-monster-who-moved-to-anchorage-a55c2edbc073

https://thebrag.com/israel-keyes-serial-killer/

https://www.the-sun.com/news/3374440/serial-killer-israel-keyes-stalked-woman-cemetery/

https://www.dailyadvent.com/gb/tag/cristina-alverson

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/tracking-the-murders-of-israel-keyes-1/