Biography of Israel Keyes
(1978–2012)

The Israeli serial killer Israeli Keyes is believed to have killed at least 11 people before being arrested in 2012.

  Who are the Keyes of Israel?

 Israel Keyes is an American serial killer who usually went to different places and picked victims who went to different places rather than having the preferred victim type.  He robbed banks and looted houses to finance his activities.  He was arrested in March 2012.  Keyes said he killed "less than a dozen" people while in custody, although only three of the victims were definitively identified.  His December 2012 suicide left law enforcement with more questions than answers about his crimes.

  Early life

  Keyes was born on January 7, 1978 in Cove, Utah.  He is the second of 10 children born to Heidi and John Jeffrey Keyes, a couple who have no faith in government intervention, public schools or modern medicine.  Keyes was a toddler when his family left Utah and moved to Colville, Washington.  They lived an isolated life in the woods, where Keyes grew up without heat or electricity.

While in Washington, Geese's parents left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and became fundamentalist Christians in a white supremacist church.  In the late 1990s, the family moved to Map, Oregon.  They next moved across the country and settled closely with an Amish community in Maine.Growing up, Keyes would break into neighbors' houses to steal guns and love to hunt, torturing animals in pursuit of "anything with a heartbeat," a behavior associated with mental illness.  While in custody, Keyes said, "I've known him since I was 14 ... those things were - I thought it was normal, and I'm right, and no one else thought it was normal."After a teenage Keyes told his family that he no longer shared their faith, his father severed ties, although he remained close to his mother.

  Military service

In July 1998, Keyes joined the U.S.  Joined the army.  He spent time as a soldier in Egypt, Fort Hood in Texas and Fort Louis in Washington.  After being deported to Corable Rava in July 2001, he lived with his daughter's mother in Mecca.Keyes received a DUI while in the military, but otherwise had no problem with the law.

  Murder methods

As a serial killer, Keyes targeted victims who crossed his path rather than sticking to a particular profile.  He often waits to gather people in places like parks, cemeteries or campgrounds.  "There's not much to choose from in the way he speaks," he admitted to law enforcement about his methods, "but no witness, really. No one else."Keyes also traveled to kill.  In 2011 he flew to Chicago before moving to Vermont, where he killed Bill and Lorraine Courier.  He had a history of travels covering large tracts of land in the United States, meaning he had many opportunities to search for victims.  Foreign trips - such as visits to Canada, Mexico and Belize - may have played another role in Keyes' murder.  While on the road, Keyes pays cash and picks up the battery from his cell phone. Keyes' series of assassinations involved extensive planning.  He traveled around the country to conceal deadly weapons, including guns, ammunition and chemicals, to destroy bodies.  When he wants to kill, Keyes digs up a temporary storage.Keyes studied the workings of FBI profiles and learned about serial killers like Ted Bundy.  In Maureen Calhan's 2019 book about the American predator Geese, she mentioned that she was fitted with a gastroenterologist and visited a plastic surgery clinic in Mexico.  She speculated that Keyes might have tried to become a better killer: a lap band meant he wouldn’t get hungry as often, and he might have changed his fingerprints or removed body hair.

  Arrested

 Before killing Samantha Koenigse, Keyes got her cellphone, ATM card and PIN.  After taking the time to go on a trip, Keyes made a request for redemption with Koenig's dead body.  His family, believing Koenig was still alive, deposited the money in his account.Keyes used Koenig's ATM card to withdraw funds in Alaska, and then continued these transactions while traveling in New Mexico, Arizona and Texas.  He hides his appearance, but a security camera recorded a picture of his rental car in Arizona.  Texas was notified of law enforcement and stopped Keyes in March 2012.  In the search for his car, Koenig's license was subject to other charges.Shortly before his capture, Keyes spent time in Texas with his mother and some siblings (his father died many years ago).  During this visit a sister tried to reconsider her atheism.  A pastor at the time, Keyes, replied, "You do not know the depth of the darkness I went through, you do not know what I did.

Keyes was arrested and eventually brought to Alaska.  With evidence linking him to Coinkin's disappearance, he pleaded guilty.  The murder contradicted his usual careful planning, but he told law enforcement that he was out of control, noting that "when I was smart, they would let me come."

  Victims

 According to Keyes, his first planned attack took place in 1997 or 1998 in Oregon.  He kidnapped a teenage girl and then raped her.  His intention was to kill her, but she persuaded him to let her out.  "I was not violent enough," Cayce told crime investigators.  "I made up my mind that I would never let that happen again." Keyes talked about "less than a dozen people being killed."  While in prison, he used his own blood to draw 12 skulls, representing 11 victims and Geese.  In 2020, an FBI agent told 48 Hours, "We believe the total number of victims is 11."  Yet only three of Keyes' victims have been definitively identified.An anchor barista kidnapped by Keyes on February 1, 2012.  Keyes raped her and killed her within hours, and then weeks later dismembered her body and dumped the pieces in a lake north of Anchorage.  Coin's remains were recovered in April 2012.  Keyes also admitted killing carriages in June 2011 in Essex, Vermont.  The pair were randomly selected to suit Keyes 'criteria for Keyes' children, dog and attached garage-free home.  He entered their home, subdued them, and then took the couple to the abandoned farmhouse.  Keyes killed Bill and then raped Lorraine before killing her.Keyes said he took at least five lives, but never named these victims.  According to his account, he killed four people in Washington state: a couple between 2001 and 2005, and two separate victims between 2005 and 2006.  Keyes said he killed someone on the East Coast in 2009 and then left the body in New York.  The FBI is "relatively confident" that the victim was Debra Feldman, a New Jersey resident who went missing in April 2009.Keyes' speculation about the victims included a girl named Julie Harris who went missing in Colville in 1996 - her prosthetic legs were found a month after she disappeared, and her remains were unearthed in 1997.  No involvement.  Keyes is also charged with other unsolved crimes, including the murders of 56-year-old Mary Cooper and her 27-year-old daughter Susannah Stoten, who were shot dead while hiking in Washington state in 2006.keyes said he would like to leave Alaska and travel to storm-affected areas to find new victims while working as a contractor.  He dreamed of building a house where the victims could be imprisoned.

  Death

  While in custody, Guys shared some details about his crimes with investigators, although he is happy to control the flow of information.  He also expressed his desire for a quick execution date, saying he was afraid of suffering behind bars for years and did not want his father or daughter to be harmed by the crimes he had committed.  Gears provided details of the courier killings as a bargaining chip with law enforcement.

  On the night of December 1, 2012, Kayes committed suicide in his Anchorage prison.  Despite warnings not to give Keyes a razor blade, he was given one.  He cut his wrist and strangled himself with a sheet while lying on the bed.  His body was not found until the morning of December 2nd.Only his mother, four sisters and three nephews attended Keyes' funeral on December 8, 2012.Keyes' last trial took place a few days before his suicide.  Some of his trial records have been shared with the public.

  Personal life

  In 2000, Keyes had an affair with a woman who lived in a Mecca reservation in Washington.  Their daughter Sirka was born in 2001.

  In 2007, Keyes moved to Alaska to live with a nursing coach he had been dating.

  While in custody, Guys expressed a desire to prevent his daughter from being harmed by his actions: "I wish my child had a chance to grow up ... you know ... she's safe now, she's not going to look at any of this.  Chances are, it shouldn't hang over her head. "