Israel Keyes

A confessed serial killer from Alaska who hid in plain sight and whose crimes went undetected for more than a decade, was ultimately caught after he gave in to his compulsions and struck close to home. Israel Keyes, in jail since March for the kidnapping and murder of 18-year-old coffee stand server Samantha Koenig in Anchorage, Alaska, confessed to that and other violent crimes. Then guards found him dead on December 2 after he committed suicide by cutting his wrists and choking himself with a bed sheet.


Keyes, a U.S. Army veteran, lived a quiet life in one of Anchorage's best neighborhoods, doing well-regarded handyman work for unsuspecting customers. He had been due to go on trial in March for Koenig's death, and investigators believe he killed eight to 11 people, if not more. A picture of Keyes' double-life emerged from his own words -- authorities released excerpts from 40 hours of interviews with investigators to reporters -- and from interviews and news conferences given by investigators, who said they believed his confessions were sincere. "Everything that he told them has been borne out," Lieutenant Dave Parker of the Anchorage Police Department said on Sunday.

 Keyes admitted that he committed numerous killings, bank robberies and other crimes across the country. He admitted to plans for more killings. He admitted to several unreported crimes and acts of cruelty committed before he started killing people, including the rape of a teenager in Oregon in the late 1990s and torture of animals when he was a child. His suicide ended the revelations and made him a rarity -- a confessed serial killer who was never convicted of murder. "It gives us no pleasure to dismiss the charges against Mr. Keyes, but that's what the law requires," said Kevin Feldis, the assistant U.S. attorney leading the prosecution.

 The criminal investigation will continue indefinitely, even if there is no prosecution, "because there will inevitably be many, many unknowns," Feldis said. Keyes was caught in Texas in March with a debit card stolen from Koenig, whom he abducted from her coffee stand in February. Keyes admitted to kidnapping, raping and killing her, then dismembering her body and dumping her remains in an icy lake before traveling out of Alaska.

Israel Keyes, Samantha Koenig, and Bill and Lorraine Currier.

Once in custody, he also confessed to the 2011 killings of Bill and Lorraine Currier of Essex, Vermont, and the disposal of four bodies in Washington state and one in New York state. Only three homicides have been definitively pinned to him -- those of Koenig and the Curriers -- in large part because Keyes could not identify victims by name. His motivation was enjoyment, said Monique Doll, an Anchorage homicide detective who worked on the investigation. Throughout his months of jail interviews, Keyes was utterly unapologetic and remorseless, she said. "Israel Keyes didn't kidnap and kill people because he was crazy.

He didn't kidnap and kill people because his deity told him to or because he had a bad childhood. Israel Keyes did this because he got an immense amount of enjoyment out of it, much like an addict gets an immense amount of enjoyment out of drugs," Doll told a news conference. He also enjoyed staying under the radar, officials said. He targeted total strangers, avoiding anyone with any possible connection, traveling hundreds of miles to target random victims at secluded parks, trail heads and other remote locations. He broke some of his own rules when he killed Koenig, abducting her at her workplace on a busy Anchorage street, where security cameras caught some of his actions, and killing her at his own house, officials said.

Keyes admitted he considered merely robbing Koenig -- whom he did not know -- and instead gave in to his compulsions, Doll said. "In prior cases, he had enough self-control to walk away from it," Doll said. "But with Samantha, he didn't." Koenig's case dominated local news, and supporters raised a reward fund, held candlelight vigils and gave self-defense lessons to coffee stand servers. Keyes got a thrill from following the news coverage, so long as his name was not linked to the case, investigators said. When he was identified by a Vermont television station in the summer as the suspect in the murder of the Curriers, he became so angry he stopped speaking to investigators for two months.

View Israel Keyes Timeline issued by the F.B.I. Here
View the F.B.I. Investigation videos with Israel Keyes here
Listen to the F.B.I. Audio investigations here

Israel Keyes is believed to have committed multiple kidnappings and murders across the country between 2001 and March 2012. The FBI is seeking assistance in developing more information about his travels to identify additional victims.Anyone with information concerning Keyes is encouraged to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI.