Jesperson's last victim was the crime that ultimately led to his capture. ". [1] Homan was the eighth accidental drowning case in La Crosse over a nine-year period. Jesperson's first victim, 23-year-old Taunja Bennett, was killed on January 21, 1990. Investigators believedhe could have walked to the edge of Lake Michigan, a five-minute walk from the hotel, and fallen in. . Jesperson, who was born in British Columbia in 1955 and moved to the US when he was 12, kept on killing until he was caught in 1995. ", This page was last edited on 2 March 2023, at 19:00. Police have not saidif a smiley face was present near the death site. Biography and associated logos are trademarks of A+E Networksprotected in the US and other countries around the globe. Her body disintegrated against the hot asphalt as he drove. Her body was found after his arrest. They met at a truck stop in Corning, California. I just said it, this is close enough," she said. His friend told him to get out of the car while he parked. 2. Revealed as the Happy Face Killer, Keith Hunter Jesperson confessed to killing eight women in Florida, California, Oregon, Wyoming, and Washington. This led police agencies in several states to reopen old cases, many of which were found to be possible victims of Jesperson. Jesperson claims Rose was a sex worker who entered his truck at a truck stop while he slept. Link your TV provider to stream full episodes and live TV. Their house bordered an apple orchard, and Jesperson killed stray cats and gophers that wandered nearby. Investigators installed a hidden recording device in their home hoping to catch Sosnovske making incriminating statements. Pavlinac soon admitted to making up her entire story, but her claims were ignored. The police gave him the nickname "The Happy Face Killer" as he would leave a happy face on his confession letters to the media. Jesperson eventually settled in Selah, Washington with his wife and three children. Laverne Pavlinac convinced investigators she and John Sosnovske had killed Taunja Bennett, when they hadn't. of Victims 8-185 killed 5 attempted Span of crimes 1995/1966-March 10, 1995 (confirmed) Criminal Charges He was known as the "Happy Face Killer" because he drew smiley faces on his many letters to the media and authorities. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. Tension in the marriage increased, and after fourteen years, while Jesperson was on the road, Hucke packed up her and her children's belongings and drove 200 miles away to live with her parents in Spokane, Washington. Oxygen Insider is your all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! Or 'I will cause trouble for your family. And she [said], 'Well, they told me I had to tell you thisbecauseif I told you then they would believe me,'" Carpenter said. In. , "I'm in a field" before the call dropped. Create your free profile and get access to exclusive content. Now 66, Jesperson is serving five non-consecutive life sentences in Oregon's state penitentiary. Detective Rick Buckner has to prove Keith Jesperson is the serial killer known as Happy Face Killer, guilty of murdering a woman in 1995, and has to make sure he is . Meanwhile, the real killer carried out a series of murders over five years. Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more! [10][14], Jesperson was arrested on 30 March 1995 for the murder of Julie Winningham. At the time, Pavlinac said she was able to dupe authorities because she had learned details of the crime from newspaper articles and from reading the search warrant without police noticing. John Ingram, who worked on the case. Largely considered an urban legend, the Smiley Face Killer, like the Manchester Pusher, murdered his victims by drowning. A smiley face was found painted near the river. According to Jesperson, after he killed his fifth victim in 1993 he managed to stave off murderous urges for more than a year by committing arson while on the road as a trucker. He was caught after killing his 41-year-old girlfriend, Julie Ann Winningham, in 1995. To learn more about this case, watch Snapped Notorious: The Happy Face Killer, streaming now on Oxygen. Several years later, Hucke began to suspect Jesperson was having affairs when strange women would call. On April 23 in Hamburg and the following weekend in Dusseldorf, the bodies of young men were retrieved from waterways. On January 25, 2017 around 11:30 p.m., James was walking back to his apartment after a night out drinking with friends and co-workers. A smiley face was found spray painted on an underpass near where James body was discovered. Eight murders were eventually linked to Jesperson, whos serving multiple concurrent sentences in Oregon State Penitentiary. ABC News/YouTube By Jean Mendoza / June 8, 2021 9:24 am EST Keith Hunter Jesperson is a serial killer who claimed the lives of eight women between 1990 and 1995. The killers always leave a signature smiley face near the location of the body. Sometime around 1957, Glatman posted Lonely Hearts adverts in newspapers to lure his victims in addition to prowling modeling agencies in Los Angeles, eventually posing as a photographer himself. One of the things about my dad - which made me very uncomfortable as a young woman - was that he was very explicit about his sexual relationships. Various witnesses outside the hotel saw Welzien vomiting in the street. Jesperson's father denied being an abusive parent; however, while investigating for his book on the killer, author Jack Olsen was able to confirm much of the claimed abuse with other family members. Surveillance footage captured Booth entering the bar where the celebration took place, but there is no video evidence of him leaving. He had been questioned by police a week before, but they had no grounds to arrest him after he refused to talk. She'sgiveher the shirt off her back," McAlpine said. Mahoney drove to the address, but Hurley was not there. While in custody, Jesperson began revealing details of his killings and making claims of many others, most of which he later recanted. Over the past 20 years, hundreds of college-aged men across the US have died as the result of undetermined or accidental drownings. Updated: Mar 3, 2021 (1955-) Who Is Keith Hunter. Crime News is your destination for true crime stories from around the world, breaking crime news, and information about Oxygen's original true crime shows and documentaries. Some of his victims, as seen in this timeline, have never been identified. Often Keith would dream of becoming an RCMP officer, the power of a position like that appealed to him, but his dream was dashed in 1990 after an injury prevented him from qualifying. I'm thinking, 'My God, she is actually involved in this,'" Ingram said. [5] This continued as he got older. He had a relationship with his final victim and became a suspect after her body was discovered in March 1995. I'll hurt your family.'". She also examined her father's actions in the podcast Happy Face. Here's what the evidence says. "I sometimes now wonder, if he was freed now, if he was released, would he kill again? The oldest child, Melissa, was ten years old. "I think what happened to mother was she was in an abusive relationship, and she was desperate, and desperate people do desperate things, not to say that it was right, but that's what I think happened," said Pavlinac's daughter Bonne McAlpine. In June 2021, a trailer appeared on iTunes for a new true crime podcast called Life After Happy Face, to be hosted by Melissa Moore and forensic criminologist Laura Pettler. The last known sighting of the Duquesne University graduate student was caught on asurveillance camera in the downtown area. Between 1990 and 1995, eight women died at the hands of Keith Hunter Jesperson, also known as the Happy Face Killer. However, the kicker is that these drownings happening in 11 different states. He tries to paint the victim as someone who needed to be killed, Phelps, whose nearly decade-long relationship with the killer gives him insight into Jespersons mind, told producers. . He was reported missing later that day by his mother, and a massive manhunt ensued. There, he assaulted, beat and strangled her. The smiley face murder theory (also known as the smiley face murders, smiley face killings, and smiley face gang) is a theory advanced by retired New York City detectives Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte, as well as Dr. Lee Gilbertson, a criminal justice professor and gang expert at St. Cloud State University. Her real name remains a mystery. His brother gave this letter to law enforcement. Pavlinac made this false statement because she wanted to escape her abusive relationship with Sosnovske. She grew up in a small town in Washington state and survived the escalating violence from her home life and. A few days before his arrest, he wrote a letter to his brother in which he confessed to having killed eight people over the course of five years. She was a previously-unidentified woman named Patricia Skiple,[12] who, he claimed, was named "Carla" or "Cindy". In 1990, shortly after his marriage ended, Keith Jesperson, a long-haul trucker from Selah, Washington, began killing women. Melissa G. Moore, Jesperson's older daughter, wrote Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of a Serial Killers Daughter (2009). A "witchy" smiley face left at a murder site of the supposed "Smiley Face Serial Killer" seems to represent Charlie Manson. Sosnovske would later plead no contest to the murder charge. "The greatest human tragedy is that Laverne Pavlinac derailed the investigation in 1990, and in four years, Keith Jesperson killed more women," said Jim McIntyre, the Multnomah County, Oregon, prosecutor who handled the cases. They divorced in 1989. [4] Because of this, Jesperson was a shy child, content to play by himself much of the time. B. When that did not elicit a response, he began writing letters to the media and authorities. M. William Phelps penned a memoir about his interactions with Jesperson: Dangerous Ground: My Friendship with a Serial Killer (2017). [33] The episode was released on July 9, 2021. Geib's remains also had very little signs of decomposition, which would have been present if he had died the day he went missing 22 days before the recovery of his body. Strangulation was Jesperson's preferred method of murdering, the same method he often used to kill animals as a child. They were able to identify her as Skiple on April 13.