“In my head there was a chance that it may occur, however I wasn’t trying ahead to—it wasn’t my intention to take action … however I knew I had the potential [to kill],” Keith Jesperson, additionally dubbed the Completely happy Face Killer, defined over the cellphone from Oregon State Penitentiary. Reflecting on the sixth homicide he dedicated, he described the narrative in such a indifferent method, like he was reciting a piece of fiction somewhat than an actual occasion.
Ranging from the start, Jesperson described pulling right into a relaxation space in August of 1994, the place he noticed a lady outdoors “making an attempt to hitch a experience.”
“She mentioned she was going to Lake Tahoe, Nevada,” he mentioned. “I pointed to my truck and mentioned, ‘I’m going to Washington State. I’m heading in that route. I’ll be leaving in about an hour or so.”
Someday throughout their alternate, she would introduce herself as “Susan” or “Suzette,” one of many few particulars he’d keep in mind about her years later. Names weren’t necessary to him.
Working as an extended haul truck driver, Jesperson mentioned that with selecting up the hitchhiker who would change into his subsequent sufferer, he was simply trying ahead to the uncommon alternative to have somebody to speak to, which might assist maintain him awake. He described how the highway would change into a lonely, quiet place at instances.
Though that could be true, Dr. Eric Hickey, a high forensic professional and core senior school member of Walden College’s Forensic Psychology, means that whereas all professions have a darkish aspect, serial killers like Jesperson might select a profession like lengthy haul trucking with ulterior motives. Hickey reviewed a number of the transcript of the interview with Jesperson from his perspective as an professional within the psychology of crime.
“I’d say most lengthy haul truck drivers are first rate folks making an attempt to make a dwelling,” Hickey mentioned. He defined how an remoted job like trucking is perhaps chosen as a result of it may give somebody a chance to kill. “Jesperson’s a type of guys, and I’d put my profession on the road that his killings had been sexual.”
That evening, whereas ready to obtain the directions of his subsequent load, Jesperson spent an hour sitting in a sales space within the restaurant inside the remainder space. He described the hitchhiking lady as impatient, and mentioned he thought she regarded like she’d been on the highway for some time. So after they left for a job additional north in Cairo, Georgia, he received her a toilet key to take a bathe on the subsequent truck cease the place they stopped for his or her subsequent meal.
After the pickup in Cairo, Jesperson mentioned he began driving again towards Florida.
“At about two or three within the morning, I pulled into the remainder space to make use of the restroom, and that’s when the incident occurred.” By incident, he means homicide.
“And I dropped her physique off at Exit 11, a number of exits up the highway,” he explains nonchalantly, as if she was merely one other factor to be loaded and unloaded from his truck.
In psychopathic serial killers, “the components of the mind that specific empathy, care, and concern—they by no means relate to the sufferer,” Hickey mentioned.
“[Jesperson] has extra psychopathic tendencies and even much less sufferer empathy. He treats his victims like they had been simply items of fabric to do with what he needed after which eliminate them.”
However how did Jesperson go from giving this lady a experience to killing her together with his naked arms?
He claims he had realized from earlier experiences that when he had a feminine within the truck he’d ‘by no means hear the top of it’ if he didn’t pull right into a relaxation space so they may use the lavatory. If he was alone, he had no drawback relieving himself within the woods on the aspect of the highway.
On that individual evening, allegedly with this intention, he purposely awakened the hitchhiker who had fallen asleep on the mattress at the back of the truck.
What he thought was a considerate gesture startled her, inflicting her to scream, the sort of scream you’d anticipate if somebody was getting murdered, besides in that second, all he had performed was sit beside her.
“She was screaming as a result of she didn’t like being woken up like that,” he mentioned, and mentioned that she wouldn’t pay attention when he informed her to be quiet. In an try to justify his actions, Jesperson mentioned he was afraid he can be written up by the safety guard that was patrolling the remainder space.
“The trucking firm I used to be with didn’t permit unauthorized folks in your truck, so I used to be breaking the foundations”—and to make issues worse, she was being loud.
He imagined the report of this violation touchdown on his boss’s desk, which might trigger him to lose his job. So he bodily quieted her.
“I put my fist into her throat and leaned on her. I’ve realized that strangling takes an excessive amount of effort to take action… you don’t need to seize on tight. You make a fist and kinda like lean in, cup your hand over, and push down… as soon as I pushed down, she misplaced consciousness very quickly… about twenty seconds or so.”
Within the second, Jesperson feared the repercussions of getting caught breaking the foundations at work greater than he feared getting caught for homicide. “I’d gotten away with homicide 5 instances earlier than, so getting away with homicide wasn’t the difficulty,” he boasted.
Nonetheless, “getting away with homicide”—or somewhat getting caught—would quickly change into a difficulty for Jesperson. On March 30, 1995, he was arrested for the homicide of one other lady, 41-year-old Julie Winningham.
By Could 1995, to keep away from the dying penalty, he had determined to admit to all eight murders he had dedicated. Nonetheless, the girl within the Florida case would stay unidentified for many years, regardless of the relentless efforts of investigators.
In April 1996, Florida despatched one investigator, Glen Barbaree, to talk with Jesperson.
Through the years, investigators would proceed to fulfill with Jesperson and work to establish his sixth sufferer. Investigators hoped that by circulating an approximate picture of her inside the media and evaluating the portrait to photographs in lacking individuals databases, both somebody would acknowledge her, or they’d discover a lead.
Jesperson informed them he thought she regarded like Nicole Kidman, and he remembered what sort of coiffure she had.
When investigators despatched him photographs of Kidman, Jesperson drew a portrait of the actress with the hair he recalled the Jane Doe to have.
Jesperson was dismissive when he recounted the trouble.
“I received fun out of it. What did they anticipate? They needed me to recollect one thing [from] twenty years in the past, and I can’t keep in mind it.”
Latest developments in expertise, significantly DNA evaluation, has helped investigators establish victims in chilly circumstances all around the nation. In 2022, DNA from ancestry.com identified Jesperson’s fifth victim as Patricia Skiple; nonetheless, in contrast to his Florida sufferer, he had already been charged on this case.
Then, in March 2023, Othram, a genetic genealogy company working with the Nationwide Lacking and Unidentified Individuals System produced leads in the case. These leads lastly restored the identify and id of Jesperson’s sixth sufferer: Suzanne Kjellenberg.
When Kjellenberg was recognized, the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Workplace held a press convention on Oct 3, 2023. Othram’s legislation enforcement liaison, David Nutting described the traditional DNA evaluation that their workforce used to establish Kjellenberg
“Othram will develop a profile from the stays and submit that into family tree databases, and we have now a workforce of almost a dozen forensic genetic genealogists on employees who work by publicly obtainable databases to go looking to search out kinfolk, and as soon as we slim it down by these databases, we’re capable of present results in legislation enforcement,” Nutting mentioned.
Nutting shared that 102 circumstances have been resolved this yr alone utilizing this expertise, no matter how little DNA was obtainable. Nonetheless, regardless of these hopeful forensic developments, 14,000 unidentified human stays nonetheless exist at present in the USA.
“The expertise exists to resolve these circumstances however are solely restricted at this level by the dearth of funding,” Nutting mentioned.
On this specific case, The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Workplace, Florida Division of Legislation Enforcement, and District One Medical Examiner’s Workplace labored over the span of 29 years to positively establish Kejellenberg.
“Suzanne deserves a voice. We’re that voice for her at present, and this case has been years within the making…[but] it’s unlucky that it took this lengthy to convey this case to justice,” Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden mentioned.
Sheriff Aden mentioned Kjellenberg’s household had “ expressed gratitude for the perseverance of investigators, the Medical Examiner’s Workplace, and the FDLE. Additionally they requested for privateness to deal with this new improvement.”
Jesperson obtained an arrest warrant at Oregon State Penitentiary on Oct 2 “for the homicide of Suzanne. I don’t know what her final identify is,” he admitted. “I informed them I don’t even wish to know as a result of I didn’t know her identify then and I don’t wish to realize it now.”
“I’m making an attempt to overlook about all this,” Jesperson mentioned.
Hickey discovered Jesperson’s indifference unsurprising. “This can be a man who doesn’t concern God. This can be a man who doesn’t take into consideration life hereafter, [and] has no perception aside from himself, and he’s clearly in denial about quite a lot of issues,” Hickey mentioned.
Jesperson has filed for a quick and speedy trial by Florida Division of Corrections If granted, the request would immediate the courtroom to settle the case inside 60 days.
On December 27, Jesperson was scheduled to seem in courtroom through Zoom. He anticipated to be sentenced that day. Already serving life with out parole, any time added to his unique sentence will make no distinction to him, though it might present closure and justice to Kjellenberg’s household.
Jesperson mentioned he has been considering making an announcement to the courtroom, and if he does, he plans to elucidate that “the one mistake that my victims made was that they trusted any person that couldn’t be trusted.”
“They got here in considering that all the pieces goes to be okay, and it didn’t prove that method, and right here I’m—why did they die? As a result of I injected myself of their lives,” Jesperson mentioned.
Requested about regret, Jesperson mentioned that he’s sorry his life went down this highway and he needs it by no means did. Nonetheless, he appears incapable of contemplating the ache his actions have brought about others, solely speculating that Kjellenberg’s household and the households of his different victims wouldn’t “need me to inform them how sorry I’m that their member of the family died. They don’t need me to try this as a result of they need their member of the family again. They don’t wish to hear what I’ve to say as a result of so far as they’re involved there’s nothing I can say that might be helpful to them.”
More than likely, he’s proper about that.
