0:02

Let's start from the beginning. I

0:08

was a young girl. I was eleven years old, and

0:11

my parents had just divorced, and

0:14

my dad was now living with his girlfriend in Portland,

0:16

Oregon. And this was my first

0:19

summer vacation where I stayed

0:21

at a different home than my my childhood

0:24

home. And the moment I

0:26

walked in that house, I felt like I wasn't alone,

0:28

that there was energy there, that

0:30

there were spirits there, that

0:32

I was being watched in every

0:35

room. In every room,

0:41

he had purchased bunk beds for my sister

0:43

and I and my sister picked the bottom bunk

0:46

and I picked the top bunk. And

0:49

it was my first night in this new

0:52

house. I

0:56

fall asleep a little bit, but then I'm awakened

0:58

by being touched. And

1:01

then my hair is touched. It's

1:04

not a heavy touch, it's a light touch. So

1:09

I leap and go down the little

1:11

stairs of the bunk bed and I rush

1:13

over and I'm going to go run into

1:15

my dad's room, but I froze. I

1:19

felt that whatever

1:22

was touching me was over there

1:24

too. I

1:29

wasn't going to be safe in my dad's room,

1:31

and I didn't feel safe with my dad, and

1:36

so I laid on the in the hallway

1:39

floor with a light on,

1:41

curled up in a ball, hoping that the night would

1:43

just go away fast. And

1:46

in the morning my dad stepped

1:48

over me and he said, why

1:50

did you fall asleep in the hallway

1:53

And I said I was being touched, Dad, something

1:56

was touching me. And

2:00

he said, Oh, don't pay any attention

2:02

to them. They bothered me all the

2:04

time at night. Don't

2:08

pay them any mind. M

2:16

Melissa, who is your dad? And what is he known

2:18

as? My

2:21

father is Keith Hunter, just person. He's

2:24

known as the happy Face serial killer.

2:29

My girl, my

2:32

girl, don't

2:35

lie to

2:37

me. Tell me

2:39

where did you

2:41

sleep last

2:44

night? And

2:48

the fights and

2:50

the fights with

2:53

the sun don't have a

2:55

shine, I

2:57

will shiver. Oh

3:01

nice. My

3:07

name is Lauren bry Pacheco. I'm a television

3:10

producer and I've worked with Melissa Jasperson

3:13

Moore for about four years. We

3:15

work on crime stories together and we travel

3:17

a lot, and during our downtime we've

3:19

had the chance to really get to know one another.

3:22

And she shared a lot with me about

3:24

her past, especially her childhood.

3:33

My tall old home was amazing.

3:36

My parents had three children together. I'm the

3:39

oldest. A year later,

3:41

my brother was born, and then two years

3:43

after my brother and my sister, Carrie was

3:45

born, and my

3:47

mom was the stay at home mom, and my

3:49

father was a long hall truck driver. I

3:52

felt loved, I felt provided

3:54

for, I felt adored, but

3:57

I actually felt like I was a

3:59

super are Minissa,

4:02

How big are you? This

4:05

big? Yes? Really

4:07

big? Keep

4:10

dance, Mania, you

4:13

can't. You're

4:16

a good dancer. We

4:21

lived in the country, and when

4:24

I would hear the semi truck pull up, and you could hear

4:26

the wheels on the gravel, and you just

4:28

knew, you knew, you could easily

4:30

recognize that sound. The window

4:32

panes would actually shake because of

4:35

the size and the rumble of his engine.

4:37

So we would just bolt. My brother and my sister

4:40

and I would actually race to get to my dad to see

4:42

who could get into his pockets first,

4:44

because in his pockets were

4:47

tons of change and and tokens

4:49

and things from his trips, and so it

4:52

was like a competition who could get

4:54

who could get Dad's change? And

4:57

and that was our first encounter

4:59

with him. And you pick us up and he would throw us in the air

5:01

and play with us and be excited to see us,

5:04

he would be just as excited to see us as we were

5:06

excited to see him.

5:08

Everybody thinks, there, you

5:10

know, their dad is the center

5:12

of the universe, but your dad, How

5:15

did you feel being placed up on his shoulders. I

5:19

love the view that I because he's so much

5:21

more and I felt

5:24

that I was absolutely safe

5:26

and that anything was possible,

5:29

and that I could do whatever I wanted to do, and that

5:31

was safe in the arms with my

5:33

dad. He

5:37

was six ft six and close

5:40

to three pounds. His size

5:42

was something that the first thing you notice,

5:45

how you feel so small in comparison.

5:50

Keith was this huge giant

5:53

man even to adult, so for a

5:55

child, he must have seemed even

5:58

that much more enormous. And when Melissa

6:00

talks about him, she has this reverence,

6:03

this almost mythological

6:05

lens that she views him through. I

6:09

felt like my dad was a superhero because he

6:12

was so large, and he could actually

6:14

eclipse the sun with his with his head,

6:16

like he just his body, like the sun

6:18

would just like beam behind him and he could

6:20

just eclipse the sun. Phil

6:32

Stanford the Oregonian. The

6:39

letter, unsigned and written

6:41

on pale blue paper, has a

6:43

happy face at the top of the first page

6:47

two, tiny circles for eyes, an

6:49

upturned sliver of a moon from mouth.

6:53

Have a nice day,

6:59

all five of it, says

7:01

next to the cartoon face. However,

7:04

the letter is six pages long. So what

7:06

does that mean? Five?

7:08

What? Five

7:11

murders? That's what h

7:34

Melissa agreed to go on the road with me

7:36

and our producer Noel and revisit

7:39

the places from her past that have incredible

7:42

significance, both good and bad, to her

7:44

today, and one of

7:46

those places was Spokane, Washington, where

7:49

she moved with her mother and siblings

7:51

after her parents divorce. I

7:54

haven't been to Spokane for a long time, but

7:56

whenever I come back here, I

7:58

think about the first time

8:00

I came here back in my

8:04

dad was home for the weekend

8:06

and we had a great weekend. We're really close

8:09

and it was like a normal

8:11

weekend. And then it

8:13

was time for my mom to drop

8:15

off my dad at the truck station.

8:18

And on the way to the truck

8:20

station to his his offices

8:23

at there

8:25

was just this tension in the air and

8:28

there was something obviously going

8:31

on between my parents, my mom and my dad. When

8:45

we arrived at my dad's work, he

8:48

got the car and acted like he

8:50

was never going to see us again. He hugged

8:52

us super tight, said how much he

8:54

loves us, and was

8:57

just gripping us like it was his

9:00

last time ever holding us. When

9:07

I saw him walk away and go to his job,

9:09

my brother and sister and I got back in the car and

9:12

my mom was silent until

9:15

we were about a block away from the house.

9:17

She said, when we go

9:19

into the house, I need you to pick one thing,

9:22

your favorite thing. We

9:31

drove there because we were going to meet her

9:33

mom, Rose, who we met at work. I'm

9:36

excited to see. Yeah, I'm glad that you're

9:38

going to meet her. She's a case worker

9:40

at First Slevation Army where she helps

9:43

families who are on the streets transition

9:46

to having a life

9:48

off the streets. And so these are children that

9:51

have lived in cars. These are children

9:53

that have nothing very similar to what

9:55

I had and what she had. I

10:01

wonder if she has a picture of me in her office.

10:05

I think she might be coming out. Well.

10:08

They hadn't seen each other in a few

10:10

years, but you could definitely hear the warmth

10:13

and the pride and the love in Melissa's

10:15

voice when she described

10:17

her to us. You know what you'll find that about

10:19

my mom is she's a very nurturing,

10:22

soft person that you could tell

10:24

anything too. So not

10:27

dreamy, skinny.

10:30

Oh my gosh, we're doating small. My

10:33

office is over. Meeting Melissa's

10:35

mom in person, I was really taken aback by

10:38

the fact that they don't look alike. Melissa's

10:41

always told me that she looks just like

10:43

her father, and I never saw it until

10:45

I met her mom. She

10:48

absolutely looks like her father. Was

10:56

flying down here, I was thinking

10:59

about what your

11:01

experience must have been like, because when

11:03

we came here is after separated.

11:07

I remember just, you know, leaving and coming

11:09

here without planning. That's

11:11

what felt like. It wasn't planned,

11:13

it wasn't what happened. Well, it

11:16

was our thirteenth wedding

11:18

anniversary and I

11:20

was expecting a bouquet of flowers

11:22

and he said, you know, I think we should

11:24

just get a divorce. He said, would

11:26

you mind just leaving? And

11:29

were you happy at any point with him?

11:32

I think at the very beginning we had a lot

11:34

of fun and we would we take a month

11:36

off and we traveled

11:38

down m I five all the way down California

11:41

along the beaches, or you

11:43

know, oh yeah,

11:45

we did we take a month off go to Lake

11:47

pale Um. We go

11:49

to Canada. Oh. He had a golden

11:52

wing motorcycle and we went all through Canada,

11:54

traveling through Lethbridge

11:57

and Alberta. It was a good provider,

12:00

he really was. He probably felt really financially.

12:02

I felt safe, and

12:05

then I had to and then things

12:08

changed. I

12:16

would like to tell my story. The writer

12:18

of the letter begins. The

12:21

exclamation point is all his. So

12:24

is the labored printing and the odd

12:26

mixture of capital and lower case

12:28

letters honor.

12:30

About January,

12:33

I picked up Sonja Bennett, and I took

12:35

her home. I raped

12:38

her and beat her real bad. Then

12:41

I ended her life by pushing my fist

12:43

into her throat. When

12:51

my dad was so open to town, he

12:53

didn't get a hotel. He would stay at our

12:55

home, my mom's home, and

12:58

even when she was with her new boyfriend

13:01

who became her husband, my dad

13:03

would stay in the house with him in the house as well.

13:06

The reward of him coming

13:08

was he's filling the pantry, he's helping her.

13:11

But she was a single mom. She

13:13

was a sole provider for months

13:16

on end, and here he comes into town. She's

13:18

going to take any reprieve she can get.

13:20

You know, this

13:26

area right here is where um,

13:28

when my dad would come to visit, we'd

13:31

drive past this road right here. But this used to

13:33

be all open fields like this, and

13:36

um at the end here was as a safe way

13:39

where we would go and get groceries. So when

13:41

my dad would come into town, he would actually

13:44

take us three kids to this grocery

13:46

store and just let us pick anything

13:49

we wanted. And one thing that he constantly

13:51

picked was just like he would get these

13:54

huge five gallon tubs

13:56

of ice cream and then he would get these,

13:58

uh he would get like a couple

14:00

of packages of bacon. He would make not like one

14:03

package of bacon at a time, he would make like five

14:05

packages of bacon at a time. So

14:10

when he came, he was a source of all

14:24

at A girl that I used to hang out with, Tamera,

14:27

and she lived right here in this house,

14:31

huh. And what happened was

14:33

she lost her jacket and

14:37

she accused me of stealing her jacket. And

14:39

you know, in the just person household, we

14:42

don't steal like that is like something

14:45

is the code of honor, you don't still

14:47

And so I told my dad that her

14:50

parents think I'm a thief, and then I stole

14:52

her coat. So he walked over

14:54

there and confronted

14:57

her parents. And I was so nervous because he was so

14:59

aggressive. I was just terrified

15:01

of what he's going to do to that to her

15:04

parents. And he explained how

15:06

I didn't steal that jacket, and he

15:09

pretty much I don't know remember

15:11

exactly what he said, but he

15:14

really terrified her parents

15:17

so much so that she never came back to my health. But

15:28

there's something about the letter that holds you,

15:30

that makes you keep reading. Maybe

15:33

it's the urgency of the prose itself.

15:35

Maybe, although you might not want

15:37

to admit it, it's the lurid details

15:40

spelling off the pages like cold

15:42

sewage. Maybe

15:45

the writer, whoever he is, is making

15:47

it all up. But if so,

15:49

you have to wonder what kind of person would

15:51

even be able to write something like this.

15:55

This turned me on. I

15:57

got high, then

16:00

panic set in. Where to put

16:02

the body? First,

16:06

he says, he drove to the Sandy River

16:08

and through Tanya Bennett's purse and walkman

16:11

into the water. Then

16:14

he drove back home and dragged the body

16:16

out to his car. I

16:19

want the world to know that it was my crime,

16:23

So I tied a one half inch soft white

16:25

rope around her neck. I

16:28

drove her to a switchback on the scenic Road

16:30

about one and one half miles east of Lateral

16:33

Falls. I dragged

16:35

her downhill. Her

16:38

pants were around her knees because I had cut

16:40

her buttons off. You

16:48

know, happy faces. On one side

16:50

of the coin, he's he's a loving

16:53

family man, and he's

16:55

a good friend, and he's he's

16:59

a good provider. He's everything

17:02

that you know as a child you want

17:04

for a dad. And then on

17:06

the other side of the coin, he

17:09

is everything that scares

17:12

you, everything that

17:17

could hurt you. He goes from protected

17:19

or predator and and

17:23

wrapping my mind around it is impossible.

17:48

I started to notice the shift and the

17:51

household probably about when

17:54

I was in kindergarten first grade. Things

17:57

started to change in the household.

18:00

My mom seemed more withdrawn, and

18:04

I imagine her being

18:06

isolated in a house with three young children

18:08

must have been difficult for her and my father

18:11

being gone, but when he would come

18:13

home, there seemed to be a distance between

18:15

my mom and my dad physically as

18:17

well that I didn't witness them

18:19

hugging or being affectionate with one

18:21

another. I actually I don't

18:24

even recall kissing. I

18:26

can't even remember if they even kissed each other

18:28

when they greeted each other. Now,

18:39

looking back, I see the dynamic between my

18:41

parents and recalling how

18:44

critical and degrading

18:46

he was to my mother. He would

18:48

put her down for driving, He embarrassed

18:51

her, He told her all the time about what a horrible

18:53

housekeeper she was. He complained

18:56

about her food, he complained about her weight. Everything

18:59

my mother did was wrong. I

19:04

was never din enough for I

19:06

was de fat. You

19:08

know. Eight dinner, Oh God forbid

19:10

about eight dinner. As

19:24

a kid, when I was alone with my father,

19:27

he would bring up that he

19:30

constantly felt sexually rejected,

19:33

and he would say that my mom would tell him

19:35

to go put it in a keyhole. So

19:38

what was your father thinking talking about his sex

19:40

life with his child? My

19:42

father sex life was always a part of the conversation.

19:45

I heard it with his friends.

19:47

I heard it in the flirtation, in the sexual

19:50

harassment of waitresses. I heard

19:52

it having to hear him tell me

19:54

these details about their sex life. I never

19:56

asked my father. It was just part of the conversation.

19:59

Constantly. I

20:02

knew that my father was

20:04

a very sexual man. From

20:06

a young age. I recall finding

20:09

hustlers and playboys all around,

20:11

like all around the house, and

20:14

when I would go to the truck stops, I would

20:16

see his offices were

20:18

lit like discovered and nude calendars.

20:22

So nude women in pornography

20:25

was always a part of my childhood. Mag

20:32

Maga, don't

20:36

lie to

20:39

me. When

20:42

Bennett's body was found actually

20:44

about a mile west of Lateral Falls and

20:46

a mile and a half east of the Vista House,

20:48

there was a rope around her neck, good

20:54

sleepless, and

20:59

the addition, as the police reports indicate,

21:02

the button fly of bennett jeans had been

21:04

cut away,

21:09

and the

21:26

letter continues, she

21:29

was my first and I

21:31

thought I would not do it again, but

21:35

I was wrong. It

21:44

was clear that Keith had no filter um

21:47

for what was appropriate to say

21:49

or do in front of his kids, and

21:53

many of his other impulses were

21:55

even darker, and

21:57

he acted upon them.

22:03

I remember there was a weekend that

22:05

my dad was back home and

22:07

he from one of his long hales, and

22:10

there was a barrel

22:13

u a rusty barrel that he was burning

22:16

shrubbery and and old debris from

22:18

the yard, and he was cleaning the yard and

22:21

we had this barn, and behind the

22:23

barn I saw my brother and he had a

22:26

black cat. And I remember how

22:29

dark the cat's fur was because

22:31

it was so shiny. It

22:34

looked silvery like, almost like glass

22:36

from the sun hitting the cat's back,

22:38

hitting the fur. And so I saw my brother just

22:41

petting this black cat,

22:43

and how slick and pretty

22:46

the cat looked, and I wanted to touch this

22:49

cat too. I wanted to pet and

22:51

so I went up to my brother and I

22:53

sat next to him behind the barn, and

22:56

I started petting the cat with him.

22:59

And quickly I noticed

23:01

that my dad had witnessed

23:04

me petting the cat with my brother. And

23:07

at this point, the cat is still my

23:09

brother's lab and then my dad

23:11

approaches us. He walks up to us, and

23:14

he says, what do you have there. I

23:24

remember my dad's sitting down to the other side of Jason

23:27

and taking the cat in

23:29

his in his lap, and he started petting

23:31

the cat, and both

23:34

my brother and I were tense. I could we could

23:37

feel like something's something's wrong,

23:39

because we knew my dad

23:41

hated cats, absolutely

23:43

hated them. So for my dad to be

23:45

sitting next to my brother petting this cat.

23:49

Was was odd that he would

23:51

be lovingly petting a cat, and quickly

23:53

he was remember his big

23:56

hand just like engulfing the whole cat. And

23:58

then all of a a sudden, with one hand, he

24:00

pinned the head down and

24:03

grabbed it with the other hand and he just started

24:05

squeezing the cat's neck.

24:07

And then the cat started to like

24:11

screech and to and

24:13

to scream and started clawing

24:15

for its life um

24:17

on my dad's forearms and just was clawing.

24:19

And I was thinking, and my brother and I

24:21

were screaming, and we're

24:24

like stop a dad, Stop a dad,

24:27

Like why are you doing this? Dad? Why are you doing

24:29

this? And just screaming at him to

24:32

try to like stop it. Like

24:37

it just it made me so nauseous,

24:40

Like it just made me How

24:43

old would you and Jason have been? We

24:47

were young? My brother and I were young. We

24:49

were six

24:52

seven years old. I don't recall

24:54

telling my mom, I don't recall telling

24:58

anybody. And the reason and why

25:00

is it just like when it came to my

25:03

father, there was just this thing that

25:05

people said in the family. They would say, well,

25:08

that's just Keith, that's just how Keith is.

25:11

And it seemed to be acceptable.

25:23

Keith Jesperson takes steps toward a court appearance

25:25

he's tried to avoid for years,

25:28

as well as an order enemy plea of no contest

25:31

to the aggravated murder count. After prosecutors

25:33

read off the charges and with the victims

25:35

family looking on, Jesperson gave

25:37

grizzly details of how he

25:40

killed twenty three year old Tanya Bennett in

25:42

his apartment and forced my fist

25:45

into her throat and

25:48

h and later grabbed

25:50

the rope and tied around her neck securely,

25:54

and she was dead. You

26:00

know, I stopped in the hallway that one night. The

26:02

second night, I slept on the couch

26:05

and kept the TV on so i'd

26:07

have light. And as I laid on the

26:09

couch, I looked at the ceiling and

26:11

I saw markings

26:14

on the ceiling of some kind of splatter.

26:17

And then as I was laying there,

26:20

the cabinet doors in the kitchen were opening

26:22

and closing, and I remember touching

26:24

my eyes and rubbing my eyes, thinking

26:26

I must be seeing things. But

26:29

I would hear it too. They would open and they would

26:31

close, says. He left the body

26:33

in the Columbia Gorge, then cleaned

26:35

up his house watched the

26:38

carpet. I washed the blood off

26:40

the walls what I could, and eventually painted

26:42

the walls in the house I was in, and

26:47

I'm trying to forget about it. I

26:52

would later discover that in that

26:54

very room where I was laying down was

26:56

where he he murdered Tanya

26:59

Bennett in

27:01

the most gruesome and brutal way possible,

27:04

And that now I look back

27:06

and think, was that

27:09

blood that I saw? And

27:12

I believe it was my

27:19

good my

27:21

girl, don't

27:25

to me tell

27:27

me where did

27:30

you sleep last

27:32

night? Happy Faces

27:35

a production of How Stuff Works. Executive

27:37

producers are Melissa Moore, Lauren Bright,

27:39

Pacheco, Mangesha Ticketer, and Will

27:41

Pearson. Supervising producer

27:43

is Noel Brown. Music by

27:46

Claire Campbell, Page Campbell and Hope for a

27:48

Golden Summer. Story editor is Matt

27:50

Riddle. Audio editing by Chandler

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Mays and Noel Brown. Assistant

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editor is Taylor Chickoin. Special

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thanks to Phil Stanford, the publishers of The Oregonian

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Newspaper in KTU News in Portland,

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Oregon. I'm

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going with a

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quote when blow