Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised this episode includes discussions of sexual assault, rape, animal cruelty and violence that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. Fourteen year old Keith Jesperson wiped the tears off his cheek as he ran down the dock that jutted into the Atlantic, but the tranquil ocean waves did little to calm his anger. The trip to Fogo Island was supposed to be fun, a relaxing family vacation that everyone could enjoy.

But once again, Keith's father had ruined everything.

Keith look to see if anyone from his family had followed him, but no one was there. Good. He thought he hated them. He wanted to be alone. Keith had a pile of fishing nets at the end of the dock, then attempted to hide his large frame underneath them. At 14, he was just about six feet tall, going on 200 pounds. It was a struggle, but he managed to curl himself underneath the netting, shrouded in darkness.

Keith listened to the water lapping and allowed his mind to wander. He pretended that he was the creature from the Black Lagoon, the prehistoric sea monster from a movie he'd seen years before. With this fantasy, the rage coursing through his veins grew. He didn't want to hide any more. He wanted revenge.

Hi, I'm Greg Polson.

This is Serial Killers, a Spotify original fun podcast. Every episode we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers.

Today, we're taking a look at Keith Jesperson, otherwise known as the Happy Face Killer. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone.

You can find episodes of Serial Killers and all other originals from podcast for free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Today, we'll explore how Keith Jesperson is fraught. Relationship with his father turned him into a hardened killer.

Next time, we'll cover Keith's career as a serial killer, detailing the ways in which he murdered his victims and how he earned his infamous nickname, The Happy Face Killer.

We've got all that and more coming up.

Stay with us. It's strange to think about serial killers as victims, but the fact is many of them are the casualties of unhealthy and harmful environments. But before they became murderers, they were just children forced to navigate the world alone. Thanks to extreme abuse and neglect.

Some killers refused to blame their upbringing for their later crimes and take full responsibility for the choices they made as adults. Others won't accept any culpability whatsoever and hold their parents accountable for everything. After all, it's not their fault. They grew up in a house where bad behavior was on display and sick impulses were allowed to fester.

Keith Jesperson falls firmly into the latter category. He may have been the one to kill at least eight women throughout the 1990s, but in Keith's mind, his abusive father handed him the tools to do so.

Keith was born on April 6th, 1955, in Chilliwack, British Columbia. His parents, Les and Gladys, always knew that their son was different, unlike their other children. Keith was shy and too curious for his own good, although he strived to be obedient.

He also loved to wander and got distracted easily. As soon as he could walk, he explored the family farm, stopping to examine any plant or animal that caught his eye as the middle of five children.

Keith often felt like an outcast amongst his siblings. He claimed that his brothers in particular made fun of him for everything, including his size, his learning difficulties and his quiet nature. Keith's father, however, was the bully in the family. Les was an abusive alcoholic who felt that the best way to discipline his children was through corporal punishment.

Although he frequently beat all of his kids, it seemed to be reserved.

The worst treatment for Keith most often less punished his children by whipping them with his belt. Gladis often tried to stop her husband, but if he'd been drinking, there was little she could do to help. If she stepped in, he turned his rage on her.

As a result of the teasing from his siblings and abuse from his father, Keith spent most of his time alone getting lost in his imagination.

And while a bit of fantasy play is normal at a young age, some children use it compulsively to escape trauma.

Vanessa is going to take over and the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg.

Though we usually encourage children to use their imagination, in some cases it can do more harm than good. According to the Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI, future serial killers often unconsciously program themselves to become murderers. This can happen at a young age when some start to depend on a loop of intense fantasies to survive. Childhood abuse and neglect can cause innocent daydreams to turn dark. Children might imagine getting revenge on the adults who have wronged them, or they dream about finally exerting control over someone less powerful than they are.

Eventually, these children reach a point where they need to actually live out their fantasies, while the time and manner in which this takes place is different for every killer. For some, the violent fantasies manifest in the form of animal cruelty. However, unlike many other serial killers, Keith actually began his life as an animal lover in 1960, just before Keith's fifth birthday.

His parents brought home a chocolate lab that they named Duke.

Even though Duke was meant to be the family pet, the dog quickly became Keith's one and only friend. The pair roamed the farm each day and slept beside each other at night. Over time, Keith's connection with Duke led him to bond with other animals.

One day, while wandering the family farm, Keith came upon a crow with a broken wing wanting to help the injured animal. He took the bird home and named him Blackie after making a splinter out of Popsicle sticks. He gently affixed it onto blackies wing, then placed the crow in a bed of soft rags to recover comfortably.

Later that afternoon, Keith's older brother, Bruce, laughed at Keith's pathetic excuse for an animal hospital. Bruce scooped up the helpless bird and brought it to a friend who lived nearby. Keith pleaded with Bruce to leave Blackie alone, but his brother ignored his cries. Bruce and his friend trapped Blackie inside a makeshift cage, then through Jack knives at the bird until it was dead. Keith was horrified. He felt hurt, powerless and traumatized. But at such a young age, he couldn't identify those feelings, nor could he process them.

Instead of verbalizing his emotions. Keith stormed back home, walked right into his brother's room and destroyed whatever he could get his hands on. He took Bruce's precious model airplanes, toys that the boy had worked hard to assemble and threw them out the window. When Les returned home from work and saw what Keith had done, he beat him as punishment. Keith tried to explain what Bruce did, but Les couldn't care less. He shrugged and told Keith, Get over it, son.

It's just a dumb crow.

It's likely that this traumatic experience caused Keith's relationship with animals to shift. He started to care less and less about the livelihood of innocent animals. To further instill this lesson, Keith's father and grandfather also started to take Keith hunting, where they encouraged the boy to kill animals.

Then lesson listed Keith's help to get rid of unwanted critters on the family farm. Feral cats were by far the worst problem, and the father and son worked together to come up with cruel ways to kill them. In addition to shooting them with B.B. guns, Les and Keith through the cats into burlap sacks and drowned them while his relationship with his father was fraught with mixed emotions.

Keith had no one else to turn to. He remained an outcast to his siblings and elementary school classmates.

Surprisingly, it was his reputation for torturing animals that earned him his first friends. Some local boys heard about Keith's specialized skill set and invited him to join them as they roamed around town, finding creatures to torment and murder.

These boys proved to be even more sadistic than Keith's father. Their methods of torture are too gruesome to discuss here. But suffice to say that they took particular pleasure in watching the results of their handiwork and relished the chance for spectacle. Even though they didn't share an emotional connection, these boys were the only friends Keith had. The only people in his life who made him feel worthy. He had tried to make friends before, but it always ended in a fight.

One such incident happened when Keith's parents wanted him to befriend a boy named Martin. Less and Gladys were close friends with Martin's parents, and the adults hoped their boys would get along.

Unfortunately, Martin was extremely mischievous. He often dragged Keith to areas of the property they weren't supposed to go into and broke valuables as if they meant nothing. When their parents found out, Martin blamed all of his wrongdoings on Keith.

At some point, Keith decided he'd had enough. He cornered Martin behind the garage and started beating him up, screaming that he was going to kill him. The adults ran outside as soon as they heard the commotion. But by the time Les managed to pull Keith off, Martin, the boy was unconscious. According to Keith, if his father hadn't stopped him, he would have killed Martin.

When Keith explained what Martin had been doing, less felt that Keith's actions were not justified, so less gave him the belt. After that, Martin's parents never returned to the farm. While his friendship with Martin was lost forever, Keith maintained his relationships with the local boys. Unfortunately, his group of friends didn't attend the same school. As a result, Keith had no one to turn to during the week. To make matters worse, his classmates often made fun of Keith for his size, like his brothers.

They also teased him about his difficulty in school.

Girls were specially put off by Keith. None of them wanted to associate with the kid who spent his weekends torturing kittens with the worst kids in town.

So as everyone in his fifth grade class started to learn about their sexual urges, Keith sat on the sidelines, often feeling confused about sex.

Keith sexual development was further stunted by a traumatic incident that occurred in his adolescence.

One day, Keith and his friends loitered around a neighbour's dairy farm. They hadn't found any animals to torment that day, so the boys played innocently, chasing each other around the pasture. A workman watched the kids for a while, then beckoned them to follow him into the barn.

When they filed inside, the workman told the boys he was going to teach them about sex. When he disrobed, they followed his lead and watched as he played with his penis.

Keith quickly became uncomfortable, and when the workmen started to zero in on a particular boy, Keith grabbed his clothes and ran from the barn. He later heard that the workmen raped the boy. It's unclear how Keith processed that event in the immediate aftermath. But in April of 1967, his life and Chilliwack was less than ideal. His only friends were sadists. The adults he encountered were abusive, and he had no romantic prospects. Despite all of this, when his family decided to move to see the Washington, Keith desperately didn't want to leave.

Unfortunately, 12 year old Keith didn't have a choice. His father had landed a better job designing machinery for the harp growing industry. So the family packed up and moved 260 miles south to the United States.

His mother tried to convince Keith that the move was for the best, promising her son that his life would only improve. She was wrong.

Coming up, Keith tries in vain to prove himself by listeners, it's Greg when it comes to true crime, it doesn't get much better than the hit podcast Unsolved Murders if you're a fan of our show.

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Life in Seela should have been an improvement for Keith. His father had a better job. They lived in a nicer house. And because Canadian schools had higher standards, Keith was deemed an advanced student when he joined his sixth grade class in the U.S..

But while his mother, Gladys, assured Keith that he would make new friends, he continued to struggle socially. In addition to making fun of his size, his new classmates also made fun of his Canadian accent and turns of phrase.

By this point, Keith had mastered the art of retreating into his imagination whenever the other kids started to tease him.

Keith escaped the bullying by spending more time in his fantasy world, but less didn't approve of idle time spent daydreaming. In addition to his job designing machinery, less also started a small construction company and was hoping to invest in rental properties. Juggling all those balls, he needed as much help as he could get. So during the summers, Keith's father put him to work.

He taught Keith how to weld and fabricate, as well as how to operate heavy farm equipment. Although less was a good teacher, he was also impatient with such an extraordinary work ethic. He had a hard time coping when Keith didn't learn something quickly enough, while father and son spent long hours working together.

Keith still harbored mixed feelings about Les. He desperately wanted his father's approval, but at the same time was also terrified of Les and the beatings he imposed. Still, Keith tried to make his father proud and did, as he was told just by Keith's dedication to his father.

Les treated as other sons with far more care. When Keith wanted a new bike, less made him work every other day after school to save up the money when the time came to purchase it less not only bought one for Keith, but he also got the exact same one for Keith's older brother on a whim.

Since Keith was 11, Les had made him start paying room and board for a while. Keith was under the impression that his brothers had to pay rent, just like he did. But just after his 14th birthday, Keith discovered that he was the only one being charged to live at home.

Keith asked his mother for help. At Gladys's insistence, Les said he would stop making Keith pay to live there, but he refused to reimburse his son for his past payments.

Instead, he told Keith to think of it as a learning experience, despite liking his father less and less every day. Keith still opted to spend his time working alongside his father. At the very least, it was a distraction from the fact that all of Keith's classmates were starting to date and he had barely done anything with a girl other than like her from a distance.

But in the summer of nineteen sixty nine, all that changed less took the family on a road trip across North America and they ended up on Fogo Island in Newfoundland. The kids were permitted to run free around the island.

And at some point, Keith met an older girl who took an interest in him.

Keith and the girls snuck away to a grassy bluff and made out for hours. But when she took off her shirt, Keith was disgusted by her breasts. Later that summer, he kissed another girl and felt relieved when she didn't try to take off her shirt. At 14, it seemed Keith was not as sexually developed as his peers, whether it was due to a lack of socialization or education, Keith's brain was still firmly in a prepubescent state. In 2000, 18 psychologist Charmaine Borg and her colleagues published a study in the Journal of Sex Research in which they examined sexual disgust in both preadolescent and adolescent youth.

The psychologists wanted to confirm the common held view that prepubescent children often react with disgust to sex more than adolescent youth do. They also wanted to understand whether sexual disgust increased when the source of disgust was a familiar person. Disgust in general is an intrinsic function of disease avoidance. When we encounter something new that might infect us, our brains send out a disgust signal to keep us away from it. When adolescents hit puberty, the disgust reactions to sex stimuli are reduced and counteracted by hormonal reactions.

And as adolescents experiment with sexual activity, it stops being something new and potentially dangerous. Over time, repeated sexual interactions reduce these disgust responses a great deal by 14. The only sexual experience Keith had been privy to was the rape of his friend at the dairy farm. That, combined with his lack of socialization, could have prevented his disgust response from diminishing. Perhaps this explains why, instead of feeling aroused by the sight of breasts he was repulsed by.

Unfortunately, Fogo Island was small, but news of Keith's abnormal reaction to the girls bodies got around.

His father found it hilarious and made fun of Keith in front of their whole family, mortified.

Keith ran down to the dock and hid underneath some fishing nets. He pretended for hours that he was the creature from the Black Lagoon as he played Monster.

He fantasized about attacking anyone that came looking for him, but no one ever showed.

At the end of the summer when the family returned to Washington. Keith felt like he needed to prove his manhood to his father. So he went to the library and educated himself on anatomy, reproduction and pleasure. It was only once he read these books that he understood why his father had been making fun of him, and he vowed that his next sexual encounter would be a normal one.

A few months later, Les took Keith on a fishing trip on the Washington coast. On their last night away from home, 14 year old Keith wandered the beach alone.

He saw a girl sitting by herself at a campfire and joined her. She was 18, but because Keith was so tall, she couldn't tell that he was four years her junior. So she had no qualms about having sex with him there on the beach. Nor did Keith at the time, though he later changed his mind and referred to the event as rape.

Because Keith always felt like he was being taken advantage of, he often sought out any opportunity to feel in control. In 1971, after obtaining his driver's license, sixteen year old Keith bought himself a car and drove around Seela, seeking out animals to shoot.

His favorite creatures to kill were deer, rabbits and cows, because he thought their dying screams sounded like humans, he enjoyed torturing the animals so much that he started to experiment with other weapons.

He used his father's farm equipment to manufacture pipe bombs and cannons. Then he drove out to the middle of nowhere and blew up critters as they scurried throughout the pastures. Dogs remain the only animal that Keith wasn't interested in harming his chocolate lab. Duke was still alive and Keith took great care of the aging dog when Duke's arthritic leg stopped working. Keith made sure to always lift him onto the bed after all.

Duke was still his best friend during his junior year in high school. Keith came home one day to find that Duke wasn't there to greet him at the front door concerned. Keith searched the entire property for his loyal companion, but Duke was nowhere to be seen. Eventually, someone told him that Les had shot Duke when confronted by his son.

Less claimed that he only put Duke out of his misery after the dog ate some coyote poison. Keith didn't believe him. He was certain that his father had killed his pet just to be cruel.

In response, Keith made a point to torment any other dog that crossed his path whenever Les brought home a new dog. Keith smacked it, flicked it on the nose and encouraged it to jump out of a moving car. His father's lesson regarding animals had finally sunk in.

He no longer cared whether they lived or died, and he no longer have the patience to live under his father's roof.

When Keith graduated from high school in 1973, the 18 year old found an apartment away from his family. His lackluster grades meant college wasn't an option. So Keith got a job pumping gas for the rest of 1973 and much of 1974.

Keith lived on his own in peace, although his social life was still dismal. Keith felt independent and in control of himself. For the first time. He was a little lonely, but ultimately he was happier away from his father while still in high school.

Keith had saved enough to buy himself a motorcycle. It was his prized possession and unless asked if he could borrow it.

Because less was known to drink and drive, Gladys begged Keith not to lend his father the motorcycle, she was sure her husband would injure or kill himself, but less knew exactly how to bully his son into submission. And Keith couldn't say no.

Less gulped down bottles of Pepsi mixed with Rye as he rode his bike down the winding mountain roads, he eventually lost control and wiped out in a ditch, winding up in hospital, just like Klatt, as predicted. Afterwards, less asked Keith if he would take care of the family business while he recuperated and Gladys requested Keith to move back home. In the meantime, Les also asked Keith to sell the motorcycle because he couldn't stand the sight of it.

Keith reluctantly agreed to everything and found himself back under the roof and control of his parents yet again after his brief taste of freedom. Keith was desperate to strike out on his own again, and next time he was determined to carve his own path. Up next, Keith searches desperately for a way out. Now back to the story. By the fall of 1974, 19 year old Keith Jespersen felt helpless. He figured he would never be free of his parents, never get married or have a family of his own.

But one night, when Keith stopped to grab some takeout at Lariat barbecue, he met a young waitress who changed his mind.

Rose Pernick was a 17 year old high school senior with dark hair and a small frame, Keith had been to the Lariat barbecue plenty of times, but he'd never really noticed Rose before this time. The two chatted and flirted for a while until he asked her out on a date. Rose turned him down. Undeterred, Keith returned to the restaurant several times until she eventually agreed to his request.

Keith's father was thrilled with this development. Despite raising Keith in a cruel manner, he still wanted his son to live a full life and soul less happily. Len Keith, a blazer for his date, encouraging to lock this girl down and marry her as soon as possible.

Rose's mother wasn't as enthusiastic about the pairing. She didn't trust Keith and only allowed him into her house after he'd been out with Rose five or six times.

Meanwhile, Keith wasn't so sure how he felt about his new girlfriend. She was pretty, yes. But once he got to know her, he found that nothing about her truly excited him.

Despite his uncertainty about Rose, Keith felt immense pressure from his father to propose, Rose was also pushing for a ring she wanted out of her mother's house, and marriage was the only way her family would allow that to happen.

So on August 2nd, 1975, after about a year of dating, Keith and Rose tied the knot. At the wedding, Bruce grew annoyed with Keith's family members who got drunk, and she forced Keith to leave early instead of spending their wedding night in bliss. The couple argued in a cheap motel off the highway.

The marriage was a train wreck from the start in Keith sighs The only upside to marriage was the promise of sex on a regular basis.

However, he found he didn't enjoy sex with Rose. They clearly wanted different things. Perhaps he wanted to incorporate violence and she did not.

Unable to satisfy his urges in the bedroom, Keith returned to his tried and true practice of killing animals. In addition to his other businesses, Keith's father owned a trailer park and put Keith in charge of unwanted pest and animal removal.

Keith saw this as an opportunity and adopted a take no prisoners approach to animal control.

Keith often poisoned the animals, chopped off their heads or threw them into the incinerator while they were still alive. These actions not only made him feel powerful, they aroused him, and the pleasure he derived from torture only escalated as he found more creative ways to do it because Keith was able to feed his violent urges through his job.

The first few years of marriage went relatively smoothly for him and rose. Their relationship got even better when Lisa's trailer park went under and Keith no longer relied on his father for a paycheck.

Keith found new work as a truck driver. The job gave him ample time to indulge his imagination, thinking about his future as he drove down America's highways. He daydreamed about moving to Canada with Rose.

The one thing Keith didn't think about was children. He didn't want children because he was afraid his offspring would turn out to be like him after failing to conceive. Keith hoped that either he or Rose were infertile, but like always, he didn't get what he wanted.

However, when Keith daughter Melissa was born in 1979, she appeared perfectly normal. His son Jason, who was born in 1980, also seemed set for a regular life. Keith was relieved and actually felt excited about being a father.

The 25 year old was determined to be different from his father and vowed never to lay a hand on his kids. He even pulled Les aside and made him promise never to hit his grandchildren. Less reluctantly agreed.

To maintain his children's love and adoration for him, Keith tried his best to control his violent urges, but sometimes they were just too strong. Once he attacked a stray cat in front of Melissa and Jason, letting slip the facade he'd worked so hard to build up.

Keith's uncontrollable emotions didn't just cause friction with his children. They also put extra strain on his marriage. He was on the road most of the time, and for the five or six days a month he was home, all he wanted her to do was have sex. Occasionally, Rose gave in to Keith, but most of the time she sent him to the bathroom to satisfy his urges alone.

His wife's unwillingness to cooperate in bed infuriated Keith. He criticized everything Rose did, even shaming her for her fluctuating weight. In short, he was miserable to be around, which matched how he felt inside.

Desperate to find happiness, Keith jumped at the opportunity to move his family to Canada. He took a job at a coal mine based out of Elford. British Columbia certain that moving up north would solve all of his problems.

In July of 1981, the family packed up and moved to Elford, and life actually improved. Instead of torturing animals and pressuring Rose for violent sex. He made friends with other mineworkers and motorcycle enthusiasts and partied with them whenever he wasn't working.

He also met women who hit on him, which boosted his confidence, though he never actually cheated on Rose.

But while Keith social life was flourishing, his home life continued to deteriorate while he was out partying.

Rose was forced to take care of the children all by herself, which left her feeling lonely and exhausted.

She also didn't take to Canada the way Keith did. She hated the cold. She missed her family, and she worried school was too difficult for the kids.

Her grievances only escalated when Keith was fired from his job and Rose gave birth to their third child, Kerry, in 1983.

Around that same time, Keith was laid off from another job he picked up and his mother was diagnosed with cancer. So Rose made the unilateral decision to move the family back to Washington when they returned to the states.

Keith's a violent and sexual urges returned with a vengeance. It seemed that a sadistic fantasies were tied directly to his moods. The more miserable he was, the more he felt a loss of control, which only made him want to hurt others.

Keith speculation that his cravings were tied to his mental well-being was correct. According to Jack Levin, a professor of sociology and criminology, most mass killers suffer from some form of chronic depression. Levin says that over time, killers externalize responsibility, blaming everybody but themselves for their failings. They have some kind of an acute strain, a catastrophic loss, the loss of a job, the loss of a relationship at home, maybe even a terminal illness. And they have the means whereby they can do a lot of damage.

While some people tend to think that killers are pushed to murder because they snap or reach some sort of breaking point, that's usually not the case. Most serial killers steep themselves in their negative fantasies, taking time to plan their attacks.

Keith stewed for years, soaking up every bit of gloom and desolation that washed over him, he blamed his father for his behavior and traumatic childhood, his wife for his sexual frustration, society for being cruel to an innocent little boy while he knew he couldn't harm his father or the mother of his children.

Keith took out his frustrations in other ways. Tired of begging his wife for sex, he started cheating on rows with women he knew and others he met in bars or on the road.

In nineteen eighty eight, 33 year old Keith started an affair with a waitress. We don't know her real name, so we'll refer to her as Cindy.

Keith met Cindy while driving through the town of Weed, California. She was a single mother with a temper that matched his own to Keith. She was the only woman who could keep up with his vigorous sexual demands, and Keith didn't want to let her go.

Several months into his affair, Keith told Rose he wasn't happy and that he wanted a divorce. According to Keith, Rose simply rolled over in bed and said nothing with no response.

Keith left for work the following day, assuming they would resume the conversation when he got back. But when he returned home about a week later, he found that Rose had packed up the family and moved to her parents home in Spokane, about 200 miles away.

After 13 years of marriage, Keith and Rose finalize their divorce. In August of 1988, Keith claimed that he cried as he signed the papers and was at that point already questioning his decision to leave his wife. Whether or not Keith actually cared about Rose, he did miss his children. Spending more time with Cindy and her kids made him long for his own family. And to his horror, Cindy wasn't the best mother. Like less, she often hit her children and ignored Keith when he told her to stop.

Keith missed his kids so much that he would drive up to see them at the same time. Things were starting to become more difficult with Cindy now that Keith decided he had had enough.

One night when he decided to leave Cindy, they got into a huge fight. Keith left their mobile home to cool down for a few hours. When he came back to get his things, he found Cindy passed out on their bed drunk.

Keith became aroused at the sight of her unconscious body. He pulled off her pants and raped her four times, only stopping when he started to feel sore. Afterwards, Keith left to go return to Rose.

When Cindy woke up, she couldn't remember taking her clothes off and felt that something was very wrong. She called Keith and asked if he'd raped her while she was passed out, cornered.

He admitted that he did.

While Cindy was upset, she was mostly confused. Keith soon left, but the wraparounds Keith so much that he left Rose to return to Cindy right away.

Despite taking him back, Cindy was frustrated with Keith, and it's little wonder he continued to go back and forth between her and his kids for just over a year. But at the beginning of 1990, Keith and Cindy finally called it quits. She told Keith she was leaving him for good. Throughout January, 34 year old Keith spent a lot of time alone, his temper was always bad while he was on the road, and he caused multiple accidents with his reckless, angry driving.

His poor record finally caught up to him and he lost his job.

He spent his days drinking and thinking about how much he hated Rose and Cindy. In fact, he was pretty sure he hated women in general.

They didn't care about his wants or his needs. They just used him for his money. And they certainly didn't mean it when they said they loved him.

When Keith walked into the BNA Tavern on the afternoon of January 21st, 1990, he was filled to the brim with anger. The last thing he expected was a warm interaction with a pretty girl. But that's exactly what happened.

23 year old Tanya Bennett walked right up to Keith and threw her arms around him, surprising him completely, the bubbly brunette told him her name, then returned to a group of people playing pool, confused.

Keith asked the waitress about Tanya. She told him that Tanya was developmentally disabled, intrigued. Keith watched her from across the bar, marveling at how much she looked like his ex-wife.

Later that night, when Keith got home, he was overwhelmed with loneliness, he kept thinking about Tanya, he became convinced she liked him and the fact that she was disabled turned Keith on. Eventually, his desire for Tanya became so strong that he got in his car and drove back to the BNC tavern to find her when he walked up to the bar's entrance.

Tanya came bounding out the front door. He waved to her from the parking lot and asked if she wanted to go get something to eat.

She happily agreed and climbed into Keith's car, perhaps excited to make a new friend. But as they drove into the night, Tanya Bennett was unaware that she had only hours left to live.

Thanks again for tuning into serial killers.

We'll be back soon with Part two of Keith Jespersen story. We'll explore how he turned his violent fantasies into reality and transformed into the man known as the Happy Face Killer.

For more information on Keith Jespersen, amongst the many sources we used, we found ie the creation of a serial killer by Jack Olsen, extremely helpful to our research.

You can find more episodes of Serial Killers and all other originals from podcasts for Free on Spotify.

Will see you next time. Have a killer week.

Serial Killers is a Spotify original from podcast executive producers include Max and Ron Cuddler Sound Design by Brian Golub with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden and Bruce Kaktovik. This episode of Serial Killers was written by Ellie Reid with writing assistants by Abigail Cannon, fact checking by Adriana Romero and research by Brian Petrus and Chelsea. Would Serial Killers stars Greg Poulsen and Vanessa Richardson.

Don't forget to check out the dictator's podcast every Tuesday, they go deep into the minds of some of history's most despised despots. You'll get insight into the rise to power and the impact of their downfall. Search for dictators and the Spotify app and listen free today.