As our Best of 2024 selection, we're featuring our three-part series on notorious serial killer Israel Keyes. Over the course of six months in 2012, Israel Keyes sits down with the FBI for a series of interviews. In between toying with investigators and bargaining for what he wants, he confesses to a handful of other crimes — while alluding to a whole lot more. Keep up with us on Instagram @serialkillerspodcast! Have a story to share? Email us at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What warnings do listeners need before hearing this episode?
Due to the nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of rape, torture, kidnapping, murder and suicide. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. If you or someone you know is feeling hopeless or struggling emotionally, visit Spotify.com slash resources for help.
I know as time goes by, the longer I'm in the system, the longer the investigation goes on, you're going to keep finding things. You're going to start to connect dots. I'm only going to give you the dots that I know you're going to eventually connect.
That's Israel Keys speaking with the FBI in April 2012. More than a decade later, we still don't know how many dots there are. I'm Vanessa Richardson, and this is Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. You can find us here every Monday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at Serial Killers Podcast. And we'd love to hear from you.
Chapter 2: What is Israel Keyes's mindset during his FBI interviews?
So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. This is part two of our three-part series on Israel Keyes. Last time, Israel was arrested for the abduction and murder of Samantha Koenig. He's now in FBI custody, and he has a lot more to say. Stay with us.
Before we get into this story, amongst the many sources we used, we found the book American Predator by Maureen Callahan and our interview with Josh Hallmark, host of True Crime Bullshit, extremely helpful to our research. The audiobook edition of American Predator is available for Spotify Premium subscribers in our audiobook catalog, where you can check it out after listening to this episode.
Over the course of six months in 2012, Israel Keyes sits down with the FBI about 20 times. Their recorded interviews produce between 40 to 50 hours of tape. After confessing to Samantha Koenig's murder, Israel begins toying with investigators. He says he has more stories to tell and more cards to play.
But in all their time together, Israel only gives officials the names of two other victims, a married couple named Lorraine and Bill Currier from Vermont.
Chapter 3: Who were the victims, Bill and Lorraine Currier?
Lorraine and Bill Currier were a middle-aged couple.
You'll remember Josh Hallmark from our last episode. He's been reporting on Israel Keys for more than a decade.
They just were regular people. They didn't have kids. They were described as quiet. They didn't have a huge social network or a lot of friends. Bill spent a lot of time online. Lorraine had some pretty strong political views. But by all accounts, they were just pretty quiet people who were great employees who lived a mundane, unexciting life.
That is until one day they disappeared from their home in Essex.
It's a small bedroom community. You know, there's some big box stores. It's just off several major highways, I guess in Vermont speak. But yeah, it's like a wooded area on the outskirts of the Burlington suburbs.
Shortly after midnight on June 9th, 2011, Israel walks from his hotel room down the road through the dark. According to Israel, he's looking for the right home. Josh says specifically a one-story house with a garage attached. No signs of kids or a dog. That's how he ends up at the courier's place. They just so happen to fit the bill.
He cuts their phone line and then waits in their backyard for the right moment to strike. There's a neighbor next door who keeps going outside to smoke cigarettes, triggering an automatic light sensor. Israel smokes cigars as he waits for the neighbor to go to bed, which finally happens around 2 a.m. Israel's dressed in all black. He wears a headlamp, leather gloves, and a backpack.
He ties a cloth to hide the lower part of his face, then begins what he calls a blitz attack.
He broke into their garage, and then when he felt it was safe, he broke through the glass that connected the garage to their house and ran in.
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Chapter 4: What events led to the abduction of the Couriers?
Israel says it only takes a matter of seconds. By the time he's finished, Bill and Lorraine are still waking up, still adjusting to their new reality, that there's a tall, masked intruder in their house pointing a gun in their direction. Israel asks the couriers if they own a firearm. Lorraine says, yes, there's a loaded handgun in her nightstand.
He takes it and orders Bill and Lorraine to get on their stomachs. He asks them what else they have in the house, things he wants. He grabs two suitcases and fills them with prescription drugs, jewelry, the courier's ATM cards. He etches their pin number into the back of their cards so he can remember them later. At some point, Lorraine tries to run away by rolling herself off the bed.
It makes Israel upset. They're not taking him seriously.
Says that he starts going through their stuff to get an idea of who they are, you know, where they worked, would anyone be looking for them?
Israel recognizes a military insignia Bill has in his home, evidence that Bill served in the same unit as Israel, the 25th Infantry Division. Israel lets Bill know he's a military man too. After about 15 minutes go by, Israel has the couriers put on slippers. He doesn't want them stepping on broken glass and leaving a trail of blood through the house.
And he pretty quickly gets them into their car and starts driving them to a farmhouse about two miles away, which he had staked out the day before, an abandoned farmhouse.
On the drive over, Bill and Lorraine tried to reason with Israel.
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Chapter 5: How did Israel Keyes conduct the attack on the Couriers?
They kept saying, like, you have the wrong people. We don't have any money. Like, we don't know anyone. There's no reason we should be abducted for a ransom.
They tell Israel he can take what little they have if he just lets them go. Their car, savings, all of it. And they won't tell anyone either. They won't call the police. Bill, they explain, has medications he needs to take. Israel tells them not to worry. He's abducting them for ransom. He's bringing them to a drop house where some accomplices are waiting. They won't be hurt if they cooperate.
They arrive at the farmhouse around 4 a.m., passing a police car parked about 100 feet away. There's a for sale sign in the front yard. The house is set back from the road on a hill, partially hidden by a tree. It's old and run down. A large hole runs through the roof and second floor, allowing moonlight into the living room. The walls are maybe stucco or plaster, covered in dated wallpaper.
There's not much by way of furniture, an old three-cushion couch, a couple of bare mattresses on bed frames. In addition to Lorraine and Bill, Israel brings a propane stove to the house.
He took Bill in first and led him down into the farmhouse's basement where he... zip-tied him to a chair. When he came out, Lorraine had freed herself and was running down the street screaming. Israel sprints after her.
He tackles her to the ground and drags her back to the farmhouse. The escape attempt makes him mad.
He had laid out a mattress upstairs in the farmhouse and tied her up. When he went back downstairs, Bill had freed himself.
Things turn physical as Bill fights back. Bill actually manages to shove Israel a bit, and Israel's not sure how to handle it. As Israel tells the FBI, he had a very specific idea of how the night was supposed to go, and Bill was ruining it. Israel has to bludgeon Bill with a shovel more than once to knock him down.
And this was kind of the pattern for that whole night. He would go back up and begin sexually assaulting Lorraine and then hear Bill free himself again, go back downstairs, tie Bill up. And this went on and on until eventually he went down and had been so frustrated by Bill that he shot him.
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Chapter 6: What were the details of the murders committed by Keyes?
They remember the smell distinctly, but it wouldn't have been unusual for a small injured animal to wander inside and die.
So then the FBI tracked all the rubble to a landfill and they spent, I believe, eight weeks going through the landfill looking for evidence. They found a few bones and some hair. And in where the farmhouse was, they found glasses that they are fairly certain are bill couriers.
The FBI is confident Israel was responsible for their deaths.
Keys knew enough information about them, about items in their home, items in their garage, Bill's glasses at the site, that it is without a shadow of a doubt Keys who abducted and killed them. But the couriers themselves have never been recovered.
Israel was wrong. The FBI might never have connected him to the Currier's murders if he didn't confess. And once that realization sinks in, Israel becomes less willing to talk. He only discusses a handful of his other crimes in any detail. He stops short of discussing any more killings. But the FBI baits him with more presence.
like candy bars, Americanos, access to the internet, and, according to Maureen Callahan, the author of American Predator, a subscription to the New York Times delivered to his cell daily. In July 2012, after a few months spent in the Alaskan penitentiary, Israel opens up about his first ever attempted murder. He was living in Maupin, Oregon at the time, and so was his family.
He was 18 or 19 and grappling with violent urges and existential thoughts. He wasn't connecting with his family's religious practices. Given his inner demons, what he'd later call his black heart, he thought he might identify with Satanism. He'd eventually go so far as to brand an upside-down cross on his chest and tattoo a pentagram on the back of his neck.
But that summer, he selects a location along the Deschutes River for his first-ever satanic ritual.
It was one of those bathrooms where the door, you could walk from the inside in just a single restroom, and it was kind of late, so I didn't even know when you would be here long. That was a small bathroom. Didn't get used very much. They probably only cleaned it out maybe once a year or something. Like the ones you see at Forest Service Campground with the big concrete tank under them.
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Chapter 7: What mistakes did Israel Keyes make during his crimes?
Maybe she did report it, I don't know. Like I say, she wasn't fighting, so I don't know. And I used a condom, so I don't know if there would have been, anybody would have believed her if she did.
Israel learns two things from his experience that day on the Deschutes River. First, he's not that into Satanism. For starters, bloodletting isn't practical. It leaves behind too much DNA. Strangling is cleaner. That and a belief in Satan by default kind of requires a belief in the devil's counterpart, God. And Israel just can't get down with that.
He's done attempting to give his violent urges any rationale or meaning.
Second, and more practically, I realized I could do it and get away with it.
He'd just need to be more careful in the future.
If I was going to do that kind of stuff, it had to just be complete strangers from then on. It couldn't be anyone who knew me or who had seen me around the person or shouldn't even, like, the whole thing that happened in Oregon freaked me out because I could almost see the beach from where I worked every day and it was just too close to home.
Israel developed a travel habit. He often left for days or weeks at a time. He'd tell his parents he was visiting friends or family and go on long drives or hop on a plane. His last girlfriend traveled a lot for work, so he sometimes made use of her miles. He went to great lengths to hide his tracks.
He'd book a flight to one city, then rent a car and drive for miles off into another state, another jurisdiction. He'd turn off his phone for extended periods of time by taking it apart and removing the battery so he couldn't be traced. He'd use cash as often as possible and paper maps so he didn't have to connect to GPS.
For accommodations, he might book more than one hotel and only use one or check himself into multiple hotels at the same time. He'd sometimes book a stay for three days and then leave after two. And if he ever wanted to, he was comfortable living off-grid in the woods. One time, he filed for two fishing permits on the same day, one in Wyoming, one in Alaska.
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Chapter 8: How did Israel Keyes develop his criminal habits?
He could go to Home Depot and buy, a thousand zip ties and duct tape, and it's not going to look strange.
In the military, his peers referred to him as a super soldier. He almost joined the elite army rangers. He could make his own silencers, was adept at camouflage, and knew how to use scopes and infrared sights. Josh discusses Israel's time in the military.
It was serial killer 101 unintentionally.
He even built moving targets in the woods so he could practice shooting. And yet, even with all his firearm training.
According to Keyes, he only ever shot Bill Currier. He said occasionally the guns were used for intimidation, but I think they were also just insurance for him in case someone did get out of line, he had a gun.
That, and he always brought one with him while robbing banks. The fact that Israel Keyes was a burglar, bank robber, and an arsonist, in addition to a serial killer, is often treated as a footnote in stories. The FBI says Keyes admitted to burglarizing between 20 to 30 homes across America, and his arsons and bank heists may have been directly linked to his murders.
The arsons, presumably to destroy evidence and burn remains. The bank robberies, to fund his life and travels. and also because it felt good.
My opinion on the bank robberies is that he is using the bank robbery to sustain the high of committing the murder.
The FBI has officially connected Israel to two bank robberies, one in Tupper Lake, New York in 2009, and another in Azle, Texas in 2012, shortly after murdering Samantha Koenig. But they believe he was responsible for many more. The exact number? No one knows for sure. Israel says it was less than a dozen banks. He quotes a similar number of murder victims.
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