As our Best of 2024 selection, we're featuring our three-part series on notorious serial killer Israel Keyes. Israel Keyes died having only confessed to a handful of murders and crimes. Researchers and investigators are left piecing together evidence to solve cold cases. 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 should listeners know before diving into this episode?
Due to the nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of rape, kidnapping, murder and suicide. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. To get help on mental health and suicide, visit Spotify.com slash resources.
Chapter 2: Who were Israel Keyes' known victims?
Over the course of six months in 2012, Israel Keyes gave FBI agents the names of three of his murder victims, Samantha Koenig and Bill and Lorraine Currier. He recounted the events of one of his first ever victims, a teenage girl he says he abducted and raped along the Deschutes River in Oregon sometime between 1996 and 1998. He claimed he intended to kill her, but didn't go through with it.
The FBI has since tried to identify this survivor. If they've succeeded, they haven't released any additional information to the public. And beyond that, investigators have only ever linked one other case to Israel Keyes, the 2009 disappearance of a New Jersey woman named Deborah Feldman. Deborah's remains still haven't been found, but the FBI believes she's the fourth victim of Israel Keyes.
The circumstances of her disappearance match statements Israel made about a victim he buried in New York. And like Samantha Koenig, her name was also found on Israel's computer. How many more victims did he have? There's only one person who knows for sure, and he ended his life in his prison cell back in December 2012.
But that hasn't stopped investigators from trying to connect more cold cases and bring closure to victims' families. Today, with the help of Josh Hallmark, we're discussing three missing person cases that he believes could be connected to Israel Keyes. 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. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. This is the final part of our series on Israel Keys. In our last two episodes, we discussed Israel's confessions to the murders of Samantha Koenig and Lorraine and Bill Currier.
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Chapter 3: What investigations are ongoing regarding Israel Keyes' possible other victims?
The FBI believes Israel may be responsible for more murders, but Israel's death in prison put an end to the confessions. Now, Josh Hallmark walks us through the unsolved murders he believes have the strongest links to Israel Keys. Stay with us. It's March 1998. Suzanne Susie Lyall is a 19-year-old college sophomore.
She was a student at SUNY Albany. She had just transferred there. She'd been at another SUNY campus in New York. decided to switch to SUNY Albany. She grew up in Ballston Spa, which is outside of Saratoga Springs. And so she wanted to go back to the Albany area to be closer to her parents, but also to be closer to her boyfriend who was in the area.
She was big into computers, loved writing poetry. She was really into horses. Even her mom said she was a little bit nerdy, but just a brilliant, really kind-hearted, thoughtful girl. Everyone I've talked to says she was just wise beyond her years, very mature, and just a very insightful, interrogating person.
She works part-time at a video game and software store called Babbage's, located at the Crossgates Mall in Albany. On March 2nd, she takes a bus from campus to work, finishes her shift, and Josh says this is where the timeline gets confusing. According to the New York State Police, she catches a bus back to campus and arrives at the Collins Circle stop at SUNY Albany around 9.25 p.m.
She's less than a thousand feet from the campus's towering dorm buildings, and no one knows what happens to her from there. She's never seen again. But Josh isn't so sure that Susie got on the bus after work.
What's frustrating about Susie's case is we don't know where she was last seen. So she had been getting ready for midterms and so she wasn't really participating in any socializing.
So she took the bus to her job at Cross Gates Mall and she got off and she walked out what is essentially an employee's only entrance and it leads into a loading bay, which is not super visible from the parking lot or the rest of the mall. And what she normally would have done is from there walk to the bus depot and take the bus back to her dorm.
We know for sure she left work that day, and we know for sure she exited through the normal route. They have talked to the bus driver who drives that route, and they talked to a girl on her floor in the dorm, and they both believe they saw her that night.
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Chapter 4: What happened to Suzanne Lyall?
But Josh wonders whether they actually did see Susie that night.
You know, we've talked a lot about this. She was part of their normal routines. So weeks later, if they're interviewed, it would be really challenging to say like, yes, on this night we saw her because they saw her most nights in this exact same manner.
Christopher Kunkel is a forensic psychologist and criminal investigative consultant who's been involved in Susie's case.
I went there recently with Chris Kunkel, and if she was abducted walking from the bus stop to her dorm, it would not have gone unnoticed. It's a very short distance. It's very open. It's basically a giant circular roundabout with a lawn in between and two, I think, 10 to 12 story dorms.
so highly visible short distance it also echoes because you're in a quad so you're in between all these buildings and we tried to come up with a million different scenarios where she somehow gets abducted in this short distance with no one seeing and it just there nothing worked so it is of both of our opinions that she likely never made it onto the bus after work
What's indisputable is that Susie never makes it back to her dorm that night.
The next day, her debit card is used. $20 is taken out of her account. It's used at a convenience store about a mile, mile and a half from her school. And they don't have an ATM camera, but they have a camera in the convenience store. And they find a man who was in there around the time the transaction happened. They call him the Nike guy because he was wearing a Nike hat.
And he becomes kind of suspect number one.
Not technically a suspect, a person of interest. Others are considered over the course of the investigation, including Susie's boyfriend.
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Chapter 5: What evidence links Israel Keyes to Susanne Lyall's disappearance?
So that was kind of the most compelling evidence for me to take this seriously, in addition to her being on his computer. So then we started looking at more dates. We knew that for Keyes to enlist, he had to get his GED and get a social security card. He didn't get that because he was basically born off-grid. And from where he was living, he would have to do both of these things in Albany.
It was the closest location for him to do that. So we don't know exact dates, but we do know that between at least October of 97 and July of 98, when he finally enlisted that he had to go to Albany at least three different times. And that location is, like I said, directly across from the Marshalls. And you can see SUNY campus from that location.
There is also a Hertz rental car directly next to the enlistment office. And we know that he was renting cars at the time from Hertz.
As the coincidences piled up, Josh found he wasn't alone in his thinking.
Chris Kunkel, before Keys was on his radar, had always believed it was a serial killer. He just said it was too clean for it to be a first-time act. And then he found out from my show that Susie's name was on Keys' computer. And so we started talking and comparing notes. And I think our cases that it was Keys got stronger and stronger. There's also the computer element.
Keyes was a computer video game guy. His cabin didn't have electricity, so in order for him to play video games or use a computer, he'd have to go to a store like Babbage's to do that. Susie, when she was at her previous SUNY campus, which was closer to Keyes' cabin, worked at a Babbage's there, also closer to Keyes' cabin. So again, there's a lot here that mirrors the crimes we know about.
We've got the test ATM use. We've got a tall white guy who dresses like a farmer in that location at the time the card was used. That's how Keyes is often described. We've got Susie on his computer. We've got them both being into online communication. Her working at a store, which is one of few places Keyes would be able to actually access the internet at that time. So very compelling evidence.
And Josh says that something happens on the 15th anniversary of Susie's disappearance. Her name trends on Google, which isn't necessarily strange. The anniversary could explain the spike in press coverage. But of all places, Susie's name trends in Houston, Texas, at a time we know Israel was in Texas.
Working against the theory that Israel had a hand in Susie's disappearance is the fact that he once told the FBI that he didn't kill anyone until after he joined the military. And as Josh mentioned, Susie disappeared beforehand.
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Chapter 6: What are the details of the unsolved case of Jean Hyatt and Cami Volendroff?
In statements to the FBI, Israel spoke about driving long distances. He drove from Chicago to Vermont in the abduction of the Curriers, and once mentioned driving more than 300 miles with a victim alive in his car.
You know, for us, a seven-hour drive is quite long, but relatively speaking for him, it's nothing.
Israel appeared to have a thing for couples and told authorities he often chose smaller victims to make the abduction and disposal process easier.
They were slight, they were theater kids, you know, just walking out to go look at the ocean. But from Key's perspective would be very easy victims.
Jean was between 5'6 and 5'8, 140 to 150 pounds. Cammy was 5'7 and weighed around 130. And when Josh visited Depot Bay, he noticed something about the route Jean and Cammy likely would have taken.
What stood out to me is the pathway from their condo to this area is mostly along the highway, but there is one little area that is entirely shrouded from the parking lot, from the park and from the highway. And it's where you would enter or exit southbound from the park in a car. So that stood out to me because when I go to these places, I always have to think about the logistics.
Like, how could Keyes have done this? Like, where could he have done it where no one would have seen him? How would he have gotten back to his car? It's all kind of boring and tedious. But here it was like this stood out to me immediately. It's like, oh, this would make sense why no one saw them there that day because they never made it there.
Even though it's such a short span, he could have parked his car here and they could have come up and he could have grabbed them both.
After Jean and Cammy disappeared, investigators and volunteers performed thorough searches of the area. The Coast Guard got involved. No evidence is found.
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Chapter 7: What conclusions can we draw about Israel Keyes' criminal history and unsolved cases?
It's very clear to me and many professionals I've spoken to that they did not get swept away to sea. And so either they ran away, which everyone who knows them has said, like, there's no way, or they were abducted. And it just so happens that they almost identically match Keyes' account of abducting a couple. And there's, in fact, no one else who matches that account.
All these years later, there's no more certainty. There's still work to be done, more evidence that needs to be found, and there's no telling which direction it will point.
We know that Cammy was wearing a bracelet when she disappeared. I have pictures of it. And so we are trying our best to match that up to pictures of jewelry found on Keyes' property in New York, as well as the house he shared with his ex-girlfriend in Alaska. But yeah, I think that's one of those where we're kind of at a dead end unless law enforcement decides that they want to play with us.
Josh has spoken with some of Cami's loved ones. He says he's gotten to know her cousin and best friend well. They both lived with Cami when she disappeared.
And they think that Keys makes the most sense. They haven't said this is what we think happens, but they've said, you know, this makes more sense than anything else we've heard.
What they've heard is mostly what law enforcement believes. Jean and Cami were washed out to sea by a rogue wave during a storm that hit around the time they departed.
Keyes talked about reading about his crimes and his victims, and he was often surprised at what law enforcement or the media determined or hypothesized had happened. What he specifically says is, oh, presumed boating accident, or, oh, presumed lost in the woods, or, oh, presumed lost at sea. And it's interesting that those were the three examples that he chose.
If you have information about Jean or Cami's disappearance, contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678 or the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office in Oregon at 541-265-4231. Israel Keyes abducts Samantha Koenig on February 1st, 2012, and murders her later that night.
The next morning, he travels with his girlfriend and daughter to Houston before driving to New Orleans to go on a cruise. He's weeks away from getting caught, from his house of cards coming crashing down. When the cruise finishes, Israel's girlfriend decides to go on a road trip with some friends. So Israel and his daughter drive to the Dallas area to visit his mother and sisters.
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