He ordered a series of tests.
To use a serial killer in the pursuit of other serial killers for the sake of television was the hook that sold my series. Dark Minds was pitched as Silence of the Lambs meets Catch Me If You Can. Cold cases, reintroduced to the public in the fashion of America’s Most Wanted, dramatized for entertainment purposes, became an irresistible concept for TV execs at the dawn of the true-crime television boom. The goal was to shed much-needed attention on cold cases collecting dust in records rooms, with the hope of generating new information. Although I was criticized by some (Internet trolls) for not solving a case during the span of the series, my aim was never to play cop on television. I desired to bring awareness to stagnant cases by imploring viewers to contact law enforcement if they had information and wanted to help. Many of the featured twenty-one cases are active once again; three of those are closer now to being solved than they ever were; every episode generated a multitude of tips. A task force was created (specifically) after I reignited an investigation into several missing girls in Connecticut I had a personal connection to. I’m proud of the work we did and the accomplishments we celebrated.
Regardless how I feel about him, I could never deny that Keith Jesperson played a role in the show’s success. As I worked toward my goals and the show aired, if there was some stomach pain involved, a couple of “episodes” to contend with, so be it. I’d learn to manage. It wasn’t every day I was sick, and I considered it the cost of doing business with the Devil.
I live in a small town. Woods surround my property on three sides. My black Lab sits on the floor by my side as I write, research, conduct interviews via Skype and telephone. We take walks together. I try to make daily Mass three times a week (to balance the dark with light). I have a garden and cook my suburban version of gourmet for relaxation. In winter, I chop and burn wood, snow-blow my driveway. In the summer, I cut my own lawn. On the whole, my life is as peaceful and introverted as one might expect a full-time writer’s life to be, though investigative journalism and writing books is hard work that requires tenacity, self-discipline, guts, and long hours.
I’ve always been alone with my thoughts. But after two years of talking to Jesperson about cold cases and what was going on inside the mind of the serial killers I was hunting, this dark, destructive figure became a relentless component within all of that. Same as a flu virus, Jesperson was there one day like a tickle in the back of my throat, but soon it was overwhelming me, taking over my life, saddling me. At one time, Jesperson called my office every day, at hour intervals. He called me “buddy” and “friend” and asked how my day was, looking for any opportunity to know me more personally. I’d force myself to forget about him from time to time, but there I was accepting his calls again, listening to him spew his venomous paranoia over why I hadn’t picked up the phone or answered a letter in weeks. It was taxing, emotionally and psychically, but like so many other toxic situations we find ourselves in, I got used to it.
Beyond the health problems I now experienced, how was I going to manage all of the information coming in and the inevitable brush-off one day? Dark Minds would end. All television series are canceled. Would I cut him off entirely? The rapport, from the start, wasn’t like most writer/source relationships. I generally interview people for stories and books several times, at the most for a few weeks, and then they’re out of my life. This was a long-term commitment—with someone, mind you, who talked about the most disturbing behaviors imaginable.
“I have to ask,” I said one day while we discussed a victim he was said to have dragged for twelve miles, “was she alive when you strapped her to the bottom of your truck?” I was in a bad place. The macabre and violent aspects of his crimes gnawed at me. I couldn’t stop thinking about the depravity and torture he had perpetrated upon his victims, knowing that he was probably sharing about 50 percent of what he had actually done to them.
“What kind of person do you think I am?” he said, that flippant, baritone laugh behind the comment.
“You’re a serial killer! You’re a disgusting human being who killed people at will, without any regard for humanity. That’s who you are.”
“I heard you were straightforward, Phelps.”
“Was she or not?”
“It would be a better story if she was alive, I know, but no, she was dead—at least I think so.”
He laughed again.
This was the story of my life.
*
AT TIMES IT BECAME difficult to move forward and find a rhythm when speaking to Jesperson. But once I connected with the right space for him to occupy in my head, I went for it, presuming I could handle whatever he dished out, along with whatever he had planned. What he had to say was all at once compelling, fascinating, vulgar, inhumane, incredible, revolting, honest, and deceitful.
There has always been a dialogue in this country about why we are so obsessed with and engrossed in all things true crime, especially the most heinous acts of violence humans can do to one another. What is it that drives record numbers of people tuning into true-crime television, reading the books, and lining up to see the violent movies? I was living within the context of those questions. The insight I had access to felt unprecedented. I’d read serial killer books written by forensic psychiatrists, accounts of clinical interviews done with infamous serial killers in a contained setting over a period of weeks or even months (some on death row, some not), scoured the Internet for academic serial killer research, all while thinking: What I am doing with Jesperson is beyond the scope of that work.
I could ask Jesperson anything and he’d answer. No subject, he made clear, was off limits. He respected my work. He’d read every book I’d written and, to my alarm, sent them to me afterward, with his “notes” in the margins: scribbled gibberish on page after page, explaining what I got right and wrong, pointing out errors, with random thoughts sprinkled throughout. He knew what I was capable of, once I decided to dig into a story, write about it, and he praised my investigative skills.
As Jesperson collected murder victims after killing Bennett (attacking another woman months later, but letting her go—a mistake he vowed never to make again), he settled into a routine. He was a long-haul trucker by the end of 1990, traveling the country: a murder machine passing through state after state, running into potential victims everywhere he went.
“I could have killed hundreds if I wanted to, before anyone would have caught on,” he told me one afternoon.