He asked me why I was so late. I’d made it to the prison on time, but it took three attempts at changing my clothes before guards approved me to go in. I’d never read the regulations (like directions, who does?). No jeans. No sweatpants. I ended up wearing a pair of shorts I borrowed from my cameraman, Peter Heap, who, with the rest of my Dark Minds crew, waited in the parking lot.
Though it was clear to me by then that Keith Jesperson suffers from acute systemic paranoia, he did not seem to worry about much with regard to the lack of morality surrounding his eight known murders. He’d committed his crimes, given himself up. He was contented serving time for his “debt” to society. To him, he was paying for what he’d done; and the public, because of that, should not condemn him for the choices he made in life. It’s a common theme I’ve heard within the context of my research surrounding other serial killers: Most are able to wiggle their way out of the death penalty by withholding information about their crimes until a deal is offered. Most are afraid of death ( Jesperson included). All have a complex regarding what society thinks of them; they fear and loathe being judged. For example, “I dragged a woman underneath my truck to get rid of her teeth and palm prints, but I never, listen to me, I never strangled any kittens,” Jesperson told me. “That’s the Hollywood prototype my daughter has parlayed for herself into a career writing books and being on television.”
As I began to learn about his crimes (not what has been written about him in books and on the Internet or portrayed in the fictionalized films made about his life—but the admissions he would make only to me over five years and the exclusive documents I’d soon obtain), I realized I was dealing with a complicated, evil human being (a description he would laugh at), who does not care about humanity. Not because he doesn’t want to, but sympathy and empathy are not part of his biological makeup. He is a man who murdered women as if their lives did not matter, as if he’d been authorized by some unknown entity to decide how, why, and when they should die. He was a murderer who had killed for years with no thought about the consequences or pain those deaths would cause his victims’ loved ones, or the mere fact that taking someone’s life because of your own preconceived notions, issues with women, anger, a need to control, obsession, fantasy, or any reason, is unethical and just plain wrong. He knew what he did was immoral and criminal, yet he had trouble understanding society had the right to hate and judge him for those actions.
“I did her family a favor,” he rhapsodized about a young victim who was “supposedly” pregnant and asked him for a ride. According to Happy Face, she was on her way to trick a man into thinking he was the father of her child. “There was no way I could allow her to ruin this man’s life and have him raise a child that was not his.”
“So you killed her?”
“Yes—and her baby. She deserved it. I put her out of her damn misery.”
As an active killer, and perhaps even more today, Jesperson believed his own ethos. He assumed that playing God with his victims’ lives was a choice he could make. This brings up a point one needs to bear in mind moving forward: Jesperson lives within a bubble of his own truth, a moral relativism defying explanation or reasoning. He thinks we should listen to him and take what he says as gospel because it is how he “feels.” He believes the eight lives he took needed to be snuffed out. His victims had been at fault, deserving their fate (always), and that karma played a role in him crossing paths with each victim. Most interesting, he is certain that anyone put in a similar position, under the right conditions and circumstances, would have responded to the situation as he had.
“We are all capable of murder,” he told me. “And once you cross the line and do it once, you’re one murder away from becoming a serial killer like me and killing two and three and so on.”
He said I had within me the capability of evil, of taking a human life—that we all do, adding, “You need to understand this. Hopefully, I can educate you. Look, I got away with my first murder. Two people were arrested, prosecuted, and convicted for a murder I committed. Then I attacked a woman, was arrested for it, and got a slap on the wrist. I was free to kill.”
Despite everything we talked about, however, the main thrust of any discourse or soliloquy he delivered, the one objective always on Jesperson’s mind, was a law enforcement and judicial fiasco following his first murder and what led to two innocent people being arrested and convicted for it. Jesperson had a detailed narrative he needed to make known to the world, one that a few before me had tried to get right, he complained, but failed. Correcting the record was a refrain and motive for him to participate in my research. “A wrong that was committed against me,” he reiterated. “I need you to make it right.”
Imagine: A serial killer was upset that, in his opinion, there had been an injustice (he called it a “cover-up”) within his criminal life that had gone unchecked and unchallenged. He wanted me to commit to “investigating” this facet of his case and report my findings.
I promised to tell that part of his story. But sharing the facts of his case, I explained, while digging into his life and childhood, his relationship with his kids and father, and exploring why he killed, was how I’d planned to get there.
“I hope you’re ready,” he warned as guards rounded everyone up to leave. It was loud in the room and we had to speak over the crowd noise. There was an unspoken, handshake deal between us, as if we’d cut fingers and shook a blood oath. “Because it is going to get messy. I’m going to share things with you I’ve told no one—and not everyone is going to accept or like what I have to say.” He winked.
I left.
2
A MURDER OF CROWS
“The only lies for which we are truly punished are those
we tell ourselves.”
—V.S. Naipaul, In a Free State
KEITH JESPERSON PACED INSIDE HIS CELL. NOW, HOURS AFTER dinner, he and his fellow inmates had been put to bed for the night. It was the end of September 1996. He’d been down just over a year. A bit squirrelly still, not quite used to the daily grind of everyday prison life, Happy Face knew he would not find sleep on this night.