Israel Keyes

The Backroom

Israel Keyes was raised in a large family. He was the second of 10 children born to Heidi and John Keyes. The children were raised very religious and attended a church called the Arch, that taught white supremacist Christian ideologies. In his youth, Israel became obsessed with Ted Bundy, even idolizing the notorious serial killer. The Keyes children were raised in a one room cabin in Washington were their parents forced them to live in tents and hunt for their own food. As a hobby, Israel would hunt anything with a heartbeat, even skinning a deer alive on one occasion. Children at the church would isolate him because of this behavior. Eventually, he realized that he was different from his peers and developed antisocial behavior and withdrew himself socially in his teen years. It's believed that between 1997 and 2012, Israel murdered at least 11 people. He picked his victims at random and prepare for a long while before committing the murder. His last confirmed murder was and 18 year old coffee booth worker named Samantha Koenig in Anchorage, Alaska. Keyes took her phone and debit card, sexually assaulted her, then strangled her. He left her body in a shed for two week while he went on vacation with his family. He returned, applied makeup to her face, sewed her eyes OPEN with fishing wire and took a picture with a four day old newspaper, posing as if she was still alive. After, he demanded $30,000 in ransom and then dismembered Samantha's body and dumped it in a lake. He was caught a month later in Texas. Israel Keyes committed suicide on December 2, 2012 in his jail cell. His trial was set to begin in March 2013.