The depraved decade-long killing spree of serial murderer Israel Keyes stands as one of the most disturbing chapters in modern American criminal history. A necrophiliac who raped his victims before and after death, Keyes operated with a chilling lack of pattern, evading capture for over a decade while claiming an unknown number of lives across the United States and potentially overseas.
A Twisted Fascination Fuelled by True Crime
Israel Keyes was not a passive consumer of true crime media; he was an active student who used it to hone his horrific craft. Following his arrest, he boasted to investigators, "I probably know every single serial killer that's ever been written about, it's kind of a hobby of mine." He expressed contempt for killers like Dennis Rader who showed remorse, positioning himself as a more detached and calculated predator.
Unlike many serial offenders, Keyes had no discernible victim type, targeting both men and women aged from their late teens to the elderly. This randomness, combined with his highly mobile and organised method, allowed him to avoid police detection. He financed his obsession by robbing banks and created hidden "kill kits"—caches of weapons and tools—which he buried in locations across the country to use on future, pre-planned trips.
The Ghoulish Murder of Samantha Koenig
Keyes's final confirmed murder was also his most macabre. On 1 February 2012, he abducted 18-year-old Samantha Koenig from outside the coffee booth where she worked in Anchorage, Alaska. After raping and beating her, he strangled her with a rope—his preferred method of killing.
In a act of grotesque calculation, Keyes then took a two-week cruise holiday with his family. He returned to Alaska on 18 February to again sexually abuse Samantha's corpse. He then applied makeup to her face and, in a bid to extort $30,000 (approximately £19,000 at the time) from her family, sewed her eyes open with fishing line. He propped her body up with a recent edition of the Anchorage Daily News and took a photograph to falsely prove she was alive.
After the ransom was paid, Keyes dismembered Samantha's body and disposed of the parts in Matanuska Lake. It was his use of her bank card to withdraw the ransom money that ultimately led police to track his movements and secure his arrest.
A Life of Violence and a Mysterious Death
Keyes's background was unconventional. He was raised in a remote, off-grid cabin by Christian white supremacist parents, learning to hunt from a young age. An acquaintance from his childhood later said being near him "made my skin crawl." He developed a fascination with Satanism and, after a failed attempt at a ritualistic murder in the late 1990s, vowed to become more violent.
He served in the US Army from July 1998 to July 2001, receiving an honourable discharge. Investigators believe his murders began shortly after, while he was living near the Neah Bay reservation in Washington state. When later questioned about killings in that period, he replied cryptically, "Yeah, Neah Bay's a boring town."
After his arrest, Keyes initially cooperated with the FBI, detailing some of his crimes. He soon clammed up, however, fearing media coverage and "true crime bulls**t" would distress his young daughter. On 1 December 2012, he managed to obtain a razor blade in his cell and committed suicide.
Beneath his bed, investigators found a piece of paper on which Keyes had used his own blood to draw eleven skulls. This is widely believed to indicate his true victim count, a number far higher than the few murders he confessed to. The identities and fates of most of those eleven people remain a mystery, cementing Israel Keyes's legacy as one of America's most enigmatic and terrifying serial killers.
