04x03 - Because They're Mine

[bunniefuu]

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

GOEDEN: Israel Keyes had
confessed to Samantha Koenig.

He knew that there were
going to be consequences.

And he made it
pretty clear to us

that he was willing
to talk about more.

He'd identified that there
was a couple in Vermont

that something similar
had happened to.

MARKIEWICZ: We were shocked.

I think the initial reaction
was a shock that it's a couple.

That it's not a single person,
but that it's a couple.

GOEDEN: We immediately start
Googling and trying to figure

out who this couple could be.

And we very quickly
identify the Curriers.

♪ ♪

But Keyes had some demands.

[laughs]

[elk bugles]

NARRATOR: Secrets
in the wilderness.

Beautiful,
yet treacherous landscapes.

These are the stories
of investigators who

solve murders in wild places.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

GOEDEN: Israel Keyes
had indicated how

he wanted the death penalty.

He wanted it quickly.

He would be willing
to talk with us

as long as we were clear
on what his goal was and we

could help facilitate that.

♪ ♪

DREW: My name is Bob Drew.

In 2011, I was assigned to
the Behavioral Analysis Unit.

Our goal is to provide
behavioral insight

into unusual
or repetitive crimes.

COWLEY: We look at
the offense and try

to determine personality
traits and characteristics

of the offender.

COWLEY: Israel Keyes has
sadistic sexual fantasies

that involve r*pe and m*rder
that are very ingrained in him.

MARKIEWICZ:
Israel Keyes told us that

if he told us
the things that he did,

there was no jury
in the United States

that would not
convict him to death,

that every jury
in the U.S.

would give him
a death penalty.

[birds chirping]

NARRATOR: Police are searching
for a couple from Essex,

and they're calling their
disappearance suspicious.

Bill and Lorraine Currier.

[suspenseful music]

[dog barking]

♪ ♪

- He was looking
for the circumstances

that would line up well
for him to take someone.

[ominous music]

♪ ♪

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

[glass shattering]

COWLEY: It's a way to
control the victims,

because you're blinding them.

COWLEY:
He knows what's coming.

He has a plan to k*ll them.

He went in with this
plan to k*ll them.

Part of fooling them
and making them think

that there's hope
feeds his sadistic nature

and his sadistic fantasies
as well.

[engine revs]

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

DREW: He's driving
around with the Curriers,

even if it's just
for a couple of miles.

There aren't a lot
of people around.

But it's a hugely risky thing
to do because there's a chance

one of them could escape.

He's not experiencing fear.

Psychopaths don't fear
what most people fear.

They don't have
emotional responses

that are even on a continuum of
what other people experience.

[crickets chirping]

[ominous music]

♪ ♪

GOEDEN: He described,
Bill is still restrained,

taking Bill
down to the basement

and securing him down there.

- [panting]

GOEDEN: He grabs
Lorraine, drags her

back to the
farmhouse, takes her

to a bedroom in the farmhouse.

Keyes had been in the
farmhouse previously,

kind of preparing it.

There were some mattresses
and things in the bedroom

where he took her.

[suspenseful music]

GOEDEN: He would not
openly talk about

if there was a sexual
component to the male victims

that he k*lled.

But the homicides were
absolutely sexually motivated.

That was a very large
component of the homicide.

Two young cops lived
right across the street.

Israel Keyes was pretty
confident in his ability

to pull this off right under
the nose of the police.

[g*nf*re]

[eerie music]

♪ ♪

BELL: After he k*lled Bill,
he tells us

that he r*pes Lorraine Currier.

♪ ♪

He r*pes her multiple times.

♪ ♪

Talks about going outside,
taking a smoke break,

coming back in
and raping her again.

♪ ♪

GOEDEN: This story hit me a
little bit harder than Keyes

talking about what happened
with Samantha in part

because he was even I think
more detailed

in his description
of what happened with Lorraine.

Just the things that he
did to Lorraine were--

it was incredibly
difficult to listen to

and to imagine
that that happened.

Sorry.

BELL: And he said he
took Lorraine downstairs,

and Bill's obviously
deceased on the floor.

He describes
k*lling her and then

using contractor bags to put
their bodies in in the basement

of that house.

[ominous music]

♪ ♪

KOSSLER DREW:
Someone like Israel Keyes,

they don't have
any kind of feeling

for another human being.

It's a way of looking
at another human being

as an object or a tool
to further or advance

what it is that I want to do.

COWLEY: He's kidnapping,
raping, and murdering.

And he tells it as if he's
gone to the grocery store.

I think he knows
he's doing that.

I think that he likes
to just sit there in a way

and perhaps get some
sense of delight

by telling these horrific
stories in such a casual way

knowing that he's likely
shocking the investigators.

- [laughing]

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

[phone rings]

[suspenseful music]

BELL: What we discovered was
that the farmhouse in which

Israel k*lled the Curriers and
disposed of their bodies in

had been demolished.

GOEDEN: To find out that the
farmhouse had been demolished,

that was just--

just another kind of blow
to the investigation.

[glass shattering]

REPORTER 1: Police dig up
a demolished home

on Route 15 in Essex
looking for clues.

I was able to
actually contact the guy

that tore the house down.

He said, well, there were some
trash bags over in the corner

in the basement,
and there was a terrible aroma

of death emanating from there.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

[dog panting]

MCCABE:
They sent a cadaver dog into

the foundation
to see what would happen.

And darned if the
dog didn't go over

and alert right where the
excavator said those bags were.

[dog barking]

- Everything
had been taken away,

and it had gone
up to the one dump

that we have in the
state of Vermont,

which is up in Coventry.

REPORTER 2: There
is a new twist in the search

for Bill and Lorraine Currier.

They vanished
in Essex last June.

Now investigators are
digging through tons of trash

at the landfill in Coventry.

[eerie music]

♪ ♪

MCCABE: This is what's known
as the Coventry Landfill.

I haven't been back here since
the day the search ended.

♪ ♪

Every morning we would gather

there was a picture of Bill
and Lorraine

that was in that tent.

And every time
you walked through it,

that photo was always there.

And that was done
with intentionality

to remind all of us who it
was we were searching for.

[somber music]

- Waves of us
would line up and go

through with rakes
and picks and shovels

through all of the debris.

It just was like that hour
after hour, day after day.

The smells are horrific.

There's sharp
things everywhere.

You have to wear
a ton of protective gear

in June and July in Vermont.

It's probably
the most grueling effort

that I ever made
as a crime scene investigator.

BURNHAM: We had no
bodies at the time.

And we had to give closure
to the investigation.

But I will say closure to the
family outweighed the closure

to the investigation.

SINCLAIR: Now you have
a family on the other side

of those that's living
a tortured existence

that they just want to
have their loved ones back.

REPORTER 1:

folks from the FBI,
special search,

and hazmat teams looking
through 10,000 tons of trash.

Hundreds of boots, rakes,
and a million dollars later,

no remains of the Curriers.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

CURRIER: Bill and Lorraine,
they were together

since high school.

They were so connected and so
much in love with each other.

And you never saw one
without the other.

I can see them up in heaven.

And I just see 'em happy,
and they don't have pain.

They don't feel the pain
of what happened to them.

It's all wiped clean.

[suspenseful music]

BELL: At this point now

we have Samantha Koenig
and the Curriers.

So now we know we have three
victims of Israel Keyes

that he has
admitted to k*lling.

NELSON:
They are drastically different

when you compare them.

Now you have two genders.

You have three
individuals that are just

vastly different in age,
even,

different locations
geographically.

BELL: And so now we
know that the Israel

Keyes is a serial k*ller.

[tense music]

- So in order
to begin putting together

possible other victims
Kat Nelson at the FBI

begins compiling a
timeline of Keyes's travels

and then looking in and around
those areas at missing persons.

- So this timeline
focused mostly on his travels.

So you'll see more records here
that have to do with airline,

hotel, car rentals,
the toll roads

that we were able
to track him on.

We have him traveling
to just multiple places

across the United States.

Sometimes he's by himself.

Sometimes he's with
other companions.

CALLAHAN: He's all
over the United States.

He's all over Canada, Mexico.

[suspenseful music]

LOEFFLER: It's fairly obvious
there were other victims.

And what can we do to
solve unsolved murders,

get closures to
families and find out

the breadth of what he's done?

INVESTIGATOR: This is the area
that we need to concentrate

on looking for missing people,
because he could have driven

from Manchester,
New Hampshire's, airport

to any of these areas.

- The strategy at this point

is to continue to get him
to talk, to follow up.

It's going to be
a very long process.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

[bear grunting]

♪ ♪

JOHN SMITH: We're pretty close
to where Israel grew up.

We're about a mile from the
paved road, about 20 miles

from the nearest
town of any size.

So it's very secluded,
very rural, very--

very remote.

NELSON: Keyes grew up
in Colville, Washington,

in a very ultra-religious
conservative-type home.

They belonged to a
pretty extreme community.

- Part of that was almost
like a white nationalist

type of thing.

It did seem to be
more on the fringe.

JOHN SMITH:
We're right on the edge

of Colville National Forest.

So this is pretty wild.

I think as Israel grew older
and he started experimenting

with some of his more
violent tendencies,

a million miles
of Colville National Forest

provide a lot of area
where he could just

disappear into the woods
and dissect animals

and do some pretty
disgusting things.

♪ ♪

DEZARAE SMITH: The Keyes lived
up the side of a mountain.

They lived in a really
small shack-like house.

Wasn't very big.

And so no electricity,
no running water.

JOHN SMITH: And then as
the children grew older,

they went out and
either slept in tents,

or Israel put together a
ramshackle structure of his own

on the property.

KOSSLER DREW: He never had
a Social Security number.

He was homeschooled entirely,
quite removed from society.

There was not a lot
of social interaction,

especially when he was
younger, outside of his family.

JOHN:
My wife, Dezarae, and I

chose to chart a different
course for our family.

DEZARAE SMITH: We were raised
in Christian identity.

That belief system
is a combination

of kind of more
evangelical Christianity

and what would be considered
like white supremacist beliefs.

JOHN SMITH:
Anyone outside of their group

of like-minded believers
was considered the enemy.

They were either
directly influenced

by the media
or the powers that be,

or they couldn't be trusted.

They wouldn't trust doctors.

They wouldn't trust lawyers,

absolutely no school
teachers or anything

like that because they
were all viewed as being

a part of that system.

DEZARAE SMITH: A lot of
the families would gather in a

kind of a large
community building.

And that's where I met
the Keyes family.

And Israel was just
a teenager, camo pants,

and big old knife on his side,
which

was totally normal
for how I was raised.

But Israel was
really standoffish.

He was really quiet.

He was kind of creepy.

His father, Jeff,
was very domineering.

- His dad was very strict.

I don't think he had a very
good relationship with him.

JOHN SMITH: Women and children
were viewed less than human.

They were property.

They were very browbeaten
and subjugated.

When you look
at the core things

that a child should
have, that wasn't

the case with the
Keyes family because

of the patriarchal bent.

The dad needed to
get everything good.

And then the wife and the
kids took what was left.

DEZARAE SMITH:
Israel's mom was kind of

a littler woman,
always wearing long dresses.

Everyone always wore long
dresses because that's

all you were allowed to wear.

And his mother
was very, very cowed.

Didn't really speak
to people very much.

From what I observed
in the Keyes family,

I don't see how Israel could
have really been raised

with much regard for women.

JOHN SMITH: If you look at it
from a perspective

of the trauma or the damage

that he undoubtedly received
driving him

to who he was, I believe
he was acting out some

of that basic programming.

As he began to pursue
some of his more

narcissistic
and violent tendencies,

he just built upon
that worldview

in order to hurt
people and worse.

[leaves rustling]

- A lot of the boys
and-or men that I was around

were-- you know,
they were anti-government.

They were militant.

They were armed at all times.

There were Klan members.

There were skinheads
that frequented

around the periphery.

But Israel was even stranger.

[tense music]

[cat meows]

SISTER: No!

[g*nsh*t]

[cat yowling]

♪ ♪

GOEDEN: He recognized
he had no emotion on that.

Like, it was funny to him.

There were definitely
signs there

from very, very early age.

I mean, he was setting fires.

He was torturing animals.

During that time,
he was breaking into houses

and stealing g*ns.

He already had
a fascination with g*ns,

and he was stealing things.

[g*n clicks]

- Learning about
some of the behaviors of Keyes

early in his life, such as
the t*rture of an animal,

it's important to note
that there are people that

have these type
of tendencies who grow up

and never act on them.

And what makes that difference?

♪ ♪

That's the
million-dollar question.

♪ ♪

[tense music]

♪ ♪

HALLA: I'm Special Agent
Ted Halla with the FBI.

On March 29th of 2012,

Special Agent Jolene Goeden
called me up

and said that
they were working

in the Samantha Koenig
disappearance and that

they had made an arrest...

HALLA: And that this
individual was Israel Keyes.

My partner at the time was
Special Agent Colleen Sanders.

- I got connected to the Israel
Keyes case very early on.

Our initial assignment
was to really delve

into the time frame
that Israel Keyes

lived in Washington State.

HALLA: We would listen to the
interviews of Israel Keyes

usually in the morning,
because some of the topics

are just so dark and
grim, you don't want to go

to bed with that in your head.

♪ ♪

One point during
our interviews with Israel,

he makes a comment after his
daughter was born in October

of 2001, he didn't want to do
anything that messed with kids.

It left us
wondering, well, does

that mean that he would do
something prior to that point

that messed with kids?

- Julie Harris
was a big media story

at the time in rural Colville,
Washington, and that was right

where Israel was growing up.

SANDERS: He acknowledged that
he had heard about her m*rder,

but he denied that he had
anything to do with it.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

ODEGAARD: Very peaceful.

And the deer come
through here a lot.

But yeah, that's where she was.

♪ ♪

Julie had the personality
that I dream of all the time.

I try to be happy for everybody
because that's what she did.

You know, if you're happy,
people will be happy.

When she was 23
months old, she was

diagnosed with
meningococcemia meningitis.

And it was just in
her bloodstream.

What happened was the blood
got so poisoned on her feet

it turned to gangrene.

She was not handicapped.

She is handicapable.

BURNS: Oh, my goodness.

The first time I met Julie,

I think it was in
the lunch line.

I was kind of a loner.

And me and her just clicked.

No judgment, no.

We were both wild, crazy kids.

ROBINSON: Julie's been
my big sister forever.

She was my big sister
that I took care of.

Took care of her,
and she took care of me.

I knew she liked to swim.

Every day that the pool was
open, she was in there with me.

BURNS: That's where
she felt her freest.

[water splashing]

There's no gravity
to hold her down.

We would laugh
and play and just be,

like, really innocent kids.

She absolutely loved it.

[solemn music]

Summer of '95,
I was 12 turning 13.

Me and Julie hung out at the
pool every time we had lessons.

♪ ♪

We'd hang out in front
of the fence and wait

for a ride home.

♪ ♪

We were walking
through here, and I

turned and noticed this kid
sitting on the swing set.

[tense music]

He's slowly rocking back
and forth on the swing

staring at us.

I had no idea who the boy was.

He was 17 or older.

There was something not right.

♪ ♪

He got, like,
so close I could see

the brown slits in his eyes.

♪ ♪

He starts saying
how cute Julie was.

And it just made me feel
uncomfortable because he

was an older boy that was
hitting on little girls.

Julie was flattered about a
boy paying attention to her.

She gave him her phone number.

♪ ♪

I felt something bad coming for
her, but I couldn't place it.

[birds chirping]

ODEGAARD: March 3rd of
'96, Julie was supposed

to get a ride
from these church people

that lived up the road.

About 8:00 in the morning,
she went

outside to wait on the porch.

They never picked her up.

She wasn't there.

So sometime between 7:30 and

[ominous music]

♪ ♪

Like, poof, gone.

♪ ♪

ROBINSON: I rode my
bike almost every inch

of Colville looking
for Julie..

♪ ♪

All the way up to the
mountains at the cross.

♪ ♪

[solemn music]

REPORTER 3:
Detectives found her two

artificial limbs on the
shore of the Colville River

just last week.

Investigators all weekend
were sifting through the dirt

looking for more evidence.

But so far,
they've turned up no suspects.

BURNS: Her backpack
and legs were found

about 10 miles from her home.

It was a dark moment.

♪ ♪

- The autopsy said the
bones made it look like she had

a rough time before she died.

So they're
considering it m*rder.

♪ ♪

BURNS: Everybody is
waiting for an arrest.

Everybody is waiting
to find out who did it,

And it's just dead end.

until Israel Keyes came
up as a serial k*ller.

I started looking him up, and
I started seeing his pictures.

[exhales, chuckles]

And it dawned on me
he was the boy at the pool

the summer before
she went missing.

[eerie music]

♪ ♪

ODEGAARD: When I first seen
a picture of Israel Keyes,

I got stomachache.

I was all in nerves.

And then I remember Loretta
telling me that, um, this boy

asked for Julie's phone number
at the pool, and it was Israel.

♪ ♪

Julie could have been
his first.

The police need to find out.

You know, they need
to do the investigation.

I need to know what
happened to my daughter.

SANDERS: Would have been nice
to have been able to talk

about Julie Harris,
but he was clearly not going

to do that at that point.

♪ ♪

CALLAHAN: When Keyes was 20,

he joined
the United States Army.

This is a guy who was
raised off the grid.

He had no
social security number.

He had never been to a school.

He was a home birth.

He has zero proof on paper
that he is who he says he is.

And he walks into a recruiting
office on the East Coast

and says,
"I want to join the army."

And they take him.

SANDERS: Keyes spent, I think,
three years in the army.

We learned that he was
for all intents and purposes

a really good soldier.

He was a good marksman.

You know, he came in with
survival skills and a level

of fitness that
probably, you know,

put him ahead of the game.

KOSSLER DREW:
The army provided

a learning opportunity
to Keyes

to learn how to interact
and get along with,

at least
to a fairly normal degree,

with other individuals.

GOEDEN: It was during
this time in the military,

really a time for him

where he was trying
to figure out who he was

and what he was doing.

- [laughs]

FORMER COLLEAGUE: The time
I spent with Israel Keyes,

he was very nice to be around.

But he had a different,
I won't say personalities,

but he came across
as different ways to me.

I was a specialist in
Alpha Company, 1-5 Infantry.

And I spent four years
in Fort Lewis, Washington,

with Israel Keyes.

[chain saw buzzing]

I would give Israel Keyes
like 20 bucks,

and we would go to cut wood.

[tense music]

He liked talking about
banks and bank robberies.

[indistinct chatter]

I entertained that thought
with him

and talked about that.

It went to some
darker stuff later.

♪ ♪

KOSSLER DREW: Some of the
things that he said to the men

that he associated with
in the army

may have been indications
of what his fantasies were.

FORMER COLLEAGUE: He switched
over to talking about k*ll kits

and running around
and doing things

that I was uncomfortable
with talking about.

♪ ♪

He talked about hiding
a kit in a place

that he wanted
to hurt someone.

- He would go out
and bury these k*ll kits

so that they were ready
for him to use whenever he

felt the time
was right for him to go

out and commit a homicide.

CALLAHAN: And these were
five-gallon Home Depot bags

that he filled with
zip ties and duct tape

and g*ns
and ammunition and cash

because he needed
to not leave a paper trail.

He buried k*ll kits all over
the continental United States.

[ominous music]

FORMER COLLEAGUE:
He wanted to backtrack and go

to places
of the country and make

a trail to be difficult
to trace where he's been.

- He's definitely talked
about the hunt,

how the urge would come
about him.

And then he would plan a trip,
and a homicide would happen.

It was a hunt for him,
a hunt for kind

of that perfect situation.

FORMER COLLEAGUE:
I don't think I know a tenth

of what Israel Keyes was
or who he was.

He was very guarded,
and he told stories and lies.

Even to this day,
the stories I heard

don't match up to what
the FBI has mentioned.

[ominous music]

♪ ♪

GOEDEN: Keyes was
incarcerated at the Anchorage

Correctional Complex,
charged with the death

of Samantha Koenig.

Keyes has been in custody
for a little over two months.

The May 23rd hearing
was an ordinary hearing.

That's very common
in criminal cases.

It was just a typical
hearing that we have in order

to kind of set the
stage and establish

a timeline for the rest of
the criminal case leading up

to trial.

[ominous music]

Security was always
paramount when

we were transporting Keyes.

He's obviously a very
dangerous person.

YOUNG: Israel Keyes
was walking in

with the federal marshals.

He was bound, shackled.

This might be something that
you see from, like, a movie.

♪ ♪

NELSON: It was a pretty
packed gallery at that point

between media,
friends, and family

of Samantha Koenig's
were there.

- I was at most
of the court hearings,

because I wanted to show
my support for my sister.

♪ ♪

I remember trying
to keep my composure,

because my mom's like, do
not give him the satisfaction

of seeing you cry.

NELSON: Keyes is sitting
at the defendant's table

and keeps glancing
back towards the door

that exits the courtroom.

There was a female
intern sitting

right there by the door.

BELL: I noticed Israel
was staring down

this young,
attractive female

six or seven seats
over to my right.

And I kept watching
him watch her.

- We didn't know
what was going on,

but he was just
deadlocked on her.

- It made me
very uncomfortable.

NELSON: Jeff actually went to
go sit in front of her

to keep Keyes
from staring at her.

- He would have to
look at me and not her.

CLERK: All rise.

♪ ♪

- The judge comes in,
the hearing begins.

ATTORNEY: It's filed
shortly after the court

issued the order
in this matter,

setting today's hearing.

Our position is that at
this particular juncture,

we're not--

[people shouting]

- I just see him,
like, flying out of his seat.