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You're buying a car on your phone? Isn't that more of a laptop thing? - You can shop whatever you want. - I like to do my research. Read reviews, compare models. Plus, Carvana has thousands of options. How'd you decide on that truck? - I like it because I like it. - Oh, that is a great reason. Go to carvana.com to sell your car the convenient way. - Slow Burn Media Evergreen Podcast presents Who Killed? A podcast that provides a voice for the voiceless. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Who Killed? I'm your host, Bill Huffman, and this is a Slow Burn Media and Evergreen Podcasts and Killer Podcast Production. On this week's episode, we are gonna be talking to John, the host of True Crime Excess, about the crazy case of one Israel Keys. Anybody in the True Crime community knows this case and let's jump into my conversation with my guest, John, the host and producer of True Crime Excess. A podcast that features the case of Israel Keys. A trail of terror, a closer look at the secret stash of weapons serial killer Israel Keys left behind. A killer stash of murderous paraphernalia. Good evening, I'm George Mallet, steps off tonight. Investigators say Israel Keys had a so-called murder kit. Keys strategically hit a box filled with weapons and tools used to kill Bill and Lorraine Currier near the Wernusky River. Keys traveled the country from Alaska to Vermont, looking for people to kill totally at random and funding his crimes by robbing banks. Keys was arrested in Texas in March after using Koenig's stolen debit card. He made her turn up the lights, climbed through the window and tied her hands behind her back. Clearly a minute later, you can see Keys gripping Koenig as they walk towards his truck. The FBI says Keys sexually assaulted, killed and dismembered Koenig. Her body was found in a lake north of Anchorage two months later. Keys left, killed kids other places as well. He told investigators he left the kids in Washington State, Wyoming in Texas and planned to hide one in Arizona. Keys confessed to eight murders. Investigators think though he may be responsible for other unsolved cases. He left kill kits or caches buried in several states filled with everything he'd need to commit a murder. Dates and locations since 2001 when they believe he may have killed repeatedly. There is nothing probably greater than holding the power and control of someone's life and looking in the eye and being able to control all that is intoxicating the serial killers. And that's why they keep doing it. He was very meticulous, he was very organized. He was very, he definitely planned everything that he did. The FBI also released surveillance video of Samantha Koenig in the Anchorage Alaska coffee shop where Keys abducted her last February. They recovered, stolen Marine couriers, gun, and pieces of what turned out to be the murder weapon. The FBI released the tapes of Keys in the hopes that someone would recognize him and provide more information about him. The newly released tapes granting an astonishing look at the twisted mind of a serial killer. From Jack the Ripper to John Wayne Gacy murderers who seem to choose their victims at random, both terrify and fascinate us. Simply because they defy moral logic. It was the disappearance of an 18-year-old Alaskan girl that led police to unravel one such killers astounding 11-year killing spree. George, a federal investigator, told me Keys was in the Northeast visiting family back in April 2009, but he came to Vermont to stash the murder kit. Today we saw the spot Keys hid the cash who would use over two years later to kill the curriers. Eight confirmed murders and rapes, including a couple in Essex Vermont, four others in Washington state and one more on the East Coast with the body hidden in New York. Sunday they found his body. He killed himself with a razor inside his jail cell. Very chilling to hear him talk about what he's done. I think there's a substantial likelihood that he would have killed again if he had remained a freak. You're watching 34-year-old Israel Keys describe over coffee and a bagel his strategy for hunting and killing innocent people. I thought it was smart. I would let them come to me in this remote area. - Hello and welcome to episode 62 of "Who Will?" I am your host Phil Huffman and this is a slow burn media production. This week's episode is actually a guest sponsored episode from true crime excess and they are a true crime podcast that focuses on probably one of the most fascinating cases in the past decade. As I mentioned earlier, they focus on Israel Keys and the connections that he may have had to a number of victims unknown to investigators. I had the privilege of interviewing the host and producer of true crime excess John and we had a great conversation about his show and where the podcast series is headed. He's the expert on this case. So let's jump into this week's sponsored interview with John of true crime excess and while you're listening, why don't you guys head over to whoever you get your podcasts and subscribe because this is a podcast that I find extremely interesting and I believe all of you will as well if you haven't found it already. But again, it's available wherever you get your favorite podcasts. So let's listen to my conversation with John about true crime excess and Israel Keys. I am very lucky to be joined this week with John from true crime excess and it is a newer podcast on the podcast front and it definitely is dealing with one of the more serious true crime stories that has crossed everyone's path in the last decade or so. And I am lucky enough to say hi John, how are you today? - I am doing well, how are you, sir? - I am doing so well and it is great that my lawn service has decided to show up on this beautiful day to cut the lawn during my interview. So I am very happy about that. And you know, timing, it's all about timing. - It is always about timing. - But speaking of timing, what is it that you guys are doing and what is it that you do exactly with true crime excess? - Well, right now I'm the host and the producer, co-producer, I guess, the Wrangler, I'm also one of the body hunters. So what we're doing is we went back to the case of Israel Keys. That's our first case, our first season. We were able to track down what we think are his common body disposal locations. So we're laying out that investigation in about a 20-part podcast season and the season finale is July 3rd. We're actually gonna announce what he was doing with the bodies and nobody knows. Like only like the five of us know. And we actually, we're pretty sure we're right. We're pretty sure we have found where he's been putting the bodies over the years. And he was one of those cases where a lot of people attached adjectives to him. - Never a real nickname. You know, you say Israel Keys and people in true crime know who Israel Keys is. - Sure. - What story they know about him varies on the sorts of their material. 'Cause he's an interesting like one-off. Like a lot of people do an episode on Israel Keys. There's a couple of podcasts that have taken deeper dives. And there's one like long running podcast and actually that podcast, if they didn't come to the conclusions we had come to, my podcast would not exist. The only reason we ended up doing this season and focusing on Israel Keys is 'cause we were like, "How do people not know this?" It was one of those things where I bet we went through 5,000 missing persons cases in the US over a period of several years. And one of the folks that I work with goes by Meg and she does a lot of work on just missing persons cases. It's actually not her forte to do a serial killer case, but she did have the background to help me vet a lot of research and a lot of information in what I call collapse time. Like I could hand her a case or a case file or description. She would go run it down and give me a synopsis or a rundown of what she thought happened. Missing persons cases in the US, there's a lot of what we call "manishies." And if you go on namest.gov, which is not a completely comprehensive list, but if you put that together with NCIC and a couple of other resources, you'd come to realize there's about 20,000 long-term missing persons cases in the US. I think namest would say somewhere between 16 and 17,000. - Well, what's the date range on that? - That goes, well, the earliest ones are back in 1904. - Oh, wow, it goes well. - So it goes way back. - It goes way pretty worth, okay. - But that's people in like 2010 putting them in, if that makes sense. They're just collecting them all on this database. - Exactly. - Well, when we started looking at it, the only years we were interested in were about 1992 to the killer's death in 2012. Well, actually not even his death. He died in December 2012, but we stopped looking around March 2012 when he was arrested down in Texas. And we eventually came to sort of a consensus that we didn't need to focus on '92 to '96. So we started looking at around 1996, and he would have been 18 years old. So we started there, and we went all the way forward to 2012. And we came up with a pretty comprehensive list of about 400 cases that needed to be looked at really closely. And they weren't all missing persons cases. Some of them were arson homicide, some of them were accidental deaths. Some of the missing persons cases weren't missing like, they thought there was a victim of a crime involved. They were like lost or injured, hiker-type cases. And we got out into all these remote areas, and over the last two years, I've taken two trips across the country, like driving trips. And along the way, I was able to sort of map out a plan of how we could put it all together. And then the case that we're ending our season on is a 2010 case where nobody is connected Israel Keys to it. And to be honest, we're not 100% sure he is an Israel Keys victim. But what we realized with that case was so much work had gone into this 2010 case, that it was more than usually abnormal that this person hadn't been sound, if that makes sense. Like, there's vanishes that happen. But if you start following a path, you can tell who likely went and committed suicide. You can tell who had like a jilted lover. You can tell who might have gone out into the woods and like been on like an into thin air type situation where they got into a situation they didn't come home from. But this one case, it didn't make sense. And we were able to look at all of these maps, like from an overhead view of everywhere that had been searched for this case. And when we did that, we found some holes in there and I think Meg and I, and then the producer Jamie, we all came to the same conclusion all at one time that we knew that he had a common body location. 'Cause it's unusual, what's so unusual about Israel Keys is, he's a serial killer, but they have literally only recovered one body. And that's because he walked them to it. That was his sort of pinnacle case, Samantha Koenig. And in 2012, he abducted her from a coffee stand near his house. And he, you know, raped and murdered. Then he went on a cruise, leaving her body in his driveway and a shed, came back from this cruise and dismembered and disposed of her. So she was an unusual case for him, we think. - Now, I have a question about that case because with all of the things that he has been described as, and he's been described as, you know, methodical. He's been described as conniving, a con man, yada yada. Like, did you think that this is such a, dude, you killed, you did this in public. You went into a coffee shop and abducted a woman from her job. I mean, is this not a, we did, we did, we thought exactly what you're thinking right now. Like, it seems so stupid. It is stupid. And I think a lot of people look at that case and they go, oh, well, he's not the monster that he like is portrayed to be. But the thing about that is he was at the end of a long cycle. And we think that case, we don't, first of all, we don't think that's his last case, his last murder. We just think that that one is the one that essentially got him caught. We call her the dragon slayer on our board. Like, she's the one that like, what happened and what she did and what he did after the fact ended up getting caught. Well, the big thing about her case is she's sort of the end of his decompensation. So killers go through, you know, sort of a learning curve, early phase. And that's, you know, that can be as early as their, their late adolescent, their pre adolescent years, right before puberty, they could be. Not to pull it up, like he's, it's very bun de-esque, you know. It is, yeah. Where, you know, and, or Edmund Kemper, even, where it's like you're building up to that particular breaking point and then all of a sudden, shit, it's a fan and you break. It is. And I don't know, I mean, is that. Is that? Yeah, okay. So what happens there is they can't control themselves anymore. The urge overtakes them. They're essentially, you know, for lack of a better word, they're wearing two masks, you know. And the mask that they have put on for so long is that they're this whatever they describe themselves to the community as. And with him, he was a father. He had a living girlfriend. He had been in Alaska for a while. He was known as a contractor. And if you asked people prior to all of this, they would have had a very average, very nonchalant response about him. It would not have been anything huge that he was doing. If he wouldn't have been known as like some community leader or anything like Gacy, he would have been a lot like Bundy. But the snapping would have been similar to what happened to money in Florida. At the end of his, like when he went on his last rampage. That's exactly what I was thinking of. Exactly what I was thinking of. Where it was just uncontrollable. Yep. And that's what got him caught. Not just because of the rampage itself, but because when you break your own rules like that, you're out of control. The mask that you put onto the community has slipped off. And your mask that you think you are in their world, that second mask is the killer mask. But underneath that mask is a monster. And like Israel Keys has been described as meticulous and he's been described as, you know, America's predator and brilliant. And he was slightly above average intelligence. He was suffering from urges to kill. And, you know, he did whatever he could to complete what he thought was an appropriate level of murder. Which is really weird to say out loud. But he wasn't like a genius. He wasn't super methodical. He just made sure everything got disposed of. He was almost like a janitor of serial killers. Which sounds crazy to say, but he just cleaned up after himself. And when he went out to do it in the first place, he sort of made sure he was very paranoid about getting caught to a degree. And he wanted to make sure that people didn't know exactly how many people he had killed. He actually at the end, right before he died, he pulled an HH Holmes maneuver. And that is, I'm going to tell you the whole story. And, you know, HH Holmes or Herman Mudging is real name. He confessed to, you know, the papers. And then he wrote a book that contradicted his confession. And then we'll never really know what happened there because a lot of the history, and he comes up in the interviews of Israel Keys, but a lot of the history of HH Holmes is sort of being debunked slowly. But he was definitely also a monster. And I think Keys had seen, you know, Bundy, and how Bundy played out in court, and how Bundy had played out in, Keys called it true crime bullshit, and the people around to misguided vigilantes that were, you know, sort of chanting at Bundy's execution and whatnot. But Bundy did all of that to himself. And Keys got to see it sort of in hindsight, just because of his age. And I think that that part of him, he wanted to keep it from his family. And then at the end, he just decided he didn't want to tell anybody. 'Cause Bundy actually confessed in the last days of his life. Keys didn't... - Yeah, and that's, that was the one thing that I was always intrigued by about Keys. And I mean, it's fascinating, horrifying, every adjective you could describe, the things that he said. How much of it do you believe? Do you think he's telling the truth? Or, I mean, when it comes to, let's say, when he would go to some area and scope out the area before he would go and supposedly commit the crime. I mean, have you found consistent evidence that backs that up? - Yeah, we found one of the lady I work with, Meg, who is probably one of the smartest people in everywhere. She had a problem very early on and she wanted to know if he killed anyone. And particularly after we got a hold of what he had read in terms of H.H. Holmes, which is the confusing part I was just describing, she wondered if he was just making it all up and just trying to sort of disperse the responsibility for having committed. He confessed to a single murder to start with and then added another murder to it where the bodies were never able to be fully identified. And her opinion on it was, this is either a monster or he hasn't killed anybody. And I can't tell yet. And I would have to ask her right now what her opinion is of that, but I think it's changed because there are just not that many vanishes in the world that can't really be tracked down. I mean, there's poor jurisdictional communication and law enforcement that he took advantage of. And that is, you know, even the best unsolved cases that you can think of, a lot of times, I would say like 85% of the time, the cops know what happened. They just can't prove it in court. But there are like a 10% of those cases or 15% maybe where it's just a straight up who done it and keys' cases are straight up who done it. And the more we got into them, the deeper we dug into like the scenario we described, like the remote locations, we think we've identified about 50 potential victims in remote locations that are keys because they're really the only 50 that we've come across where nothing is ever found of them again. And there was no plan to leave the country. There was no possibility of suicide. But when a person and their backpack and all of their gear and their camping and whatnot, like equipment goes completely missing, we were able to narrow down a real specific timeframe of 2002 to about 2010 with those cases in there, they're likely all him. And that was the interesting part 'cause once we, well, once we announced it, it's gonna be interesting to see how the true crime world responds to it. But once we announced the body location that ties back to those areas and other hunting grounds, I would call them, people are gonna be able to try and prove us wrong. And we knew that going into it, that like once we came to a conclusion and looked at like his history and we got his psych evaluation, which is barely a psych evaluation. And once we had gone through all of that, we knew what he had done. We knew exactly what he had done. And the key was finding like where did he put the remains? And everybody had different opinions at first. It was like he was using these abandoned buildings that were gonna be torn down. And he was putting people into lakes and he was bearing them and holes in the ground. And it turns out that like he did a little bit of all of that, but that was not his preference. And towards the end of his dying, FBI was actively searching his computers from his home and his computers from his arrest. One computer we weren't able to get, like the contents of the computer were not available to us. I mean, it was made clear they were never going to be made available to us. But we were able to get the full contents from one of those computers. And that computer was not his, but it was his girlfriend in the house. So it had a limited amount of information on it. But what it had was thousands and thousands of pictures that the FBI pulled, I don't know, maybe 50,000 pictures and then narrowed it down to a pool of like 500 by like manually sorting it by hand. And they were able to use that and compare it to the name of the database using a program called Recognize, which is a facial recognition program. And they found 44 matches on there. And we knew there were some victims in there. So we started, you know, dissecting that list. And it's not as many as we thought it was going to be. We figured that would be a lot more victims. But it turns out he just kept up on the news of a lot of different missing persons cases. And one of the things that he did in the cases that he read like actively in the newspaper, we only have that computer was maybe a year old. So it's only 12 months of his search history. But all of the cases had things in common. And one of those things that they happened to have in common was body locations. It would be a missing persons case, but say there was one that like has been on a recent episode, which is Michaela Garrett. And when, when JC Dugard, who's the kidnapping victim, we turned out to be a lies. - Right. - When, when she was picked up, it reignited the search from Michaela Garrett. Well, there were different people that were sort of attached as persons of interest to the Michaela Garrett case. And it turns out that the speed freak killers, of which one killed himself, right? When keys got arrested, they had basically disclosed a law enforcement that they were using an abandoned well. So keys have all this information about these cases that were attached to them on his computer. And we were like, why is he looking there? And then later, we realized that he was running out of body disposal locations. So because there were a limited number of them, we were like, he was looking for new locations to do the same thing. And that was a turning point for us. And that's ultimately the 2010 case that we examined in the two-part finale, which will be June 26th and July 3rd this year, that case ties back to everything it was on its computer. It was so crazy. - Can I ask you like, yeah. - Like, I mean, this is, it's so much to take in. Anybody who's never heard about this case, they're probably going, oh my gosh, what is going on? - Right. - In regards to like his modus operandi, his MO, the way that he liked to do things, did you have a preferred killing method? - He strangled them. - Okay. - Yeah. - He was a strangler and he was a blood letter. So he did both. He would put a puncture wound in the victim and then strangle them to death. But we didn't know what the puncture wound was for a long time. And then I talked to a bunch of deer hunters and they explained to me where it was to work. It's to get all the blood to go like the direction you want it to go. - This just makes me think about other cases that I've covered in regards to that knowledge that you just tossed my way about that. Where in the body would that be? - So a couple of different places, the preferred place was on the back under a shoulder blade or between the shoulder blades, but that wasn't. That was not every case. Like there were a couple of cases we found that we have not definitively linked to him because some of the cases that we're dealing with, that we came across where he had been in the area, they've been adjudicated otherwise. So we have to be really careful in how we deal with that where there's another suspect or there's actually a convicted person. So we found evidence that he would sometimes do a belly jab as part of his stick that he was doing. And that's where it's like a gut shot with a knife, like a sharp knife, but it's only like a, it's about a three, three and a half inch blade that he's using. So it's a real small blade, but the type of blade he was using doesn't really have any other use. You're really only gonna do so many things with it, but the big one was to cut and bloodline. Go ahead. - The reason I ask that question is because the case that I originally covered in my first podcast series was about Amy Mahalovic and she was 10 and she died from exanguation and basically she bled out and her wounds were on that area of the neck and I've always wondered if that person was connected to them 'cause where her body was found would have been, you would have had to been one aware of where it was and people who were down in that area were generally hunters. So I'm assuming that that's a kind of, is that a common hunting technique? - It is. - Okay. - It's a hunting technique. I wouldn't limit it to just hunters, but that's the place that you would find it most frequently applied to animals. And it's something that if someone were learning how to prepare meat, they would know how to do that. Like in the early stages of preparing meat, not like at a garbage egg, but preparing meat like post-kill, they would be learning how to do that. And it's basically to what it does is it, it rapidly drops the body temperature in a way that the meat won't spoil, if that makes sense. I'm not necessarily saying that in terms of like the murder part of it, but I am saying that in terms of like hunting. Like that's what you're doing is you're trying to make it so that you don't spoil the meat by the meat saying too warm, too long. - Interesting. Now that like as a Northerner, as a city boy, I have to totally acknowledge my lack of knowledge on that on that front. - Well, so like the Amy Mahalovic case, like I've looked at that a little bit. It wasn't anything that's going to be connected to this guy or anything like that. - No, no, no. - So I looked at it from the perspective of, you know, a Southern boy and I did have similar thoughts to all that. I haven't, I have not dealt as deeply enjoyed as you have and some of the other folks around that have it to me, it was just one of those like horrible, I have trouble with cases involving children. Like it's the hardest thing for me to do. I know that's normal, but on the podcast of I can barely even talk about like the keys cases that are probably keys that are kids. You know, it's just one of those things and that's, you know, I have a teenager right now. So it's compounded by that as well. But yeah, it's not a super common thing to know that hunters do certain things to preserve the meat, so to speak. That was one of the first things that stood out to me in his like competency review for court where the psychiatrists had taken like some handwritten notes for a couple of pages. He was talking about as a teenager getting busted for shoplifting. And the way he described it, I was like, this is like an 18 year old kid, but he wasn't. His shoplifting bust, he was 13, turning 14. And he had left the family home and they had some land and this is out in the Oregon, I think it's Oregon, either Oregon or Washington, like there's two little places there that he's suddenly moved. No, it's Washington, sorry about that. He moves to Oregon a little later. So in Washington, they had land where he had gone into the woods and built himself like a little 200 square foot cabin. And that's where he was living. - The Unabomber like. - Yeah, it was very Unabomber like, and he had been, you know, stealing shit from the neighbors. He had been going in and taking their guns and, you know, taking other supplies. And when he got caught shoplifting, his parents threw a fit about the shoplifting and they made a move back in and they took all his stuff from his house or his little cabin. And that's when they found the guns from the neighbors. So they made him return all the guns to the neighbors. And he did some stuff shopping wood and other stuff to kind of make up the difference for the guns he'd gotten rid of. But what was so interesting about that is they had no problem with him poaching on the land, killing and preparing deer at the same age. This is somebody who was killing and preparing, you know, white-tailed deer at 13th. You know, so he's field dressing and going through the garbage day process of deer and giving them to his family, illegally, not, you know, on any kind of permit, not with a tag. So doing that, they were bent out of shape about the misted meter shoplifting, but they didn't care about the felony poaching. He confused it very early on. He was like, I don't, you know, I didn't know what to think about that. They were okay with the deer when I brought him the meat and put it in the fridge. - Yeah, mixed messages. I mean, nature versus nurture on that one. - Oh yeah. I mean, this is definitely a monster that was made. And this was a monster that was manufactured by other hands. This is not like a killer that came out of the world. - That's interesting. That's interesting to think because you would think somebody with, and I don't wanna say pedigree because that makes it sound like he's got some sort of resume. But with the things that he's been connected to, you would think that he would have been like that. You know, he would have been that kid that was pulling the wings off of flies as a five year old. - Well, the earliest incidents we have, we have this bizarre set of cases in 1992 where these two boys are accused of, and not him, it's like people that live near him, are accused of mutilating all these animals. And they fess up to a couple of them, except they're like, we don't know what happened to those other animals. And they get the book thrown at them in the case is closed in juvenile court and everything sealed. But we don't know the outcome of it. We just know that the statements that were made were that these two boys didn't do all of them. So Meg went back and looked at the time and the location to Key's property and to like where his family was living. And her thinking is that that's the early signs of Key's. These animal mutilations that occurred. - But what is weird about that is that he would have been smart enough to know that he could get away with it because somebody else is gonna be blamed. - Okay, that's a big, that's a big thing for us by the way. We have numerous times and places where we think he did something nearby because I, because I get some flak for saying it that way. I have numerous times and places that I have tracked him to an area, to a potential victim, to a Key's like taking and disappearance where something else like it was recently in the news. For instance, by you, the guy that took night and to bury area cast. - Aerial cast, okay. So I have a Key's case up by you. I'm not 100% sure, but I have this random thing where he's in Cleveland briefly. And it's actually summers by the way. - Really? - Yeah, and I'm not 100% sure, but it's like high on my list. But the reason is those other disappearances were in the papers briefly. And I think he saw them. Do you know what I mean? Do you know the order of events there? - Yeah, yeah, I definitely do. And I see where you're going with that. - So it was one of my theories that he was like picking areas where something else was already happening because he felt like it would be lumped in with the other thing. - Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like what Zodiac was doing. If he wasn't really committing those crimes, he was taking credit for crimes that he didn't actually commit. It's just, it's a little different way of doing it, but it's still the same thing. - Gosh, he's so, he's such a mystery. He really is. The whole thing is just, it's so crazy. I mean... - Well, with us, like we didn't care about him that much. We did have to research the hell out of him. And we did over the last, I'd say, we actually came to the conclusion we came to a while ago. But I would say over the last five years, our obsession with knowing more about him grew, because our concern was the victims. We have a thing about like people who don't get brought home. And we know we can't bring every single missing person in the world home, but we felt like this was a group of cases that were all connected. If we could figure them out, we could close all those cases out. And that's what drove us. We started with Daniel Imbo and Richard Patron out of Pennsylvania. And we were trying to disprove that he did it. Now, we don't know if he did on some of these. And this is one of them. It's on his computer. It's a couple missing from Pennsylvania. His timing is weird. Like he's not really anywhere while that's going on and that makes sense. And we started there. And I was just asking questions of the others who have helped me. I was like, how do you guys think this case went down? And one of them came back and they said, oh, it's a hit. It's the ex-husband doing a hit with his cop buddies. And I was like, nah, it doesn't feel like a hit. And one of the others came back and they were like, that's a carjack. And then one of the others came back and they were like, oh, have you looked at his real keys? And I was like, I was, that's what I was just doing. So we started talking about it. And Meg got the most engaged, the quickest. There's been other people that have been helping. But she was the one who was like, oh, I will totally good on this road with you. Because I like closing this in person's cases, even though it's just in my head. And like she's got pet cases that are completely unrelated to Israel keys that she does along the way. Like she is very interested in Brian Shafer, which is up by you. It's a very popular case with my buddies from true crime garage and they're very much a part of trying to find answers on that case. Well, she, she never shared this with anybody. But at one point, she did this big statistical analysis of all the unidentified persons in NamUs and state databases. And there was only one that matched Brian. And it was over in Detroit, Michigan. It was from an arson fire like a year later. And she was like, that has got to be Brian Shafer's body. And she's never shared it with anybody. But like, you know, she spent months going through the minutia of that case. This is a couple of years ago. And so when she was coming on board and saying, hey, I'm interested in what you're doing with Israel keys, I was very excited because she's sort of the opposite of me. Like I am just driven to finish a thing. I want to know a thing. I want to get, I don't care like how we get there. I'm not going to make a path. I'm not going to try and reverse construct it. You know, I'm not going to do like anything weird with evidence. But I want to know like the end result. And I will run as many miles as I have to get there. But with her, everything's going to have a reason. She's like checking off some of these things that I do. And she looks at it and she's like, I don't think you're right about this thing. Do you mind if I talk to you about it? And I know that's going to be in a 10-hour or 12-hour conversation with her text message and phone. And at the end of it, she's going to say, I still think you're wrong. But you can say it if you want to. I'm going to let you say it. But she has been like one of-- she is literally my Sherlock Holmes. And she always has been. Like, we've known each other. We're coming up on-- we're over 30 years. I know that. And, you know, she in our teens became my Sherlock Holmes person. And our kids hang out. Our spouses know each other. Like, all of our families are intermingled at holidays and stuff. And I just trust her implicitly. So there's been a few of them. She's come back finally. And she's like, I think that you were right on this other case, even though you're wrong on this other seven. You're right on this one thing that you did. And I'm like, OK. And she'll listen to the podcast now and so call me. She's like, that was an OK episode. Would you like something for next week? [LAUGHTER] It's like, I have new things I can give you. Yeah, you know, they have a good way of reminding us of our shortcomings. But yeah, that's-- you know, the partnership there, that's definitely something that's got to be beneficial for, you know, one research and two, kind of keeping you focused on it. Like you said, keep it, you know, getting it done. But there is a little bit of a special touch to it. Oh, yeah. She had plans originally. She was going to do a missing person's podcast. And I don't know what the name of it wasn't anything. And she asked me to come in on that. But she wanted to focus on an archival missing person's podcast where you took, say, it's January 1. And you did every case of January 1 on other years. She didn't care how long the podcast was. If it was 10 hours, from January 1, 1904 to January 1, now 2020, she wanted to do every case from that day. And I think she got frustrated with the lack of cooperation from, you know, various agencies and entities. It's really hard to track that some of those cases down. Yeah, and not everybody-- and everybody's different. You know, that's the one thing that you don't realize is just a listener or whatever. It's like, OK, you can put out an FOA request to a certain police department. And they'll get back to you in a day. Some people never get back to you. Some people get back to you and say, give us $150 for it. Yeah, well, the copying fees even vary. And like, I had one case in Texas. And my whole group, particularly my partner, Jamie, and my kid got the biggest kick. Because they sent me the wrong name. I paid a lot of money for this file. And I don't remember the exact name. But like, one of them was Stephanie, and the other one was Joy. And I was so careful in the request, and so careful on the phone. And I knew one of them had dragged on for many, many, many years and sort of enclosed and reopened elsewhere. And I wanted-- I really wanted this case file. And I waited. And I waited right before the podcast was going up. They said they were sending it to me. And it was this much money. And I need to pay for it, so pay for it. And it gets here. And it's the opposite person. I had wanted the Joy one. And this was Stephanie's case. And I was just like, oh, I can't use this. And I just had gone around. It was a really small department down there. And I thought that I had this lady just wrapped around my finger. But she heard looking into a missing person's case. And she was like, that case, it's closed. And I didn't know how to express to her that the one I was looking for wasn't. And it just went round and round. And I happened to have gone down to that area last year looking for Brandon Lawson. Somebody in the group and also Meg had a theory. They had given me directions to the spot they had found on some geospatial intelligence maps, like satellite maps. And they were like, can you please just go check this one thing out? Because we think this thing in the field is outside of the search area for Brandon Lawson, but we think it's Bones. So I went down there. And it was on private land in Texas. And I was like, I got about 200 yards out. And I walked over to where they wanted me to go look. And it was covered in low line cacti. And I was like, I think I got to go. And sure enough, man, there were people coming down this little road. And I was like, I wonder what's going to happen if I stand here for a minute. And all I heard was, get out of here. That was it for me. I was like, I'm done. I was like, I'm done with this one. Because I don't know anything about Texas. And I don't want to be caught down there. I don't either. I mean, I know just from the research that I've done. But I will say that, yeah, you made the right choice. And you drive down there. Like, the drive there was so crazy because I was actually working on something else right before that where I was in California. So I drove across and sort of detoured to go do it in the first place. And I was out. I don't know if you know, like the Besso area, California, Joshua Tree Park, or any of those. That's how I was down there. I'm not as familiar with it as other parts of California. But it's like the desert from the movies. OK, so I was driving from there. And all of a sudden they get to Texas. I was like, finally, some people turns out that's not the case in Texas. All you see is windmills and oil derricks for miles. Yeah. I went to school at the University of Utah and drove route 80 to Salt Lake. And once you go past Des Moines, it's pretty much it's pretty bad after that. Yeah, you're very familiar with that area. Yeah, yeah, I've it's made appearances on many of my shows that my dorm was next to the dorm where Ted Bundy did live. So that's so crazy. Now granted it was 20 years apart, but hey, still still same dorm. Yeah, it is. It's the same landmark. Yeah, it's crazy, crazy. So where are you guys going with the with the whole show? I mean, I know you guys are focusing on Israel Keys this season. What do you think that you guys are going to be doing going forward? Once we announced like the body location, that is done. Like our part in that is done. So there's this guy Christopher below, most people haven't heard of. And then there's Neil Falls. And I had taken a look at Scott Scott Lee Kimball Scott Kimball. And he's still alive. That was my main interest. So is Christopher below. He's actually about to get out of prison for an attempted murder charge. I'm pretty sure he killed about six girls. So without going into a lot of detail on him, if you look up Christopher below, disappeared girls or missing girls, I think I'm going to have to do him next for season two. Because I've been doing the research along the way, my original plan with him was not to do a podcast. It wasn't actually to do a podcast about Keys. If the FBI had been interested, I was just going to quietly help find the bodies of Keys victims and move on. And then it turns out that case is closed for them. So that's what got me into Keys. But what's interesting about below is he's about to get out of parole. So I think that someone needs to look at some of the research I've got. And I think the best way to do that is a podcast. So he may be the next one up for season two. Because I have so many hours of him. And he's one of these guys that was, you know, sort of prototypical, like Bundy type serial killer. And I mean, you know, young girls, 16 to 25 year old girls. There's a couple exceptions, but I can't find the bottom of his yet. But about six months from now, I should be able to. So I'll probably come back next year and be doing his story. That would be very interesting. Yeah, so that's pretty cool. I definitely think that you've picked some really interesting cases. And you've obviously done a deep, deep dive into this case. We've got a lot of work on that. Yeah. And then, I mean, just to hear you talking about going and looking for Brandon Lawson. And I mean, knowing that case and how crazy that case is. And well, her theory there was that the searchers had interpreted what he was saying in the 911 call wrong, and then when Meg got involved, she was like, that's completely what happened. And she actually, she said, I'm between two fields and like came up with this whole explanation that she sent to me with a video explaining to me how to get from where he was to where he would have ended up based on the 911 call. And then his brother came out with a statement. And when he came out with a statement, she said, that's totally what I was thinking. So why don't you go look? And I was like, OK, well, now I can't not look. So it was just one of those things. We were like, if we can find them, it closes. But it's one less thing. Do you feel like you are very prone to Pandora's box? Oh, yeah, man, I talk about the Texas thing because I was a little scared, like going on a private property in a place where people openly carry their guns so much. But I'm not really that's like one of the folks was asking me, like, what are you going to do? Like, have these remote locations that you guys are going to? I was like, I got a dog, I got a raw wiler. And then, you know, they were like, are you carrying guns? And I'm just not a gun person. And I've been carrying a bat and a knife. And that's part of my Pandora's box. But the other one is, I can't stand to see a puzzle that like is missing a couple pieces. I really want to know where they were. Yeah, you sound like that guy that you just wouldn't be able to let anything go. Like you don't want to lose something in John's house. If you're John, you don't want to lose anything because he'll never give up and he'll probably drive your family nuts. Yeah. And I find a lot of that stuff. So I have to find bigger and bigger challenges, you know, and that's how we end up places like this. Wow. So, so out of the team, there's you and then, and the players, okay, we have Jamie and we have Nick. And then there's a couple of folks who've asked, like, they work on other stuff. They keep their anonymity. There's two other people they don't, they don't reveal their, their, we call one of them John as well, which is close enough. We leave the names out of it. Meg actually hates that her name is being used right now. She was like, she's like, I can't believe you did that to me. It's like, you got to told me. And I was like, how many knows it's your real name? If you don't say anything, they won't know what it seems like, but people might know my voice and I'm like, well, and she's, she's, she's come to terms with it. She actually likes that we're doing it finally and something is, you know, coming to a completion. Yeah. And I think that what you said about the podcast, I mean, I think your feelings on the podcast medium are probably the same feelings that I have. I think that with the way that there is no such thing as print media anymore. I mean, it's there, but it's minimal. There aren't long form storytelling. You know, journalists don't really take deep dives unless they're writing a book or now it's doing a podcast. So I think it's fabulous that people who are very intrigued by puzzles and finding answers like yourself. And I think I fall into that same category and a lot of true crime listeners as well. I just think that that's the best medium that you could find at this present moment that tells the story and allows people to take it in whenever they want. I just think it's the future. Oh, it absolutely is. That's the future of true crime reporting to some degree. And I would say there's two alternatives. That is like your traditional new special, you know, like the deep lines of the world. But that's small. That's a little bit of content. It's not a lot. It's a lot of work to get a little bit of content. And the other alternative is like murder documentaries. That's what I actually I told Jamie and more specifically, I told Meg, I was like, they see you guys and they hear what you're talking about producers are going to want to put you on film talking about this stuff because this is so interesting. And you guys are so good looking that like, it's going to be a thing. I was like, so why don't you just let me do the podcast instead? You know, Jamie is more of the creative. She's not into the true crime. I mean, she listens to it, but she's not as into it as Meg and I are. And the other John is a podcast person, but not a true crime podcast person. They're more on the research side of things. And so I told him, I was like, you know, I think this is the way they go. And I think this is the window to get in. So we started right before the quarantine, which is interesting. So we had two or three episodes out and then suddenly things are shutting down and there was a big dip on our fourth and fifth episode, but then it came right back up. And we haven't even started our advertising starts. Well, this will be the first of that. Yeah. You know, and then we start ramping up like onto some of the, like the bigger podcast in the true crime world that starts in like two months when they're coming up on the finale. And I'm hoping that you and I can hook up again because I really want to tell you that. Yeah. Sure. No. And I think that like, that's the thing about true crime podcasters is what I've learned is we're all out to help each other out. I think we all want answers to certain crimes. I like to say that I provide a voice for the voiceless, you know, whatever tagline you want to use. But it is the unsolved cases and the people that don't have answers are the cases that intrigue me. I'm not so much intrigued by the murder of the weak type thing. I mean, I'll do like a murder of the week, but I still like to focus on somewhat of an advocacy role and hopefully that somebody listens and somebody can go, oh, I know that. This sounds familiar. And then, you know, that's why it's like always important that I provide the numbers for the cases that I cover. And I just think that we as podcasters have a job that's not just to entertain people, it's also to form, but do it in a way that's respectful to the families and respectful to the people that that have been affected by these crimes because they get so overlooked in a lot of these cases. Yeah, this is the first time that my straddling the fence has been a positive because I have to mention some of these cases and some of them are not tightly tied to this overall case, but that's what was happening that week. That's what was happening that month. That's what was happening that year. And if it popped up in the headlines and this guy saw it, I'm going to talk about it because to me, there's very few exceptions to this, but most of these cases where the people have never been found and there's no resolution, they need to be resolved and people may not even know they need to be resolved, like people close to it. And some of them have told me and not want their case to come to light because it's going to reopen a bunch of old wounds and all of those are left out. You know, I left those particular cases out because I don't want her to come. No. And yeah, I believe in definitely taking things with kid gloves and treating things with proper care. And I think that everything, especially in this, you know, in this industry, it's just basically disrespectful. These people have been through a hell of a lot more than you have and they know a lot more about pain than you do. Not to say that the person interviewing you hasn't for pain. I mean, we all have. It's just remember where you are and who you're talking to whenever you're talking to somebody. It's just like my advice to any podcaster is just be respectful. Yeah. I totally agree with that. And that's my old school journalism rant there, you know, yeah, but it's a good way to look at it though. It really is. If you're just respectful and, you know, be kind as much as you can. I'm not into an area where like my suspect is dead. The next one is not, but this one that I'm dealing right now, he's dead. Never convicted of anything. I'm even trying to be respectful to his fam. You know, I don't talk. I didn't talk to them. I haven't bothered the kids or the siblings or any of that for this case because I didn't want it to, you know, rehash a bunch of old wounds for them. That's got to be hard to have been in his fam, you know, you're so right about straddling the fence and trying to keep things copacetic on both sides of the table. I mean, it really is difficult to do and it's impressive to be able to pull it off. And I think that, I think with your show, you're doing it. And I think that obviously you guys are going to be successful with your huge news that you have coming out and I'm needless to say, waiting with baited breath for that day. Is there anything that you would like my listeners to know and how would they get a hold of you or subscribe to your podcast? You can find us on all your major podcasting services and on our website at truecrimexs.com. Excellent. Excellent. And when is the next episode coming out? We have an episode dropping on like Thursday night Friday morning. Every episode technically drops on Thursday night, but most people don't hear it till Friday. All right. Well, I will be dropping this the same day. So take a listen. And again, if you have anything else that you would like to share, I am. I'm listening. So well, they, I just want to tell you, thank you for doing this. This is, I, I've listened to what you've done. And you have found a very interesting niche being able to cover cases and being able to talk to other content creators. I think it's fantastic what you're doing, just wanted to say that. Oh, thank you. Thank you. And I definitely, I feel like my podcastings evolved from the day one and you know, I mean, obviously you get better at what you do, but I think just my perspective on what it is that we're doing, I was just saying about the advocacy, you feel pressure to do it right. And I think that that's important. And I think if you have people that don't necessarily treat it properly, it can be taken the wrong way. Like you don't care. And there's so much humor in this industry that people are using to let off steam. That is, I think it's complicated to explain that mechanism, but it's another place that I think you straddle things well with trying to make sure that the focus stays on the advocacy and on the case facts and on what's going on. But it stays just light and casual enough that it's not this forced broadcast thing. And I like that part of what you're doing. Yeah. And I tried to keep it that way, but I don't know. I just think there's a lot of different podcasts out there that, hey, everybody's got their own way of going about it. I've evolved everybody evolved. We all have to evolve it. It is what it is. Yeah, trust me. I know, I think this whole thing, the podcasting, the true crime family, the true crime community, the people that are out there trying to provide answers, I think that is great. And John, I can't thank you enough for coming on the show. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. And all the hard work that you've put into providing answers to these families, I think it's just invaluable. Know that you're appreciated. And I think every listener that's listening should be currently subscribing to True Crime XS. Thanks, John. Thank you. Thank you to John for taking time out of his schedule to join me to discuss the crazy case of Israel Keys. As you know, I drop new episodes every Friday. And I do produce two other shows as well, press box access, as well as crime capsule. And you can find those wherever you get your podcasts. And again, thank you to Evergreen Podcasts, killer podcasts, and of course, slow burn media for making this show possible. If you guys are interested in making a donation to the show, you can do so by donating via the Veno app with my username @bill-huffman-3. And again, thank you guys so much for listening this week. I have been under the weather, thanks to COVID and all that good fun stuff that goes along with it, such as fatigue, yippee, but be vaxxed and boosted, it's the best way to be. So thank you guys again so much for listening. You guys have a wonderful week, and as always, stay healthy and be safe. Are you tired of seeing your teen or young adult struggle on a path that clearly isn't the right fit? Is your teenager confused about which direction to take after high school? The future of work is changing rapidly, and our kids need to know all of the options available after high school so they're empowered to make the choice that is best for them. In each episode, we explore the latest trends that are shaping the opportunities of today and tomorrow. I'm your host, Betsy Jewell, and this is the High School Hamster Wheel Podcast. I want to take a moment to tell you about my podcast, Carol Costello Presents Blind Rage. In 1984, a woman named Phyllis Cottle was abducted in broad daylight, tortured and left to die in a burning car in Akron, Ohio. At the time, I was a rookie reporter covering this horrific story. Since then, I've reported every kind of crime imaginable. I've been able to leave most of them at work, but not this one, the one that buried itself under my skin and stayed put. Phyllis Cottle was a badass woman, and I want to tell you her story. A production of Evergreen Podcasts and signature title of the Killer Podcasts Network, you can find Carol Costello Presents Blind Rage wherever you get your podcasts. Discover more great true crime and paranormal programming at killerpodcast.com. [MUSIC PLAYING]
