Israel Keyes was an American serial killer who confessed to murdering three people—William and Lorraine Currier of Essex, Vermont, and Samantha Koenig of Anchorage, Alaska—before dying by suicide in jail in December 2012 while awaiting trial; the FBI believes he may have killed as many as eleven people.
Common Grounds (Anchorage, Alaska) — Credit: FBI · Public domain
Israel Keyes (January 7, 1978 – December 1, 2012) was an American serial killer, rapist, bank robber, burglar, arsonist, and kidnapper. He is confirmed to have murdered three people and is suspected by investigators of killing as many as eleven people across the United States between the late 1990s and early 2012.
Keyes was raised in an isolated, fundamentalist household, first in Colville, Washington, and later in Smyrna, Maine, within communities associated with white supremacist and Christian Identity ideology. As a teenager he engaged in escalating antisocial behavior, including animal cruelty and arson, which he later described to investigators. In his late teens he sexually assaulted a teenage girl on the Deschutes River in Oregon, an assault he told investigators originally began as a planned ritualistic murder. He served in the U.S. Army from 1998 to 2001, during which he confessed to attempted rapes while on leave abroad but did not admit to any murders during his military service.
Keyes moved to Alaska and began operating a construction business in 2007. Investigators say he planned his crimes meticulously, traveling long distances under false identities, paying with cash, and burying "murder kits" in advance of trips. He confessed to murdering William "Bill" Scott Currier, 49, and Lorraine Simonne Currier, 55, of Essex, Vermont, on June 8, 2011; their bodies have never been found. His final confirmed victim was 18-year-old Samantha Koenig, a coffee stand employee in Anchorage, whom he abducted, sexually assaulted, and strangled on February 1, 2012, later dismembering and disposing of her remains, which were recovered by the FBI. Keyes also confessed to abducting a woman from the East Coast in April 2009; investigators identified the likely victim as Debra J. Feldman of Hackensack, New Jersey, though this identification was based on circumstantial evidence and Keyes did not confirm it outright.
Keyes was arrested on March 13, 2012, in Lufkin, Texas, after investigators tracked withdrawals from Koenig's bank account and identified his vehicle through a law enforcement bulletin. He was extradited to Alaska, where he was charged in connection with Koenig's murder and cooperated to a limited extent with FBI and state investigators over several months of interviews, though he withheld full details of his other alleged crimes. He attempted to escape custody during a court hearing in May 2012.
Keyes has been named as a possible suspect in several additional unsolved cases, including the disappearance of Julie Marie Harris in Colville, Washington, in 1996; the deaths of Marlene Kay Emerson and her daughter Cassie in Colville (a case in which another person was arrested in December 2024); the disappearance of Giovanna Tyler in Tacoma; and abductions and murders near Boca Raton, Florida, in 2007. None of these additional cases have been publicly confirmed as connected to Keyes.
Keyes died by suicide in his Anchorage jail cell on the night of December 1, 2012, leaving a four-page note and drawings of eleven skulls and a pentagram, which the FBI has interpreted as possibly representing the number of his victims.
Israel Keyes was an American serial killer who confessed to murdering three people—William and Lorraine Currier of Essex, Vermont, and Samantha Koenig of Anchorage, Alaska—before dying by suicide in jail in December 2012 while awaiting trial; the FBI believes he may have killed as many as eleven people.
Where did the killings happen?
Anchorage, Alaska, United States.
Who was convicted?
Israel Keyes (Confessed to the murders of William Currier, Lorraine Currier, and Samantha Koenig; died by suicide before trial.).
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