Israel Keyes

When did you first meet Samantha Coney?

Never even seen her before.

So why did you go to the Common Grounds coffee shop on that night at that time? Because they were open late. Did you know that they were open late? Yep. Staked it out maybe two or three days before.

I told her to put her jacket on, had her get on her knees and back up to the window and put cable ties on her hands. After she was I had her arms tied up, I had her move forward a little bit, and then waited until there weren't that many cars or people that I could see around.

And then I jumped through the window, took some napkins and put them in her mouth, and told her that we were going for a little walk. We were only about 100 feet from the coffee stand, maybe 200 feet. And she tried to get away.

I tackled her. After that, she was serious. After that, she could give me problems. So what did you do with Samantha?

There was something about her, like the way she reacted, that she wanted to just keep going with it. I had never done anything that crazy before. I was just on a real adrenaline rush. Who took her where?

When he said he was from Alaska,

She kept trying to talk to me, and I had to tell her to shut up a few times. Because she was, you know, trying to make friends and stuff.

My plan was to go in and out really quick and get her phone.

I was going to go to the ATM, but then I realized I hadn't written down the PIN number. So I had to go back to the house and get it from her.

She knew at that point. I put my head right up to her ear and I said, you knew this was coming.

I knew from the minute she walked out of that coffee stand she wasn't.

What was your plan? You were getting on a plane. Your body was in your shed. What were you thinking? I was thinking it was 20 degrees outside and I didn't have anything to worry about.

Yeah, so I got back on the morning of the 18th.

That's how the $30,000 idea came up. I always knew that I was going to put something about money in the rents, you know. That was just a bonus. Bonus to what? To the whole thing. If I could eventually get some money, then that was the plan.

The biggest problem I had was with her face. I could get the makeup to work, but there was no expression. I think I took about five or six pictures before I finally had one that only showed what I wanted.

Why don't you three make it more believable, I guess? The bottom line was to get money out of it. But at the same time, not like I didn't want to do it.

You know, I couldn't get it all out on the lake in one trip. I'm also gonna have to go up there three times. So yeah, it took me a long time.

I didn't make it. That was no problem that I could really schedule for the next day. And then you went to the parent-teacher conference after you had dumped part of your body? Yeah. How did you stay calm enough to go and do that? I didn't really think about that.

Are there any other people that you're responsible for the death of? I have lots more stories to tell if you're interested.

You're not searching anything. Look, you have not given me any information. I've been very open with you. I've been telling you everything. You're not searching anything of mine until I know what's going on and why I'm still standing here.

But only if I get what I want.

The U.S. Marshals notified the court today that Israel Keyes is in custody in the District of Alaska.

I can tell you right now, everything related to this is going to be in the house. You already have the computer, the desktop computer. That's what everything's on.

That's pretty much why I decided to start talking to you, because if you had that computer, you probably would have figured it out. I think everybody really wants to know where Samantha is. Is that an okay place to start, or would you like to start elsewhere? Yeah, we can just start with the end, and then we'll work backwards. So you pull up a map there of Palmer area.

And what should they look for specifically? Ice fishing spot. Was it a hole that you cut or was the hole there? No, it was a hole I cut. You'll see it. You'll see where the hole was probably. I don't imagine. There's not very much snow up there.

She's not wrapped up or anything, but there'll still be some blood on ice. They gonna find anything else out there? Oh, you'll find her DNA. Okay. You'll probably, you'll find her, my DNA on her. The one thing I do need to know is how you killed her. Why? I mean, it doesn't really matter how it happened. I'm saying that yes, I was responsible and yes, I told you where she is. So you killed her?

Yes.

I mean, if you go into an old farmhouse and smell something dead, that's not really that unusual. So I figured as long as it passed, like someone went into the basement and looked around a little bit, they wouldn't be that suspicious of something smelling dead.

So what is the deal with the couriers as far as the investigation? I mean, where are they at, the people back east? They're still digging. They haven't found the bodies yet. You're kidding. You sure they have the right house? Well, the house was demolished and stuff was carted away. When they did the demolition, they were digging everything out. Wow. That is crazy.

I'm just amazed that if they actually dumped the remains into a dump truck, nobody noticed that.

I've known since I was 14 that there were things that I thought were normal and that were okay that nobody else seemed to think were normal and okay. So that's when I just started being a loner.

In Caldwell.

Out in the woods. I knew I had to re-enter that area.

I don't really consider myself all that different or all that special from hundreds of thousands of other people. All you have to do is type in a word search on any given porn site and there's all kinds of people who have fantasies about rape and bondage and... kinds of things that I take to another level.

When I was 14, there was a cat of ours that was always getting into the trash. And it was my sister's cat. And I told her, if that cat gets into the trash again, I'm going to kill it. We all went up into the woods, and I had the cat with me. And I took a piece of parachute cord and tied it to this tree. And I shot it in the stomach.

And it ran around and around the tree, and then crashed into the tree, and then started vomiting. I laughed a little, I think. But then I looked over at everybody else, and the kid who was about my age was with me. He was throwing up. He was really traumatized, I guess you would say.

Something kind of changed in the way I thought, and I didn't want to do anything that would mess with kids or whatever.

96?

It was kind of one of those, that's the interesting things.

I was working construction at the time, so I would hear stuff. But I never took a personal interest in it.

After I found that house and decided that it was probably an older couple, just because of the way they had their backyard set up. They had like a swimming pool and a deck and a barbecue. It just looked like a, you know, like older couple that didn't have kids. So I knew there was probably only one room in the house that was being used as the bedroom.

I have no reason to tell you more information. The things I've done, I don't feel bad about them, and I didn't do them because... I felt I had no other choice. I did them for myself, so it's better actually for me to keep them to myself. Because they're mine.

There's just a lot of stuff that happened when I was in the army that changed my perspective on things, just really changed my perspective on the big picture and made me realize that, you know, if that was what I wanted to do, then I should just do it. If you wanted to kill somebody. Yeah, because all the stuff I had been so concerned about before didn't really matter that much.

And when I was in the army, I was in Egypt. And there was that time when I went to Tel Aviv. There was a girl that I met. She was pretty young. It was from a Norwegian exchange student or something. And we were hanging out and stuff, and she told me where her room was. I did lose control a little bit as things progressed. I wouldn't say that was an outright rape.

That's when I realized that if I was going to do that kind of stuff, it had to just be complete strangers. It couldn't be anyone who knew me. I just realized that if I kept doing stuff like that, it was only a matter of time before I got caught.

I cut the phone lines because usually if there's an alarm system, it'll trigger the alarm. The neighbor next door, he was still up. He kept coming out smoking. I held off for quite a while before I actually broke into the garage. It was like a blitz attack. I was probably in the bedroom within five or six seconds.

I had them roll over on their stomachs, and I told them to keep their faces down on the pillow and not look at anything.

Anytime I was in the room, there were never any lights on. Just your headlight. Right.

They were wondering what was going on. I just told them it was a kidnap for ransom set up and that there were other people involved in it. I think they thought it was a case of mistaken identity or something. I was just bullshitting them.

once I had him in the car. I had her in the front seat. Her hands were behind her back. I had cable ties on them. We had cable ties on her feet too. Was he in the back? Yeah, he was in the back on the passenger side.

No, yeah, we drove straight there. I already knew where it was.

Cable tied his hands down to the stool so he couldn't stand up and then had the stool backed up against the wall. And, well, I mean, it must have taken me longer than I thought because I came out of the basement. And when she got out of the car, she had somehow broke the cable ties on her hands and on her feet and got out of the car.

She finally shut up a little bit and I heard something downstairs. And that's when I started having problems with the guy. I went down there and he had, the stool, he was kind of a big guy, like overweight, and the stool had just collapsed. The cable ties that I had on his wrist, behind his back, they broke and I don't know, just messed my whole plan up.

At that point, he was still trying to talk me out of it. He was like, just let us go. We haven't really seen you. You can still walk away. And I just kind of laughed at him. I was like, I don't even know how much planning I put into this. Just walk away. That was part of the whole plan for taking a couple. I had this idea in my head of what was going to happen.

My plan was to take him into the basement, tie him up separate, and then take her upstairs. There were these two queen-size mattresses in the upstairs corner bedroom, and that's where I planned to take her and then him. She was annoying me that I was having to deal with him, and I just came to the realization that he wasn't going to stop fighting.

There was a shovel in the basement, and I hit him with that a couple times. I didn't know I was all hanged up. I grabbed the 10-22. There was a cop car right across the road about 100 yards away.

So I grabbed that, the silencer, and put that on. He saw the gun, and he started to say something, and it just pissed me off, and I just started pulling the trigger. I pulled as fast as I could until the magazine was empty.

Just like, I don't know, I guess you could call it the fantasy that developed over the years.

As soon as I started talking to you, I knew I was never getting out. I'm not Bubba from the sticks who sat in one town for all my life. I've been lots of places, I've done lots of things, and I'd rather go out while I still have some good memories.

Ich fuhr zu vielen kleinen Städten. Ich war etwas außer Kontrolle, seit das in Alaska passiert ist.

Well, you already know about, or you already have a lot of information about the bank robbery in Texas.

No, I'm more sane than most Americans. I'm truthful with everything I talk to you about. I can give you arson in Texas. I burned a house down, but I want a cigar for it.

Es war in der Nähe von der Stadt. Aber niemand war zuhause? Nein, nicht, als ich da war. Alle Räume waren verpackt, also habe ich alles nachgefragt. Ich wollte meistens Waffen suchen.

Als ich das nächste Mal wusste, kamen Anflugfahrzeuge von überall um die Stadt.

Whereas in Texas I had short hair, I taped hair on the inside of the helmet so people thought I had long hair. Was it like costume hair or real hair? No, it was actually real hair.

The bag, the helmet, the dust mask, the glasses, the gloves, all that stuff went in dumpsters along the way to Houston.

Ich kenne wahrscheinlich jeden Serialkiller, der jemals geschrieben wurde. Es ist eine Art Hobby.

Er war sehr sexuell motiviert in dem, was er gemacht hat. Er konnte ihn von verschiedenen Aspekten unterscheiden.

Es muss Sinn haben. Es muss Sinn haben.

Washington war viel einfacher in vielen Fällen, weil ich da so isoliert war. Es ist, als wäre man in einem neuen Weltraum.

Das, was ich bekommen habe, waren meine Kicks. Ich konnte zwei verschiedene Leben leben und niemandem eine Ahnung haben. Als ich in Neah Bay war und meine Kicks bekommen habe, konnte ich einfach die Leute anschauen, während sie mit mir gesprochen haben. Ich dachte, dass sie mich seit all den Jahren kennen. Aber sie kennen mich wirklich nicht.

Das war seine Sache, seine Verletzung. Ich kann dir jetzt sagen, es gibt niemanden, der mich kennt, oder der mich je gekannt hat, der wirklich nichts über mich weiß. Wir sind zwei verschiedene Leute, im Grunde genommen. Und die einzige Person, die über die Dinge, die ich dir erzähle, weiß, bin ich.

Ich habe den Knall meistens als Bedrohung benutzt. Ich hatte eine Waffe, ich habe einfach nie die Bedrohung gefühlt. Ich hätte sie benutzt, glaube ich, wenn die Dinge aus dem Gefängnis kamen.

Wenn du in eine berühmte Bereiche gehst, die nicht so nah dran ist, wo du lebst, aber die andere Leute auch gehen, und dann, wenn sie verschwinden, ist man oft nicht wirklich überrascht. Das passiert immer.

Ich hatte geplant, sie zu erwerben. Es ist einfacher mit einem Kind. Sie müssen die Regeln folgen, während es mit deinem Partner bestimmte Aspekte deines Lebens ist, in denen sie sich befassen werden und Dinge herausfinden, die immer schwieriger werden, um zu erklären, wie die Jahre gehen.

Und wenn es etwas ist, was du möchtest... Kannst du mir vielleicht eine Stunde auf der Internetseite geben?

Es werden wahrscheinlich viele Vigilanten auf der Tür schützen.

Ich habe schon gesagt, dass ich keine mehr spezifischen Fälle erzählen werde, bis wir ein solches Verhältnis auslösen.

Ich brauche eine Verkündigung, bevor ich mich entscheide, den nächsten Schritt oder Schritte zu nehmen, was auch immer es dauert.

Ich bin ein bisschen überrascht, was mit den Informationen, die ich dir bereits gegeben habe, passiert ist. Ich war sehr überrascht, dass sie gefunden wurden. Ich sehe keinen Grund, dass ich dir noch mehr Informationen geben werde, weil ich nicht weiß, was mit dem passieren wird.

Und ich habe mich einfach geampft und habe entschieden, ich will rausgehen und etwas tun, preferably jemanden nehmen.

Her reaction to everything was weird. What was her reaction? I think maybe she had either had something like that.

happen or thought about what she would do and she just didn't seem like everybody else I took always seemed completely surprised like they didn't expect it like they had never even thought of a scenario like what they were in and with her it didn't seem like that it seemed like she kind of knew what to say and stuff and so I mean she was scared but I think in a lot of ways she was

That I let her get to me. After like two years after that, I kept telling myself I should have killed her. And I really beat myself up about that.

I just raped her once. It wasn't anything real. Crazy. Did you ever see her after that? Mm-hmm. Did you ever go back to the river? Yeah.

Maybe she did report it, I don't know. Like I say, she wasn't fighting, so I don't know. And I used a condom, so I don't know if there would have been, anybody would have believed her if she did.

Second, and more practically, I realized I could do it and get away with it.

If I was going to do that kind of stuff, it had to just be complete strangers from then on. It couldn't be anyone who knew me or who had seen me around the person or shouldn't even, like, the whole thing that happened in Oregon freaked me out because I could almost see the beach from where I worked every day and it was just too close to home.

If I can't get an execution date within a year, I'll tell you about everything. I'll give you plead guilty to whatever. I'll give you every single gory detail you want. But that's what I want.

I want my kid to have a chance to grow up. She's in a safe place now. She's not going to see any of this. I want her to have a chance to grow up and not have all this hanging over her head.

Look, in the last year, a little over a year now, I did a lot of stuff. And I think I already mentioned that I was kind of losing control. But, you know, it goes back a long time. So, yeah, there was a lot of stuff in the last 12, 13 months, but it goes back 14 years, you said.

A long time. 14 years.

I know as time goes by, the longer I'm in the system, the longer the investigation goes on, you're going to keep finding things. You're going to start to connect dots. I'm only going to give you the dots that I know you're going to eventually connect.

It was one of those bathrooms where the door, you could walk from the inside in just a single restroom, and it was kind of late, so I didn't even know when you would be here long. That was a small bathroom. Didn't get used very much. They probably only cleaned it out maybe once a year or something. Like the ones you see at Forest Service Campground with the big concrete tank under them.

I was waiting for someone who was pretty small because I was going to dump them down in the tank. It was a really dark tank. They probably wouldn't have been found for a year or something.

I had been thinking about it for years. Before that, I just never actually thought I would do it. And then Then once I left the area where I grew up and was in a new area, it seemed a lot more feasible just because it was like nobody knew me. It was all strangers and everybody was really friendly. It was like one of those situations where I just knew it would be really easy.

If I can't get an execution date within a year, you know, I'll tell you about everything. I'll give you plead guilty to whatever. I'll give you every single gory detail you want. But that's what I want.

There is no one who knows me or who has ever known me who knows anything about me, really. They know... They're going to tell you something that does not line up with anything I tell you because I'm two different people, basically. And the only person who knows about what I'm telling you, the kind of things I'm telling you, is me.

A long time. 14 years.