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Subscribe to RSSNewly released video including a jailhouse interview reveal more insight into the mind of the late self-confessed serial killer Israel Keyes. KING's Chris Daniels reports.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A security video showing the abduction of an Alaska barista is unnerving on its own, but it only hints at the horror ahead for the 18-year-old woman.
Samantha Koenig would soon be sexually assaulted and strangled after she was kidnapped from an Anchorage coffee stand, her body left in a shed for two weeks while her killer went on a cruise. After he returned, Israel Keyes photographed Koenig for a ransom note and then dismembered her body.
Those details were released by the FBI on Tuesday, two days after Keyes was found dead in his Anchorage jail cell in an apparent suicide. It's the most comprehensive account yet of a crime at the hands of a man who confessed to the slaying and told authorities he killed at least seven other people across the country over the past decade.
Serial killer found dead in Alaska jail cell, officials say
"These details are being provided both to fully explain the courage and resolve Samantha displayed in the final hours of her life, as well as in the hopes that the release of additional details will help investigations of other murders committed by Israel Keyes," the FBI said in a statement.
Once home from his trip, Keyes posed Koenig's body to make it appear she was still alive and took a Polaroid photo of her tied up, along with a newspaper dated Feb. 13 — 12 days after the abduction from a coffee stand, according to the FBI. Keyes later typed a ransom note demanding $30,000 from Koenig's family on the back of a photocopy of the photo and sent a text message to the woman's boyfriend on her cellphone with directions where he'd left the note at a local dog park.
Keyes dismembered Koenig's body and disposed of the remains in a frozen lake north of Anchorage after he cut a hole in the ice with a chain saw, authorities said.
Mark Thiessen / AP
During a news conference, police show surveillance video of Samantha Koenig, 18, making a cup of Americano coffee for a customer who shortly after abducted her Feb. 1, 2012, in Anchorage, Alaska. Police on Tuesday released the surveillance camera footage from the February abduction at the Common Grounds espresso stand in Anchorage.
Keyes, 34, was arrested in March in Texas, after using Koenig's stolen debit card at ATMs there and in Alaska, Arizona and New Mexico. He was facing a March trial in Koenig's death.
After his arrest, Keyes confessed to killing Koenig and at least seven other people. His other known victims were Bill and Lorraine Currier of Essex, Vt., who disappeared in June 2011. Keyes told authorities he also sexually assaulted and strangled Lorraine Currier.
Father of abducted barista, 18, pleads for her return
The couple's bodies have not been found.
Keyes did not identify the other victims or say where their remains were, other than that four were killed in Washington state and one was killed on the East Coast with the body disposed of in New York. Keyes had lived in Washington state and had property in upstate New York.
He told one of the lead FBI investigators in the case that his first victim was a teenage girl in Oregon that he sexually assaulted but did not kill, the Anchorage Daily News reported. FBI special agent Jolene Goeden told the newspaper that Keyes admitted that he was a teen at the time and that "he had the intention, he said, of killing her but but did not. And he did let her go."
Surveillance video
Also Tuesday, authorities released video footage of Keyes abducting Koenig, caught by a surveillance camera. Another video sequence shows him returning for Koenig's cellphone late that night, leaving Koenig bound in his truck, followed four minutes later by a man identified by the FBI as Koenig's boyfriend, who was looking for her. Keyes would use the cellphone to send text messages to the boyfriend and coffee stand owner that purported to be from Koenig saying she had a bad day and was leaving town for the weekend.
In the first video sequence, Keyes walks up to the small coffee stand and orders an Americano coffee, which Koenig makes. He then pulls out a gun and Koenig is then seen putting her hands up several times. At some point, Keyes makes her turn off the light. The light switch was close to a panic button, but Koenig never pushed it, probably because she was too afraid, police said.
Keyes then climbs into the kiosk and, police said, used zip ties to bind Koenig's hands behind her back before leading her out. He told Koenig he would let her go if her family paid a ransom, but that was never his intention, police said.
Body in icy lake is missing Alaska barista, police say
"He knew all along he was going to kill her," Anchorage homicide Detective Monique Doll said.
Police said Keyes removed the battery from Koenig's cellphone to avoid being tracked.
Koenig's body was recovered from the lake in April after Keyes told authorities of its location.
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Leave a Comment:
At least he saved Alaskan taxpayers a bundle -- until some shyster lawyer talks some of his family into suing because he was not adequately supervised while in custody, etc.
keyes got off easy...too bad. deepest and most sincere condolences to Samantha's family.
I would love to walk up on one of these scumbags in the middle of an obduction, and save the tax payers some money.
Wish someone like you had been there to save Samantha.
Israel Keyes, what kind of a name is that? What nationality?
The nationality doesn't matter. But, you go on all kinds of sites and push for white supremacy. So, you are the only one who would be concerned about the nationality. You should be the one to know that psychos come in all colors and nationalities.
It would save alot of taxpayer money if we just put a noose and a 2 foot tall stool in every convicted murderers cell. Better that paying public defenders for 15 years of appeals and supporting the murderer for the remainder of his life. Let them take the quick way out.
Maybe so but what about him taking all the answers to where his other victims are??? The families of those victims will never know what happened or will their remains ever be found. Most likely if one gets life he has nothing to lose by telling were the others are.
If she had a side arm she would never have been a victim. Now she is no longer with us I guess her plight has made Erick Holder and those like him (the person from G'M'A' comes to mind) very happy. Too bad the punk committed suicide. I would have liked to see him punished for his crimes, with as much Mercy as he showed to her and others. Had he not, taken the Cowards way out he would probably be sent to a place with 3 healthy meals a day, TV, weight lifting equipment and free medical attention, (that most honest law abiding people can not afford). Perhaps in the after life he can meet Vlad the Impaler. then Justice would prevail. But even that can not relieve the pain this SCUM has left behind.
While I'm not disturbed in the slightest that this monster is dead, suicide was the easy way out. As a taxpayer, I'd rather pay to keep him holled up in federal prison - a version of hell in and of itself - than letting him have the power to choose how he wants to leave this life. He didn't give his victims that choice. Let's make a trade... we'll stop paying taxes to keep people locked up for victimless crimes that are not even crimes in certain states and pay more to make life a living hell for people like this guy. Force them to live every day with the fear of being raped or murdered just like their victims - that, to me, is justice.
Now THAT is a great idea! Give the "victimless" criminals another chance, but keep the sick, murdering psychos locked up forever! Great, great idea. How can we get that implemented?
yup, that is surely some endorsement for the usa!!
I just recently rented and moved into a house in a quiet neighborhood. Just a couple of nights after moving in, someone tried to break in while my wife and 7-year old son were home alone. My wife heard some one rattling the door knob and trying to open the door and thought it was me. She was walking over to open the door when it occurred to her she hadn't heard a car pull up and realized it probably wasn't me. I arrived home just minutes afterward and grabbed my gun and cleared the property then called the police. My blood runs cold when I read stories like this (almost daily, it seems) and think what would have happened to her and our son had she opened that door. Evil is everywhere and it is heartbreaking when you read these stories about someone having their life brutally and savagely cut short by these sick bastards. No punishment on this earth is extreme enough to give them what they deserve.
Wow! So glad you arrived when you did! Your arrival might have been what scared the guy away! Whew!
and it could have been someone at the wrong address, too. but shoot first is always the best/only option for some of you folks, it seems.
i have tried to enter the wrong hotel room, as i had forgotten which room was actually mine.
and, was it a person who was at the door? or something else. like an animal! had 2 boxers, and one day the cabin door looked like someone had tried to pry the door knob off. it was the dogs. as it happened at the city house, too, a few days later and with he exact same marks. the dogs were acting funny, as they do, when they have done something they know they were not supposed to do. very powerful jaws to dent the doorknobs like that. made me afraid of them and i got rid of them. they can do that to a metal doorknob my leg wouldn't have much of a chance.
What gets me is there are hundreds of heartless criminals like this sitting in prisons after committing similar crimes. They live on easy street daily watching tv resting in a warm bed without worry. We should remove the eyes from heads of people like this so they are forced to live in fear everyday!
Well, I am kind of glad we don't do that because sadly, there are some innocent people in jail. I just want them off the streets and out of mainstream society so they won't harm others. But, I certainly understand your sentiments.
gee, that sounds like the guys we are fighting against in the middle east and in asia right now!!!
i guess we aren't any betterdifferent than they are should your ideas be put into practice.
Beautiful Girl,and May you Rest in Peace Honey,you didn't deserve that!!May all the people who died at this Piece of Crap, Scumk Bag, Subhuman's hands,Rest In Peace also!Neither did they deserve it!
As for this Piece of Crap,Sub Human Scum Bag,there better be a Hell, and I hope to God,he Rots in it!
What is wrong with so many people in this country? Is law enforcement catching more of these insane evil serial killers or is there getting to be more of them? It seems like they are coming out of every neighborhood, every race and every economic level. Something is seriously wrong with society when there are so many of these horrible nut cases out there. Studies, with sociologists and psychiatrists heading them, have to find the cause of this and find a way to end it.
This is why I pack a 45!!
Police always say to cooperate ... I agree if it's just money.
But once if they want u to leave or go somewhere, that's when the tide turns. It would be a better idea to fight with all my might and run out of that place ...
Crazy people are just getting too common these guys, even in the subways now. What is US becoming these days ?
I can't stop crying, just horrible. I hate to see these stories surface more and more these days. And they finally found those sweet little Iowa girls, so horrible!!! What is wrong with society today?????
I feel extremely sad about Samantha's torture and murder. She was in a very vulnerable situation!!! I have thought back to the time I was "stalked" in a grocery store late at night. My husband was in a meeting, so I decided to spend my time shopping. As I pushed the buggy down different aisles, I noticed two men, one older and one younger, appearing in the same aisles and glancing over at me a number of times. A "red flag" went up, and I continued to shop....finally having a lot of items. I said to myself, "They are going to try something when I leave the store." When I got to the check out line, they were in the next lane, each holding a few things. As I was about to leave the store, I asked that one of the male employees pushed the buggy out for me. When we were approaching my car, there were the two men next to it. They rushed over to their car and sped away. I called the police when I got home, and the officer said he would alert his men. I am aware of my surroundings at all times, and I agree with the different comments about always fighting to prevent being taken to another location. My husband has jokingly said he pities the person who might confront me.