• Chilling details released in Alaska barista's killing

    Newly 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.

    By Rachel D'Oro, The Associated Press

    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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  • Serial killer found dead in Alaska jail cell, officials say

    A man accused of murdering an Alaska woman and at least seven other people has taken his own life, according to police. KTUU's Rhonda McBride reports.

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A confessed serial killer awaiting trial for the kidnapping death of an Anchorage teenager was found dead in his jail cell Sunday in an apparent suicide, law enforcement officials said.

    Israel Keyes had admitted to abducting and killing 18-year-old Samantha Koenig, who disappeared in February from an espresso stand in Anchorage, officials said at a news conference Sunday.


    Keyes also admitted to killing a Vermont couple, Bill and Lorraine Currier, in June 2011, and up to five more people whom he did not name, prosecutors said.

    Keyes revealed his past crimes in dozens of hours of interviews conducted after he was arrested for Koenig's death, officials said.

    "He did tell us that he had killed other people and that there were bodies of up to four other people in Washington state, as well as a body disposed of in New York state," Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Feldis said after the press conference.

    There may be even more murder victims, Feldis said.

    Keyes also admitted to two bank robberies, one of them committed in Texas after Koenig's murder, Feldis said.

    FBI officials said they considered Keyes to be a serial killer, NBC station KTUU reported.

    "We've developed information that he was responsible for multiple additional victims. To our knowledge there are no other victims here in Alaska. They're all in the Lower 48," FBI Special Agent Mary Rook told the station.

    "We do know he traveled extensively and he didn't always stay where he landed. He would land in one airport, rent a car and drive hundreds of miles,” she added.

    AP

    Alaska barista Samantha Koenig, 18, was abducted after she closed up a coffee stand in Anchorage.

    Father of abducted barista, 18, pleads for her return

    The FBI told the station that it had spoken with its behavioral analysts in Quantico, Virginia, to get insight into Keyes’ personality.

    "He was very, very sensitive to his reputation," Anchorage Police Chief Mark Mew said, according to KTUU.  "As odd as that sounds, we had to keep things extremely quiet in order to keep him talking with us."

    Details about the cause of Keyes' death were not released, but a spokeswoman for the Alaska State Troopers said he was alone in his cell and that foul play was not suspected.

    Texas arrest in case of abducted 18-year-old Alaska barista

    Sunday's news conference was the first public release of many details about a case that has transfixed Anchorage residents.

    Koenig's disappearance from the coffee stand in February triggered a city-wide search and a reward fund. Keyes was arrested in Texas after using a debit card linked to Koenig.

    Investigators found Koenig's body in early April in an iced-over lake north of Anchorage. Officials said Sunday that Keyes' initial confession led them to that location, and that he had admitted using a chainsaw to cut a hole in the ice to dump her body in the lake.

    Body in icy lake is missing Alaska barista, police say

    Koenig's body is the only one of Keyes' victims that has been found, officials said Sunday.

    Although Keyes told investigators that he placed the Curriers' bodies in an abandoned Vermont house, that house was demolished and searchers were unable to find the victims' remains at the site, officials said.

    Law enforcement officials described Keyes as methodical and a frequent traveler, able to conceal his actions and dispose of his victims' bodies without easy discovery.

    Keyes, 34, was a self-employed carpenter and Army veteran who had been stationed at Fort Lewis in Washington state. He moved to Anchorage in 2007. He also had a house and property in Constable, New York.

    He had been scheduled for trial in March on federal charges, and faced a possible death penalty.

    The investigation into Keyes' crimes - some of which date back 14 years - will continue, a process that could take years, officials said.

    "Mr. Keyes never showed no remorse for his actions," Feldis told KTUU.

    Michelle Tasker, a spokeswoman for the Koenig family, told KTUU Sunday that news of Keyes' apparent suicide was not the outcome they wanted.

    "We would've obviously liked for him to have gone in front of a jury of his peers and answer for what he's been accused of doing," said Tasker. "He did an injustice again to Samantha."

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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