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Image Attribution: By Federal Bureau of Investigation (MassLive.com) [Public
domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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Israel Keyes (January 7, 1978 - December 2, 2012) was arrested on March 12, 2012 for the murder of 18-year-old barista, Samantha Koenig. He abducted her from her coffee stand, before raping her. He killed her the next day, leaving her body in his garden shed whilst he went on a 2-week cruise. Before he killed her, he forced her to reveal her PIN number.
Returning home from the cruise, Keyes sent a $30 000 ransom demand to Koenig's boyfriend. This was paid, with the money being deposited into Koenig's bank account. Keyes immediately started withdrawing money from ATMs across the United States, continuing until he was eventually apprehended.
Up until this point, Israel Keyes had been extremely careful and meticulous in all of his illegal activities. He had killed before; he had robbed several banks; he had burgled somewhere in the region of 20 to 30 homes. The only things he had ever been arrested for were driving under the influence and driving without a valid licence. This was largely due to the extreme lengths he was prepared to go to in order to avoid detection.
As an example of Keyes' generally meticulous nature, consider the following: In June of 2011, Keyes flew to Chicago,where he rented a car to drive a further 1000 miles to Essex, Vermont. He made sure to remove the battery from his mobile phone so that it could not be traced. He paid for everything in cash.
Once he arrived in Essex, Vermont, Israel Keyes broke into the home of Bill and Lorraine Currier. He tied them up and took them to an abandoned building, where he shot Bill Currier, before raping and strangling Lorraine Currier. Their bodies were never found.
Keyes would go on to confess to more murders, though the precise number may never be known. It is, however, estimated by many to be in the region of 10 or 11.
As a child, Keyes had, by his own admission, tortured animals. He had also begun to realize that there was something different about him. There were things he wanted to do, things he thought were OK, that no one else seemed to find acceptable. Realizing this, he started to become more and more of a loner. He also tended to carry a gun with him wherever he went.
Between the years of 1998 and 2000, Israel Keyes served as a specialist in the US Army. In 2007, he started working as an independent contractor, operating under the name 'Keyes Construction'.
The first major crime that Keyes admitted to was the rape of a teenage girl sometime between the years of 1996 and 1998. The crime was never reported, but the FBI believes the confession to be genuine.
On December 2, 2012, Israel Keyes committed suicide in his jail cell whilst awaiting trial for the murder of Samantha Koenig. He never showed any remorse for his crimes.
You might also be interested in:
Ted Bundy - The Charismatic Killer, Dennis Rader - The BTK Killer, The Six Motivations of a Serial Killer
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