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Keith Hunter Jesperson is a now incarcerated Canadian-American serial killer who was active during the 1990s. According to Murderpedia, he killed eight people in Nebraska, California, Florida, Washington, Oregon, and Wyoming. He used to work as a truck driver, which made him travel from state to state.
According to Oxygen True Crime, Keith Hunter Jesperson was born in British Columbia, Canada on April 6, 1955. Like most serial killers, his childhood was also filled with abuse and hardship. Reports suggest that his father abused him and kids in his school regularly bullied him. He soon began taking out his frustrations in other disturbing ways, like torturing animals and attacking other children.
Jesperson eventually got married to Rose Hucke and settled in Selah, Washington with his family. Furthermore, his massive six feet, six inches stature helped him hunt for victims. After splitting from his wife in 1990, he committed his first murder. Keith Hunter Jesperson and Rose Hucke were married for 15 years and had three children together.
His daughter, Melissa Moore once stated that being around Keith Hunter Jesperson made her anxious. However, she did love her father. She said, “I loved my dad, but I didn’t really enjoy being around him. He made me anxious. He never molested or beat any of us. it was just a feeling that something was building, seething beneath the surface.”
She further stated, “I had once tried to articulate it to a school counselor, but it didn’t come out right. He would leer at women in public, make lewd remarks about them, and harass them.”
Why was Keith Hunter Jesperson called Happy Face Killer?
Keith Hunter Jesperson was known as the “Happy Face Killer” because he drew smiley faces in his letters to the media and authorities. Reports suggest that in 1990, he had a sexual encounter with a woman named Taunja Bennett, whom he ended up killing. He then dumped her body in by the Columbia River, which was later discovered by a cyclist.
Reports suggest that the first documentation of his crimes surfaced from a writing on a bus station bathroom wall in Montana. It read, “I killed Tanya Bennet [sic] January 21, 1990, in Portland, Ore. I beat her to death, raped her, and loved it.”
It further read, “Yes, I’m sick but I enjoy myself, too. People took the blame and I’m free.”
Jesperson’s victims were mostly sex workers. Even though he once claimed that he killed over 150 women, on the record, only eight murders have been confirmed. In August 1992, he raped and strangled a woman, whose identity remains a mystery. A few months later, he took the lives of Cynthia Lyn Rose in California and Laurie Ann Pentland in Oregon. He killed more people in 1993, 1994, and 1995.
His final victim was his 41-year-old ex-girlfriend, Julie Winningham. Her body was discovered on a Washington road in March 1995. Officials eventually apprehended him on March 30, 1995. Furthermore, he is currently serving a sentence of life without parole.
In 2014, Rick Bota directed a television film inspired by Keith Hunter Jesperson’s crime, which was titled, Happy Face Killer. David Arquette portrayed the role of the serial killer. It is available to stream on major platforms such as Hulu and Amazon Prime.
