Search Results - Jesperson, Keith Hunter, 1955-

Keith Hunter Jesperson

Keith Hunter Jesperson (born April 6, 1955) is a Canadian-American serial killer who murdered at least eight women in the United States during the early 1990s. He was known as the Happy Face Killer because he drew smiley faces on his many letters to the media and authorities. Many of Jesperson's victims were sex workers and transients who had no connection to him. Strangulation was his preferred method of murdering, the same method he often used to kill animals as a child.

After the body of Jesperson's first victim, Taunja Bennett, was found, media attention surrounded Laverne Pavlinac, a woman who falsely confessed to Bennett's murder with the help of her abusive boyfriend, John Sosnovske. Upset that he was not getting any media attention, Jesperson drew a smiley face on a bathroom wall hundreds of miles from the scene of the Bennett killing and wrote an anonymous letter confessing to the murder, providing proof. When that did not elicit a response, he began writing letters to the media and authorities.

Jesperson's last murder was the crime that ultimately led to his capture. While he has claimed to have killed as many as 160 people, only eight murders have been confirmed. Jesperson is currently serving a sentence of life without parole at the Oregon State Penitentiary. Provided by Wikipedia