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 his victims were sex workers and transients who had no connection to him.
Strangulation was Jesperson's preferred method of murdering, the same method he often used to kill animals as a child.
After the body of his first victim, Taunja Bennett, was found, media attention surrounded Laverne Pavlinac, a woman who falsely confessed to having killed Bennett 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 crime and wrote an anonymous letter confessing to Bennett's murder, providing proof.
When that did not elicit a response, he began writing letters to the media and authorities.
Jesperson's last victim 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.
Jesperson was born on 6 April 1955, to Leslie (Les) and Gladys Jesperson in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada, the middle child with two brothers and two sisters.
Jesperson's father was a domineering alcoholic; according to Jesperson, his paternal grandfather was prone to violence.
Jesperson's father denied being an abusive parent; however, while investigating for his book on the killer, author Jack Olsen was able to confirm much of the claimed abuse with other family members.
Treated like an outcast and a black sheep by his own family and teased by other children for his large size at a young age, Jesperson was a lonely child who showed a propensity for torturing and killing animals.
After moving to Selah, Washington, United States, he had trouble fitting in and making friends because of his large size.
His brothers did not help him, instead they nicknamed him "Igor" or "Ig", a name that stuck throughout his school years.
Because of this, Jesperson was a shy child, content to play by himself much of the time.
He would often get into trouble for behaving badly, sometimes violently, and would be severely punished by his father.
This included beatings, sometimes with a belt in front of others, and in one case he received an electric shock.
At a very early age—as young as five—Jesperson would capture and torture animals.
He enjoyed watching animals kill each other as well as the feeling he got from taking their lives.
This continued as he got older.
Jesperson would capture birds and stray cats and dogs around the trailer park where he lived with his family, severely beating the animals and then strangling them to death, something for which he claims his father was proud of him.
In the years following, Jesperson said he often thought about what it would be like to do the same to a human.
That desire manifested in two attempted murders.
The first happened when Jesperson was around age 10, when he was friends with a boy named Martin.
The two would often get into trouble together, and Jesperson claimed he was often punished many times for things Martin had done and shifted the blame.
This led Jesperson to violently attack Martin until his father pulled him away.
He later claimed his intention was to kill the boy.
Approximately one year later, Jesperson was swimming in a lake when another boy held him underwater until he blacked out.
Some time later, at a public pool, Jesperson attempted to drown the boy by holding his head under the water until a lifeguard pulled him away.
Jesperson reported that he was raped at age 14.
1973
He graduated from high school in 1973, but did not attend college because his father did not believe he could do it.
Although Jesperson was not successful with girls in high school, having never even attended a school dance or his prom, he did enter into a relationship after high school.
1975
In 1975, when Jesperson was aged 20, he married Rose Hucke, and the couple had three children: two daughters and one son.
Jesperson worked as a truck driver to support the family.
Several years later, Hucke began to suspect Jesperson was having affairs when strange women would call.
Tension in the marriage increased, and after fourteen years, while Jesperson was on the road, Hucke packed up her children and belongings and drove 200 miles (322 km) to live with her parents in Spokane, Washington.
The oldest child, Melissa, was ten years old.
Jesperson continued to spend time with his children when he was in town.
