All language subtitles for Very.Scary.People.S05E12.The.Happy.Face.Killer.(2).1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-Cinecrime_track3_[eng]

Welcome to Very Scary People.
I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

Julie Winningham's
family and friends
would describe her

as kind, warm,
and free-spirited.

So when the 41-year-old's body
was found off a remote road

in the Columbia River Gorge,

her loved ones
couldn't imagine
who would want to kill her.

But as police start
investigating her murder,

they discover more bodies

and a shocking link
to a letter

sent to The Oregonian
newspaper a year before.

Here's part two
of the Happy Face Killer.

January 22nd, 1990,

police would receive a call
of a female body

that had been spotted
down the incline

at the Columbia River Gorge.

Her body was found
partially unclothed, um,

her pants had been
pulled down,
her top was up.

The woman had a rope
around her neck.

She had been strangled.

She'd been strangled.
She'd been beaten badly.

They wanted to identify her.

So I had to think of something
to identify her.

All I could think of
is she had very flat feet

and she had a mole
on her hand.

She confirmed
that it was indeed her sister,

Taunja Bennett.

Laverne Pavlinac confessed
that she was there

when her boyfriend
John Sosnovske
killed Taunja Bennett.

Both Laverne Pavlinac
and John Sosnovske

are charged with the murder
of 23-year-old Taunja Bennett.

The Oregonian
received a letter from

a person that they deemed
the Happy Face Killer.

And the reason they deem
that is it was marked
with a happy face.

The letters detailed five, um,

homicides that they claimed
responsibility for,
including Taunja Bennett.

Was he playing some kind
of cat and mouse game?

It was pretty obvious
this wasn't a hoax.

In 1994, the Internet
was just starting

to become a big thing.

And, uh, newspapers,
like The Oregonian,

had the resources
to turn reporters,

like Phil Stanford,
loose on important stories.

And he found a lot
of facts that pointed

toward the letter
being an authentic
confession letter.

Law enforcement did
investigate the letters,

trying to identify
who the author might be.

and to line up those, uh,
claimed homicides

with actual cases.

Um, they did pull fingerprints

and DNA from the letters,

but there was nothing
in the database
to match them to.

Unfortunately, these letters
didn't really open

any new avenues
of investigation,

'cause there was
no indication of who was
writing the letters.

There was no way to prove
who had authored them.

Even though
they have the six-page letter,
which speaks specifically

about the 1990 murder
of Taunja Bennett,

authorities don't
re-open the case

because they believe
they have the right people
in prison,

John Sosnovske
and Laverne Pavlinac.

I was actually surprised
after the series ran

that there wasn't an uproar

from the Multnomah County,
uh, District Attorney's office

or the Sheriff's Office.

There was nothing.
They didn't re-open
an investigation.

They just did nothing

and life went on.

It was a year later,
as I recall...

...that a woman was murdered.

March 11th, 1995,
was a Saturday.

Um, I was on days off,

and so, I received a call
about 4:00 PM

that a, uh, passerby
had stopped along, uh,
Highway 14,

um, to urinate off the side
of the road where
he couldn't be seen.

Highway 14 basically travels

east and west through
the Columbia River Gorge.

As he was doing that,
he noticed what he initially
thought was a mannequin.

But as he looked at it
a little closer,
a little harder

from where he stood,
he saw fingernail polish

and those kind of things
that indicated

it may not be a mannequin,
it may be human remains.

As I approached the scene,
I'm looking for any signs
of her clothing.

I'm looking for signs
of any identification,

I'm looking for signs
of maybe a purse
or a wallet,

and I found none in the area.

Um, it was just a nude woman
with, with no clothing there,

no, um, forms
of identification.

What we did
is load her into, um,

a transport vehicle
and took her to the
Clark County Coroner's Office.

The medical examiner
concludes that this woman

died of manual strangulation.

Once we knew that
it was caused by another,
being a homicide,

now we need to identify
who this person is.

They lift
her fingerprints

and match them
to a set in the system.

Those fingerprints
were put into the, uh,
national database,

um, where we were able
to determine her identity

as Julie Winningham.

Julie was my mother
and I was her only son.

She was truly a kind-hearted,
free-spirited...

Loved to travel.

She just wasn't
a negative soul.

She was loving and caring,
she didn't do people wrong.

The Taunja Bennett murder
happened in 1990

and her body is dumped
in the Columbia River Gorge.

Five years later, in 1995,

Julie Winningham's body
is found

in the Columbia River Gorge
on the Washington side.

Nobody knows yet
that those two murders

are connected
to the same person.

Once we identified
who she is,

then our next step is to

talk to Julie's friends
and family to figure out

who she was last with,
when she was last seen.

According to detectives,

friends of Julie Winningham
confirmed

that she had been seen
with a very large man,

and that these two
had become very close.

This man was
a long haul truck driver,
drove a big blue truck.

One of the people
we spoke with,
a friend of Julie's,

was Bonnie Valenstein.

She actually described
that she had

bought a car from Julie

a few weeks prior
to her disappearance.

There was this large man,
actually signed it
as a witness.

And so we're thinking,
"Okay, we're gonna have
a signature.

This is too easy.
It can't be that easy.

It's not gonna pan out
as we hope."

However, when she showed us
the bill of sale,

the signature
was pretty clear.

But in addition to that,

the signer had actually
printed his name,
Keith Hunter Jesperson.

And that's the first time
that we had that information,

as far as who this
truck driver was.

Detectives are able
to track down the truck
of Keith Jesperson

to a company
in Spokane, Washington.

And they do confirm
that Keith Jesperson
is a truck driver for them.

And in fact, he's on
a long haul right now.

He's driving a truck
down the California coast

to go to Las Cruces,
New Mexico.

And he is scheduled
to arrive in two days.

Police get on a flight
to Las Cruces

and are there waiting for him

when the truck pulls in
with its delivery.

At that stage,
all we knew is that

this guy's a very large man,

and that if he resists,

it's going to be a struggle

to get him into custody
and restrained.

And so, um,
we had to prepare
for the worst.

But once he came to the gate,
the officer was there,

uh, explained,
"Just park your truck here.
Follow me on foot."

And as we approached him
and identified ourselves
as detectives,

he just didn't seem
to be bothered by it.

Didn't seem to be threatened
in any way.

Um, he was very, uh, calm,

um, was very cooperative,
wanted to help us.

Even not knowing
what the investigation
was for,

he still was willing
to talk to us.

It wasn't until we actually
got into the interview room

that we told him,
"We're actually from
the state of Washington

and we're
investigating the death
of Julie Winningham."

He's incredibly talkative,

but he only wants
to talk about

how great Keith Jesperson is.

He's friendly,
he's cooperative,

but he denies any knowledge
of what happened

to Julie Winningham.

As we interviewed him,
he had described that

they had actually met
two years before.

Had a romantic relationship
at that point in time,

that, uh, Julie had actually
accompanied him

on several runs,
uh, driving truck.

They went down to California,

they went
to Yakima, Washington.

From my understanding,
my mother had met Keith

three years prior to '95,

because she knew
other truck drivers

and hung out
at the truck stops, and...

So, somehow,
she reconnected with Keith

and they spent about
three weeks in town together.

Keith described
that about the first week

in March '95,
that he'd again saw her,

uh, at a truck stop,

and that they struck up
a conversation again,

kinda started the relationship
over again.

At this stage, he described
that it was kinda one-sided,

that he really
didn't care for her,
is how he described it,

that he felt that
she was actually only with him

because he was
buying her things.

But that she was willing
to have sex with him.

She was beautiful,
kind-hearted,

but at the same time,
she was a very weak soul.

Even though she was
a free-spirited soul.

So I think that's
what drew him in.

Because he's such
a negative person.

I don't know.

But that's what I think
drew him in.

Detectives felt that
Keith Jesperson

was hiding information
about Julie,

but didn't have
enough evidence to arrest him.

Though Detective Buettner
gave Jesperson his card,

telling him to call him
if he has anything
further to say.

When those detectives
return home

from New Mexico on March 24th,

they receive a message
from Keith Jesperson.

He says,

"This is Keith
Hunter Jesperson."

Jesperson
admitted that

he was waiting
in his truck for Julie.

Julie showed up,
had some pizza,

they had consensual sex.

They then were talking about
some other things.

Jesperson said he wanted
to have sex again.

Julie told him,
"Well, I don't want to."

And then Jesperson said,
"Well, what if
I do it anyway?"

She told him,
"Well, then,
that would be rape.

And I would have
to report that."

That angered Jesperson.

And at that point,
he said he strangled her.

Everything he told us
confirmed that he had indeed

killed Julie Winningham
by strangling her,

and then dumped her body
in Skamania County
in the Columbia Gorge.

And within, uh,
a short amount of time,

Keith Jesperson was taken
into custody for the murder
of Julie Winningham.

Keith Hunter Jesperson
was born in 1955

to his father Leslie
and mother Gladys Jesperson

in the little rural town
of Chilliwack,
British Columbia.

He was the middle
of five children,

with two brothers
and two sisters.

Keith was considered
the slowest
of the Jesperson children.

They say he often dawdled,

and would like to spend
a lot of time by himself,

isolating himself.

He was sort of
the black sheep of the family.

His father was pretty abusive,
is what I understand,

towards Keith only.

And his father was a drinker

and that Keith got
the blunt of it.

Keith's father
made his children work
every single day.

And if the children
made any sign of laziness,

he would beat them
with a leather belt.

He reports physical abuse
coming from his dad,

and how his father often

made him feel like
an inconvenience.

Like someone
just to be tolerated.

In spite of all this,
Keith would insist
that his father Leslie

was one of the best dads
a kid could have.

His dad was well known
in the community.

He probably had his father
up on a pedestal,

which makes it
even more challenging

when you're trying
to be recognized,

when Dad is almost
a superhero.

The relationship
with his mother,
distant emotionally.

It shouldn't
be a surprise that

an individual
who has very little,

if not any
emotional connection
with his mother...

...ends up being able
to perpetrate violence
against women.

The family moves
to the small town
in Washington called Selah.

Keith just seemed to me,

um, an ex-classmate

that I feel like I never knew.

I first met Keith

as a freshman in high school.

I'm only 4'9",

and Keith is, like, 6'7".

So, he towered me.

Keith didn't do
very well in school.

He was very large
and uncoordinated,

and the other kids
made fun of him
and even bullied him.

Keith tried
really hard to try to fit in.

He was trying
to get attention at school

'cause he wasn't
getting it at home.

Course, we never did
to his face,
but unfortunately,

because of his size,
we would call him Baby Huey.

It was a cartoon character

back in the late
'60s and '70s.

Keith grew up
experiencing physical abuse
from his parents,

experiencing bullying
from his peers.

And what we know
about that is,

somebody who is victimized

learns the role of the victim,

but also, potentially,

the role of the abuser.

In his teens,
Keith Jesperson didn't have
a lot of luck with girls,

but when he was
20 years old in 1975,

he married 18-year-old
Rose Pernick,

and together
they had three children.

Say hi, Grandpa.

Hi, sweetheart.
I see your new boots.

-See?
-Holy smoke.

You have new boots!

They built
a marriage that worked,

at least fundamentally,

in terms of Keith
supporting his family
by working,

and her maintaining the home
and raising the children.

Now what do I do
to get it going?

I don't know
if I like this!

Keith!

Keith was just
the traditional dad.

He did the work,
his wife Rose stayed at home.

And the kids in the household
seemed very normal.

Eat it.

Mmm!

Keith was able
to make a good living
as a long haul truck driver.

But he's off driving
around the country

for weeks at a time sometimes.

And, uh, he's physically
and emotionally away

from his wife,
away from his children.

According to Keith,

he and Rose had
the normal kind
of sexual relationship

in their marriage
in the early years.

But then things grew stale.

Once he became
a long haul trucker,

it was kind of easy
to pick up girls
at the truck stops,

and he was seeing girls
on the side.

Keith's marriage
completely falls apart.

He loses his job,
they lose the house,

he ends up starting to date
another woman.

And then he and Rose
get divorced.

And so, financially,
he's really sliding quickly.

He has to go out
on the roads to work more,

which further isolates him
from his children.

When you started
to peel off the layers
of his life,

then you came
to find out later

from his daughter
and from other people,
some disturbing elements.

According to
Keith Jesperson's
daughter, Melissa,

when they were living
in Washington state
and she was about

five years old, their cat
had a litter of kittens
in the basement.

And Keith took these
kittens and hung them
by their tails

from the clothesline.

Later, Melissa reports
she found all of the kittens
dead in the backyard.

I was six years old
when I saw my dad
kill my kittens

that I had found,
and that's when it hit me

that something's very dark
and different about my dad.

Melissa reports
that when she was 13,

her father told her
that he could kill a woman
and get away with it.

He told her that he had
literally killed a woman
and cut the buttons

off her clothing to get
rid of any possibility
of fingerprints

on those buttons.

And that he would wear
cycling shoes to make sure
he didn't leave any

footprints in the mud.

Welcome back to
Very Scary People.

Keith Hunter Jesperson
confesses to murdering

his girlfriend
Julie Winningham

and dumping her body
in the Columbia River Gorge.

Seems like a cut and dry case,

until detectives hear
from Keith's brother Brad.

He tells them he has
a letter they need to see
immediately.

So, this is the letter
that Keith Jesperson
wrote to his brother, Brad,

on March 24th, 1995.

This is when he's being
questioned about
Julie Winningham's murder,

he says, "Hi, Brad...

He's arrested for
the Julie Winningham murder.

At that point, he makes
a phone call to his brother,
Brad, and says...

"Destroy the letter."

So, on one hand he's saying,
"I wanna be caught,

but not really."

He had told Keith
that he had destroyed it,

but, in fact, he didn't
destroy it,

and he provided our
officers with the letter.

In the letter, he talks
about how he had killed
multiple women by that point.

And so, that was our
first concrete information

of our worst nightmare
that there are more victims

that Keith Jesperson
had murdered.

This is an unbelievable
development.

Detectives believed that they
had a person who killed
his girlfriend.

Never did they think
that they had a serial
killer on their hands.

It's terrifying information
because now we know
of multiple victims,

we don't know where.

We don't know how to
possibly track these
victims down,

how to identify 'em,

how to verify that, maybe,
a victim in another State

whose body was recovered,
that was the beginning
of the hard work

in that investigation.

So, in 1995, the way
to communicate with
other agencies

was to send out
what we referred to
as a teletype,

basically it was a message
sent out through a computer

that goes to all law
enforcement agencies,

that we have somebody
that's admitting to killing
multiple women,

that he is a long haul
truck driver.

Up to this point, we know
that his method of murder
was strangulation.

It may or may not be similar.

That he is known
to dump his victims
off the side of the road,

along major highways.

Please contact us if you have
anything, um, that you are
aware of,

that you have not solved
up to this point.

As he's confessing
to these crimes,

they're realizing
only a killer would know
this information.

Now they're questioning
the Taunja Bennett murder

saying there's a good
chance he did do this

and that two innocent people
are in jail.

My role in
the Jesperson case started

after he got arrested
for killing

his girlfriend
in Clark County, Washington.

We got a call from
a detective over there
who said,

"We've got a person
in custody on one of
our homicides.

And the word is that
he has committed
some other murders,

and very specifically,
he's... the word is that
he killed a female

in Multnomah county
named Taunja Bennett.

And that he's aware
of the fact that some
people were in prison

for that murder."

The first time I met
Keith Jesperson,

I was a little bit surprised
because he came across as
the farm boy next door.

He didn't use a lot
of swear words,

he didn't act like
a tough guy.

he wasn't covered with
jailhouse tattoos,

and he was very friendly
with me.

He appeared to enjoy
talking to me.

He wasn't running from me
in terms of what he was
saying.

I interviewed him four times.

But the initial interview
was very simple,

and he told me that
he had killed Taunja Bennett

in 1990.

He said that he'd gone
to the BNI Tavern,
he'd lived on a home nearby.

He'd gone to the BNI Tavern
and he saw Taunja Bennett
in there,

and there was some
interaction.

And then
he left the BNI for a while,

and he came back,
and Taunja was there.

And there was a conversation
about getting something to eat
at a nearby restaurant.

But he explains to her
he has to run home

because he doesn't
have any money with him.

So, she goes with him
to his home,

and while they're there,
they never end up
going to dinner,

but they do end up having sex.

He said that she
agreed to have sex with him

on a mattress
in the living room.

And that happened,
according to Jesperson.

And at some point,
she said something
that offended Jesperson,

and he said he decided
he was gonna kill her.

He apparently
strangled her.

And left her in his home,

where he was living with
another woman who was
also out of town,

she was a truck driver.

He went back to
the BNI Tavern because
he wanted to establish

an alibi about where
he was all afternoon
and evening.

He became very concerned
about the potential
for forensic evidence,

and was afraid that his
fingerprints might be
on the zipper tab.

So he cut the fly
out of her jeans so he could
take the fingerprint with him.

Then he went back
to the home where
he's killed Taunja,

and picked her up,
and took her out
to the dump site

which was in
the Columbia River Gorge.

I'm told, the moment
at which law enforcement
really did believe

that Keith Jesperson
was involved in Taunja
Bennett's murder...

was he took them
out to the Columbia Gorge.

Taunja Bennett's mother
had said that she left
with a purse,

and her Walkman,
and they had never
found her purse.

And when Jesperson
confessed to killing
Bennett,

he described her purse
and said that he tossed it.

And he pointed to an area
in the gorge and he said,

"That's where I left
her purse."

So0 the police brought out
Explorer scouts,

who are, you know students
who want to be
police officers,

and gave them
hacksaws and said,

"Were looking for a purse."

And they were
about to call it in
and one of the kids said,

"I've got a purse."

It had Taunja Bennett's
ID card in it still.

There was a search warrant
that would allow, uh,
the detectives to actually

have Jesperson write down
some things

that they tell him
to write down.

And with that paper,
and as well as any
letters that he

is suspected of writing,

it goes to
a handwriting expert
who does a comparison.

And the letter
to The Oregonian

and the letter to Brad
were verified by the expert

as being written and authored
by Keith Jesperson.

"The Happy Face Killer."

They were also able to get DNA

from one of the letters,
"The Happy Face Killer"
letters,

that they were able
to match to Keith
Jesperson's DNA.

So, at that point it was
very clear that

he had written the letters.

It all started to come out
and it all started to mirror

what he had written
to The Oregonian
the year before,

what he had written
on the bathroom walls.

It all came crashing down
on Keith Jesperson.

When things
started to quiet down,

he would spark interest again

by bringing up things
that he'd done.

He would write letters
to media outlets
and want to be interviewed.

And saying,
"Hey, I'm confessing
to these crimes

and nobody is listening
to me."

He reaches out to KATU
Television Station

and has a conversation
with our reporter Bob Heye.

In that conversation,
he is repeatedly asked,

"Are you
the Happy Face Killer?"

Each time, Keith Jesperson
says, "Yes, I am."

Bob Heye also asks him,
"Why did you do it?"

And he can't explain it,
he says, "I don't know."

Why would he do this?

Well, Jesperson says
that he was courting
the media

because two people

were wrongfully imprisoned
in jail,

and he needed the media's help

to get the evidence out there,

so that these two people
could be freed

because he was indeed
the Happy Face Killer.

And the question remains,
did he really feel bad
about these two people

who are imprisoned,
or is he just dancing
with the media

because he wants
the limelight to be
focused on him?

Now, the focus turns
to Laverne Pavlinac
and John Sosnovske

who're sitting in prison.

Remember
Laverne Pavlinac,

she confessed
that she was there

when her boyfriend
John Sosnovske
killed Taunja Bennett.

Though she recanted
her confession at trial,

she was convicted,
and they had both been
in prison for four years.

It was almost
unbelievable.

You have a serial killer
confessing to a crime
that two people

are sitting in jail for
right now.

You have a case
where you have

three people
all taking responsibility
for a crime.

No one seemed to have
coerced or lead their
confessions,

they all seem to have
information that only
the killer would know.

You normally have zero people
claiming responsibility.

I would say one of my
greatest nightmares
in taking a job

as a Deputy District Attorney

is the idea of convicting
an innocent person.

There was also
the possibility that Jesperson
could have been involved,

but he could've done it
with Laverne and John.

You've really
got to be confident
you're getting it right

before you let two people
who have been convicted

of murder out.

I could see
the district attorneys

who had prosecuted
Laverne and John.

I could see them struggling
with "how did this happen?"

It's every prosecutor's
worst nightmare is that you
convict an innocent person.

And here, they didn't even
do anything wrong.

They were kind of
asking themselves,
"Should we have known?

Were there warning signs
here?"

And they couldn't
really find any.

I just think, there was
in some sense,

just the overriding concern

that we have got to get
Laverne Pavlinac
and John Sosnovske out,

because the more I learned,
the more I believed they
were not responsible,

and that's an injustice
that has to be corrected.

My immediate
thought when I heard that
we have two people in jail,

on long sentences,
Laverne Pavlinac
and John Sosnovske,

and at the very least,
we don't have proof beyond
a reasonable doubt anymore,

and we've got to act
to get them out.

It's actually
a lot harder to get

an innocent person
out of custody than
you would think.

This was a case where
the district attorney's office

was agreeing
to vacate the convictions,

but you still need
a legal basis for it.

It took months to investigate

to the point
that law enforcement
became convinced

that Laverne and John
were completely uninvolved
in this.

Laverne Pavlinac
and John Sosnovske
are released from jail.

Hi!

You look nice.

Laverne Pavlinac
was a troubled woman

when you look back
at her past.

I mean, to falsely confess
to the rape and murder
of a young woman

so she could get out
of what she called

an abusive relationship
with her boyfriend.

That false confession
completely derailed

the investigation.

I can only think that
you'd have to be really
desperate to do something

this outlandish.

In putting yourself even
in peril and implicating
yourself in some

very grotesque activity
and violent activity.

And she did claim many times
that John Sosnovske
was abusive with her.

She lost her liberty
for years because of it,
and this guy got away with it.

The real killer
got away with it for years.

You have to ask
yourself, how many other
women died

because of that false
confession.

You would think
that Keith Jesperson's
confession,

those letters to the media,
to the courthouse,
the letter to his brother,

in which he confesses
to these murders,

you would think
that would be enough
for police to go forward,

but they run forensic
evidence.

They need
to make absolutely sure

that Keith Jesperson
is not also giving them

a false confession
just for the media exposure.

They match the handwriting
with a handwriting analyst,

they check the fingerprints
and the saliva on
the envelopes

in which the letters
were sent,

and yes, it all matches
Keith Jesperson.

Eventually
we were able to tie Jesperson
to eight victims.

At the time,
some of the victims were
unidentified by the agency.

In one particular case,
they didn't even know
they had a victim.

Keith Jesperson is a classic
power control serial killer,

and it is the most common
type of serial killer,

people who feel
stripped of their power

and very often
their masculinity.

They need to have a sense
of playing God.

And nothing is more typical
of a power control killer
than strangulation.

Why? He's not trying
to kill her.

He's trying to have power
over her.

He wants to be admired
by how he was so successful
at being "Happy Face Killer,"

a serial killer,
and killing all these women.

Keith Jesperson
was very good about
remembering all the details

about how he killed someone,
where he left the body,

But he often got their names
wrong or mixed up their names,

and I thought
that was chilling.

These people
were daughters,

in some cases mothers,
and that can never be
forgotten

because that points
to just how heinous these
crimes were,

and that a monster
is finally put away
for these crimes.

I can't even put
into words how you feel
about

somebody that killed
your sister.

She was just a kind person

that always was kind
to everybody.

She paid attention
to everybody,

wanted to be
everybody's friend.

It's hard...

'cause she's not here no more.

My mom wasn't just
a transient or whatever
the media

has made her out to be,

she was a kind, loving soul,

and... tried to stay positive
and didn't want to hurt
anybody.

She just wanted to be peaceful
and do her journey.

We lost a good person.

Keith Jesperson
is very proud of the crimes
that he's committed.

He likes that recognition.

He wants to be a serial killer
because he wants to be able

to be well known
amongst everybody

as being
a notorious serial killer.

Without that, Keith Jesperson
would be a nobody.

I am the Happy Face Killer.

-There's no doubt?
-There is no doubt in my mind.

Keith Jesperson has been
linked to eight murders
between 1990 to 1995.

He's serving multiple
consecutive life sentences

in the Oregon State
Penitentiary,

without the possibility
of parole.

On April 13th 2022,
one of his Jane Doe victims
was identified

as Patricia Skiple.

She is believed to be
his fifth victim.

Her identification
was made possible

by advancements
in DNA technology.

Skiple's family is grateful

she finally has her name back.

Two other victims,
one in California
and one in Florida,

are still on unidentified.

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.
Thanks for watching.

Good night.