Original subtitles

[Keith Hunter Jesperson on phone]

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.

[Casey Jordan] 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.

[Michelle L. White] 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.

[Jordan] She confirmed that it was indeed her sister,

Taunja Bennett.

[Joey Jackson] 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.

[Monty Buettner] 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.

[Jeff Gianola] Was he playing some kind of cat and mouse game?

It was pretty obvious this wasn't a hoax.

[Jesperson on recording]

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.

[Alafair Burke] 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.

[Jackson] 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.

[Jordan] They lift her fingerprints

and match them to a set in the system.

[Buettner] 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.

[Gianola] 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.

[Jesperson on recording]

[Buettner] 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.

[Jordan] 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.

[Buettner] 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.

[Jordan] 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.

[Buettner] 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."

[Jordan] 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.

[Buettner] 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.

[on recording]

[Don Findlay] 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.

[Buettner] 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.

[Findlay] 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.

[Jorden] 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 on recording]

[Buettner] 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.

[on recording]

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.

[Jordan] 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.

[Janine Beghtol] 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.

[on recording]

[Jordan] 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.

[Robert Schug] 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.

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

was one of the best dads a kid could have.

[Schug] 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.

[Jorden] 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.

[Beghtol] 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.

[Schug] 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.

[Leslie Jesperson] Hi, sweetheart. I see your new boots.

-See? -[Leslie] Holy smoke.

You have new boots!

[Schug] 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?[laughs]

[laughing] I don't know if I like this!

-Keith! -[Jesperson] Keep your feet up.

[Rose Pernick laughing]

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.

[Jesperson] Eat it.

-[Jesperson] Mmm! -[Pernick laughing]

[on recording]

[Schug] 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.

[Jordan] 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.

[on recording]

[Schug] 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.

[Gianola] 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.

[Casey] 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.

[Casey] 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...

[continues reading]

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.

[Jeff] 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.

[Chris] 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."

[Det. Chris]

[Keith]

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.

[Chris] 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.

[Chris] 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.

[Monty] 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."

[Keith laughs]

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?

[Jeff] Now, the focus turns to Laverne Pavlinac and John Sosnovske

who're sitting in prison.

[Joey] 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.

[Jeff] It was almost unbelievable.

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

are sitting in jail for right now.

[Alafair] 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.

[Alafair] 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.

[Judge Keith] 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.

[Alafair] 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.

[Jeff] Laverne Pavlinac and John Sosnovske are released from jail.

Hi!

-You look nice. -[cries]

[Gianola] 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.

[Jeff] You have to ask yourself, how many other women died

because of that false confession.

[Casey] 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.

[Monty] 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.

[Jeff] 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.

[Michelle] 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.

[Don] 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.

[Monty] 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.

[Keith in interview] I am the Happy Face Killer.

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

[Keith laughs]

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.

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