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Sept. 28, 2026

50 Shades of Evil: Alaska - Israel Keyes

50 Shades of Evil: Alaska - Israel Keyes

In this episode Jim Chapman brings you to Alaska and tells you the story of Israel Keyes. Jim covers the disappearance of Samantha Koenig in Anchorage in 2012 and the investigation that followed, including the ransom scheme and the evidence later linked to him. Jim also dives deep into Keyes background, military service, and adult life, along with the violent behavior and confessions that shaped the case.

Timestamps
05:12 Wilderness to Extremism
10:38 Soldiers See the Rage
20:05 Samantha Koenig’s Last Night
26:43 Ransom Scheme Unravels
30:13 Murder and Body Disposal
39:14 Confession and Charges
41:08 Failed Escape Attempt
43:19 Victims Revealed

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WEBVTT

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I walk a straight line, shackled chain. Oh, gruesome Gertie

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is calling my name. There is no mercy in this penitentiary.

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Just ask the hill string gang, a wrangle of three.

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I'm here.

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For life. We'll be right back. Hey everyone, welcome back

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to Bloody Angola and let's go to Anchorage, Alaska on

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February 1st of 2012. Now on that day, the sun

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had been down for hours. That's what it looks like

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during the day in Anchorage, Alaska, and it was snowing.

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As a matter of fact, The snow was coming down

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hard enough to soften the edges of the parking lot.

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And at the edge of that lot sat a drive-thru

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coffee stand called Common Grounds Espresso. Now inside was an 18-year-old.

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Her name was Samantha Koenig. And she was working toward

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the end of her shift. Now people who knew her

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would later say she was the kind of kid who

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remembered regulars. She wanted to be a hairstylist. and still

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had a bright future that all 18-year-olds are supposed to have.

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The stand was scheduled to close at 8 that evening.

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And across the street, a man is waiting. He was

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34 years old, and he's not what you would expect.

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He's not frantic. He's not scary looking. Not some figure

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out of a murder movie. He's a contractor. A father.

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an Army veteran. And he lived in a two-story house

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on a cul-de-sac in a neighborhood where people had barbecues

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and walked their dogs. Just a regular guy. But tonight,

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he's wearing a hoodie and a mask, and he's already

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decided how this night His name is Israel Keys, and

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today I'm going to take you into the details of

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what led to this seemingly ordinary guy becoming a bank robber,

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a burglar, an arsonist, a rapist, and a killer of

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multiple people. So let's get into it with this week's

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50 Shades of Evil. Now, this story doesn't start off

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in Alaska in 2012. It starts in 1978 in northern

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Utah with a second child in a large family of

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10 people. Now, his parents, Jeff and Heidi, they were

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a little different, you might say. They struggled with trust.

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And when it came to their kids, they really struggled

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with trust. They didn't trust public schools. They didn't trust

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the government. They didn't trust doctors. And they were the

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members at that point in time of Jesus Christ of

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Latter-day Saints. And you may have thought initially, wow, 10 kids.

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But there were plenty of LDS families in Utah in

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1978 raising 10 kids. And it's common in the Mormon

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religion to have just very large families. And Utah specifically...

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having the largest population of those who are Mormon. So

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when Israel was five, the family left, they went north

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and west to a remote property outside of Colville, Washington,

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which all Colville is in the northeastern corner of the

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state of Washington. It's a small timber mining community and

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farm town. And the property they chose was in the

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sticks of of even a smaller town like that. Just

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picture a cabin, periods without heat, periods without electricity, children

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sleeping in a tent, homeschooling and getting money from cutting

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firewood and working other people's farms. That was the Keys family.

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That's how they rolled. It was the life they wanted

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and they enjoyed the isolation. Now, Israel's parents, Jeff and Heidi,

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would eventually leave the LDS church, and they would become

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what is known as fundamentalist Christians, which is a very

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strict religion. It doesn't recognize government at all. And for

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a time, the family was tied to a congregation in

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their town known as the Ark. It was a church

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that investigators and later reporting described as a white supremacist

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anti-Semitic church. Now, the Keys children were not the only

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young people exposed to at a young age to this

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area in these types of beliefs. As a matter of fact,

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their neighbors included the Keough family. Chevy and Cheyenne Keough

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would later become notorious in their own right. So you

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can look them up. That is a whole nother podcast,

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not for today. Now, the signs that Israel was a

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bit off were showing early in his childhood years into

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his formative years. He would shoot at houses with BB guns.

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He would break into houses. He started fires in the woods.

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He even slipped into neighbors' cabins and stole firearms at

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a young age and hid them in a box at home.

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And Israel had other problems that you see with a

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lot of people who would later turn out to be

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serial killers. He tortured animals. He would admit this way

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later on to police that he killed neighborhood pets. He

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said he would even hurt some when he found them

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in the woods. And then he would torture the animals

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to death. So by his mid-teens, he renounced Christianity completely.

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He actually took an interest in Satanism. He would later

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say that by his late teens, he had decided he

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could rape or kill and get away with it. And

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in his head, he was so twisted by this point,

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he would start having desires of satanic ritual killings. involving

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a young woman. So in 1998, the family moved again,

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this time to Maupin, Oregon. And Israel and his brothers,

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they would help their father build a home. And if

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you didn't know any better, this just seemed like a

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normal large family with a lot of kids. and they

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all seemed to chip in around the house. Nothing seemed

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off at this point in his life. Then in the

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summer of 1998, when Keyes turned 18, he spotted a

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group of young people tubing on a river near his home. Now,

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He would tell this story much later on, but he

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said one of the group was a girl and Keyes

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put her age between 14 and 18 years old. He

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said he was able to separate her from her friends somehow.

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He drags her to a nearby bathroom and he sexually

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assaulted her, but he stopped short of killing her. Now,

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that is the first violent crime Israel Keyes ever committed

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according to his later interviews. The girl had never been

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identified and the assault apparently was never reported. No one

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has ever come forward. So after Oregon, the Keys household,

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they move again. This time they went east all the

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way to Maine and they settled near an Amish community. Now,

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at this point, Israel seemingly was tired of living this

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secluded life And he starts looking into something else for himself.

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And he thought, why not join the U.S. Army? I

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can travel around the world and I won't have to

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pay for it. And I can learn survival skills that

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I don't already have because he did grow up kind

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of in the wilderness. And on April 22nd of 1998,

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he does sign up in Albany, New York with the U.S. Army. Now,

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The army will give him structure, it will allow him

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to travel, but it will also, by his own later account,

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give his fantasies more shape. He would later say that

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he liked the survival training and that he felt more

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confident about killing strangers afterwards. when he was in uniform.

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So it was on July 9th of 1998 that Israel

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Keyes reports for basic training. Now at this point, he's

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20 years old, he has his GED, and the army

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sees a kid who he's pretty good at being a soldier, right?

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He's really good with working with his hands, and that

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can be an asset in the army. He serves as

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as a specialist in alpha company first battalion fifth infantry

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regiment in the 25th infantry division he's on a mortar

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team first as an assistant gunner before becoming a gunner

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and his work's pretty clean on paper So clean, in fact,

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he receives an Army Achievement Medal, and he completes a

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month-long preliminary process tied to Ranger training, but he never

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goes to U.S. Army Ranger school. He's also placed on

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a temporary duty assignment in Egypt. That's from January 15th

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to June 1st of 2000. I want to cover with

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you quickly the soldier that other soldiers saw, because later

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in A lot of them did interviews after you find

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out what I'm going to tell you about as we

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go along. But they said what they thought about Israel Keyes.

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They said he was quiet. He kept to himself more

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often than not. And on weekends at Fort Lewis, he

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would drink alcohol. And they said his drink of choice

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was wild turkey, of all things. Men who served with

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him described a guy who could be a friend in

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the field of training. And then without much warning at all,

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he would change into this completely different person. A guy

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by the name of Sean McGuire, he said that he

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shared a barracks with Israel Keys and went through some

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of the Egypt training beside him. And he said they

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were friendly. but that if Keyes took offense to joking

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around with him, he said that would offend him very easily,

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that he would nearly come to blows just to have

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a very short fuse. In interviews with other soldiers from

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that company, they all pretty much said the same thing.

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The other guys in the platoon were trained to kill

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just like Israel Keyes was, but they said Keyes was

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on a different level. Many describing him as just terrifying.

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And he wasn't a little guy either. He was six

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foot two and he was he wasn't built like a bodybuilder,

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but he had some muscle to him. Now, another friend

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named Matthew Perkins, he remembered the outdoors side of Keyes.

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He said he was a great hunter, a great fisherman,

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a great backpacker, and he said he loved Washington State

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and would disappear in any forest near Fort Lewis. And

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even another soldier came out and said he was more

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of a follower than a leader. He was easy to goat,

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if you will, and he was bad at picking up

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women easily. As a matter of fact, he wrote letters

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home to a girl he had been interested in back

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in Washington, and she later told the FBI that one

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letter from Egypt read like he was very depressed and

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the letter was very, very dark and it kind of

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freaked her out. And she totally lost interest in him

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after that. An army specialist that was talked to later

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on by the FBI said he would cut wood with

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keys often. And the keys the whole time would talk

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about crimes like bank robberies and killings and just was

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really interested in this stuff. And he said, it totally

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freaked me out, man. Like he would actually want to

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be these people. In February of 2001, while still in service,

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still at Fort Lewis, he did get in some trouble

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and he gets a DUI to which he negotiates a

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plea agreement and a fine in the neighborhood of $ 350.

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And it's really the only official mark on him that

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he had while he was in the Army. And in

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July of 2001, he walks out with an honorable discharge. Now,

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I'm going to tell you about something that was learned

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after his arrest way later on. He didn't confess to

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any kind of murders during the three years he was

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in the army, but he did tell investigators that he

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and other soldiers would take trips to Egypt and Tel Aviv.

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And Keyes told the FBI that he once met a

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girl there. He said she was pretty young. He said

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he thought she was a Norwegian exchange student. And he

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said they had been hanging out. He told her where

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her room was. And the FBI kind of pressed him

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and said, did you rape this girl? And he said,

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I wouldn't say it was like an outright rape. because

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we were hanging out and she allowed herself to be there.

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He said it happened in her room and he said

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he lost control a little bit as things progressed and

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he almost went further than he went, meaning he almost

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killed her. So that's some signs, early signs when he's

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in the army that this guy is going to be

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a problem when he's released and there's no one that

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has any control over him at that point, right? So

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let's go to July 8th of 2001. Israel Keyes, he

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gets out of the army, honorably discharged, and he's 23

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years old. And if you look over his discharge records,

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you're going to think this is a regular veteran heading

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into civilian life. But you would be wrong. Because this

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is the same young man who had already told us

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years later, sitting in a jail in Alaska, that he

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raped a teenage girl in Oregon. So he gets out

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and he does not go back to Oregon. He goes

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about as far as you can drive on the west

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coast of the country before you run into the Pacific Ocean.

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And that is Neah Bay, Washington. This is on the

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Makah Reservation in the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula.

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And this is a small, wet, isolated place. And the

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reason he's there is a woman... named Tammy Hawkins. So

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he met Tammy online in late 2000 while he was

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still stationed at Fort Lewis. Now, by the time he

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gets out of the army, she's already pregnant with their daughter,

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and that baby is born right around the time that

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Israel Keyes gets discharged. Now, July of 2001 to October

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of 2001, Keyes is living in the Neah Bay area,

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And he tells investigators that this is when he kills

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for the first time. Now, he does not give them

231
00:16:31.210 --> 00:16:34.029
a name. He doesn't even walk them out to a

232
00:16:34.129 --> 00:16:38.129
spot in the woods and say, dig here, right? He

233
00:16:38.210 --> 00:16:41.830
just says that's when it started. Some people who have

234
00:16:41.870 --> 00:16:45.500
gone deep into this case, they think he may have

235
00:16:45.529 --> 00:16:49.220
started killing earlier than that. The FBI, at least on

236
00:16:49.259 --> 00:16:52.309
the timeline they put out to the public, They kept

237
00:16:52.370 --> 00:16:57.299
that first homicide in that first three-month window after he

238
00:16:57.340 --> 00:16:59.840
gets out of the Army. He later tells them he

239
00:16:59.899 --> 00:17:04.279
murdered a couple in Washington sometime between 2001 and 2005

240
00:17:04.279 --> 00:17:08.809
and buried them in a valley. And let me tell you,

241
00:17:08.849 --> 00:17:12.490
that's about as specific as he got. And he puts

242
00:17:12.589 --> 00:17:19.339
two more killings in that 2005-2006 time frame stretch. So

243
00:17:19.380 --> 00:17:22.740
if you're counting the way prosecutors were counting later on

244
00:17:22.799 --> 00:17:26.660
in life here, you're looking at four people in Washington

245
00:17:26.740 --> 00:17:31.190
state before this man ever set foot anywhere else. And

246
00:17:31.230 --> 00:17:33.769
we'll talk about a little bit about that toward the

247
00:17:33.869 --> 00:17:36.769
end of this podcast. But in the Washington years, 2001

248
00:17:36.769 --> 00:17:41.289
to 2007, they're easy to skip past if you're in

249
00:17:41.329 --> 00:17:44.230
a hurry. But I don't want to skip completely past them.

250
00:17:44.759 --> 00:17:47.140
He does work. As a matter of fact, he works

251
00:17:47.180 --> 00:17:51.099
in contracting. That's that same kid, right, who helped build

252
00:17:51.559 --> 00:17:54.859
that home for his dad. He's good with his hands,

253
00:17:55.220 --> 00:17:58.660
and he's now getting paid to hang doors and remodel houses.

254
00:17:58.759 --> 00:18:03.180
People hire him. He hunts. He fishes. Now, he's also

255
00:18:03.279 --> 00:18:08.029
becoming a father in these years. And on the outset, y'all,

256
00:18:08.390 --> 00:18:11.430
from the outside looking in, I mean, it looks like

257
00:18:11.940 --> 00:18:15.400
He's working hard. He's got a steady job. He's got

258
00:18:15.440 --> 00:18:19.319
a young child and a girlfriend. You would never suspect

259
00:18:19.799 --> 00:18:24.069
anything crazy was going on. So March of 2007, he

260
00:18:24.650 --> 00:18:28.970
does leave Washington and he goes to Alaska. Now, Anchorage

261
00:18:29.549 --> 00:18:32.470
is not the same cabin in the woods. You would

262
00:18:32.509 --> 00:18:36.859
go disappear where he lived prior to that in Washington, almost,

263
00:18:37.319 --> 00:18:40.519
you know, in the Pacific Ocean area. This is a

264
00:18:40.720 --> 00:18:46.200
major thoroughfare, if you will, a major city inside of Alaska.

265
00:18:46.299 --> 00:18:49.430
I mean, they've got an international airport. You can be

266
00:18:49.470 --> 00:18:53.430
in Chicago by afternoon from Anchorage. And there's a lot

267
00:18:53.450 --> 00:18:56.609
of work there for a man who can remodel houses.

268
00:18:56.730 --> 00:19:01.079
And Israel Keyes, he starts a construction business there. He's

269
00:19:01.200 --> 00:19:05.579
general contracting. And he starts out more like handyman jobs,

270
00:19:05.660 --> 00:19:08.720
but those turn into real jobs. It's just like anybody else.

271
00:19:08.740 --> 00:19:11.359
You go hire someone to paint your house. And while

272
00:19:11.380 --> 00:19:13.529
they're there painting your house, you're like, well, can you

273
00:19:14.009 --> 00:19:17.349
fix light switches? And can you do this? Same thing

274
00:19:17.410 --> 00:19:20.630
for him. And it was a growing business. The people

275
00:19:20.670 --> 00:19:23.950
who hired him actually said he was really good at

276
00:19:23.990 --> 00:19:27.789
what he did, that he showed up on time. He

277
00:19:27.829 --> 00:19:32.450
wasn't drunk. And he was good at fixing things. He

278
00:19:32.529 --> 00:19:35.180
just didn't even look like a problem. And I want

279
00:19:35.200 --> 00:19:37.660
you to sit for that for a second, because these people,

280
00:19:37.740 --> 00:19:42.720
they're not stupid people. He was really good at hiding

281
00:19:43.099 --> 00:19:46.190
who he was. And at that time, he also lived

282
00:19:46.230 --> 00:19:50.380
for a stretch in a white two-story house. in a

283
00:19:50.450 --> 00:19:54.839
cul-de-sac in one of the nicer parts of Anchorage. He

284
00:19:54.859 --> 00:19:59.200
had his girlfriend there, his daughter, just nothing that would

285
00:19:59.519 --> 00:20:02.380
throw up a huge red flag at this point in

286
00:20:02.420 --> 00:20:05.920
his life that this guy was going to be a problem.

287
00:20:06.420 --> 00:20:10.799
So let's go to February 1st of 2012, and we're

288
00:20:10.819 --> 00:20:15.390
going to talk about Samantha Koenig. Now, Samantha Koenig was

289
00:20:15.390 --> 00:20:20.650
18 years old, and she worked at a drive-thru coffee stand,

290
00:20:20.690 --> 00:20:25.069
and it was called Common Grounds Espresso. It was on

291
00:20:25.329 --> 00:20:29.650
East Tudor Road in Anchorage, Alaska. It was just a

292
00:20:29.690 --> 00:20:33.529
cute little coffee stand, a little teal kiosk in a

293
00:20:33.630 --> 00:20:37.299
parking lot with a Home Depot and an IHOP. The

294
00:20:37.319 --> 00:20:39.539
kind of place you'd roll up to in the dark

295
00:20:39.640 --> 00:20:42.539
and you would never think twice about going in there.

296
00:20:43.140 --> 00:20:46.619
She had a boyfriend and they were in love. She

297
00:20:46.700 --> 00:20:50.740
shared a truck with him. She shared a bank account

298
00:20:50.819 --> 00:20:53.859
with him. And people who knew her said she was

299
00:20:53.920 --> 00:20:58.009
a regular kid with a regular future. Now, Israel Keyes,

300
00:20:58.240 --> 00:21:00.829
he had never met this girl. He had never even

301
00:21:01.049 --> 00:21:05.490
seen her before that night. To him and his sick mind,

302
00:21:05.589 --> 00:21:09.289
this wasn't personal. It was business. And he had already

303
00:21:09.329 --> 00:21:13.880
been looking specifically for coffee stands. And he picked Common

304
00:21:13.980 --> 00:21:17.660
Grounds because of where it sat and because it stayed

305
00:21:17.839 --> 00:21:21.130
open later than the other coffee stands that he was

306
00:21:21.190 --> 00:21:26.509
staking out. Closing time at this particular coffee stand. was

307
00:21:26.609 --> 00:21:29.349
eight o'clock in the evening. So the interesting thing here

308
00:21:29.390 --> 00:21:31.769
is he had a cruise booked the next morning out

309
00:21:31.809 --> 00:21:35.690
of New Orleans. It was pre-planned, family trip. The tickets

310
00:21:35.869 --> 00:21:38.420
were already bought and paid for. And he was just

311
00:21:38.559 --> 00:21:41.700
leaving in a few hours from what I'm about to

312
00:21:41.740 --> 00:21:44.680
tell you that went down. And he broke the one

313
00:21:44.799 --> 00:21:49.119
rule he said that he lived by for years. Do

314
00:21:49.180 --> 00:21:53.200
not kill close to home. And Common Grounds was only

315
00:21:53.259 --> 00:21:57.509
about four miles from his house. So two days before

316
00:21:57.670 --> 00:22:00.730
all of this would go down, he prepped his shed

317
00:22:00.930 --> 00:22:04.329
in his driveway. He had heaters set up. He had

318
00:22:04.369 --> 00:22:07.700
a radio. And he later told police that he had

319
00:22:07.839 --> 00:22:10.579
set the shed up because he intended to bring a

320
00:22:10.660 --> 00:22:14.279
victim back there. Initially, he would claim all of this

321
00:22:14.640 --> 00:22:16.680
that I'm about to tell you about was a robbery

322
00:22:16.720 --> 00:22:21.890
going wrong. It was not. He had pre-planned all this stuff.

323
00:22:22.210 --> 00:22:26.619
So on February 1st, shortly after seven o'clock in the evening,

324
00:22:26.980 --> 00:22:30.980
he pulls his white Chevrolet pickup out of his driveway

325
00:22:31.359 --> 00:22:34.660
and he drives over to that Home Depot lot on

326
00:22:34.779 --> 00:22:38.240
Tudor and he parks and he takes a coffee mug,

327
00:22:38.599 --> 00:22:44.609
plastic zip ties, a headlamp, and a. 22 revolver, puts

328
00:22:44.670 --> 00:22:47.460
that in his pocket. He puts on a ski mask

329
00:22:47.559 --> 00:22:51.650
and a hoodie and he exits that vehicle. Now, you

330
00:22:51.670 --> 00:22:55.190
might be thinking someone obviously is going to know he's

331
00:22:55.230 --> 00:22:58.009
about to rob somebody with this get up on the

332
00:22:58.049 --> 00:23:01.829
ski mask, the hoodie, the whole deal. Remember this. He's

333
00:23:01.890 --> 00:23:07.390
in Alaska, y'all. It is February. Everybody dresses like this

334
00:23:07.930 --> 00:23:11.220
in February in Alaska. So he walks up to that

335
00:23:11.319 --> 00:23:15.119
window near closing time and he orders a coffee. And

336
00:23:15.160 --> 00:23:18.849
Samantha makes it. She hands it to him. The gun

337
00:23:18.910 --> 00:23:21.750
comes out and he tells her that he wants money.

338
00:23:22.250 --> 00:23:25.970
She empties the register. She complies, coins and all. And

339
00:23:26.009 --> 00:23:28.390
she gives it all to him. And he tells her

340
00:23:28.569 --> 00:23:31.930
to get on the floor. She does. And he climbs

341
00:23:32.269 --> 00:23:36.829
up and through the window into that little stand. He

342
00:23:36.869 --> 00:23:40.210
gets down next to her and he zip ties her

343
00:23:40.329 --> 00:23:44.059
hands together. behind her back. He even then trims off

344
00:23:44.119 --> 00:23:48.359
the extra plastic after he zip ties her hands. And

345
00:23:48.440 --> 00:23:54.000
then they wait two minutes, three minutes down low, making

346
00:23:54.079 --> 00:23:58.509
sure no last minute customer rolls up and sees him

347
00:23:58.589 --> 00:24:01.470
in there. He even takes a wooden stick and he

348
00:24:01.529 --> 00:24:05.819
puts it in the window and So the stand looks closed. Now,

349
00:24:05.859 --> 00:24:10.480
surveillance video from inside that kiosk would later show all

350
00:24:10.500 --> 00:24:13.779
of this. The zip ties, the hands behind her back,

351
00:24:14.079 --> 00:24:17.759
him leading her out. Another camera would catch the white

352
00:24:17.859 --> 00:24:21.140
pickup across the way with a man getting out and

353
00:24:21.180 --> 00:24:24.730
that same man coming back with somebody that he is

354
00:24:24.849 --> 00:24:29.210
gripping very tightly. tightly. He asked her where her car

355
00:24:29.250 --> 00:24:31.730
was and she told him, I don't have a vehicle.

356
00:24:31.849 --> 00:24:35.750
Me and my boyfriend, we share a vehicle and he's

357
00:24:35.809 --> 00:24:38.569
at work right now and he drove the vehicle to work.

358
00:24:38.609 --> 00:24:42.190
And at that point, Keyes then forcibly walks her out

359
00:24:42.210 --> 00:24:47.269
of that coffee stand toward Tudor Road. Now, apparently once

360
00:24:47.450 --> 00:24:54.230
the realization that Keyes was kidnapping her, Samantha Koenig This

361
00:24:54.329 --> 00:24:57.069
all clicks and she says, screw that, I'm running. And

362
00:24:57.130 --> 00:25:01.470
she actually breaks away from Keys and tries to run away.

363
00:25:01.869 --> 00:25:05.680
But Keys does chase her and tackle her to the ground.

364
00:25:05.900 --> 00:25:08.700
He puts one arm around her, points the gun at

365
00:25:08.720 --> 00:25:12.180
her body with the other hand, and he tells her, hey,

366
00:25:12.720 --> 00:25:16.900
you need to cooperate. that the gun had very quiet

367
00:25:17.180 --> 00:25:21.039
ammo and that she should not do anything that would

368
00:25:21.079 --> 00:25:24.720
make him kill her. They walk across Tudor Road into

369
00:25:24.759 --> 00:25:28.559
a parking lot between the IHOP and a Dairy Queen

370
00:25:28.740 --> 00:25:32.579
and Key's white truck was parked there. Now, Key's had

371
00:25:32.619 --> 00:25:37.640
previously prepared that truck. He removed the license plate and

372
00:25:37.720 --> 00:25:41.269
he also removed some mounted toolboxes off of the bed

373
00:25:41.309 --> 00:25:44.430
of the truck. So it was ready to go. He

374
00:25:44.690 --> 00:25:48.339
took Koenig, threw her in the truck and drove away.

375
00:25:48.819 --> 00:25:53.079
So he starts driving around town in Alaska and he's

376
00:25:53.140 --> 00:25:56.839
explaining to Koenig that this was a kidnapping for ransom.

377
00:25:57.680 --> 00:26:02.190
And Koenig's like, my family doesn't have any money. What's

378
00:26:02.230 --> 00:26:05.450
he going to ask for ransom for? And she explains

379
00:26:05.490 --> 00:26:08.829
that to him. And he says, hey, no worries. I've

380
00:26:08.880 --> 00:26:13.359
already thought farther ahead than you have. And when the

381
00:26:13.460 --> 00:26:16.279
public finds out that you've been kidnapped, they're going to

382
00:26:16.380 --> 00:26:20.380
chip in to help with your ransom money. And so

383
00:26:20.720 --> 00:26:22.809
it doesn't matter if your parents have money or not.

384
00:26:23.230 --> 00:26:27.740
The public is like a GoFundMe. for ransom, right? And

385
00:26:27.779 --> 00:26:31.759
Keyes also convinces her that if she cooperates, he's going

386
00:26:31.839 --> 00:26:35.660
to return her to her family unharmed. And Koenig seemed

387
00:26:35.720 --> 00:26:40.470
to believe Keyes. And she tries to talk him out

388
00:26:40.509 --> 00:26:43.769
of it and tries to convince him to release her.

389
00:26:44.369 --> 00:26:48.109
But it's fallen on deaf ears, right? This guy has

390
00:26:48.150 --> 00:26:50.990
made up his mind. So at some point during that drive,

391
00:26:51.029 --> 00:26:53.650
Keith says, I need your phone because I'm going to

392
00:26:53.670 --> 00:26:57.990
start texting people to get this whole ransom thing going on.

393
00:26:58.650 --> 00:27:01.519
And she says, we got a problem. I don't have

394
00:27:01.559 --> 00:27:04.930
my phone. And he said, I'm assuming, said, what do

395
00:27:04.950 --> 00:27:06.769
you mean you don't have your phone? And she said, well,

396
00:27:06.789 --> 00:27:10.289
you freaking kidnapped me. And my phone is back at

397
00:27:10.349 --> 00:27:13.190
the stand. I never grabbed it. So I can only

398
00:27:13.230 --> 00:27:16.049
imagine what went through his head at this point. But

399
00:27:16.109 --> 00:27:19.170
he says, I got to have that phone. They turn

400
00:27:19.230 --> 00:27:23.599
around and they actually go back to the coffee stand

401
00:27:24.039 --> 00:27:27.339
to retrieve her cell phone. He had to have that

402
00:27:27.420 --> 00:27:30.829
to pull off his plan. Huge risk. And you can

403
00:27:30.910 --> 00:27:35.579
actually see him on surveillance video re-enter that coffee stand

404
00:27:35.680 --> 00:27:39.880
while she's in the car and retrieve her cell phone,

405
00:27:39.980 --> 00:27:43.200
get back in the truck and drive away. Keys then

406
00:27:43.279 --> 00:27:46.670
drives to another part of town and he sends two

407
00:27:46.829 --> 00:27:50.650
text messages from her phone. The first was to her

408
00:27:50.690 --> 00:27:53.829
boyfriend and the second was to the owner of that

409
00:27:54.279 --> 00:27:58.900
coffee grounds stand. And the text messages made it appear

410
00:27:58.940 --> 00:28:02.119
as if Koenig just had a really bad day and

411
00:28:02.160 --> 00:28:06.779
was leaving town for the weekend. And Keyes sends those

412
00:28:06.839 --> 00:28:10.900
and then he takes the battery out of Samantha Koenig's phone.

413
00:28:11.220 --> 00:28:15.009
He then asked her for her debit card. And Samantha's

414
00:28:15.029 --> 00:28:19.109
got another surprise for him when she says she doesn't

415
00:28:19.230 --> 00:28:22.490
have her debit card. Her and her boyfriend actually share

416
00:28:22.609 --> 00:28:27.279
a debit card and that he had the debit card.

417
00:28:27.339 --> 00:28:30.220
They didn't keep two of those. So Keyes is like, oh,

418
00:28:30.380 --> 00:28:33.160
for two here. I'm sure he's really freaking out. And

419
00:28:33.180 --> 00:28:36.099
he says, okay, where do you live and where's the

420
00:28:36.140 --> 00:28:39.250
debit card? And she says, well, the debit card is

421
00:28:39.490 --> 00:28:43.650
typically kept in my boyfriend's truck. And she gives Keys

422
00:28:43.849 --> 00:28:47.470
the address to where they live. So get this. Keys,

423
00:28:47.930 --> 00:28:50.900
he locks her up in the shed in the front

424
00:28:50.940 --> 00:28:55.119
of his house. And he turns the radio up. And

425
00:28:55.180 --> 00:28:57.460
he says, look, if you scream, no one's going to

426
00:28:57.539 --> 00:29:00.450
hear you anyway. But he said he also had a

427
00:29:00.509 --> 00:29:04.470
police scanner on him. So if you do manage to

428
00:29:04.529 --> 00:29:07.660
get away and the police are alerted, I'm going to

429
00:29:07.700 --> 00:29:09.960
hear it. And I know where you live. I'm on

430
00:29:09.980 --> 00:29:12.059
the way to your house right now. And at that point,

431
00:29:12.569 --> 00:29:17.549
this crazy sucker dies. jumps in his car and drives

432
00:29:17.670 --> 00:29:22.039
to Koenig's house. He retrieves the ATM card from her

433
00:29:22.079 --> 00:29:26.140
boyfriend's truck. And here's where it gets really crazy. While

434
00:29:26.200 --> 00:29:31.039
he's at her house, going into her boyfriend's truck to

435
00:29:31.079 --> 00:29:35.369
get this ATM card out of there, her boyfriend sees him,

436
00:29:35.950 --> 00:29:40.349
comes outside, confronts him. They're kind of yelling back and forth.

437
00:29:40.730 --> 00:29:45.519
The boyfriend goes inside to get help, assumingly, or a gun,

438
00:29:45.660 --> 00:29:48.559
one of the two. Keyes at that point runs back

439
00:29:48.619 --> 00:29:53.210
to his truck and leaves the area before anything else happens.

440
00:29:53.630 --> 00:29:57.490
He then drives to an ATM machine and he withdraws

441
00:29:57.589 --> 00:30:00.829
like the minimum amount just to make sure that the

442
00:30:00.910 --> 00:30:05.150
PIN number that Samantha had given him was correct, which

443
00:30:05.329 --> 00:30:08.339
it was. She was honest with this guy. But the

444
00:30:08.359 --> 00:30:12.079
question is, is Keyes gonna be honest with her? Hell no,

445
00:30:12.440 --> 00:30:18.170
he's not. He drives back to his house, goes into

446
00:30:18.750 --> 00:30:22.789
his shed where he had her locked up. He sexually

447
00:30:22.869 --> 00:30:26.890
assaults her and then he kills her by choking her

448
00:30:27.369 --> 00:30:31.170
to death. Keyes then leaves her in the shed, goes

449
00:30:31.329 --> 00:30:34.730
back inside his house where he packed for this pre-planned

450
00:30:34.910 --> 00:30:37.789
cruise that he was taking from New Orleans. And he

451
00:30:37.869 --> 00:30:44.089
leaves early that morning, February 2nd for that cruise. Unbelievable.

452
00:30:44.380 --> 00:30:49.619
Keyes then returned to Anchorage on February 17th of 2012,

453
00:30:49.619 --> 00:30:54.930
and he starts preparing a ransom note that demanded money

454
00:30:55.009 --> 00:30:59.589
be placed in the account connected to that ATM card. Yeah,

455
00:31:00.009 --> 00:31:03.210
not a fucking genius, right? He's already shown it right there.

456
00:31:03.779 --> 00:31:08.140
He goes into the shed, he retrieves Koenig's body, and

457
00:31:08.299 --> 00:31:10.799
he takes steps to make it appear, this is how

458
00:31:10.880 --> 00:31:13.329
sick he is, He wanted to make it look like

459
00:31:13.380 --> 00:31:18.210
she was still alive. So he dresses her up and

460
00:31:18.309 --> 00:31:23.690
he takes Polaroid pictures of her tied up trying to

461
00:31:23.730 --> 00:31:26.930
make her appear to look like she's still alive. And

462
00:31:27.210 --> 00:31:31.279
as these pictures are taken, he also holds up an

463
00:31:31.559 --> 00:31:38.119
Anchorage Daily newspaper dated from February 13th of 2012. He

464
00:31:38.259 --> 00:31:43.369
photocopies the photo and using a manual typewriter he purchased,

465
00:31:43.789 --> 00:31:49.089
he types a ransom demand for $ 30, 000 on the back

466
00:31:49.109 --> 00:31:52.700
of that photo. Now, after doing all of that, He

467
00:31:52.819 --> 00:31:55.779
takes the note and he puts it in a dog

468
00:31:55.839 --> 00:32:00.049
park under a memorial flyer for a dog named Albert.

469
00:32:00.309 --> 00:32:05.309
Then he uses Koenig's cell phone, text her boyfriend. And

470
00:32:05.470 --> 00:32:09.069
in substance, he said a ransom note was under Albert

471
00:32:09.269 --> 00:32:14.380
in Connor's dog park. And that note gets recovered by

472
00:32:14.720 --> 00:32:18.299
the Anchorage Police Department. And in the days that followed,

473
00:32:18.460 --> 00:32:23.279
Keyes dismembers Koenig's body. drives her out to a lake,

474
00:32:23.799 --> 00:32:28.299
cuts a hole in the ice, and puts her body

475
00:32:28.920 --> 00:32:33.359
inside of that lake. Now, meanwhile, Koenig's father, James Koenig,

476
00:32:33.500 --> 00:32:38.940
he deposits ransom money, which had been generously donated by

477
00:32:39.059 --> 00:32:43.619
members of the community into an account connected with Samantha

478
00:32:43.769 --> 00:32:48.210
Koenig's ATM card. Now, the plan was to attempt to

479
00:32:48.269 --> 00:32:54.390
catch the perpetrator by tracking those withdrawals. March 1st, he

480
00:32:54.569 --> 00:32:58.430
uses it at an ATM in Anchorage. March 6th, he

481
00:32:58.529 --> 00:33:04.190
flies from Anchorage to Las Vegas. March 7th, from there

482
00:33:04.329 --> 00:33:10.039
to Wilcox, Arizona. An ATM camera catches a masked man

483
00:33:10.200 --> 00:33:14.259
in a rental car. March 8th, he goes to Lordsburg,

484
00:33:14.460 --> 00:33:17.480
New Mexico and uses a car. At this point, he

485
00:33:17.559 --> 00:33:22.730
is leaving a major paper trail. And then on March 13th,

486
00:33:23.250 --> 00:33:28.970
a traffic stop occurs in Lufkin, Texas. So let's go

487
00:33:29.109 --> 00:33:33.799
to the Quality Inn in Suites, which is great. where

488
00:33:34.099 --> 00:33:39.220
the last debit card withdrawal took place. It's about 11

489
00:33:39.220 --> 00:33:43.950
o'clock in the morning. Texas Highway Patrol Corporal Brian Henry,

490
00:33:44.390 --> 00:33:48.150
he calls in a white Ford Focus sedan sitting in

491
00:33:48.190 --> 00:33:52.390
that hotel lot that matches a bulletin about the make

492
00:33:52.410 --> 00:33:56.569
and model of a car that last used that ATM

493
00:33:56.630 --> 00:34:01.630
card belonging to Samantha Koenig. So, What this asshole didn't

494
00:34:01.690 --> 00:34:07.509
realize was this had become a national emergency and every

495
00:34:07.549 --> 00:34:11.409
police station in the country was looking for that Ford

496
00:34:11.449 --> 00:34:16.210
Focus by this point in time. Because they knew it

497
00:34:17.030 --> 00:34:20.510
was the ATM withdrawals that a murderer was making on

498
00:34:20.550 --> 00:34:23.989
this poor girl's account. And these police, shout out to them,

499
00:34:24.269 --> 00:34:27.469
they knew it. When they saw this car, something wasn't right.

500
00:34:27.530 --> 00:34:31.429
As a matter of fact, Texas Ranger Steven Rayburn, he's

501
00:34:31.510 --> 00:34:35.329
already with an FBI agent. Her name was Deborah Ganaway,

502
00:34:35.469 --> 00:34:39.230
and they roll up into the Quality Inn. And Ganaway

503
00:34:39.269 --> 00:34:42.550
kind of does a walk by that vehicle. She sees

504
00:34:42.630 --> 00:34:46.750
a rental barcode sticker on the back passenger window. That

505
00:34:46.829 --> 00:34:50.239
tells her, okay, whoever owns this vehicle rented the vehicle.

506
00:34:50.769 --> 00:34:54.949
She sees trash and clothes piled up inside and what

507
00:34:55.010 --> 00:34:59.510
looked like a pink piece of women's clothing in plain

508
00:34:59.570 --> 00:35:02.670
view that she could see. Ranger Rayburn, he runs the

509
00:35:02.750 --> 00:35:06.869
plate and it's registered to a car rental company. And

510
00:35:07.090 --> 00:35:11.679
Lieutenant Mickey Hadnot from the Department of Public Safety, he

511
00:35:11.760 --> 00:35:17.019
keeps a clear eye on the car. They're really watching everything. Now,

512
00:35:17.079 --> 00:35:22.300
hotel records later show a room Number 215 rented for

513
00:35:22.360 --> 00:35:26.039
those days leading up to the 13th. So whoever was

514
00:35:26.119 --> 00:35:29.039
there had been there a couple of days at least.

515
00:35:29.920 --> 00:35:32.940
And police, they want to talk to the driver, but

516
00:35:32.980 --> 00:35:36.260
they know they need a lawful reason to kind of

517
00:35:36.300 --> 00:35:39.019
light this guy up. And they want to do everything

518
00:35:39.079 --> 00:35:40.760
by the book because they got a feeling this is

519
00:35:40.800 --> 00:35:43.519
going to be a bigger case than they're used to.

520
00:35:44.360 --> 00:35:47.179
So they kind of stake it out. They just watch.

521
00:35:47.820 --> 00:35:51.980
They see, eventually, Israel Keys walk out to the vehicle,

522
00:35:52.159 --> 00:35:55.039
get in it, and drive down the road, and they

523
00:35:55.420 --> 00:35:58.030
pull up behind him. As a matter of fact, Corporal

524
00:35:58.110 --> 00:36:01.769
Henry is right behind him. He waits for Israel Keys

525
00:36:01.829 --> 00:36:04.869
to go just a couple of miles over the speed limit,

526
00:36:05.409 --> 00:36:08.639
and he pulls him over. Henry walks up to Israel Keys,

527
00:36:08.969 --> 00:36:11.800
and he says, I need to see your ID. Israel

528
00:36:11.840 --> 00:36:16.170
Keys hands him an Alaska driver's license. And they run

529
00:36:16.210 --> 00:36:19.550
that license and it comes back clear. No warrants that

530
00:36:19.590 --> 00:36:23.409
pop up in a routine search. Just a tall man

531
00:36:23.469 --> 00:36:27.349
from Alaska in a rental Ford Focus in East Texas.

532
00:36:27.739 --> 00:36:31.280
And Henry asked the usual questions. Where are you from? Anchorage.

533
00:36:31.639 --> 00:36:33.840
What are you doing down here? I came down here

534
00:36:33.880 --> 00:36:37.179
for a wedding. Whose wedding? My sister's wedding. How did

535
00:36:37.199 --> 00:36:40.320
you get here? Flew from Anchorage to Las Vegas and

536
00:36:40.360 --> 00:36:42.650
then rented a car at the airport and been driving

537
00:36:42.710 --> 00:36:45.880
ever since. And that kind of raised an eyebrow because

538
00:36:45.920 --> 00:36:48.739
why didn't you just fly into Texas? Why would you

539
00:36:48.780 --> 00:36:52.659
fly into Las Vegas and then come here? And he

540
00:36:52.860 --> 00:36:57.409
kind of struggled to answer those questions. And police are like,

541
00:36:57.530 --> 00:37:01.510
something is off with this dude. They asked to see

542
00:37:01.550 --> 00:37:04.949
his wallet and he gets pissed. He's not going to

543
00:37:05.090 --> 00:37:07.789
show it. As a matter of fact, they said keys

544
00:37:07.869 --> 00:37:13.980
became increasingly confrontational during the traffic stop. especially when asked

545
00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:17.199
for details about his activities. He wouldn't let them look

546
00:37:17.219 --> 00:37:19.880
in his car. He wouldn't let them look in his wallet.

547
00:37:20.280 --> 00:37:23.539
And through the window, police could see a pair of

548
00:37:23.840 --> 00:37:28.380
large white tennis shoes shoved under the driver's seat. And

549
00:37:28.579 --> 00:37:31.900
one thing they knew was those shoes appeared to be

550
00:37:31.940 --> 00:37:37.409
a match to the ATM debit videos that they had reviewed.

551
00:37:37.860 --> 00:37:40.059
within the past couple of days on this guy. They

552
00:37:40.099 --> 00:37:43.300
also noticed there was rolls of cash on the floorboard

553
00:37:43.420 --> 00:37:46.579
and they were rubber banded. They also noticed there was

554
00:37:46.760 --> 00:37:52.780
maps with routes highlighting north to south through California and

555
00:37:53.059 --> 00:37:57.280
just everything you would notice that looked bad if you're

556
00:37:57.320 --> 00:38:00.059
looking for somebody that's on the run. So at this point,

557
00:38:00.119 --> 00:38:03.480
they feel like they've got enough probable cause to conduct

558
00:38:03.539 --> 00:38:06.969
a search, whether he wants them to or not. The

559
00:38:07.030 --> 00:38:09.949
car matched the bulletin that they had received about an

560
00:38:10.030 --> 00:38:13.329
ATM withdrawal. And that's really all they needed. And they

561
00:38:13.369 --> 00:38:16.530
start searching it. They pop the trunk. And the first

562
00:38:16.590 --> 00:38:20.630
thing they see is a gray hooded sweatshirt. And that

563
00:38:20.670 --> 00:38:26.289
was the same sweatshirt that he had worn when Samantha

564
00:38:26.550 --> 00:38:31.010
Koenig was kidnapped. And these police knew it. They had

565
00:38:31.050 --> 00:38:35.429
already seen that video. This was everywhere by that point.

566
00:38:37.510 --> 00:38:41.360
in the realms of the police community. What else did

567
00:38:41.380 --> 00:38:44.880
they find in there? How about Samantha Koenig's cell phone?

568
00:38:45.500 --> 00:38:48.440
And when they finally get his wallet, with all of

569
00:38:48.500 --> 00:38:52.090
these police standing around, guess what they pull out of it?

570
00:38:52.760 --> 00:38:59.480
A Visa debit card with the account matched to Samantha

571
00:38:59.519 --> 00:39:03.409
Koenig and her boyfriend. And also, incidentally, some of the

572
00:39:03.469 --> 00:39:06.340
cash that was in that car, they noticed it's stained.

573
00:39:06.539 --> 00:39:09.500
It's a very bright ink. Guess what that is? Die

574
00:39:09.539 --> 00:39:13.039
pack money, which they were able to track back to

575
00:39:13.099 --> 00:39:17.119
a New York bank robbery. At this point, they put

576
00:39:17.380 --> 00:39:21.409
Israel Keys in handcuffs and they charge him with what's

577
00:39:21.429 --> 00:39:25.010
known as access device fraud. Now, that's just the first fraud.

578
00:39:25.070 --> 00:39:27.530
That's just to get his ass in jail so they

579
00:39:27.550 --> 00:39:30.760
can question him. They were definitely going after him. for

580
00:39:30.820 --> 00:39:35.070
other things. So he goes to the station and initially

581
00:39:35.510 --> 00:39:40.969
he says nothing that helps. Anchorage detectives Monique Dahl and

582
00:39:41.070 --> 00:39:45.039
Jeff Bell, they're called and they actually fly into Texas.

583
00:39:45.500 --> 00:39:48.219
And he tells them he doesn't know who Samantha Koenig is.

584
00:39:48.659 --> 00:39:51.780
He tells them the phone and bank card, get this,

585
00:39:52.400 --> 00:39:55.000
must have come through the window. He said he leaves

586
00:39:55.199 --> 00:39:58.679
the window cracked to air out cigar smoke. And as

587
00:39:58.719 --> 00:40:02.239
he's going down the road, someone throws a freaking ATM

588
00:40:02.300 --> 00:40:05.409
card through the window in a cell phone as it's cracked.

589
00:40:05.610 --> 00:40:10.050
That's the story. Yes, it's a stupid story. And he

590
00:40:10.130 --> 00:40:14.809
is supposedly a smart offender, but that's what happens when

591
00:40:14.849 --> 00:40:18.809
you panic. So he's in jail in Texas, and then

592
00:40:18.929 --> 00:40:23.440
eventually he's extradited to Anchorage, Alaska. So at this point,

593
00:40:23.480 --> 00:40:27.840
police do a lot of interviews with Israel Keyes. I mean,

594
00:40:28.500 --> 00:40:32.739
probably 25, 30 hours interviews. And throughout these interviews, he

595
00:40:32.820 --> 00:40:36.699
starts off not admitting to shit. And I'm going to

596
00:40:36.719 --> 00:40:41.099
cut to the chase here. Eventually, he does admit to

597
00:40:41.420 --> 00:40:45.679
not only the murder of Samantha Koenig, but also the

598
00:40:45.739 --> 00:40:50.940
murders of several other people. So on April 18th of 2012,

599
00:40:50.940 --> 00:40:55.820
he is indicted for the murder of Samantha Koenig first.

600
00:40:56.360 --> 00:40:59.719
He also admits to a string of bank robberies and

601
00:40:59.900 --> 00:41:03.570
home robberies, which is how he was able to travel

602
00:41:04.090 --> 00:41:06.769
throughout all these years, how he had the money to

603
00:41:06.829 --> 00:41:09.650
do that because he would travel a lot. So there

604
00:41:09.769 --> 00:41:12.909
are initial hearings. And during one of these hearings, he

605
00:41:13.010 --> 00:41:17.889
actually tries to get away, like tries to escape the courtroom.

606
00:41:17.929 --> 00:41:20.730
The problem is he had leg irons on. So he

607
00:41:20.869 --> 00:41:25.059
tries to get out of these leg irons. and attempts

608
00:41:25.119 --> 00:41:27.059
to run out of the courtroom but he doesn't even

609
00:41:27.099 --> 00:41:29.849
make it to the door they put him back down

610
00:41:30.030 --> 00:41:34.750
in the chair and look y'all he absolutely hated being

611
00:41:34.789 --> 00:41:39.219
held captive 23 hours a day in a cell was

612
00:41:39.260 --> 00:41:42.239
just more than this piece of shit could take. So

613
00:41:42.280 --> 00:41:47.510
let's go to December 1st and into December 2nd of 2012.

614
00:41:47.510 --> 00:41:51.789
He's alone in a cell. He's got a camera on him.

615
00:41:51.929 --> 00:41:57.760
All his movements are supposedly watched. And there's movement until

616
00:41:57.840 --> 00:42:02.760
about 1024 that night. Then it all goes still. A

617
00:42:02.780 --> 00:42:06.420
correctional officer had given him access to a razor he

618
00:42:06.460 --> 00:42:09.730
was not supposed to have. Now, restrictions called for a

619
00:42:09.789 --> 00:42:13.090
supervised electric razor. So it would have to be an

620
00:42:13.150 --> 00:42:15.969
electric razor and they'd watch you shave. Somehow he got

621
00:42:16.010 --> 00:42:19.829
his hands on a razor. Accounts differ on exactly how

622
00:42:19.889 --> 00:42:22.989
the blade got in his hand. One version is a

623
00:42:23.190 --> 00:42:27.900
mistake on the shift. Another describes a sliver of metal

624
00:42:28.320 --> 00:42:31.940
hidden with a pencil. But what's not in dispute is

625
00:42:31.960 --> 00:42:36.519
the result. He slashes his left wrist, then he twists

626
00:42:36.579 --> 00:42:40.199
the bedding into a noose, and he strangles himself. A

627
00:42:40.260 --> 00:42:43.750
day shift officer finds him around 6 in the morning

628
00:42:43.909 --> 00:42:47.190
on December 2nd, and he had been dead for hours

629
00:42:47.329 --> 00:42:51.000
by that point, 34 years old. never convicted of murder,

630
00:42:51.099 --> 00:42:54.179
never walked into a trial where a jury said his

631
00:42:54.219 --> 00:42:57.750
name and Samantha's name in the same sentence. And under

632
00:42:57.789 --> 00:43:00.250
the body, they find a note. It's like four pages

633
00:43:00.329 --> 00:43:04.369
long on a yellow pad, soaked in his blood. And

634
00:43:04.409 --> 00:43:07.679
the FBI lab at Quantico cleans it up and they

635
00:43:07.739 --> 00:43:10.599
look to see if there's a coded message, maybe a map,

636
00:43:10.739 --> 00:43:15.159
a list, something on these other people that he killed.

637
00:43:15.570 --> 00:43:17.150
And I'm not even going to read it because I

638
00:43:17.170 --> 00:43:20.329
think he's had enough attention by this point. But inside

639
00:43:20.349 --> 00:43:25.610
of his cell, authorities found 11 skulls drawn onto paper.

640
00:43:25.730 --> 00:43:30.739
And the FBI believes Israel Keyes indeed did kill 11 people.

641
00:43:31.219 --> 00:43:35.659
But of those 11, only four have ever been identified.

642
00:43:35.719 --> 00:43:41.139
Those being Samantha Koenig, Also, Bill Currier and LaWayne Currier,

643
00:43:41.199 --> 00:43:45.099
who were a married couple from Vermont, who Keyes confessed

644
00:43:45.119 --> 00:43:48.719
to abducting and killing in June of 2011. Now, I

645
00:43:48.820 --> 00:43:53.849
didn't cover those killings because this episode was focused only

646
00:43:53.949 --> 00:43:57.050
on Samantha, and I didn't want to deviate from that.

647
00:43:57.489 --> 00:44:00.929
Maybe in the future, at some point, I'll cover those. Also,

648
00:44:01.150 --> 00:44:06.340
Deborah Feldman, a 49-year-old woman from Hackensack, New Jersey, who

649
00:44:06.460 --> 00:44:11.449
vanished in in 2009, the FBI said that Keyes provided

650
00:44:11.550 --> 00:44:16.510
details matching her disappearance and things he knew that nobody

651
00:44:16.610 --> 00:44:20.780
else would have known unless it was the killer in

652
00:44:20.820 --> 00:44:24.800
the case. And that makes her a very strongly suspected

653
00:44:24.940 --> 00:44:28.119
fourth victim. So there you have it. And what makes

654
00:44:28.159 --> 00:44:31.539
this one especially disturbing for me is that none of

655
00:44:31.599 --> 00:44:35.250
these victims' families would have been given the opportunity to

656
00:44:35.599 --> 00:44:41.000
to provide victim impact statements and really tell this piece

657
00:44:41.260 --> 00:44:45.960
of shit what they thought about him. Those impact statements, y'all,

658
00:44:46.000 --> 00:44:51.480
they're very important. They're very important to getting that off

659
00:44:51.559 --> 00:44:55.559
your chest. And you never get closure in something like that,

660
00:44:55.920 --> 00:44:59.929
but they're very important in your mental health as a victim.

661
00:45:01.199 --> 00:45:07.030
And that was stolen from them because this coward Hung himself, essentially.

662
00:45:07.510 --> 00:45:11.639
So there you have it. Another Fifty Shades of Evil episode.

663
00:45:11.880 --> 00:45:15.699
And we'll be back next week with another one. Until then,

664
00:45:16.179 --> 00:45:19.960
I'm Jim Chapman with Bloody Angola. Much love.