Keith Hunter Jesperson born April 6, is a Canadian-American serial killer who murdered at least eight women in the United States during the early s. He was known as the Happy Face Killer because he drew smiley faces on his many letters to the media and authorities.
Many of Jesperson's victims were sex workers and transients who had no connection to him. Strangulation was his preferred method of murdering, the same method he often used to kill animals as a child. After the body of Jesperson's first victim, Taunja Bennett, was found, media attention surrounded Laverne Pavlinac , a woman who falsely confessed to Bennett's murder with the help of her abusive boyfriend, John Sosnovske.
Upset that he was not getting any media attention, Jesperson drew a smiley face on a bathroom wall hundreds of miles from the scene of the Bennett killing and wrote an anonymous letter confessing to the murder, providing proof. When that did not elicit a response, he began writing letters to the media and authorities.
Jesperson's last murder was the crime that ultimately led to his capture. While he has claimed to have killed as many as people, only eight murders have been confirmed. Jesperson is currently serving a sentence of life without parole at the Oregon State Penitentiary. Jesperson's father denied being an abusive parent; however, other family members corroborated the abuse claims to author Jack Olsen. Treated like a black sheep by his own family, and teased by other children for his large size, Jesperson was a lonely child who showed a propensity for torturing and killing animals.
After moving to Selah , Washington , United States, he had trouble fitting in and making friends, again because of his large size. Jesperson's brothers did not help or sympathize with him; instead they nicknamed him "Igor" or "Ig", a name that stuck throughout his school years. He would often get into trouble for misbehaving, sometimes violently, and would be severely punished by his father.
