Israel Keyes: General Discussion

[dub]

Welcome to Websleuths, @nclady1983

I'm frankly shocked to learn that there are people out there who don't think the ransom photo of poor Samantha is real. Of course it is, and of course she was already deceased when Keyes snapped the Polaroid.

IMO, Samantha Koenig was the true beginning of Keyes' complete unraveling, from the moment he abducted her, through the tool room shed horrors, the ATM card, fake texts and the ransom stuff, to the brazen, risky way he disposed of her body parts.

The tragedy of Samantha is that her life was taken, but also that she became basically an unsung hero afterward, because Keyes had lost all self-control and was never able to kill again.

Except to murder himself, of course.

Unfortunately on the latter point both Mark Oldbury and Jimmy Tidwell disappeared after he killed Samantha (I definitely think he killed Tidwell and am 50/50 on Oldbury), plus he had at least one other failed abduction attempt.

But, and especially based on the above, yes he was completely unglued at that point.

I do think the unraveling was well in progress at the very latest at the time of the Currier trip, and maybe as long as a year before that, but yeah until Samantha I don’t think he had totally lost it.

I also hadn’t realized people thought the polaroid was fake, I can’t wrap my head around that.

 

[Muddy K]

Unfortunately on the latter point both Mark Oldbury and Jimmy Tidwell disappeared after he killed Samantha (I definitely think he killed Tidwell and am 50/50 on Oldbury), plus he had at least one other failed abduction attempt.

But, and especially based on the above, yes he was completely unglued at that point.

I do think the unraveling was well in progress at the very latest at the time of the Currier trip, and maybe as long as a year before that, but yeah until Samantha I don’t think he had totally lost it.

I also hadn’t realized people thought the polaroid was fake, I can’t wrap my head around that.

@dub thanks for the important reminder about Mark Oldbury and Jimmy Tidwell. I can be excessively literal sometimes, so by default I think of the known-and-confirmed victims rather than the likely-but-unconfirmed victims.

I am fairly sure Keyes killed James Tidwell, too, but I can't prove it, so I tend to stay with Samantha as the last known victim.

Agree with you that cracks around the edges were emerging during the trip to Vermont and in the killings of the Curriers, but I've long pondered - given his particular self-awareness and intelligence - why Keyes couldn't see it and patch himself up instead of caving fully to his compulsions.

 

[dub]

@dub thanks for the important reminder about Mark Oldbury and Jimmy Tidwell. I can be excessively literal sometimes, so by default I think of the known-and-confirmed victims rather than the likely-but-unconfirmed victims.

I am fairly sure Keyes killed James Tidwell, too, but I can't prove it, so I tend to stay with Samantha as the last known victim.

Agree with you that cracks around the edges were emerging during the trip to Vermont and in the killings of the Curriers, but I've long pondered - given his particular self-awareness and intelligence - why Keyes couldn't see it and patch himself up instead of caving fully to his compulsions.

Ah gotcha, my problem is that because Keyes wasn’t arrested until a month and a half after he killed Samantha I often forget that Samantha was before Tidwell rather than after.

And I think his ability to see the unraveling and his ability to patch it up are two different things. I think he COULD see it, at least by the time of the Currier trip, but for whatever reason (which, like you, I wonder about) he couldn’t do anything about it despite knowing it was happening.

I think I’ve mentioned it before, but the reason I think the Currier trip is such an important reference point in this process is that I am extremely confident that he did not plan on killing the Curriers until the night it happened. I think he was cruising for victims some distance away for the previous two days and couldn’t find one, and the Curriers were plan B.

It makes absolutely no sense for him to stay in Essex if that was plan A when Constable is two hours away, and I think that whole thing was against his better judgment but by that point he couldn’t help taking action when he was ready no matter how stupid it was.

 

[LeneYael]

Welcome to Websleuths, @nclady1983

I'm frankly shocked to learn that there are people out there who don't think the ransom photo of poor Samantha is real. Of course it is, and of course she was already deceased when Keyes snapped the Polaroid.

IMO, Samantha Koenig was the true beginning of Keyes' complete unraveling, from the moment he abducted her, through the tool room shed horrors, the ATM card, fake texts and the ransom stuff, to the brazen, risky way he disposed of her body parts.

The tragedy of Samantha is that her life was taken, but also that she became basically an unsung hero afterward, because Keyes had lost all self-control and was never able to kill again.

Except to murder himself, of course.

The black and white picture of the girl from front, without braids, is 100% fake.

 

[LeneYael]

@dub thanks for the important reminder about Mark Oldbury and Jimmy Tidwell. I can be excessively literal sometimes, so by default I think of the known-and-confirmed victims rather than the likely-but-unconfirmed victims.

I am fairly sure Keyes killed James Tidwell, too, but I can't prove it, so I tend to stay with Samantha as the last known victim.

Agree with you that cracks around the edges were emerging during the trip to Vermont and in the killings of the Curriers, but I've long pondered - given his particular self-awareness and intelligence - why Keyes couldn't see it and patch himself up instead of caving fully to his compulsions.

Ah gotcha, my problem is that because Keyes wasn’t arrested until a month and a half after he killed Samantha I often forget that Samantha was before Tidwell rather than after.

And I think his ability to see the unraveling and his ability to patch it up are two different things. I think he COULD see it, at least by the time of the Currier trip, but for whatever reason (which, like you, I wonder about) he couldn’t do anything about it despite knowing it was happening.

I think I’ve mentioned it before, but the reason I think the Currier trip is such an important reference point in this process is that I am extremely confident that he did not plan on killing the Curriers until the night it happened. I think he was cruising for victims some distance away for the previous two days and couldn’t find one, and the Curriers were plan B.

It makes absolutely no sense for him to stay in Essex if that was plan A when Constable is two hours away, and I think that whole thing was against his better judgment but by that point he couldn’t help taking action when he was ready no matter how stupid it was.

If that’s true (about the Currier’s being 2nd choice in a way), then why did he say he ”made sure it was the right house”? I don’t see much sloppiness in the Currier case, I’d like to hear what in it makes you think so? I think it’s likely he was unravelling; he said so himself. That the last year he’d started to lose control. On that TX trip he put 2800 miles on the car. I don’t think he killed Jimmy Tidwell. Well, sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t! The facts get in the way though. JT’s phone being answered by wife on 16th or 17th, yet the phone disappeared with Tidwell. Why would the wife lie about having seen JT if she was innocent and had nothing to do with it.