Israel Keyes: General Discussion

[dub]

The tow truck driver was Dale Williams. Some of his items were found in his garage after he went missing, as well - a gun and torn up photos of him and his wife. I mean, I haven’t looked at Ik timelines recently so maybe it’s not going to line up, but it just itches my brain.

Oh dang, I definitely never heard of that case. The timeline would depend on whether Keyes was on leave from the military at the time (which is also true of Gary Bryant’s case, and as far as I’m aware in both cases is unknown).

Both did occur right around holidays when Keyes would be more likely to have time off, but in Dale’s case it’s far enough away that Keyes would have needed WAY more time.

Eta: I just double checked the timeline, and in May 99 Keyes actually was in Barstow, not Ft Lewis, which is still a long way from where Dale disappeared but not nearly as far (10hr drive vs 18)

At a glance it doesn’t look like Keyes to me, but there’s similar timing and like weird synergy between that case and Gary’s, just like with Del Sample and Nita Mayo. But it seems like in Dale and Nita’s cases (unlike the other two) there are stronger possible suspects.

 

[imageofcontrol]

Anyone have thoughts on the Keyes maps and mapping 'system'? Like the numbers and how he appears to plan an area? With all the new revelations I've always been very interested in the geography and Keyes' tactics re: maps and planning for disposal / caching.

It seems idiosyncratic to me, not a derived system. As in, the numbers and layout meant something only to Keyes. We don't have photos but it sounds like... minesweeper? A grid with numbers. Either single numbers, or a certain value range would presumably tell him where his goodies were. Was this in an attempt to obfuscate if anyone else saw? as opposed to writing "cache here, body here, etc".

It doesn't sound quite like a true map grid either, since the numbers are somewhat random. So for navigation it would be more difficult than a traditional grid map (which Keyes would be familiar with, due to his military service).

I'm also curious about the trends and methods SITP podcast has been highlighting, power lines and their ROW, trash piles, either innocuous or nigh impossible locations (lake bottoms, rivers, but also ditches with trash and metal plates and possibly vault toilets).

 

[dub]

Anyone have thoughts on the Keyes maps and mapping 'system'? Like the numbers and how he appears to plan an area? With all the new revelations I've always been very interested in the geography and Keyes' tactics re: maps and planning for disposal / caching.

It seems idiosyncratic to me, not a derived system. As in, the numbers and layout meant something only to Keyes. We don't have photos but it sounds like... minesweeper? A grid with numbers. Either single numbers, or a certain value range would presumably tell him where his goodies were. Was this in an attempt to obfuscate if anyone else saw? as opposed to writing "cache here, body here, etc".

It doesn't sound quite like a true map grid either, since the numbers are somewhat random. So for navigation it would be more difficult than a traditional grid map (which Keyes would be familiar with, due to his military service).

I'm also curious about the trends and methods SITP podcast has been highlighting, power lines and their ROW, trash piles, either innocuous or nigh impossible locations (lake bottoms, rivers, but also ditches with trash and metal plates and possibly vault toilets).

I’m super curious about this too, but like you said I feel like it would be impossible to assess without actually seeing one of the maps.

My first thought was that numbers might refer to specific categories of things within a cache (e.g. money = 1, guns = 2, etc), which I think is similar to what you were getting at, but it sounded like there were way too many reference points for them to all be connected to caches.

So if a handful of numbers [eta: and/or reference points] are related to caches but most of them aren’t, what in the world are the majority related to?

 

[dub]

And speaking of Gary Bryant, I was considering re: the above concept of leaving victims’ belongings around early/late in his run… I wonder if in Keyes’ psychology leaving a victim’s car where it would be found would fall in the same category of “belongings”.*

If so, then both Gary (early) and Jimmy Tidwell (late) could be added to that list, and in terms of the timeline of unraveling makes me also think of Harvey Skolnick, who disappeared from OR in late 2010 and whose car was found in similar circumstances to Gary’s.

It should be noted that none of the victims on that original list had cars besides the Curriers, and we know that Keyes altered his original plan for their car in at least one sense.

*I’m sure that in some cases leaving a victims car where he did was a matter of practicality—this may have been the case with Tidwell—but with Gary and especially Harvey it wouldn’t have been.

Bumping own post because I caught a mistake.

I had Harvey Skolnick mixed up timing-wise with David Mekvold. Harvey disappeared in late 2007, David was in late 2010.

Mekvold’s case is the one more commonly linked to Keyes, and the circumstances are so weirdly similar they are almost interchangeable in some ways, but Harvey’s is the one that to me is more similar to Gary Bryant’s, and also the one that is more likely to have been Keyes.

To me, David’s looks more like a suicide or walkaway, although it does have the just-barely-cross-border element, so I definitely don’t rule Keyes out as a possibility.

 

[atomicsciencegal]

I’m super curious about this too, but like you said I feel like it would be impossible to assess without actually seeing one of the maps.

My first thought was that numbers might refer to specific categories of things within a cache (e.g. money = 1, guns = 2, etc), which I think is similar to what you were getting at, but it sounded like there were way too many reference points for them to all be connected to caches.

So if a handful of numbers [eta: and/or reference points] are related to caches but most of them aren’t, what in the world are the majority related to?

I think that they may be pre- scouted locations that he felt would be good for body disposal. JMO.

 

[atomicsciencegal]

Podcaster says serial killer’s murder kit found in Bonnet Carré Spillway

 

[atomicsciencegal]

Podcaster says serial killer’s murder kit found in Bonnet Carré Spillway

So Josh in this article says that a cache was found, and on one of the maps with the mysterious numbers, it was linked with a number 2.

We saw on the sample map the SITP showed, that the maps appeared to be literally riddled with markings indicating multiple ‘2’s.

This is supposing every marked 2 on a map was a cache…. That’s an incredible amount of caches he hid.

 

[Muddy K]

Podcaster says serial killer’s murder kit found in Bonnet Carré Spillway

I have always felt certain that Keyes killed James Tidwell, just absolutely certain, so news of this cache being discovered comes as a kind of relief.

Those killed by Keyes and not yet identified, or located, or, most importantly to me, not yet attributed to him, are doomed to be ghosts. That is a different kind of heartbreaking thing, to never have it known by anyone else how, when and where you ended. JMO.

 

[dub]

So I’m in Washington right now and had a chance to check out Lake Crescent yesterday.

Up front I must say that Keyes stuff aside, I’ve been to a lot of lakes and this was the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen, without question.

But as it relates to Keyes… TCBS they noted that the boat ramp they think he used (the one with the stuff underwater that the cops won’t investigate) is more heavily traveled than the one on the other side of the lake, but is still not very crowded.

This was not my experience at all. I didn’t know until I looked it up later which ramp they thought he used, and my first thought when I got there is “no way it was this one”. There’s a ranger station right there, and there had to be 50 cars parked within 200 yards of the launch, and most of the shoreline is easily visible. This website has a picture looking out from the launch.

Storm King Boat Launch (U.S. National Park Service)

I suspect if this actually was the dump site it was somewhere along the shoreline to the left of what’s shown in the picture, which is a little more secluded,because if what TCBS found is legit it’s only 30 yards off shore. But either way it is an insanely risky place to sink a body 30 yards from shore.

In any case, the crowd there makes me think Keyes may have sunk the body there in the winter or close to it. I’m sure it’s not that crowded during the week at this time of year, but in the summer it very well may be.

I had thought for a while that Mike Mason was the most likely Lake Crescent victim by far, but this makes me very curious about Lyn Ohana. I’ve never really thought she was a Keyes victim, but she is the closest possibility I have that disappeared in or near winter 05/06 or 06/07.

It also occurred to me that it doesn’t make a lot of sense to move a body out of a super remote area to a dump site that is pretty well traveled (which would be the case if it was Mike), but Lyn disappeared from a decent sized town.

 

[Falling Down]

Friend, thank you for your posts. These are some pretty amazing thoughts and I hard agree with you. I think there’s a few other cases where his name has been mentioned (at least by sleuthers) and the vehicle has been moved. (Names are escaping me, but the older lady whose car was found at the scenic outlook in I think California, and a tow truck mechanic whose truck they found in a strange spot.)

On those same lines, I feel like he also took something from the victims and used it later in the bank robberies. Tidwells’ hard helmet and hair, Marbles’ fedora.

One which comes to my mind is the woman who disappeared from a casino parking lot in northern West Virginia. Keyes liked to gamble.

 

[dub]

One which comes to my mind is the woman who disappeared from a casino parking lot in northern West Virginia. Keyes liked to gamble.

Yep, Karen Adams.

I’d put that case in a little different category though because her car still hasn’t been found.

 

[dub]

Another thing I noticed today re: Lyn Ohana is the timeline. There are only three times when Keyes was for sure in Port Townsend where Lyn disappeared:

August 05 (twice in two days on the ferry)
September 05
February 06 (ferry again, one way, unclear direction)

Lyn disappeared in December 05. Maybe a coincidence, but worth noting for sure.

Also after having been there and looking more into the ferries, those August ferry trips are so, so weird and I am struggling to make sense of them.

He hops the ferry Port Townsend to Whidbey Island, then almost immediately another ferry to Mukilteo. Mukilteo is very close to where he usually got off the other ferry in Edmonds, so why take this one in particular, in both directions, just this one time?

The first thing that comes to mind is he dropped a cache on Whidbey Island, but I’m not sure he even would have had time to do that. The timing looks like he went almost directly from one ferry to the other in both directions, although there probably is a little bit of wiggle room.

Maybe he placed the cache on the first trip and then went back on the second one to conceal it better? I had never really thought much about this trip before but it’s super weird.

 

[dub]

In the new TCBS episode they got answers back on a whole bunch of questions they asked the FBI, a lot to unpack here but here are some key notes:

The two biggest revelations to me were:

1.) The description of the "wealthy grandmother" victim perfectly matches Brianna Maitland. I have no idea how I had never noticed this, maybe I was just blind to it because I've never thought she was a Keyes victim. It's unclear whether she actually had a wealthy grandmother though, they don't specify that in the episode although it does kind of sound like they're alluding to it.

2.) The couple that Keyes spoke of was pretty definitively NOT Kami and Gene, this was the still-unknown "Ellensburg couple". But that doesn't mean he was not also responsible for Kami and Gene - a bit more on this later.


Also, they ran a bunch of names by the FBI just to see what they'd say about them. There was nothing affirmative, their responses fell into a few categories (just in case anyone's curious):

Good answers (Keyes can probably be ruled out)
-Karen Adams
-Jack Coloney

Defer to local LE (make of that what you will)
-Rachael Cooke
-Lauren Spierer
-Brianna Maitland
-Jimmy Tidwell

Non-answers
-Mike Mason
-Suzy Lyall
-Jon Corey

Unsatisfactory answers
-Marble Arvidson
-Kim Forbes

Really unsatisfactory answers that almost make it more likely Keyes was involved
-Donald Tobin
-Noah Myoung

Totally ignored the question (make of that what you will)
-Kami and Gene
-Celia Barnes
-Mark Oldbury