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

 

[dub]

Sorry in advance, this one is LONG and pretty convoluted.

There's been some discussion in recent days on Al Kite's thread re: Keyes, and I noticed a possible sequence related to a different case that I didn't want to jam up Al's thread with, so I'm bringing it over here.

I don't think I need to recap Al Kite in here, but if you want background on that head over to his thread in Cold Cases - in short he was murdered in Aurora CO on 5/22/04 in one of the weirdest cases I've ever heard of.

This is really about Randy Hedgecock, who disappeared two days later in Filer, Idaho. He vanished off the face of the earth, and his car was found wrecked in a ravine a week or so later, but with no evidence of him having been injured (which he definitely would have been in such a crash) or anyone having been in/around the car at all at the crash site.

It's strikingly similar to several other potential Keyes cases - Gary Bryant, Harvey Skolnick, Donnie Messier, Leah Roberts if you're into that theory (which personally I am not), I'm sure there are more. But there are some big problems with Keyes as a suspect.

The first one is the timeline, and we can't do anything about that. It would be literally impossible for Keyes to have disappeared Randy and then driven back to Neah Bay in time to take a drug test the next morning. But there is a wild scenario where he caught a flight to get back in time (Boise to Port Angeles or something - I have no idea if such a flight existed in 04, but PA does have an airport).

But the second problem, which Al Kite helps with, is Filer, Idaho. Keyes has absolutely no connection to that area as far as I'm aware, and has never been documented anywhere close to there, which goes pretty hard against his typical pattern.

But IF he killed Al Kite and immediately left town back to Neah Bay--which is consistent with his pattern--the fastest route goes almost directly through Filer. It's like 10 miles off I-84 and ~11 hours from Aurora.

So if--again, huge if--he left Aurora, got some sleep wherever, and went right back out hunting, it would put him in the area right in the window when Randy disappeared.

The other thing that's consistent with Keyes' pattern that I'd never realized is he could have scoped out the Filer/Twin Falls area on his February 04 trip to Salt Lake City, three months before Randy disappeared. He was checking something out on that trip, which I previously thought was Flaming Gorge and connected to Steven Anderson's disappearance in June 04, but they just found him and Keyes now doesn't seem to have been responsible for that. On that trip he put like 520 miles on his rental car, and SLC to Filer and back is 450 miles, so the distance works out really well.

To be clear, I don't think Keyes is responsible for either of them, but I'm just throwing it out there as a wild card possibility where if he did one, he probably did both (similar in this respect to Misty Sullivan/Anita Scott in 03, or Rose Bly and Carol Daniels in 09) because the timing is so clean. Food for thought.

 

[dub]

Different subject, off to the side of Al Kite: TCBS recently said they’ve been interested in the Denver area for a while and have one particular case they are looking into.

They didn’t say who it was, all I know is it is not Al Kite, and also is not Josh Maddox (who if I recall was closer to CO Springs, so their definition of “Denver area” probably extends at least that far).

I have no earthly clue who they might be looking into—if anyone has ideas on that please let me know.

 

[imageofcontrol]

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

FWIW, I noticed as well that someone in that episode pointed out - the "Ellensburg Couple" is ostensibly called that because when discussing WA murders, Keyes references a couple, and asks if Ellensburg was east or west jurisdiction.

What I gather and pondered before is that, It's not necessarily that the couple was from Ellensburg, or even that Ellensburg had much to do with the crime, but that they were "linked" (barely) by Keyes in this one interview and the FBI dubbed this couple "the Ellensburg couple" without anything else to go off of. There's other details like the fact they were disposed of in a grave, method of killing, but little to nothing that says anything about location other than "in a valley".

I truly wonder about that case, seeing as there's no record of a missing couple then, as well as how Hunters, WA plays into it. TCBS has someone digging on Hunters but no update so far (something about a neighbor across the road with missing fingers?)

 

[dub]

FWIW, I noticed as well that someone in that episode pointed out - the "Ellensburg Couple" is ostensibly called that because when discussing WA murders, Keyes references a couple, and asks if Ellensburg was east or west jurisdiction.

What I gather and pondered before is that, It's not necessarily that the couple was from Ellensburg, or even that Ellensburg had much to do with the crime, but that they were "linked" (barely) by Keyes in this one interview and the FBI dubbed this couple "the Ellensburg couple" without anything else to go off of. There's other details like the fact they were disposed of in a grave, method of killing, but little to nothing that says anything about location other than "in a valley".

I truly wonder about that case, seeing as there's no record of a missing couple then, as well as how Hunters, WA plays into it. TCBS has someone digging on Hunters but no update so far (something about a neighbor across the road with missing fingers?)

Yeah that’s my understanding as well - the couple could have been abducted from anywhere in the eastern district of Washington.

I also noticed that in addition to “ellensburg” being a misnomer, “couple” in this case may be too.

Keyes described the woman as older (can’t recall the exact word he used), but didn’t note anything about the man’s age. So rather than a “couple” this may be a mother and adult son, or something like that.

And Hunters is one of the things I am most curious about in the entire Keyes case, I have no idea what the deal is with that. I don’t know anything about a neighbor with missing fingers, can’t recall hearing about that before.

 

[dub]

I was thinking a bit more about the "Ellensburg" "couple" and one possibility I hadn't considered is that the pair might not have any connection except for both being in the wrong place at the wrong time. For example, two people at a trailhead having a passing conversation with one another.

In this case, it could be that one person was reported missing and the other was not, or they were from different areas/states, and would never have been connected to one another because they didn't actually know each other.

This definitely isn't the most likely scenario, but I see no reason why it couldn't be possible in theory.


@imageofcontrol is it directly stated anywhere that the Hunters thing is related to the Ellensburg couple? I listened to last week's episode again and I didn't catch them saying anything to that effect, but maybe it's elsewhere.

 

[dub]

Different subject, off to the side of Al Kite: TCBS recently said they’ve been interested in the Denver area for a while and have one particular case they are looking into.

They didn’t say who it was, all I know is it is not Al Kite, and also is not Josh Maddox (who if I recall was closer to CO Springs, so their definition of “Denver area” probably extends at least that far).

I have no earthly clue who they might be looking into—if anyone has ideas on that please let me know.

Bumping own post to update after doing a little digging: I have an idea here.

The only hint that TCBS gave as to who this might be is that it is a "NAMUS tip" they are working on. This could just mean it's a missing person or UID on NAMUS, but if it's referring to a NAMUS 45 connection there is one Colorado case that has heavy NAMUS 45 links and on the surface looks quite a bit like Keyes:

Lesley Allan Border – The Charley Project

11/1/07, you'll notice, links up with the back-to-back dates on NAMUS 45 (Jaliek Rainwalker on 11/1/07 and Justin Gaines on 11/2/07). And Littleton is right next to, and in the same county as, Lakewood where Jennifer Marcum disappeared from.

But the problem is, as with the aforementioned Randy Hedgecock case, Keyes' timeline makes it incredibly difficult for him to have done it. He was in LA two days earlier, and returned a rental car in LA on 11/2. So there is no way he could have done this and driven back to LA in time, especially given that Lesley's car was found several hours away in the middle of nowhere.

The only way I can see this working is if Keyes left his rental car in LA, flew round trip LA-Denver, and then returned to Denver within the next couple weeks and moved Lesley's car to where it was found at that point (which is possible, as his truck wasn't found until "mid-November").

But also, Keyes could very well have had an opportunity to do so, as Kim was in LA from 11/9-11/12, and Utah/Wyoming for work starting on 11/12, and Keyes could have traveled either with her or separately. (This is also, incidentally, the window when Harvey Skolnick disappeared from the Portland area--11/15--under pretty similar circumstances to Lesley).

This is such a weird one. I can't think of another case that's this dialed in to the NAMUS 45, and Keyes was clearly up to something during this time frame, but it's such a logistical nightmare it's hard to see how this could feasibly work.

 

[dub]

From the last TCBS episode: through Josh’s discussion with Ted Halla, it seems likely that Keyes’ first victim post-discharge and the “accident” victim are one and the same. And it also seems likely that the “accident” victim was specifically presumed to have drowned.

Because there already was a fair amount believed to be true about both, when Josh combined the info it narrowed down the possibilities a lot. What they are most likely looking for is someone who:

-disappeared between 7/8/01 and 10/31/01, and was later found and presumed drowned. (May have been found after 10/31)

-was alone at the time of disappearance.

-did NOT occur in Washington, most likely occurred in Oregon.

No doubt it will be difficult to find info on a presumed drowning more than 20 years after the fact, but there can’t be that many such cases.

This DOES happen semi-regularly in the Willamette in and around Portland, but—and this is my own speculation—dumping a body in a river that runs through a major city does not really align with Keyes’ patterns. So I think first focusing well outside the Portland area makes the most sense, and that could be an extremely short list.

Another thing that’s weird about it though, how did Keyes even know the victim was found? It’s not like random local online news was as accessible in 2001 as it was later on, so I feel like it was probably something that received relatively widespread regional coverage for Keyes to have learned this from Neah Bay.

I am not very skilled at digging up old news stories and have had no luck thus far, but with the available info I’d be surprised if this victim wasn’t identified (or at least narrowed down to two or three possibilities) within the next few months.