Brian Berry

Case file

Israel Keyes: the Anchorage arrest, the buried caches and the FBI’s count of eleven

Israel Keyes was arrested in Texas in March 2012 over the disappearance of a young woman in Anchorage, Alaska, and over the following months told investigators he had killed others across the country. He killed himself in jail before he could be tried, leaving the FBI to piece together the rest from his own words.

Hand-drawn portrait of Israel Keyes from the Bloody America coloring book
Israel Keyes — a detail from the full page, drawn by hand.
  • Born1978, Utah (Biography.com: 7 January 1978, Cove)
  • OccupationSelf-employed carpenter and general contractor in Anchorage, Alaska; Army veteran
  • Arrested13 March 2012, Lufkin, Texas
  • Charged withFederal indictment, 18 April 2012: kidnapping resulting in death, receiving ransom money, access device fraud
  • Admitted toThe Anchorage killing and the 2011 killing of a couple in Essex, Vermont, plus other killings he would not fully describe
  • FBI estimate11 victims, 2001–2012, based mainly on his own statements; three identified by name
  • Died2 December 2012, by suicide in his cell in Anchorage, before trial
  • StatusNever tried or convicted; the FBI says its investigation continues

Israel Keyes was a 34-year-old contractor in Anchorage, Alaska, when he was arrested in Lufkin, Texas, on 13 March 2012, accused of abducting an 18-year-old woman from the coffee stand where she worked in Anchorage on 1 February that year. A federal grand jury indicted him in April for kidnapping resulting in death. In interviews with investigators he admitted that killing and the June 2011 abduction and killing of a married couple in Essex, Vermont, and spoke of other killings in Washington state, New York and elsewhere. On 2 December 2012, three months before his trial was due to begin, he killed himself in his cell. He was never convicted of any crime.

The case is notable for how much of it rests on one man’s words. Almost everything known about Keyes beyond the Anchorage case comes from more than 40 hours of interviews he gave investigators, and from the FBI’s attempts afterwards to check them against flight, car-rental and hotel records. In August 2013 the FBI released a timeline of his travels from 1997 to 2012, extracts of the interviews and photographs of weapons caches he had buried in advance, and said it believed he had killed 11 people. That figure is an estimate. Only three of the people he is believed to have killed have been identified.

This account rests on FBI and Justice Department releases, contemporary reporting by the Anchorage Daily News and the Associated Press, later reporting by CBS News and the Biography.com profile, listed at the end. Where they disagree, it says so. Because Keyes never stood trial, what he told investigators is reported here as his account, and what the FBI concluded from it as the FBI’s view. In line with this site’s rules, the people he is believed to have killed, their families, any survivors and his own family are not named.

A remote upbringing and the Army

According to Biography.com, Keyes was born on 7 January 1978 in Cove, Utah, the second of ten children, and moved with his family to the woods near Colville, Washington, when he was five; it says the family lived without heat or electricity. In the late 1990s the family moved to Maupin, Oregon. The FBI says Keyes told investigators that near Maupin, in the summer of 1997 or 1998, he abducted and sexually assaulted a teenage girl who was tubing on the Deschutes River, then let her go; investigators do not believe the attack was ever reported. He was 19, according to the Anchorage Daily News, when in 1997 he bought a ten-acre wooded property in Constable, in far northern New York.

The FBI’s timeline puts his Army service at 9 July 1998 to 8 July 2001, based at Fort Lewis, Washington, with a temporary assignment to Egypt in the first half of 2000. Biography.com adds Fort Hood, Texas, and the Sinai, and says he was honourably discharged in 2001. His later business website gave shorter dates (see below).

Neah Bay, 2001–2007

After leaving the Army Keyes settled in Neah Bay, on the Makah reservation at the north-western tip of Washington state, and worked for the Makah Tribal Council doing maintenance and building work, according to Biography.com and an AP report carried by CBS News. He lived in Washington until March 2007.

What he did there is known only from what he later told investigators. The FBI says Keyes described killing his first victim between July and October 2001, while living in Neah Bay, soon after his discharge; killing a couple somewhere in Washington between 2001 and 2005, though he would not say how the two were related; and killing two more people, separately, in 2005 or 2006, using his boat to dispose of their bodies, at least one of them in Crescent Lake, Washington. None of these people has been identified. In December 2012, officials described these as four killings in Washington; by August 2013 the FBI’s timeline accounted for five.

Anchorage and the travelling years

In March 2007 Keyes drove from Neah Bay up the Alaska Highway through British Columbia and the Yukon, crossing into Alaska on 9 March, according to the FBI. He settled in Anchorage, where he worked as a self-employed carpenter and general contractor; Biography.com says he founded Keyes Construction that year.

From Anchorage he travelled widely. The Anchorage Daily News, citing the FBI, reported 35 trips between October 2004 and his arrest. Keyes told investigators he would fly to a distant city, rent a car and drive long distances, paying in cash. He paid for the travel partly with his contracting income and partly, he said, with bank robberies; investigators corroborated two, in Tupper Lake, New York, on 10 April 2009 and in Azle, Texas, on 16 February 2012. Kevin Feldis, chief criminal prosecutor in the US attorney’s office in Anchorage, said Keyes would take the battery out of his phone and switch from cards to cash to avoid leaving a trail.

He also told investigators that he buried caches around the country, years in advance, so that he would not have to carry weapons on aircraft or buy them where he planned to kill. The FBI recovered two: one near Eagle River, outside Anchorage, and one at Blake Falls Reservoir in the Adirondacks of New York, which held a handgun, a silencer and ammunition. He said others, including caches near Green River, Wyoming, and Port Angeles, Washington, held weapons, money and materials for disposing of bodies. In 2020 the FBI told CBS News it believed he had hidden caches in at least four states and that more remained buried.

The FBI says Keyes told investigators that on 9 April 2009 he abducted a woman in an East Coast state, took her across state lines into New York, and killed and buried her there; investigators do not believe the burial site is on his Constable property. The FBI also says that in the spring of 2011 he staked out a park in Anchorage intending to shoot a couple in a parked car, and abandoned the plan when police arrived.

Essex, Vermont, June 2011

On 2 June 2011 Keyes flew from Anchorage to Chicago, rented a car and drove about 1,000 miles to Vermont, according to the FBI. On the night of 8 June a married couple in their fifties were taken from their home in Essex, a suburb of Burlington. Their car was later found about three-quarters of a mile from the house, the AP reported.

The day after Keyes died, the US attorney for Vermont, Tristram Coffin, and the Chittenden County state’s attorney, T.J. Donovan, set out in Burlington what Keyes had told investigators. According to the Anchorage Daily News, Donovan said Keyes had left Alaska intending to kidnap and kill someone, chose the house at random because it had an attached garage, no cars outside and no sign of children or a dog, and cut the phone line before breaking in. He told investigators he took them to an abandoned farmhouse he had picked out earlier, where he shot the man and raped and strangled the woman.

The couple’s remains have never been found. Keyes said he left the bodies in the farmhouse, which had been demolished before investigators learned of it; searches, including an extensive search of a landfill, did not find them. He told investigators he threw two guns, one of them taken from the couple’s home, into Blake Falls Reservoir in New York, and FBI divers recovered both. The FBI says Keyes told them that before the Vermont killings, the disappearances of his victims had attracted little if any media attention. He was never charged in Vermont.

Anchorage, February 2012

On the evening of 1 February 2012 an 18-year-old woman was working at a coffee stand on Tudor Road in Anchorage. According to the federal indictment, Keyes took her from the stand to his pickup truck parked across the street, held her, and killed her early the next morning. The indictment alleged that he took her bank card from a vehicle she shared, obtained the PIN from her, and sent text messages from her phone to conceal what had happened.

On 2 February Keyes flew to Texas. The FBI says he went on a cruise from New Orleans, then drove into Texas, where he robbed the bank in Azle on 16 February; it also says he set fire to a house in Aledo, Texas, that morning, and that investigators suspected, though Keyes denied it, that he may have killed someone in the region during that trip. On 24 February, back in Anchorage, he made a ransom demand using the young woman’s phone. Her family deposited money into her account, partly from community reward funds, and Keyes withdrew it from cash machines in Alaska, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, according to the Justice Department.

Arrest in Texas

The withdrawals were tracked, cash-machine images showed the car he had rented, and on 13 March 2012 he was stopped and arrested in Lufkin, Texas. He was returned to Alaska.

In interviews after his return, Keyes admitted the Anchorage killing. On 2 April 2012 FBI divers, working with Anchorage police and Alaska State Troopers, recovered the young woman’s body from Matanuska Lake, north of Anchorage.

Indictment and interviews

On 18 April 2012 a federal grand jury in Anchorage indicted Keyes on three counts: kidnapping resulting in death, receiving and possessing ransom money, and access device fraud. The US attorney for Alaska, Karen Loeffler, announced the charges. The kidnapping count carried a maximum penalty of life imprisonment or death. Federal prosecutors had not decided whether to seek the death penalty when he died, the Anchorage Daily News reported. His trial was set for March 2013.

In May 2012, during a hearing in federal court in Anchorage, Keyes broke free of his leg restraints and leapt over a low barrier towards the public seats before US marshals subdued him. The Alaska Department of Corrections then placed him under tighter controls, including restrictions on razors and pencils, according to its later investigation.

Over the following months FBI agents, Anchorage police detectives and federal prosecutors interviewed him for more than 40 hours. FBI Special Agent Jolene Goeden, who took part, later said he wanted to avoid multiple trials and publicity, and wanted the death penalty quickly. Keyes had insisted that his name not be publicly linked to the Vermont case, according to the Anchorage Daily News, and stopped talking for a time after a Vermont television station reported in the autumn of 2012, citing anonymous sources, that he was the prime suspect. In late October, the paper reported, FBI agents and police searched his former home in Anchorage and New York state police searched his Constable property.

Death in custody

Keyes was found dead in his cell at the Anchorage jail early on 2 December 2012; Alaska State Troopers said it was an apparent suicide and that they did not suspect foul play. His last interview, according to CBS News and the AP, had taken place three days earlier. An internal investigation by the Department of Corrections later found that a razor had been issued to him by mistake, despite the restrictions, and not retrieved, the Anchorage Daily News reported. Biography.com gives the same account.

Writings found in the cell were sent to the FBI Laboratory, which, the FBI says, found no hidden code and no leads to other victims. CBS News reported in 2020 that agents had also found a series of skulls drawn in his blood beneath his bed, which the FBI took to represent the number of his victims.

His death ended the criminal case. The charges in Anchorage were never tried, no charges were ever brought in Vermont or anywhere else, and nothing he told investigators was tested in court.

The FBI’s count

The figure has grown over time. When Keyes died, Loeffler and the head of the FBI’s Anchorage office, Mary Rook, said he had admitted to killing the Anchorage woman, the Vermont couple and five others: four in Washington state and one in New York. Rook said there might be victims in other states too. In August 2013 the FBI said it believed he had killed 11 people. Goeden explained the figure: when pressed for a number, Keyes said it was ‘less than 12’, and he did not correct investigators who referred to his 11 victims.

The FBI believes Keyes did not know any of his victims, that they were men and women ranging from their late teens to old age, and that he looked for them at parks, campgrounds, trailheads and cemeteries. It says he told investigators the killings took place in fewer than ten states, and that only one other body besides the Anchorage victim’s had been found, in a case that authorities had ruled an accident. Biography.com notes that authorities have definitively connected him to three killings.

The FBI released its timeline, interview extracts and cache photographs to ask the public for help in identifying the remaining victims, and renewed the appeal in 2020. ‘The investigation absolutely continues,’ Goeden said in 2013.

Where the accounts differ

  • The number of victims: in December 2012 the US attorney and the FBI in Anchorage said Keyes admitted to eight killings in all (AP, Anchorage Daily News); in August 2013 the FBI said it believed there were 11; Biography.com says authorities have definitively connected him to three.
  • The skull drawings: CBS News’s 48 Hours, quoting FBI agent Jolene Goeden, said Keyes drew 11 skulls; Biography.com says 12, which it suggests may stand for 11 victims and Keyes himself.
  • Killings in Washington: in December 2012 officials said Keyes admitted four killings in Washington state (AP, Anchorage Daily News); the FBI timeline of August 2013 lists five (one in 2001, a couple, and two more in 2005–2006), and CBS News/AP reported ‘at least 5’.
  • How many states: the FBI said Keyes told investigators his killings took place in ‘less than 10 states’; a CBS News/AP report the next day said he indicated victims in ‘a total of 10 states’.
  • Army dates: the FBI timeline gives 9 July 1998 to 8 July 2001; the website of his Anchorage construction business, quoted by the Anchorage Daily News, said he served from 1998 to 2000.
  • The Oregon assault: the FBI’s map timeline dates it to 1 June–1 September 1997; the FBI press release issued the same day says ‘Summer 1997 or Summer 1998’.
  • The age of the Anchorage victim: 18 in the indictment announced by the Justice Department and in most reports; a CBS News/AP report of August 2013 gave 17.
  • How he was found in Texas: the Anchorage Daily News said a highway patrol officer spotted his rental car; Biography.com says a security camera in Arizona captured the car before he was stopped.
  • His trial date: the AP and Biography.com said trial was set for March 2013; the Anchorage Daily News’s report of his death said March 2012, evidently a slip for 2013.
  • The FBI’s own records: the press release lists Belize travel from 3 October 2001 to 31 October 2005, while the map timeline gives 3–13 October 2005; for July 2010 the release says he drove about 280 miles in a rented car near Sacramento, the timeline 232 miles.

The portrait

The portrait above is a detail of the coloring page drawn for Bloody America, which gives one killer to each state. The full page shows Keyes with short, swept-back hair and a light moustache, against banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills and money sacks marked with dollar signs, a nod to the bank robberies he admitted. A noose hangs down one side of the page, and a medallion holds a coil of rope. In one corner is a map of the United States labelled Vermont; in the other, a hooded reaper with a scythe beside the figure 8+. The nameplate, framed in cobwebs, reads “Israel Keyes” and “2011 – 2012”, with the words “Suicide in prison” beneath it. For other case files, see Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgway and the Zodiac case.

If you find an error in this account, write to hello@truecrimeart.com and it will be corrected.

Questions people ask

Was Israel Keyes ever convicted?

No. He was indicted in April 2012 for the kidnapping and killing of a young woman in Anchorage. He killed himself in jail on 2 December 2012, three months before his trial was due to begin, and was never charged anywhere else.

How many people did Israel Keyes kill?

The FBI believes he killed 11 people between 2001 and 2012, a figure based mainly on his own evasive statements to investigators. He admitted the Anchorage killing and the 2011 killing of a couple in Vermont; only three of the people he is believed to have killed have been identified.

How was Israel Keyes caught?

After the Anchorage abduction in February 2012, a ransom demand was sent from the young woman’s phone and money deposited in her account was withdrawn from cash machines in several states. The withdrawals and his rental car were tracked, and he was arrested in Lufkin, Texas, on 13 March 2012.

What were Israel Keyes’s caches?

Keyes told investigators he buried containers of weapons, money and materials for disposing of bodies around the US, years in advance. The FBI recovered two, near Eagle River, Alaska, and at Blake Falls Reservoir in New York, and believes others remain buried.

Were the Vermont victims ever found?

No. Keyes said he left their bodies in an abandoned farmhouse in Essex that was later demolished, and searches, including one of a landfill, did not find them.

How did Israel Keyes die?

He was found dead in his cell in Anchorage on 2 December 2012. Troopers called it an apparent suicide, and a corrections investigation later found that a razor had been issued to him by mistake.

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Sources

Every date and name on this page was checked against at least two of the following. Where they disagree, the disagreement is stated in the text rather than resolved silently.

  1. New Information Released in Serial Killer Case (with map timeline and interview extracts)FBI, 13 August 2013
  2. FBI Requests the Public’s Assistance in Case of Serial Killer Israel KeyesFBI Dallas press release, 13 August 2013
  3. Israel Keyes indicted for kidnapping and killing an Anchorage womanUS Attorney’s Office, District of Alaska, 18 April 2012
  4. Searchers scour Keyes’ New York propertyAnchorage Daily News, 26 October 2012
  5. Israel Keyes dead of apparent suicide; suspected in Lower 48 deathsAnchorage Daily News, 2 December 2012
  6. Alaska murder suspect linked to 7 other killingsAssociated Press (The Spokesman-Review), 3 December 2012
  7. Vermont authorities point to suspected serial killer Israel Keyes in 2011 double murderAnchorage Daily News, 3 December 2012
  8. Suspected serial killer Israel Keyes traveled US extensively, FBI saysAnchorage Daily News, 4 December 2012
  9. Probe: Keyes ‘mistakenly’ issued razor he used to kill himselfAnchorage Daily News, 14 February 2013
  10. Israel Keyes update: Remains of at least 5 victims of Alaska serial killer are in Washington, FBI interviews indicateCBS News / Associated Press, 14 August 2013
  11. What do skulls drawn in Israel Keyes’ blood mean?CBS News 48 Hours (via Yahoo News), 8 May 2020
  12. Israel KeyesBiography.com, updated 31 January 2024

The facts on this page come from public records and the published sources above. If you find an error, write to hello@truecrimeart.com and it will be corrected.

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