Born on 6th April, 1955 in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Keith Hunter Jesperson, an American serial killer who ruled the headlines in mid 1990’s for killing at least eight women between 1990 – 1995, is once again riding the fame wave for being the prime subject of ‘Shattered Silence’ i.e. a book, written by her own daughter, that sheds new insight on the double life of Keith Jesperson.
Nicknamed as the ‘Happy Face Killer’ for the smiley face he used to draw on his many letters to the prosecutors and media, Keith Jesperson first caught the intention of law enforcement officials after he killed Taunja Bennett on 23rd January, 1990 and drew the smiley face on the wall of a toilet, located hundreds of miles away from the crime scene, where he left the dead body. However, when that incident didn’t elicit a desired response, Keith Jesperson murdered some more women and began writing letters to the media.
Keith Jesperson was first arrested in 1995 for the murder of his 41-year-old girlfriend, Julie Ann of Camas. Besides his fervor for Winningham’s murder, Keith Jesperson has also been convicted of murdering four women in California, Wyoming and Oregon.
Keith Jesperson’s allegedly, overall, murdered 8 people in Nebraska, California, Florida, Washington, Oregon, and Wyoming with the first known victim as Taunja Bennett near Portland, Oregon.
A couple of years back in November 2008, Keith Jesperson’s daughter, Melissa G. Moore who wrote her experiences as being the daughter of a serial killer, appeared on the Dr. Phil Show to talk about her father.
Melisa said “prior his own confession to be the ‘Happy Face Killer’, I never in my childhood even thought him to be that brutal”.
Keith Jesperson
