0113 | Real Bad News

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The quiet couple's disappearance had baffled detectives for 13 months, but they say new information has them convinced the killings were completely random. There is nothing the couriers did in their personal lives that contributed to their deaths. Furthermore, prosecutors say they have a suspect in the case already locked up in an out-of-state jail on unrelated charges, but they would not identify the alleged killer or answer seemingly any questions about the case. No comment. I'm not going to comment. I can't talk about that. I can't comment on that. I can't say that either. I know you'll hate this answer, but I can't tell you. A prime reason for the stingy release of information may be that the suspect has not yet been charged in the courier's deaths. And the most critical pieces of potential evidence their bodies have never been found. Despite what investigators now call the largest search in Vermont's history, 11 weeks in a sprawling Coventry landfill probing 10,000 tons of trash. The success of these searches is very limited to approximately 10%. Since they have before, police and prosecutors again Friday suggested their case could be put at risk of falling apart if they said too much publicly, including releasing info on the suspect. I ask that please be patient with what we're trying to do. We are doing the right thing, striving for justice and its entirety. No word on a possible arrangement for the suspect. Meanwhile, the couriers' relatives released a written statement saying, in part, we asked that all of you respond to this random act of violence with daily random acts of kindness. In Colchester, Jack Thurston, News Channel 5. As FBI field agents and search teams continued searching the Coventry landfill for the couriers' remains, special agents Feldis and Gaudin continued negotiating with keys for more details on his other crimes. Israel's biggest fear about sharing details was the involvement of other jurisdictions. And his continued desire to discuss how the couriers and other cases were connected to the Samantha Coney case, a case the FBI couldn't discuss without the presence of Israel's attorney, who Israel refused to work with, put the negotiations at an impasse. There was something there that he casually said often, which investigators never pressed him on, that all of his murders were connected. But something I've thought about a lot, whenever I've looked at his known crimes or disappearances that could be linked to him, I've always had it in the back of my mind. How is this connected to his other murders? Or could this be connected to Coneg, or Feldman, or the couriers? When the FBI sent out their first national press release following keys as suicide, tips and theories started pouring in from all over the world, many trying to finger keys for various unsolved murders and missing persons' cases. But because of limited resources, unfortunately there's just no way all of these tips could be thoroughly investigated. So the FBI had to do their best to weed out and pursue the most viable. But that doesn't necessarily mean the others should be ignored. Sometimes it's the least likely, or the strangest tips, that lead to solving disappearances and the homicides. For example, the double murder of Leslie Howell and Trevor Buchanan in Belfast, Ireland. The two were found in a fume-filled car by police and would appear to be a suicide pact. There were several unlikely leads that came in, however, pointing to murder. But to the police, it was clear, it was suicide. So they didn't investigate the tips. And then, 19 years later, Leslie's husband confessed to the double murder. A more notable example would be the murder of Sister Kathy Seznick, and the ignored murmurs and unlikely tips, saying that she'd been killed by the priest she worked for. Murmurs now, 50 years later, that are seriously being looked into, and are the foundation of the documentary series, The Keepers. So while it's most likely that Lauren Spear was killed by someone she knows, or by someone local, it's worth at least exploring the viability of Lauren being a key victim. Especially considering that unlikely tip came in from a retired police officer from the Bloomington, Indiana area. Lauren Spear disappeared from Bloomington, Indiana, sometime between 2.51am and 4.30am, on June 3rd, 2011. Lauren was a 20-year-old student at Indiana University. And on the night of her disappearance, she'd been out drinking with friends in downtown Bloomington. By all accounts, she was quite intoxicated that night. Local law enforcement have been able to put together a timeline for the last four hours before Lauren's disappearance, using video surveillance and eyewitness statements. Witnesses report that at 12.30am, Spear left her apartment with a friend named David Rohn. The pair went to Mutual Friend, J. Rosenbaum's apartment, where she met up with Rosenbaum's neighbor, Corey Rossman. Video surveillance shows Lauren and Corey entering Kilroy's sports bar at 146am, and exiting together at 227am. It was reported by eyewitness testimony that Lauren left her cell phone and shoes at the bar, and that Rossman walked her to her apartment complex. At 2.30am, Lauren is seen on security footage entering her apartment building. And then, just minutes later, at 2.48am, security footage shows Lauren leaving her apartment building through a back alleyway. Security cameras mounted on nearby apartments show her exit the alley at 2.51am. And walked toward an empty lot. Lauren's keys and purse were later found along this route through the alley. Lauren and Rossman reportedly arrived at Rossman's apartment at around 3am. Rossman's roommate, Michael Beth, was at the apartment at the time. And by all accounts, Rossman was also incredibly intoxicated and vomited after arriving at the apartment. Beth stated that he escorted Rossman to bed and tried to persuade Lauren to stay for her own safety. According to Rossman, though, Lauren wanted to return to her own apartment. At 3.30am, Beth reports that he phoned Jay Rosenbaum and asked him to come retrieve Lauren, who was attempting to get Beth to go drink with her at her apartment. Lauren eventually made it to Rosenbaum's apartment, where he observed a bruise under her eye, presumably sustained in a fall earlier that evening. However, Lauren told him she didn't know how she got the bruise. Two calls replaced from Rosenbaum's phone shortly before Lauren is reported to have left. Rosenbaum said both calls replaced by Lauren, one to David Rohn, and one to another unspecified friend. Neither picked up and no messages were left. Rosenbaum reports that Lauren left the apartment alone at around 4.30am, and this is the last reported sighting of her. Police have looked into all three men Lauren was with the night she disappeared, as well as her boyfriend. All of whom obtained lawyers and refused to take police administered polyagraphs. They did, however, take privately administered polyagraphs, as well as FBI administered polyagraphs. All the men have alleged that Lauren was under the influence of both drugs and alcohol the night she disappeared. Two long-held police theories are that she overdosed and the men covered it up, or that she was abducted by a stranger. The case went cold until just recently when a local prosecutor released a statement claiming a local man named Daniel Messer, who is convicted for the murder of another Indiana University student, was responsible for Lauren's disappearance. However, no evidence has been produced to support this, so here's the case for keys. He landed in Chicago just a 3 hour drive from Bloomington on the evening of June 2nd. Unfortunately, it's not known exactly what time his flight landed. Or how many miles he put on his rental car that trip. But we do know that he's arrived at his mother's home in Harlan, Indiana on the afternoon of June 3rd. One is a three and a half hour drive from Chicago, and about 200 miles northeast of Bloomington. On a map, the three cities essentially create an equal lateral triangle, all roughly 200 miles and three hours apart. As I mentioned in the previous episode, keys can't be placed in any hotels on the night of June 2nd. So where was he and what was he doing? We don't know a lot about keys pre-murder preparation, but what we do know is that he would fly into random cities and then drive great distances to places he had previously traveled to. Just two years prior to the courier's murders, Israel had spent two nights in Essex for Mont. Multiple sightings place keys across the street from Common Ground's coffee stand and at Madanuska Lake in the weeks prior to his abduction of Samantha Konig. We also know he used kilkits, buried well in advance, to carry out these murders. So we'd want to place keys in or around Bloomington prior to Lauren's abduction. And we can. In December of 2007, keys took a pretty straightforward trip, well straightforward for keys at least. He and Kristen flew from Anchorage to Seattle. While in the Seattle area, Israel picked up Sarah from Tammy and the two flew to visit Keys' mother in Harlan. Kristen stayed behind to visit friends. On December 5th, 2007, Israel and Sarah landed in Indianapolis, just 50 miles north of Bloomington. From there, they made their way to Harlan where they stayed until December 15th. It's unclear how they got from Indianapolis to Harlan because keys didn't rent a car and his mother was essentially Amish light at the time. But multiple eyewitnesses, including Heidi Keys, can confirm that they did make it to Harlan. Keys did rent a car though. In Fort Wayne, just 20 miles away from Harlan, from December 8th through December 10th. And in those three days, he racked up 537 miles. "Quinning never sounded so good. What would you do if you won big?" At Crown Coins Casino, real people win real prices every single day. "Hi, this is Michael from Georgia, I won 40k and finally renovated my home." Visit crowncoins.com, sign up in seconds, enter code crown and get a free lucky wheel bonus. You may win at the 10,000 sweepscoins, crowncoins.com, that's C-R-O-W-N, coins.com. No purchase needed. Code valid for new users on Void were repeated by law. 18+ terms and addition supply. Crown Coins Casino! If you look at a map of Indiana, you'll find that the majority of the state consists of farmland. If you're in Harlan and want to go to the woods, the closest major forested area is the Hoosier National Forest. And almost right dead center of the Hoosier National Forest is Bloomington, Indiana. Now round trip from Harlan to Bloomington is about 400 miles. But if you decide to drive through the Brown County State Park, the densest part of the Hoosier National Forest, containing multiple lakes, including Lake Monroe, which reaches a depth of 60 feet, the deepest in the area, that will add an additional 40 miles to your trip. And Lake Monroe, to downtown Bloomington, that's just 10 miles. So is it reasonable to believe that keys would have buried a kill kit somewhere in the forest near Bloomington, Indiana on this trip? Well, the first thing I considered was either precedence or pattern. And while there's no known precedence that would make it safe to presume that he would do so on this trip, there could be a pattern. In an interview with Heidi Keys regarding Israel's 2012 trip to visit her in Texas, a trip will spend a lot of time on in future episodes. She stated that after visiting for several days, keys left Sarah with Heidi and his sisters and disappeared. For multiple days, to go, quote, "Berry some weapons he'd been storing at her house." He ended up traveling to a town about 200 miles away, a town with a major lake with a depth of 64 feet. Then I checked the weather. It was early December in Indiana, and it would be incredibly challenging to bury or even hide a kill kit for years, in frozen ground or in the snow. And it turns out Bloomington was having a pretty temperate early winter in 2007. It hadn't snowed yet by the 10th, and the average daily temperature that week was 43 degrees. So based on future behaviors and the weather, it's possible he buried a kill kit on this trip. But I want to make it clear, this proves nothing. We can't even prove that the miles he put on his rental car were to Bloomington and back. But it's an almost exact distance if you consider in town travel and a brown county state park bypass. At the very least, though, we can put keys within 50 miles of Bloomington, three and a half years prior to Lauren's disappearance, and unaccounted for in Indiana on the night she went missing. That's not all though, keys like to commit crimes in conjunction with family visits, and he like to keep a tight timeline while doing so. Lauren's disappearance occurred in conjunction with Israel's visit with Heidi, and during a time frame of less than 14 hours that keys can't be accounted for. Actually, even tighter than that. On the morning of June 3rd, keys paid three tolls on the Indiana toll road which crosses northern Indiana. Now he wouldn't take this road from Bloomington to Harlan, but he'd also only take it for a short distance from Chicago to Harlan. So short that he'd only have to pay one toll. We know because keys has told us that he liked to place a great distance between himself and his crimes immediately following them. So let's say he drives from Bloomington back to the Chicago area, where he can geographically place himself three different times, over 300 miles away from Bloomington, just hours after Lauren's disappearance. Again, this is just speculation, and in piecemeal it seems pretty far-fetched. But when you look at the big picture, it starts to make sense. And even the victimology lines up. I know, I know, keys has no victimology. But let's look at Samantha Kohnig and Lauren Spearer. They look vaguely similar. They're the same age. They're alone at night at the time of their disappearances. But this can be said for a lot of homicide victims. Young women alone at night. It's basically a cautionary tale. So let's also look at Deborah Feldman and Lauren Spearer. Both women were alleged to have used drugs and alcohol on the nights of their disappearances. Both women are thought to have disappeared from the streets of major college towns within 20 miles of a major airport and 300 miles of a key's family home that keys was visiting at the time. Again, not a sure thing, but it's becoming less and less unlikely that keys was involved, right? Well, there's one more thing. Of the over 200 tips included in the FBI's case files on keys, almost all of them were followed up on or analyzed for viability. The analyses and responses were all included in the case files. Well, almost all of them. There is no response or analysis included in the case file for the Lauren Spearer tip, which means either the FBI never bothered to look into it, or respond to it, or they did, and have redacted that information completely from the files. And since they responded to and analyzed tips that came from psychics, people alleging that keys killed people who died before he was born, and people who alleged they knew who keys had killed based on a feeling. It seems more likely that they did look into Spear and have decided not to release whatever they found. Really considering that we know the FBI polyagraphed four people involved in her case. Keys has said over and over again that all of his murders are somehow connected. And to me, the obvious connection became weapons. And it turns out, Sarah isn't the only thing he picked up in Washington on his way to Indiana on that 2007 trip. He also reportedly picked up a gun that a friend was storing for him in Nia Bay. And he was charged an excess luggage fee for his Seattle to Indianapolis leg of this trip, and not for the Anchorage to Seattle nor the Indianapolis to Anchorage legs. On his second trip to Indiana, when he killed the couriers and Lauren's spear disappeared, we know he moved a lot of weapons around. He killed the couriers using the Vermont cash, which he then moved over 100 miles away to the Blake Falls Reservoir. And that Vermont cash was created after he killed Debra Feldman and robbed the Tupper Lake Bank. I think it started out and it was going to just talk to one teller, but then when I saw there were only a few people there, I just took over the place and I'd take over. And you said you were used to one of the guns that you had buried in Vermont. I had both of them with me, both the ones that ended up buried in Vermont. I buried them in Vermont after that, after the New York. Did you hear that? He put both guns he had with him in that cash. Well, when the Blake Falls Reservoir cash was recovered, there were three guns in it. A fourth, the gun he stole from the couriers was found in the reservoir itself. So where did that third gun come from? My bet, an Indiana cash, created in December of 2007, which he moved from Indiana, hundreds of miles away to New York, just days after Lauren's spear went missing. And whether keys was involved in Lauren's disappearance or not, I did realize there was another way to connect the dots and keys other crimes. Follow the guns. I have spoken with the Vermont prosecutors, this is as of yesterday. I didn't speak to them today about anything yet. So I did speak with the Vermont prosecutors in the US Attorney's Office and they are coordinating everything through us, which is what I told them that you wanted. Yeah. Okay. And I wanted to let you know that they're doing that, including with the local prosecutors because we've all talked about in this room how, you know, there's the local authorities who have interesting things, but we're able to keep control of this right now. Right. And that's that as I understand it is a good thing from your perspective. Yes. Okay. All right. Good. They're letting us handle things and I guess I wanted to vote on that note. I mean, I don't know if you get to hear any of the publicity, but, you know, the things that I have seen say here's a headline, Vermont, please type it in search for a missing couple. This is something that was just something news media from Vermont. So they are cooperating, they meaning the investigators in Vermont. What would you do if you won big at Crown Coins Casino, real people win real prizes every single day? Hi, this is Michael from Dallas and I won 40K and finally renovated my home. Visit crowncoins.com, sign up in seconds, enter code crown and get a free lucky wheel bonus. The 10,000 sweeps coins, crowncoins.com, that's C-R-O-W and coins.com. No purchase needed. Code valve for new users on the void. We're rated by law. 18 plus terms and conditions. Plot. Okay. And as the search for the couriers remains intensified, the FBI devised a plan that would get keys talking, a plan that would create movement in the case and begin revealing the majority of the details of his crimes we now know, and it was this plan that would create an unprecedented agreement between the FBI and a serial killer. Amid the search, Vermont pledged that they wouldn't seek state charges against keys if he continued to cooperate with Alaskan investigators regarding other crimes. Keys expressed his desire to continue to cooperate and that his main focus was to shelter his daughter from ever learning about his crimes. So what I wanted to do today is, you know, obviously we want to give you some information. I think it's important that we let you know what's going on from our end. Right. And that's part of our bargain with you when we talk to you about other crimes is to let you know, okay, what's going on. But I also want to ask a few things or at least relay some information to you, you know, we've talked before, you know, your case is different, right? I mean, we've talked before. There's no model for your case. There's no model for what we're doing here, you know, Jeff Bell, Frank Russo, and Kevin Fel just haven't been through the situation before, as real keys hasn't been through the situation before. So we're to different situation, right? And what you've mentioned that yourself. So and that's good, but it's also going to be bad in some ways. It's good because it gives us the freedom to really be honest with you, to have these kind of meetings with you and to work with what you want, what you've laid out for us. Right. So that's good. And that doesn't always happen, right? You know, most cases, we don't ever really find out what a person wants, who's, you know, is almost about a crime they've committed. Right. So that's a good thing. I think the difficult thing that I wanted to let you know about today is it also, it's bad because there's no real road map for how this is going to work, right? And one of the things that I think has been a problem and that's, you know, I think partly our fault is we haven't laid out a road map with you about a plan. What's the plan for this? We know what you want. We know what we want, right, in general, but we don't have a plan. How are we going to get there on the schedule? Right. And part of that I think is because there isn't, you know, a formula for this. There's certainly things we have to do, but there's no formula. So I wanted to lay out some of that for you today and Mr. Russo is here and he has some some real specific things about, hey, let's get a plan for where we're going. Right. I mean, I like to plan things out and I think that's the only way we ever get where we want to go. And it's kind of timely because I had a conversation yesterday with Vermont. The head prosecutor of Vermont State's attorney was on the phone, you know, getting anxious about what's going on and no, the federal, I'm on the phone with him too. He was on the conference call. So the head federal attorney there, the US Attorney's Office, put the local prosecutor. And as we've talked about before, you know, we are managing and it's been an excellent job of managing what every different person involved in this does. But everybody's different. And I wish I would have, I'm sorry, in real life, I've read an article this morning, but Google that almost daily is to see what's going on and they're pumping for information back there. Right. Yes, there's no comment anywhere in this, so they're doing an excellent job of continuing to no comment. They are. But I want to, you know, I guess what I'm telling you is I want to continue to manage that situation. And I'm probably asking for a little help from you today. Do they find the bodies? They have not found the bodies. They're in the dump and you can imagine the amount of media attention surrounding that, right? But nobody's using your name. Does the FBI and local law enforcement continue the search for the couriers remains? The FBI found themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place. Those being keys and the Vermont team, information output from keys was slowing down drastically. And Vermont wanted more information. Israel didn't think they could create a clear path forward without discussing Konig and they couldn't discuss Konig because keys refused to work with his attorney in the Konig case. So behind the scenes, the FBI began putting together a plan to get conversations with Israel back on track and to manage both Vermont and the local media. A plan that would make all parties feel like they were retaining control while still moving discussions and negotiations forward in a productive way. So if you're willing, we've got a bit of a roadmap that Mr. Russo has put together that we want to run by and get your input on. Yeah. Okay. All right. Israel, I haven't been here in the past several meetings, but I've listened to all the tapes and thought, you know, pretty hard about our situation. Sometimes I feel like it's good when you step back from a situation where you can kind of see it from all angles and I've been thinking a lot about your goals, our goals, what we can do so to meet on. You know, I found that there's always two elements to sort of a good negotiation. We're everybody walks away happy Tree probably would agree with me. I mean one is both parties have to be reasonable about things, right? And you know just to give you an example. I had a guy who was sentenced on Monday They guys started out like the negotiation. We're trying to negotiate a settlement a while ago And he wanted a time-serve sentence and this guy actually committed some major crime But I'm like, you know, it's just not reasonable and literally we're just stuck on that and You know, we ended up going through all emotions. It took a while. We you know when people aren't reasonable You know usually we go to trial that's happened in this case and on Monday you got sentenced to 27 years instead of time-serve So you know kind of gives you an example like when people aren't reasonable That's what ends up happening. I mean the good news though is with you I think you know, you have been Emmitably reasonable in this whole thing and I hope you think that that we've been reasonable With you. Yeah, I'm not happy with the way things are progressing so far I realize my expectations are probably unreasonable as far as time line is concerned. Yeah, those are the things I want to talk to you about but right But as far as the specifics of our arrangement particularly concerning the media and investigation and Interviews with my people I know in my family. I haven't I haven't heard anything that I mean there's a few things that I mean I've already laid out that I would like to see happen but Aside from those few things I don't have any complaints I feel like for the most part of everything's been above board since we started talking That's good. I mean, and I think you know That's what ultimately gave me hope that we're able to kind of reach some sort of negotiation and some settlement here because you're reasonable And we're being reasonable with you. I mean the other part Of any good negotiation that I found is usually everybody you know walks away from the table having to give up a little bit more than they initially You know wanted to but in the end, you know, we're all reaching sort of a common goal that everybody agrees is in You know the greater good. So even before I you know, I thought about you know, I'm specific for the plan here But before I did I mean I even had to present it to our team and You know, be honest with you. There are things about the plan that you know, they don't like because they're not getting what they want right And you know, my perspective is look You know, we have to give a little and you have to give a little to sort of get to the ultimate goal and solving a lot of problems and reaching our goals So I think I've been able to convince you know most of them that this is a good plan and to plan worth at least getting your input on okay You know, I think up until now whatever I'm seeing on some of the recordings and listening to is that you know You're coming in here and you know, you're obviously making commands about your you know, well I you don't want to use property back and you should believe that it wasn't not gonna talk to you I mean, we're offering you cigars. I mean, you know When I think about I think you use the term one point, you know poor man's bank robbery Right, I think like in some respects. I think you probably agree with me. This is like poor man's negotiation So I started thinking very critically about like a plan To you know address our problems up here, and you know if we just have problems up here these problems are you know, they're gonna be nothing so I thought about it and sort of laid it out But first I tried to kind of go back and some of the interviews and review You know some of your goals in this tell you about our goals Frank Russo as you may remember from earlier episodes Was the assistant u.s attorney who was working on the case and the mastermind behind the plan So these are some things that I've picked up from some of the Audio and meetings before I had with you, but I sort of gathered are your goals. Yes, right? Right. So we got number one We got quick resolution in sentencing. You've told us about that You know, I know you told us what your ultimate goal is, you know sort of you know initially was You know, I'd like to sort of have the definitely right within your I told you even personally. Yeah, it doesn't really matter to us What ultimate sentence do you get? I mean, that's that's your thing right and that's fine And I think you even said you know, I recognize that some of my goals in our guard are unreasonable But it's clearly still wanting your goals to try to get this and I think we've been trying to do whatever we can To move us forward to get quick resolution and sentencing. We've you know got the competency exam done in the day So you know, we've been trying to meet these these goals even though, you know, those are obviously your things Minimized publicity you told the standard array You obviously I think you see as a way of minimizing publicity Obviously, you don't want to tell us about all the things the other primes right that you've done Because you I think you even said like you know how these things work right right and the more you give us You know, you think that may increase publicity of the thing and that's counter to you know what you want people to know And you don't want your family about all that kind of thing You know, these goals are a little bit in conflict here because obviously more things you've done You know, you're gonna get a quicker resolution you understand that they're sort of in conflict. Yeah. All right Other goals stay in one jurisdiction. You've told us that right What am I missing here? Is there is there something I'm missing? No, pretty much sums it up Is there any one of these that is more important to you than the other? Probably the last one I realized that um The first two or somewhat out of all of our control all it really takes is one person to say something or As far as the sentencing my ultimate goal that's out of all of our hands Ultimately, that's gonna be decision made in Washington apparently so Or at least partly We obviously can't talk to you about the charge case I'm talking about, you know, even in connection with other crimes, you know, these goals You know, I thought about these I think there's a way to sort of Get it almost all of them in this plan. So okay, I thought very critically about that. So I'm gonna we'll go back to them and sort of see how the plan satisfies all right. Here's our goals. You probably know these two Right right close to the families of victims that's something, you know, like the sentencing in your case You really don't care much about I mean, that's our thing right obviously, you know, we want to bring close to as many families And as soon as possible, you know, that's sort of where our goal is is someone in conflict with some of your goals right here So I was thinking about this Um, and this is something you know secondary But you know, we want to save thousands of hours of investigation right when you told us you could help us with that, right? Yeah Is there anything else about our goals you think Um, that we've been expressing to you because I think that's pretty much, you know, we've been having this problem obviously Um No, I I would agree those are the what I would consider to be your most obvious goals. Yeah As far as personal agenda you may have in the case. I have no idea I have theories, but I'm not going to talk about them. I'm sure I don't expect you to, so Yeah, for me, I really don't care. I've already told you it, you know, I've never sort of Think voted or appeared in the media in this case. I really don't care if I ever do like, you know I don't care if I'm talking you now. It's just the sort of I've forgotten these things and want to share them with you That's the only reason I'm talking to you. I'm sure Other times everybody else is gonna talk to you, but um, all right, so those are these things. That's what we have to kind of satisfy The two parties mutually agreeing on a way to meet their goals was all well and good But unfortunately There was a major barrier What's gonna be the flow of information that's given out in the courier case I know I realize at some point like once the bodies are found the families are gonna be notified They're gonna tell the families uh that they have so obviously they're gonna say they have a suspecting custody But what is your feeling on uh What they're going is is something going to come out if my name gonna be attached to that I think I just say final It depends on what we're talking about now and why this is kind of timely is because when I talked to Vermont yesterday you could sense the In their voices and what they're telling me and and I think what This is gonna lay out here is there's a way that we think we can manage every manage and keep your name They want their shot at me basically. Well, but but let's get there I think that's that's exactly the question we were asking and we've been worried about It's what's gonna happen then and rather than wait for that to happen all right You know we've got a plan and I'm going to do that we have to keep this I think in the federal Arena and in that and that's what we're talking about today So the goal and trying to trying to do that for you so that those things don't happen, but the low goal Prosecutor there in Vermont. He's gonna have something in that as well. I mean well We ultimately we have we can keep control over that, but it's gonna take both the it's gonna take all of us in this room All right, so we've got a plan to deal with that Keys is desire to stay in one jurisdiction became a problem in managing local law enforcement in Vermont And is desire to stay out of the media and the FBI's compliance with that desire Had the local media putting more and more pressure on Vermont's law enforcement to release details on the career case With no bodies recovered and no visible movement in the career case Vermont was looking bad and the FBI wanted to alleviate this by working with keys to provide either new details that they could release to the media, or by releasing information on other crimes committed by keys that would demonstrate that their silence was working towards something bigger. But keys didn't want to release any additional details on any cases, because he was concerned it would involve new jurisdictions and create even more media attention, which was one of several problems that would interfere with both the FBI and Israel reaching their proposed goals. We have problems that we're going to face and reaching our goals, and you know you've been experiencing them. So when we talk about the problems that I see, and I think we've talked about and hear about, the problems didn't go all right? Right. So you mean you see this, right? Yeah. I mean that's basically what I see too is like third party will create this media frenzy. And locals or politicians, you know, they're going to want to get their name in the paper, and they're going to try to trumpet this as a big case for them. So the way this happened though is that obviously at some point, someone's going to catch on information and has to go out to some of these people at some point, and that's what's going to happen. If we keep going on the same, of course we are, they're going to be forced to sort of put out certain things, you know, so other people places can investigate you too. We've been right now controlling that and been able to control it because we've been telling people look and we're blocked for it, we're cooperating, you know, to block that effort. Obviously, you know, if we're not able to sort of assure, you know, Vermont that, you know, we're continuing our progress here, there's certainly possible charge in other jurisdictions. And I was reading an article just last week and just looking at some guy in California who, you know, killed a bunch of people in California and New York, he committed his crimes in the '70s and literally just now, and he's been sentenced to death in California, now they're bringing them to New York to face trial. But obviously that is not what you want to happen to you. I mean, that guy is, you know, he's a little different than he thought his case and he's appealing. Right. But you see, once other jurisdictions get involved, you know, they're going to say, governors are going to talk literally and that's what happened in that case. And they say, hey, you don't want a piece of this guy we want to try him because we've got families here. So, you know, that's obviously a problem that we've got to deal with. Right. And so came the four step plan. So there's a four step plan, all right. First step, I think, is pretty easy, but it involves you. The second step is a big one that's going to take a lot of time, I think, for us that we're going to have to work on and then, you know, I'll go over here to the first step. You know, you provide the number of murders and the specific jurisdiction that you've committed. Now I know that you previously haven't wanted to tell us that, but I'm going to suggest that you're really not giving up anything by doing that. You're not going to give us any names, all right, of victims. No names. We don't want to hear it. I'm not going to give us any time frame. I mean, you've told us once that, you know, you've been to other people for 14 years, right? 14 years, you know, and the jurisdiction is not going to help us. It's not going to help anybody, all right. It's just going to give us the bargaining tools we need to move forward. All right. The location is a body. We don't want that initially. This is really, I suggest, you're giving up nothing because, quite frankly, I mean, I'll be honest with you. I mean, we've had to assume that everywhere you've traveled on your trips, you've killed someone. And that's our assumption, right? So we're looking into that anyway. So you providing confirmation is really not going to help us. And this is important. The numbers and jurisdictions, it's important for step two, and I'm going to explain that to you why we need that information. Again, you know, we all have to know what we're dealing with here. And, you know, we're going to treat this confidentially. It's not like we can do anything with this information. It's not like we're going to disclose that to other jurisdictions that Israel Keyes killed, the next number of people. But what we can do with it is like, no, we can tell them we've been assured that there is more, all right? And we've been assured that if you sign off to this plan, that, you know, that there's going to be others. So that's going to help us. And the jurisdiction is going to help us because of relationships that we have with different places. And I'll explain those to you in a second. But again, you know, we're not doing this to trumpet this in front of the press. This is all stuff that we're doing, you know, just to sort of assure our bosses and keep them on board as well. All right. So the second step is, first, you know, we select the jurisdiction that, you know, you say, hey, you know, let's use Washington as an example. I've killed someone in, you know, it's a coma area, okay? We look at Washington and we say, all right, let's Washington and someone we can deal with because our U.S. attorney knows there U.S. attorney. So we know immediately that the U.S. attorney's got along and we're going to do that. But before we even get there, we go to Vermont, right? And we go to Vermont and say, look, he's giving us another state and another body. Thanks, Vermont. You helped us do this because of your discretion in dealing with this matter. And you're continued discretion, right? We're going to get something else. And that's going to take a huge burden off Vermont, all right? Just that assurance. He's saying he's giving us another because they've been asking us, oh, is he giving me another? Is he giving me another? Because they don't know. They don't know whether you've killed just three people or, you know, several does. All right. So this will allow us to kind of get Vermont on board. Then we close that jurisdiction. All right. And also I have here, you know, this is something I'm going to talk about later. Is it a jurisdiction, you know, with a death penalty eligible state? As you know, Alaska doesn't have the death penalty. I know that's been one of your, you know, your interests, let's say. And you know, it allows and may allow some quick resolution to some of this that I'll explain later. But, you know, that's sort of what we probably look at, like Washington, we don't have the death penalty. That's going to be good for you for later. All right. And I'll tell you how. What do we do is, are you going to turn this talk? And basically just tells them that, look, we have a source that's going to provide closure to, you know, missing person's case in your jurisdiction. That source, however, has some very specific demands before he's going to give you any information. And those demands, so you've got to be discreet, you know, he doesn't really, you know, want his name attached to it as much as possible, you know, FBI is going to handle all the recovery of the evidence, you know, if we go forward, the source wants, you know, to remain federal. The source also wants no prosecution in your district. Something that you've said is the most important thing. And the source wants the details, you told us like the details of your details, are you giving to us? Well, that's something we can convey, look, the details are going to be kept confidential. However, we're going to reassure them and, you know, with your agreement, this is what we reassure them with. That the person responsible is going to be punished for this, because that's going to be important to the families, right? They're going to be punished, but they're going to be punished on Alaska, okay? And this way, it's consolidated there. And you're going to be permitted to say, look, we have solved this crime, and we have the person in custody. So that's the sort of initial approach to the federal side. Once we get to U.S. attorney's agreement, that all sounds good, and we can buy off on that. The locals, right? And we get the same assurances to them. A lot of U.S. attorneys like in Vermont have counterparts that they have good relationships in the locals. And, you know, we're able to kind of use them to get some of these same assurances. And here's a good thing that we thought of to kind of keep them on board, the locals. You've said that, you know, you can get them on a conference call. Well, I think that'd be probably a good idea, because you got to think about, like, in perspective of that detective in Vermont, who's been haunted by what happened here. You know, she understandably feels a little resentful that, you know, she hasn't heard the story. But the way to solve that, the way to keep them on board is saying, look, your local officer who's investigating this missing person's place can participate and listen to what happened. That's going to keep them on board and say, all right, this is good. As long as they can make us those assurances that we had on the previous page, no problem with that, and I think you said you don't really have a problem with that, if that occurs. Look, but here's the bottom line. If that jurisdiction cannot make those assurances, it there, sort of merely mouth about it, and they say, I just don't know. Okay. No offense. We'll walk, and we'll try another jurisdiction, all right, because we don't want to compromise what we have here by someone just going off the reservation and trying to make a career for themselves. If we can't get those solid assurances, I can assure you, we're just going to walk away and say, all right, well, Washington, you know, good luck, good luck searching in 14 years, and trying to find out, you know, what happened, you're probably not going to do it. It's too bad you wouldn't play ball with us, but we have to do what we have to do, and we can't compromise the closure for other families if they don't give us those assurances. So that's our step too. This is a big one, and we understand, and this is what sort of raised from people's anxiety, and our camp is that, you know, it's not going to happen today, and probably not going to happen tomorrow, but it's going to take some time to develop these things. things and I think you've expressed that, you know, you know, this should be a process. And this sort of gives us a process and it gives you a little bit more control of things as well as some time to deal with it. So that's that too. But let's assume we can get all these things from a jurisdiction, right? We've got to set through it and we can kind of say, all right, give us your local call. Let's sit down with Israel, we've got the assurances, we tell you that. When we get, go to you, you get the name of the victim if you know it, look, the timeframe of when the murder occurred, that's just a brief description. And you know, you've always been good at, I think about this, your best effort at locating the body. You've said, you don't write these things down and die or you know, I think we all understand that. And that's why I said, you know, whatever, you make your best efforts at it. So that's it. That's that through it. Once we get that, we've got to set forth, all right? Then we just repeat the process in another jurisdiction and say to someone that's maybe a little more difficult to deal with in Washington, we can use the past successes to justify further success, you know, with those jurisdictions. So I think, you know, once we sort of have a process going and Vermont see, they look, you know, we've participated in it, worked for us, we'll be able to shore the next jurisdiction. And they have looked, worked for Vermont and then they, you know, were able to keep things incredibly discreet. And they solved the missing persons case due to cooperate. And the best part about it is, you know, you stay in one jurisdiction. The FBI began using the Forestut plan with varied success to both work with Vermont and the continued search for the couriers and in extracting new information from keys, including the Tupper Lake robbery, the New York body presumed to be Deborah Feldman and an additional kill kit in Eagle River, Alaska. And as movement on other crimes began speeding up, the search for the couriers was coming to an end and an end without resolution. The search team spent 10 weeks searching the Coventry landfill and close to a million dollars for two bone fragments, a rib and a long bone. But in accordance with the Forestut plan, Vermont law enforcement and the DA felt that, even without remains, they were able to provide closure to the courier's families and close the case. They informed the families, took them to the landfill to say their goodbyes, and let the media know the case was solved without ever mentioning Israel keys. But the press had been monitoring the search of the landfill and they knew it was a search for the courier's remains. And they wanted more information. They wanted to let the community know that they were safe and that pressure began to crack the DA, who now wanted to know when Israel would be charged. He even went as far as to remind the FBI that he wasn't legally bound by the Forestut plan and could charge keys himself at any time. And so they needed to modify the Forestut plan. So these, you know, want to make sure that they're still your goals or if you have any other goals that I need to know about when I sort of come out with this plan big. No. We got the resolution sent and saying nothing's changed for you there. No. Minimizing publicity and staying in jurisdiction. And that was, I think, at the time the most important to you, right then. So this is the one that's really kind of in jeopardy here. Right. We don't want stuff. So that's why I think it's important for us to develop, you know, maybe an idea of a plan B and a way to kind of go forward. And so, yeah, the charging and other jurisdictions, that's what we try to talk about today to the extent you want to. So here's what I'm concerned with in the courier case, that they're going to want to say something to the press. I'm sure they will want to say something to the press. And based upon that, the press is going to run into a story connecting you to this. At Crown Coins Casino, real people win real prizes every single day. 10,000 sweeps coins, crowncoins.com, that's C-R-O-W-N coins.com, no purchase needed. Code valve for new users on Void, we're pivoted by law, 18 plus terms and conditions apply. So it's a concern that, you know, there's obviously going to be a warm media exposure for this. So, that being the case, we've got to figure out a way to kind of effectively deal with Vermont and hopefully try to accomplish some of your goals, I know that, you know, you've expressed some of them in the past, I think, you know, you've been representing yourself on other crimes. But my idea is, is this, sounds like what certainly Vermont wants to do because they're not bound by any promises from where I look earlier deals is go ahead and charge. I know that would frustrate one of your goals. So here is my thought. Now, again, nothing's set in stone, I want to give you this. We go ahead and we charge the courier case in Alaska to try to get them to buy off on this plan. And at least this accomplishes some of your goals here as the wise of it. You get to stay in this jurisdiction if we can kind of broker this with Vermont. Number two, I think it's the most important thing, because it's going to give you control of this case. As I said, right now, you're representing yourself on the courier matter. Right. Now, you can, you know, let's assume it's charged. You can continue to represent yourself or you can have attorneys to be appointed to represent you. Okay. That's up to you. Right. But I've got every confidence that, you know, obviously the way we've been dealing directly with you, you know, we can move forward pretty quickly on the courier case. In fact, in the past, I've had cases which were sort of indicted after the other cases and resolved quicker. What I'm suggesting to you is that we may be able to move the courier case forward faster than your other charge case. But given you control and also, you know, it continues to give you control over some of the details, because we'd have to broker this deal with Vermont. The other thing that I thought of, and it's funny because I think we started this whole process with number three, is even before we go ahead and charge the couriers and if you decide, you know, you're representing yourself now, we can certainly talk in the context of the courier case about a global cell of all of your other crimes. I mean, so this is sort of my thought going forward, and, you know, look, I haven't worked at every detail here, and we've talked about it, and we figured it'd be worthwhile getting your input on it, but, you know, I know that in the past, you said you'd think that they're all related to some of these crimes, you know, for you, right. But maybe there's a way, right now, to kind of say, all right, you know, all the other crimes aside from the charge one, there's a way to get our needs and what do we want on the table, and sort of reach a agreement in principle about these other crimes, and that would be the kind of help to get Vermont to sign off on this, is we'd say, look, we've got a global settlement in which case he's going to eventually tell us about some of these other crimes, as long as he's charged in Alaska. In addition, you know, I know you've said that you want, you know, the imposition of the death penalty and quickly, that's obviously your goal is, you know, I don't have an opinion on that, but to the extent that you decide to think about this plan, it's possible right now to give main justice in the CCU Memorandum of the Courier case, information about your other crimes, that they'll have full information, that they have to treat confidentially, which is going to get, I think, their attention. So you're saying it would be a public indictment, public hearing, obviously, on the couriers, but then there would be other things that were added to it, information that would be added to it. Yeah. I mean, the public? Yeah. The confidential information to CCU, that capital crimes memo would be, and, you know, we could work about the level of detail we provide in that, to go to main justice with regard to the death penalty. evaluation. That document is a confidential document. Now obviously you know look at the back end of this we have to you know worry about what you have to worry about what will be disclosed in court and I know that's a concern of yours so we have to obviously work out those details but it may give you more speed if we provide them full information I know early on we talk to you about all right look context of the carrier case so the more you've done the more compelling a case it is for the attorney general right so this is what I can think about it over the past couple days I'm trying to get input on and you know I thought it was best to get your input on it and see if something like this might be workable and what details I have to build into the plan on in the context of the carrier case well how is it that they even have any evidence on me for the couriers because it's all your evidence yeah well I know you have as my interviews basically they have that they obviously were participating in in some of the interviews wrong so they certainly can exert some political pressure you know think about that's going like you know to the media and saying hey well you know we're we're ready to charge these couriers but the fence in Alaska won't give us the evidence you know kind of creating a stir within the department of justice on that that's sort of a just a political thing but you know they also have people in in you know state court and FBI is just locally revolving you know covering the gun right so you know look yeah we can sit there fight them on that I think it's gonna be a losing battle because you know in the end they're gonna sort of set up these poor courier the family is there some sort of resolution here what we got to say to them like sorry courier family you know we have the evidence and when I really have it it's tough it's tough shelf move on for perspective well not considering that there's still ongoing investigations concerning me yeah I mean but I don't know what they're gonna say like they haven't found anything at the dump so they can tell the family whatever they want really they don't they haven't come up with any information on their own all they have is what we've talked yeah hey look and anonymous we appealed to their sense of fairness on that right in fact that was the whole purpose behind getting that one you know letter we got on my slab here is like look hey you know if it was the one you know with the idea towards helping other families have closure you know we'll ask you to hold off right but again you know this was conditioned upon you know the New York body and things like that that you were a told us you want to kind of hold close to the best for some other purpose down the road right we can maybe talk about those purposes of why you want to hold those things close to the vest in the context of maybe a global settlement or case and maybe you know look I think they're those things are valuable now in the context of the death memo that goes to capital crimes so in some ways we're you know you'd be losing some of the value of what you want by holding those back because they're not gonna get full information on you in that capital crimes memo and after lots of push back explanation and reassurances Israel seemed amenable to plan B and he started spilling more details on other crimes specifically in Washington where he could get the death penalty this is where he admitted to murdering people on his boat in western Washington which led to the boat search which resulted in finding blood spatter and bone fragment and the case started heating back up again and then everything went to hell you're watching first at five pure evil is how federal prosecutor Triscoff and describes Israel keys the only suspect in the June 2011 abduction in murders of Bill and Lorraine courier of Essex Vermont this episode was written produced and researched by me your host Josh Hallmark this episode featured music by William Hellfire radical face wife Sergei Cherimissanov Westy reflector and Amy man I was undecided like you at first but I couldn't stop the tide of overwhelm and first you try to keep it going but a lot of bad news just are open to you winning never sounded so good what would you do if you weren't big at crown coins casino real people win real prices every single day visit crowncoins.com sign up at seconds intercode crown and get a free lucky wheel bonus you may win at the 10,000 sweeps coins crowncoins.com that's c-r-o-w-n coins.com no purchase needed code valve for new users on board were prohibited by law 18-plus terms and addition supply