Thursday, February 7, 2013

Israel Keye's Rambling Poetic Suicide Note

Serial killer Israel Keyes’ blood smeared suicide letter is a creepy ode to murder in which he clearly enjoys killing his victims and expresses his disgust with peoples’ everyday lives.

“You may have been free, you loved loving your lie, fate had its own scheme, crushed like a bug you still die,” Keyes wrote.

At another point he writes about the “nervous laugh as it burst like a pulse of blood from your throat. There will be no more laughter here.”

The arrest of Keyes, 34, on March 12, 2012 for the murder of Alaskan barista Samantha Koenig ended more than a decade of traveling around the country to find victims to kill or to prepare for future crimes by burying murder kits of weapons, cash and tools to dispose of bodies. Since March he had been slowly telling police about his hidden life and how he operated. But the tale abruptly ended when Keyes committed suicide in his jail cell on Dec. 1.

Police are now left trying to fill in the details of his vicious life. Police believe he killed between 8 and 12 people, including Koenig, but only three victims have been definitively tied to Keyes so far.

The FBI released Keyes’ four-page document today describing it as “a combination of pencil and ink on yellow legal pad.” The pages were discovered under Keyes’ body, “illegible and covered in blood,” the FBI said.

The papers were sent to an FBI laboratory in Virginia for processing and the FBI was able to restore the notes to a mostly legible condition for review and analysis.

“The FBI concluded there was no hidden code or message in the writings,” the FBI said in a news release today. “Further, it was determined that the writings do not offer any investigative clues or leads as to the identity of other possible victims.”

The FBI said it would not offer any commentary as the meaning of the writings, but the chillingly morbid writings speak for themselves.

Keyes seems to refer to his victim as a “pretty captive butterfly.” He describes what appears to be the victim’s final moments:

“Now that I have you held tight I will tell you a story, speak soft in your ear so you know that it’s true. You’re my love at first sight and though you’re scared to be near me, my words penetrate your thoughts now in an intimate prelude.

“I looked in your eyes, they were so dark, warm and trusting, as though you had not a worry or care. The more guiless the game the better potential to fill up those pools with your fear.

“Your face framed in dark curls like a portrait, the sun shone through highlights of red. What color I wonder, and how straight will it turn plastered back with the sweat of your blood.

“Your wet lips were a promise of a secret unspoken, nervous laugh as it burst like a pulse of blood from your throat. There will be no more laughter here.”

Keyes also criticized elements of daily life including waiting to die in retirement homes, watching reality television shows, vanity and going to a mindless job.

“Land of the free, land of the lie, land of scheme Americanize!” he wrote twice as a refrain. “Consume what you don’t need, stars you idolize, pursue what you admit is a dream, then it’s American die.”

“It’s certainly not an ordinary suicide note,” Dr. Phil Resnick, director of forensic psychiatry at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, told ABCNews.com after looking at the writings.

“He doesn’t talk much about his own dilemmas of being in prison or why he’s taking his own life,” Resnick said. “It’s more of a final statement of contempt for the American style of life and I think the other thing he emphasizes is his own superiority, that he has guile and can take advantage of people who are naive and trusting of him.”

Dr. Stephen Montgomery, a forensic psychiatrist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, said the writings show intelligence and a clear understanding that Keyes knows his behavior was wrong.

“He’s writing this so that people will find it and talk about it and further magnify his own self worth,” Montgomery told ABCNews.com. “And, of course, it has no remorse, no regard for human life or the victims and that fits with that type of psychopathic personality.”

Montgomery also said the notes were reminiscent of a famous movie killer, “The butterflies and moths sort of evoke ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ type of killer.”

Keyes ends the writings with the haunting lines, “Okay, talk is over, words are placid and weak. Back it with action or it all comes off cheap. Watch close while I work now, feel the electric shock of my touch, open your trembling flower, or your petals I’ll crush.”

The FBI said they continue to work closely with state and local law enforcement agencies across the country to identify other Keyes victims.


Israel Keye's Rambling Poetic Suicide Note

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