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Keith Hunter Jesperson, who is infamously known as The Happy Face Killer, is confirmed to have killed at least eight women across California, Florida, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming between 1990 and 1995. For five years he got away with murders until one mistake, which led him to turn himself in as the Happy Face Killer.
Jesperson was known as the Happy Face Killer because he would sign his confessions after committing murders with smiley faces and his story will be explored on the Paramount+ show Happy Face. Told from the perspective of Jesperson's daughter Melissa Moore, the series premiered today on March 20, 2025.
How many confirmed murders did Keith Hunter Jesperson commit?
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Keith Hunter Jesperson is known to have committed his first known murder in January 1990 when he sexually assaulted, tortured, and strangled 23-year-old Taunja Bennett to death. He met Bennett at a bar in Portland, brought her back to his house, killed her, and dumped her body near Columbia Gorge.
Jesperson initially got away with the murder and continued meeting, raping, and murdering women for another four years and acquired the moniker, Happy Face Killer after he wrote an anonymous confession letter on a bathroom wall in a Montana bus terminal and signed it with a smiley face. He regularly sent letters to newspapers confessing to other murders and signed each of them with a happy face.
Jesperson killed three women in 1992 and four more in 1993. He eventually had to turn himself in for murdering his girlfriend, Julie Ann Winningham. Jesperson had strangled her and left her body by the side of a state road. When investigators got involved and came across his name, he admitted to his crime. Jesperson also confessed to killing Bennett, his first victim, claiming that he wanted to come clean and get it all over with by setting his record straight.
Apart from Bennett and Winningham, the other six known victims of Keith Hunter Jesperson are Cynthia Lyn Rose in Turlock, California, Patricia Skiple in Gilroy, California, Suzanne Kjellenberg near Holt, Laurie Ann Pentland in Salem, Angela May Subrize in Laramie County, and Jane Doe, whom he referred to as "Claudia" near Blythe.
All about the sentencing of Keith Hunter Jesperson
Jesperson is estranged from his daughter Melissa Moore, who says she doesn't want to keep any connection with her serial killer father. She told ABC News:
"I don't want my dad to get into the psyche of my children and hurt them in any way because he is manipulative. He is a psychopath. He has the potential, still, to hurt, even if not with physical violence or murder, but with his words."
Jesperson himself commented to The Independent in February 2024 that he is still being investigated for other murders that he claims not to have committed. He had offered his DNA to rule himself out as a suspect in open cases.
He has said:
"I don't need murders I didn't commit being pinned to me just because," he explained. "I don't need to be made to be even more of a monster than I already am."
Keith Hunter Jesperson is currently serving several life sentences for the murders he committed. He was given three consecutive life sentences which he is currently serving at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem.
Catch Happy Face on Paramount Plus for more about one of the most notorious killers of all time.
