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Samantha Koenig was an 18-year-old barista from Anchorage, Alaska, who was last seen leaving her workplace on February 1, 2012. She worked at the Common Grounds Espresso coffee shop when an unknown man seemingly abducted her. It was later discovered that serial killer Israel Keyes had abducted and later killed her.
The FBI and the Alaskan police were involved in looking for Samantha and they soon discovered the extent of Keyes' crimes. The investigation led them from the wilderness of Alaska to the forests of Washington's Olympic National Park and rural Vermont.
As the investigation progressed, they discovered that after kidnapping Samantha Koenig, Keyes kept her in a shed outside his house where he s*xually assaulted her. He kept her captive in the shed for one day before killing her.
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Hulu's latest docuseries Wild Crimes: Eleven Skulls premiered on Thursday, December 5, 2024, and it looks into Keyes and his crimes. The series has never-seen-before footage as well as in-depth interviews with those involved in Israel Keyes' capture and conviction. These include investigators from the FBI, Anchorage PD police officers, and expert profilers from the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.
The night Samantha Koenig went missing
Samantha Koenig was an 18-year-old high school student who worked part-time jobs, including working as a barista at a coffee kiosk in Anchorage, Alaska. On the day she went missing, her boyfriend, Duane Tortolani was supposed to pick her up. However, when he reached the kiosk and found her missing, he informed her family.
Samantha's family then filed a missing person's report with the local police, who initially thought that Samantha had decided to leave for some time. However, when they saw CCTV footage from the kiosk, they realized that the teen had been abducted.
They saw a masked man reach the kiosk window when Samantha was supposed to shut it down. He said something to her before trying to grab her through the window. The unknown man then asked her to empty the cash register at gunpoint before taking her with him.
As they continued the investigation, the police discovered that Samantha had been kidnapped by Israel Keyes, who was later found to be a prolific serial killer.
The ransom demand and Israel Keyes' arrest
Samantha Koenig was abducted on February 1, 2012, and her family received an extortion letter in the second week of February. The abductor demanded that the family deposit $30,000 into Samantha's account. He left the letter at a local park along with a picture of the teen holding a newspaper dated February 13, 2012. This gave her family hope that she was still alive.
As the family deposited the money into Samantha's account, police began tracing the ATM withdrawals made using her card. The transactions were spread across several states, leading the police on a cross-country chase. However, they managed to identify a car that was connected to all the withdrawals, a white Ford Focus.
Texas Highway Patrol stopped a car matching that description on March 13, 2012, and found the driver to be 34-year-old Israel Keyes, a resident of Anchorage, Alaska. Police found several pieces of incriminating evidence inside the car, including a ski mask and Samantha's debit card.
While Keyes initially denied involvement in the kidnapping of Samantha Koenig, he soon confessed and revealed the details of his crimes. He told them that he had killed at least three other people in different states.
Keyes' crimes revealed
During his confession, Keyes revealed that he had planned Samantha Koenig's abduction a long time ago after he passed her coffee stand and saw her work. After abducting her, he took her to his house and kept her in the shed outside where he r*ped her and killed her the next day.
Before killing her, Keyes used Samantha's phone to text her boyfriend and forced her to give him her ATM pin so he could withdraw money from her account.
The day after he killed her, he and his family went on a cruise, returning on February 13, 2012. He used makeup to make it look like Samantha was alive and sewed her eyes open to stage the ransom picture.
After placing the letter in the park, he chopped up her body and dropped the pieces through the frozen surface of Matanuska Lake.
The investigators later connected Keyes to several other unsolved murders across the country. He is believed to have killed 11 people, making him one of the most prolific killers in recent history.
While Keyes was set to go on trial for Samantha Koenig's murder, his trial was delayed and he ended up taking his own life on December 2, 2012, in his jail cell.
Wild Crime: Eleven Skulls is available for streaming on Hulu.
