Israel Keyes Update: Family pastor says murder suspect ranted at sister's wedding

By: Crimesider Staff
Topics: 911 ,; Daily Blotter

This undated photo provided by the FBI shows Israel Keyes. Keyes committed suicide in an Alaska jailhouse Sunday, leaving behind an incomplete picture of a loner who traveled the country for more than a decade, picking victims at random and methodically killing them.

/ AP Photo/FBI

(AP) ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A Texas pastor says an Alaska murder suspect who confessed to targeting people across the country ranted at his sister's March wedding about how he didn't believe in God.

Pictures: Man charged in Alaska barista's death kills self, cops say

Israel Keyes told authorities he killed Anchorage barista Samantha Koenig and at least seven others over the past decade. He was found dead last Sunday in his Anchorage jail cell after he killed himself.

Pastor Jacob Gardner told an Alaska newspaper that he was traveling with Keyes' mother and other relatives for the killer's funeral Sunday in Deer Park, Wash.

Gardner says Keyes attended a sister's wedding in March in Texas, where he ranted about how he didn't believe in God. That would have been shortly before his arrest.

The pastor says some of the preaching there had targeted Keyes to get him to "denounce his atheism." But Gardner says the ceremony ended with Keyes raging against God.

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