Israel Keyes: Alaska serial killer writings include disturbing poetry

By: Crimesider Staff
Topics: Daily Blotter

Handwritten notes found under Alaska serial killer Israel Keyes' body after he killed himself contained poetry about superficiality and consumerism in American society, along with disturbing ramblings about an unnamed victim under his control.

/ FBI/CBS

(CBS/AP) ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Handwritten notes found under Alaska serial killer Israel Keyes' body after he killed himself contained poetry about superficiality and consumerism in American society, along with disturbing ramblings about an unnamed victim under his control.

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

But the writings contained no specific details about his crimes and no information useful in the investigation, such as the names of additional victims, the FBI said Wednesday in releasing the notes.

The writings, obtained by CBS affiliate KTVA can been seen here. They were on a yellow legal pad found underneath Keyes, who slit his wrist December 2, 2012 in his Anchorage jail cell using the blade of a disposable razor that he had embedded in a pencil. He also had strangled himself with a bedsheet.

The notes were at first too bloody to read, so they were sent to an FBI laboratory in Virginia and restored.

The FBI determined Keyes left behind no code or hidden message in his writings. The agency offered no commentary on their meaning.

The first two pages of the sometimes illegible words make reference to U.S. colonizing and consuming.

"Land of the free, home of the lie, land of the scheme, Americanize! Consume what you don't need, stars you idolize, pursue what you adore it is a dream, then its American die," Keyes wrote.

The final two pages are far darker, referencing a person under his control, the person's obvious fear, and inevitable doom.

"You are my love at first sight, and though you're scared to be near me, my words penetrate your thought now in an intimate prelude," Keyes wrote.

Keyes, 34, was set for a March trial in federal court in the abduction and killing of 18-year-old Anchorage barista Samantha Koenig.

She was abducted at gunpoint from a coffee stand just before closing time on Feb. 1, 2012. Investigators concluded she was raped and strangled. Her body was left in a shed outside Keyes' Anchorage home for two weeks while he went on a cruise.

Keyes was arrested in March in Lufkin, Texas. He had sought a ransom and used Koenig's debit card.

Three weeks after the arrest, Koenig's dismembered body was found in a frozen lake north of Anchorage.

Before he died, Keyes confessed to the killings of at least seven others in other states, including Bill and Lorraine Currier of Essex, Vt., in 2011. Under questioning by investigators, he also alluded to other possible victims.

Koenig and the Curriers were the only victims named by Keyes.

Keyes was in state custody in Anchorage because there are no federal prisons in Alaska.

Complete coverage of Israel Keyes on Crimesider