MELISSA Moore was aged just 15 when she found a roll of duct tape tucked under her dad’s pillow.
She was sat in the sleeping cub of his lorry along with her sister and at the time didn’t think anything sinister of it, only that it was a bit weird.
Melissa Moore was 15 when she discovered her dad was a serial killer[/caption]
She recalls a happy childhood – but a dark secret was hidden underneath[/caption]
Melissa’s parents, Rose and Keith, had broken up four years earlier and her dad who was a long-haul lorry driver who often slept in his vehicle.
The next morning, while having breakfast in a cheap restaurant, Keith came close to confessing the true reason for the tape.
Melissa remembers he told her: “Not everything is what it appears to be, Missy.” And I said, “What do you mean Dad?”
He said: “You know, I have something to tell you, and it’s really important.”
She told the BBC that there was a long silence before asking him what it was. “I can’t tell you, sweetie. If I tell you, you will tell the police. I’m not what you think I am, Melissa,” he replied.
Her dad, Keith Hunter Jesperson, had already murdered multiple women by this point, using his lorry to pick them up.
Now Melissa believes he was on the verge of confessing, before realising what he would have to do to her to keep his sadistic crimes secret.
“He was on the verge of telling me and had he told me and I was alone with him, he would’ve had to drive me back to school,” she told People.
“And I don’t think he would’ve driven me back to school, I think he would’ve regretted telling me and would’ve had to resolve the problem, which would be to end my life.”
The Canadian-born lorry driver is now known to have killed at least eight women across the US between 1990 and 1995.
Upon his arrest, he claimed to have killed as many as 185 and was branded the Happy Face Killer.
A Happy Home
Melissa recalls her early childhood in Washington being happy, living in the countryside with her two siblings, stay-at-home mum and her dad – who was often away.
When Keith did come back from his time on the road, she and her siblings rushed to greet him, as she explained she felt ‘loved, provided for and adored.’
But when Melissa was just 11 years old, her parents had split up with her mum later telling NBC she became suspicious of him when random women began calling the home.
Melissa left Keith and moved herself and their three children into her mum’s house to get away from him.
But Melissa still loved the dad who tucked her in at night ‘like a burrito’.
She and her siblings would still regularly see him when he wasn’t working.
Keith Hunter Jesperson who would be known as the Happy face killer pictured with Melissa[/caption]
HOW YOU CAN GET HELP:
Women’s Aid has this advice for victims and their families
- Always keep your phone nearby.
- Get in touch with charities for help, including the Women’s Aid live chat helpline and services such as SupportLine.
- If you are in danger, call 999.
- Familiarise yourself with the Silent Solution, reporting abuse without speaking down the phone, instead dialing “55”.
- Always keep some money on you, including change for a pay phone or bus fare.
- If you suspect your partner is about to attack you, try to go to a lower-risk area of the house – for example, where there is a way out and access to a telephone.
- Avoid the kitchen and garage, where there are likely to be knives or other weapons. Avoid rooms where you might become trapped, such as the bathroom, or where you might be shut into a cupboard or other small space.
If you are a victim of domestic abuse, SupportLine is open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 6pm to 8pm on 01708 765200. The charity’s email support service is open weekdays and weekends during the crisis – messageinfo@supportline.org.uk.
Women’s Aid provides a live chat service – available weekdays from 8am-6pm and weekends 10am-6pm.
You can also call the freephone 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247.
Warning Signs
Despite doting on her dad as a young girl, she recalled there was warning signs of Keith’s cold nature.
She recalled being five years old and finding kittens in the cellar of their house and deciding to play with them.
I remembered his enjoyment as I screamed and pleaded with him to take them down.
Melissa Moore
But her dad snatched them from her, before hanging them from the washing line as she begged him to stop.
Instead of listening to his daughter’s cries, he carried on. She would later go on to find the cats murdered and hidden in the garden.
“I remembered his enjoyment as I screamed and pleaded with him to take them down,” she said.
Melissa also said her dad killed their pet dog by beating its head in right in front of her. “I didn’t like to remember that,” she told CNN.
But his violence against animals wasn’t the only red flag. As Melissa became a teenager, her dad began telling her details about his sex life – making her squirm.
He would describe in graphic detail sleeping with her mother, despite them being separated, and make inappropriate sexual remarks to women in the street in front of her.
Keith often picked women up in his truck before raping and strangling them[/caption]
String of Murders
Just a few months after that memorable breakfast in 1995, Keith was arrested and charged with murder.
As her mum told the kids what he was in prison for, Melissa sobbed, torn between wanting a dad and knowing what he had done was wrong.
The first murder Keith committed was in 1990, the year he and his wife Rose divorced.
Would he have killed me if I had told the police about his crimes? Yes, he would.
Melissa Moore
When he confessed, Jesperson revealed he took Taunja Bennett home and attempted to have sex with her.
But an altercation occurred and he hit her over the head.
Knowing he didn’t want to go to prison, Jepherson continued to attack her until she was dead.
In a sick twist, he then hid her body and returned to the bar he met her to carry on drinking.
Later, it was found that he had raped Taunja and strangled her to death.
As if murdering women wasn’t enough, when a couple were mistakenly charged with the murder he began to leave the police and media anonymous notes.
His “confessions” were scribbled in the toilets of truck stops and bus stations, signed with a smiley face – hence being known as the Happy Face Killer.
Keith also wrote letters to the Oregonian newspaper confessing to multiple murders.
In one letter he wrote: “I would like to tell my story! I am a good person at times? I always wanted to be liked … I always have wanted to be noticed … so I started something I don’t know how to stop.”
He has killed at least eight women during his five year killing spree, some of whom have never been identified, but confessed to killing 185.
His second known victim, known only as Claudia, was murdered in August 1992. He met her at a lorry stop and gave her a ride, before duct-tapping her mouth and hands, raping and strangling her.
Sex worker Cynthia Lyn Rose was also murdered in his lorry just a month later.
In November of that year, he killed Laurie Ann Pentland, reportedly because she tried to double charge him for sex.
His other known victims included a 21-year-old woman called Angela who he gave a lift to in January 1995, and 41-year-old Julia Ann Winningham, who was his last victim in March of that year.
Justice Served
When he was arrested, Jepherson denied murder to police but confessed in a letter to his brother, who sent the evidence over to prosecutors.
Once charged, Keith entered a plea deal to avoid the death penalty and served consecutive life sentences.
And he hasn’t been shy in talking to the media once he was caught.
“It became a nonchalant type thing, because I got away with it. It is everything like shoplifting. You’re breaking the law but you’re getting away with it. And so, there’s a thrill of getting away with it,” he told ABC news.
After his conviction, Melissa took one last piece of advice from her dad, to change her last name so she had no connection to him.
“Missy, you need to change your last name,” he told her in prison. Melissa went on to take her husband’s surname and now has nothing to do with her father.
She said that for years she grappled with his crimes and his role as a dad who was seemingly capable of love and empathy.
But that all changed after she had a conversation with her grandfather.
He told Melissa: “You know, I went to visit your dad in prison, and he said something that surprised me. He said that he had had thoughts of killing you children.”
It was then she knew her dad was nothing more than a monster, and knew if he had confessed to the murders over that breakfast, she would have ended up his next victim.
“Would he have killed me if I had told the police about his crimes? Yes, he would,” she said.
