This is a studio both and production.

Do you think over the years.

Any of any of the people that you were with, Kimberly or whoever, or Cammy or whoever before, do you think any of them had any any ideas.

About about the other side of you.

I imagine twenty twenty hindsight, you might remember some stuff, but I don't can't remember any time where where there was any question as to what I was or who I was.

Maybe questions about where you were, but not necessarily there were some questions about where I had been, but I always, like I say, I usually.

Planning things so that I had I don't know.

They sounded like good reasons excuses to me, and nobody ever really called me on.

So.

So was there a relationship between Tammy and Kimberly?

Not really, just.

There was a little bit of drama at one point, but no, there wasn't a relationship.

Was just that somebody in Washington.

You said, you're asking if they knew each other?

No, no, no, I'm asking who it is somebody else?

Cause yeah, for a while, who was uh uh?

Her name was Denise.

She lived in she had a family in Nia Bay and she lived in U can't don't by Sea Tark or something.

This is true crime bullshit.

I'm your host, Josh Hallmark, and this is a serialized story of Israel Keys.

There are a startling number of missing persons cases involving car crashes in Washington and its bordering states.

And when you consider Keys' references to the book, intensity notes in his suicide letter, and the many many tips from drivers claiming that Keys tried to run them off of the road, it's completely reasonable to take a closer look at some of these cases, specifically three, the most notable of which is the case of Leah Roberts.

Lea disappeared from Wotcombe County in Washington in two thousand.

In fact, local law enforcement even reached out to me to see if it was possible that Keys could have been involved in her disappearance.

And, as I find myself saying quite frequently these days, with Keys, anything is possible.

However, in this case, it's highly unlikely because at the time of Lea's disappearance, Keys was in the army stationed in Egypt.

However, again, with Keys, highly unlikely, isn't necessarily exculpatory.

Keyes did earn thirty days of vacation per year while serving in the army, and that vacation was use it or lose it, meaning it's quite likely that Keys was making the most of his vacation time since he'd otherwise lose it all at the end of the fiscal year.

And we know Keyes had a history of abusing his paid time off.

For the five and a half months that Keyes was in Egypt, he would have accrued about fourteen or fifteen days of vacation, and unfortunately, there's no available records of Keyes' time off while on active duty in Egypt.

Leo Roberts was last seen on March first of two thousand.

Her car was discovered on March eighteenth, abandoned along an old logging road in rural Wockcom County, about eighty five miles north of Seattle.

Her jeep had clearly been in some sort of accident when it was discovered with significant front end damage in an embankment off the highway.

At the time of her disappearance, Leo was on a cross country road trip with her kitten following the death of her parents.

Authorities found a gas receipt in her car, which placed her in Brooks, Oregon at a around midnight on March thirteenth.

They also found a movie theater ticket stub placing her in Bellingham, Washington, three hundred miles north of Brooks.

Later that afternoon, searches of her abandoned car yielded no signs of Lea or her cat, although they did find cat food, a cat carrier, twenty five hundred dollars hidden in a pair of pants, and blankets covering the car's broken windows.

There are many theories that Leah walked away from the accident.

However, it seems unlikely she'd leave behind all that cash and take her cat but not its carrier.

On the same token, it seems if foul play were involved, that cash would have been stolen.

There were, however, eyewitnesses who claimed that a man was seen following Leah as she left a diner in the days preceding the discovery of her car.

Additionally, there were no bose signs that Leah had been in the car when it crashed.

Upon further searches of Leo's car, investigators found that a starter relay had been cut.

Cutting this would make it possible for the car to accelerate without use of the gas pedal.

An unknown fingerprint was also discovered on the hood of the car.

Shortly after the discovery of Leo's car, investigators received an anonymous call from a man claiming to have seen Leah after the accident.

He said she looked disoriented and confused, but when police pressed further, the man hung up and the mysterious caller he was never identified.

Now, according to Israel Keys, he didn't murder anyone while in the army.

However, we also know that Keys liked to play word games, and perhaps he never murdered anyone while he was on active duty or stationed in the army.

But we can't even place Keys in the United States at the time of Lea's disappearance.

He left for Egypt two months before her car was discovered.

But we do know that Keys worked on cars and would likely know which wires to cut to immobilize or mess with a car.

Additionally, Keys is known to have stalked his victims, and it seems very likely that someone was following Leah at the time of her car accident.

The area Leah disappeared from is also one Keys knew well and could easily return to from Tacoma, Calville, and even Nia Bay, and many of Key's weird references in a suicide note are very similar to Leah's disappearance, a car accident, a young woman with brown hair, and most notably, a line that's mostly illegible due to Israel's bloodstains but ends with a reference to a victim's pet.

I personally don't think Keys was involved in Lea's disappearance, but there's enough similarities to his mo O that it's worth exploring, in addition to several other similar missing persons cases involving car accidents or staged car accidents.

Kenneth Adrian Greth was last seen on July eighth of two thousand and two in Grant's Pass, Oregon.

Little is known about his disappearance, including the exact date he disappeared.

It is believed Kenneth had a meth problem when he disappeared, and there were rumors he could have been murdered.

Seven years after he was reported missing, his nineteen eighty one nine geo metro was found at the bottom of a ravine in the Rogue River Siskiyo National Forest, about twenty five miles west of Grant's Pass.

Much like Lea's car, all the windows were broken out and the keys were still in the ignition.

Additionally, the tires were all flat, and again, as with Leah, there were no signs that Kenneth or anyone was actually in the car at the time of the car crash.

Keyes was living five hundred forty miles away in Nia Bay at the time of Kenneth's disappearance, and there's no available information regarding Key's whereabouts at any point in July of two thousand and two.

However, July seventh, eighth, and ninth are all dates that come up multiple times on the name is forty four, so it's clear Keys was looking for something that occurred that first week of July.

Interestingly, there are about fifty five unsolved missing persons cases between July two thousand and February of two thousand seven from Washington State in its surrounding areas that match Keys's mo and occurred while Keys was in the area.

Of those fifty five, seven people disappeared along with their cars from within fifteen miles of Grant's Pass.

Six of those seven cars were eventually recovered, all in remote areas, five of which had incurred significant damage.

Thomas Randall Hedgecock was last seen on Monday, May twenty four of two thousand four in Filer, Idaho.

He left his house at approximately ten thirty that evening to attend a barbecue and hasn't been seen or heard from since.

On May thirty first, his truck was found at the bottom of an embankment along the Snake River between Phyler and Wendell, Idaho.

Again, there was no evidence that anyone had been in the car when it went off the road, and much like in both Leah's and Kenneth's cases, there was no blood at the scene, nor were there any footprints nearby, and authorities again suspected foul play.

All we know about Israel's life during May of two thousand and four is that he and Tammy had just split up and he was still working for the Macaw in Nia Bay.

Phyler is approximately eight hundred miles from Nia Bay, but only five hundred from mop In, Oregon, and three hundred fifty miles from Green River, Wyoming.

I mentioned Green River because Thomas disappeared just three months following Key's first trip there.

The drive from Mopin to Green River takes you directly through the area where Thomas disappeared and where his car was eventually recovered, and maps of this specific region of Idaho were discovered in Key's home.

Following his arrest, As I mentioned in episode eleven, I started looking into car accidents after Israel mentioned he staged one of his victims to look like an accidental death.

But pretty quickly into my car research, I hit a excuse the pun roadblock when I tried searching for similar area accidents where a body was discovered in the wreckage, I was understandably overwhelmed.

It turns out Washington State has the eighth highest rate of traffic related deaths in the country.

Narrowing my searches down to rural area as Keys was known to frequent or pass through, well, that didn't help much either, especially and somewhat sadly, since most cases where a body is found in a wrecked car are generally written off as accidental and not investigated.

So if Keys did in fact stage his one recovered victim to look like a car wreck, we'll probably never know who that victim was.

But there were two mysterious deaths that took place in areas Keys was known to frequent during his time in Nia Bay and both strongly match Keys's known mos Fifty seven year old Wendell Harris disappeared in two thousand and six, sometime between the afternoon of March thirty first, when he was last seen teaching a class at Olympic College in Polsbo, Washington, and the morning of April first, when he failed to return to work at Olympic College.

His black nineteen ninety five Chevy Tahoe disappeared with him.

A search of his home found no apparent signs of foul play.

Prior to his disappearance, neighbors said Harris had talked about going hiking somewhere in Kitsap County or on the Olympic Peninsula.

On April twelfth, hikers found Wendell's body in the soul Duck area of the Olympic National Park.

His exact cause of death is unknown, but his death was eventually declared accidental.

His car was found in a parking lot one mile from his body.

Interestingly, Keys had camped in the soul Duck area of the park many times, both prior to and following Harris's death.

Harris's body was discovered just four miles from where a man reported that he found a murder kit while hiking, and then eventually threw that murder kit into a nearby embankment.

Keys can't be placed anywhere on either March thirty first or April first.

His last known whereabouts prior to Harris's disappearance are on an eastbound ferry from Kingston, Washington to Edmonds on March thirtieth.

He can't be placed anywhere again until April third, where he was working on a construction project in Everett, Washington.

But it's the second mysterious death that rang alarm bells for me, so much so that I ended up in a rental car driving across Washington State to a remote island near Yakima.

Alice Ida Looney was last seen in Wapato, Washington, during the early morning hours of August seventeen, two thousand four.

Alice was a member of the Yakama tribal nation, and Wapato, where she lived and disappeared from, is part of the existing Yakama Indian Reservation and tribal lands.

There isn't a lot of information about Alice's disappearance, other than references to it in stories covering the many disappearances and unsolved murders of Yakama women.

We do know that she was reported missing in the days following her last known sighting.

Alice remained missing for over a year until November thirty of two thousand and five, when her body was discovered by a hunter.

Alice's body had been wedged under a tree on a small island in Sadus Creek, about twenty miles south of Wapato.

In two thousand and six, the US Department of Justice launched a review of unsolved and suspicious deaths, paying close attention to the missing and murdered Indigenous women of Yakima.

In this review, the FBI listed Alice's cause of death as inconclusive, and no apparent investigation was conducted unto her death thereafter.

In fact, none of her friends or family were ever even interviewed during or following the Department of Justice inquiry.

There were a few things about Alice's case that struck me initially.

First was the location.

Wapato is one hundred twenty miles from Moppin and lies en route to Moppin from both Na Bay and Callville.

Well, It's also just a ninety minute drive from James's father's house in Moses Lake, and as I'm sure you'll recall, there were several times where Keys drove James to his father's house from Nia Bay on his way to allegedly visit friends and family.

I could always think of some excuse.

I at the time still had ties in eastern Washington, so.

It was.

Pretty easy to say, you know, I'm just going to go over to eastern Washington to check on the old place.

Go see, go to and so.

And when you say ties, did you have a family living there?

Or friends friends?

So go and visit so and so right and be gone for a few days, military friends or now like child child friends.

There's no known whereabouts for Keys on August sixteenth or seventeenth.

It is worth remembering, since it doesn't come up nearly enough on this podcast, that Keys did have a nine to five job while living in Na Bay, which means that even when he can't be accounted for, it's safe to assume that Mondays through Fridays, he was likely working for the Macaw tribe.

It's something he even brings up in his interviews.

Washington was a lot easier in a lot of ways, because once I lived out in Nia Bay, I knew all of Washington pretty well, and except I was so isolated out there.

Once you drive Passport Angelis, it's like.

Here in a new world.

Anyways, what's that whole parts?

A whole set mountains right there right that seperate in thea Bay.

Yeah, the Olympic Well there the Olympic Grange.

There's mountains.

You don't really have to go over any mountain pass.

Is there anything to Seattle right right not to get there?

Is that parkland or oh?

Yeah?

Out of this area?

Yeah, there was.

Once I had the boat.

It was.

By then I was.

Pretty much coasting in my job, so I would take off for long weekends.

You know, my accountability was pretty low at that time.

That's right.

Keyes generally took long weekends while committing crimes in Washington State.

Alice disappeared between Sunday night and Monday morning.

And remember when Keyes was asking investigators whether Ellensburg, Washington was part of the Eastern or western federal jurisdiction.

Well, Wapato is fifty miles due south of Ellensburg, and so I drove to where Alice's body was found.

Alice's body was found in Granger, Washington, a rural and remote area on the edge of the Yakama Reservation, just about equidistant between Yakama City and Kennewick, Washington.

The land she was found on is just off Highway twenty two and Sadis Longhouse Road.

It's public land.

And keep in mind the federal message that they talked about the National Park.

We have to do some research on that.

We could do that.

Just give give, give me a couple of lakes.

Washington is I don't even remember.

I mean, I know all the places I went, and I know that they are all public areas, but I don't know.

Which ones were state which federal.

I don't know.

I never really paid that much attention.

After turning on to Sadus Longhouse Road from Highway twenty two, if you take the first possible turn onto a public road, and then your first possible turn onto a dirt hunting road, it'll take you straight to the island where her remains were recovered.

About one thousand feet down that same hunting trail is an abandoned service station.

More interesting than that, though, is that it's about eighty feet from that hunting trail to the island, and along that stretch of eighty feet is an old outhouse.

We know that in the case of the recovered victim, Keys ran out of time and had to get rid of the remains quickly.

He staged the body in a way that would make the death look accidental.

We also know that the body was recovered some time after the murder took place, and that Keys wasn't certain how long after, because there wasn't much press or information about the recovery or the ensuing investigation.

We also know that Key's very first attack occurred in an outhouse along a river.

Additionally, Keyes knew murders of Native women on tribal lands would fall within the jurisdiction of tribal police, and Keys was well acquainted with the jurisdictional issues between the FBI, local law enforcement, and tribal police.

Beyond that, there are three striking pieces of information that came from an interview with Denise, a woman Keys briefly dated, between Kimberly and Tammy, and from an interview with Keyes's former boss.

According to Denise, who Keys was dating in two thousand and four, he drove alone to eastern Washington for a three day weekend at some point in August, most notably from her statement is that he was driving a white Sedan she had never seen before, and when she asked him about the car, he said it was a car he used specifically for traveling.

When she saw him about a week later, he had changed his entire appearance.

He'd cut his previously long hair and grew a mustache.

And this was somewhat corroborated by Keyes's boss, who told investigators that Keys had called out sick from work on two separate Mondays in late August and September of two thousand and four.

Now, there is a report in the FBI files regarding Alice's disappearance, and in it it mentions that Keyes called out sick on September twenty second, but makes no mention of him calling out in August.

That same report, however, gets a lot of critical information wrong.

It says that Alice wasn't reported missing for months after her disappearance, but interviews with her sister.

Her sister who reported her missing, have her reporting the disappearance just days after Alice was last seen, and as you'll recall, the FBI never even interviewed Alice's sister during their inquiry.

Additionally, it says Keys was at a wedding in Squim, just twenty miles from where Alice was found.

Well, Squim is over two hundred miles from where Alice was found, and the wedding he attended there with Denise it occurred two weeks before Alice was last seen.

So I'm much more inclined to believe the interviews than this report.

And of all the possible recovered victims, Alice seems to me the most likely Keys victim.

But it was in the fact checking of Alice's case that I stumbled upon something unrelated that I'd previously missed, something that hasn't been made public by the FBI.

In the week following Keyes's final FBI interview, investigators began reaching out to various residents in Hunters, Washington.

You may recall that Keyes drove Tammy's son James, to see his dad in Moses Lake over the weekend of April first, two thousand and five.

The pair left on March thirty first, and it's unclear when they returned exactly, but it's believed somewhere around April fourth or fifth.

A few days later, on April ninth, Keyes purchased his boat from James's dad while On that trip, Keyes told Tammy and James's dad that he was visiting friends in Hunter's, Washington.

He later admitted to investigators that he didn't actually know anyone in Hunters well that outreach following his final interview, it was quite specific.

The FBI were trying to find out who owned a particular abandoned farmhouse in Hunters, Washington, specifically who owned it in April of two thousand five.

They also interviewed neighbors of this particular farmhouse, notably asking about anything odd happening on or around the property that month, and some of these interviews were conducted in person, meaning the FBI was actually in Hunters investigating this farmhouse.

And while the FBI were investigating the farmhouse, Keys killed himself and other than four heavily redacted interviews included in the FBI files, it never comes up again.

So what exactly did Keyes tell investigators about this farmhouse and Hunters and why isn't it included in the available interviews or available FBI files?

And as a Keen observer noted, thirty minutes have been edited out of the publicly available final FBI interview.

The timestamp skips ahead almost exactly thirty minutes, and when the video resumes, you can hear Agent Godin entering the room say I think we found it.

They then note that his rights were previously read to him that day, something else which has been excluded from the available f footage.

The group then goes on to briefly discuss New York before circling back to an in depth conversation about all of Israel's Washington State victims.

It will be his most revealing discussion about these victims.

So what does the FBI not want us to know?

About?

An abandoned farmhouse and Hunter's Washington.

Mother and a

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