Speaker 1: Previously on Happy Face.
Speaker 2: Don Finley is the son of Julie Winniham, my father's
Speaker 2: last victim. I had heard that he wanted to do
Speaker 2: the things that my dad did to his mom to me.
Speaker 2: I want him to know how sorry I am for
Speaker 2: what my father did.
Speaker 3: I think he's behind me.
Speaker 4: He looks, he looks tense.
Speaker 5: She walks up to down and without saying anything, he
Speaker 5: opens up his arms and they embrace.
Speaker 6: She was a kind hearted, good soul, and he broke
Speaker 6: every rule that he ever had set for victims. That
Speaker 6: he was going to do this too, right right, My
Speaker 6: mom broke every rule because of her soul. He felt
Speaker 6: something different with her.
Speaker 3: The detectives came up to Spokane and they questioned my
Speaker 3: mom that she said, of your dad's jail for Bruder,
Speaker 3: I want to know what you saw.
Speaker 6: No one knows this. I haven't told anybody. They open
Speaker 6: up a room, white walls, silver table. My mom has
Speaker 6: a sheet covered up to her neck. That's the last
Speaker 6: time I saw that all.
Speaker 2: This was a multi year relationship. And if he could
Speaker 2: do that to her, he could do that to anybody.
Speaker 5: Julie was found when a local resident stopped to take
Speaker 5: a scenic picture.
Speaker 6: Why did the universe tell that person to stop right here?
Speaker 3: If your mom's body wasn't found, he would.
Speaker 6: Still be out there today, the pies, the.
Speaker 4: Pies with the sun. I don't know, shine O shi, Oh,
Speaker 4: what did.
Speaker 7: You think about doing to keep it?
Speaker 6: You really want to know that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 6: I mean I've had I wanted to torture him. I've
Speaker 6: thought of burying him up to you know what I mean,
Speaker 6: just cutting little cuts and like animals, you know, all
Speaker 6: kinds of sick and twisted thoughts. Those aren't normal thoughts.
Speaker 4: What do you think when you had those thoughts?
Speaker 6: They were wrong? It's not right, but it was Yeah,
Speaker 6: I've had wild, wild, wild thoughts.
Speaker 5: Gandhi once said, the weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is
Speaker 5: the attribute of the strong. But how do some find
Speaker 5: the strength to forgive the unforgivable. I'm Lauren Bright Checko
Speaker 5: and this is happy face.
Speaker 7: From The Oregonian, December twentieth, nineteen ninety five by John
Speaker 7: Painter Junior. The last of Keith Hunter Jesperson's sentences for
Speaker 7: three Northwest murders was handed down Tuesday, when a Clark
Speaker 7: County judge ordered him to serve a minimum of thirty
Speaker 7: four and a half years in prison for killing a
Speaker 7: Cavas woman last March. He earlier had admitted strangling Julie Winningham,
Speaker 7: forty three, and the sleeper of his long haul truck.
Speaker 7: The sentence will be served consecutively to two consecutive Oregon
Speaker 7: murder sentences, guaranteeing that Jesperson forty will die in prison.
Speaker 7: At the sentencing, Winningham's son Don Finley, described the mother
Speaker 7: as a kind person willing to help others. Quote, you
Speaker 7: killed her, putting her family in darkness.
Speaker 5: Melissa, Noel and I had spent an emotional few hours
Speaker 5: with Don. We'd had him walk us through what he'd
Speaker 5: gone through after Keith had brutally murdered his mom, Julianne Winningham,
Speaker 5: How hard it was to be surrounded by the things
Speaker 5: that reminded him of his mom and the tails spin
Speaker 5: it had put his life in. But the thing that
Speaker 5: Melissa wanted to truly understand was after carrying such anger,
Speaker 5: how did Don come to a place where he truly
Speaker 5: felt healed and how did he learn to forgive? Did
Speaker 5: you think about bringing a gun into the Oh?
Speaker 6: Yeah, they didn't have mental detectors every day of the trial.
Speaker 6: They didn't have metal detectors. One day I walked out
Speaker 6: of the court. I was from me to your father.
Speaker 6: There was nothing stopping me. He was full of shackles,
Speaker 6: nothing stopping me from just going at him. I didn't
Speaker 6: know then, but I know now why I didn't do it,
Speaker 6: because he would have won. We are not here to
Speaker 6: take another life. Okay, it would have been over. He
Speaker 6: would have won because I went to his level of
Speaker 6: killing another human being. And now I am happy he's
Speaker 6: in there because your life has been miserable. My life
Speaker 6: has been miserable. I have healed. Your father will never heal,
Speaker 6: and that is no longer your burden, no longer your burden.
Speaker 6: Do you know about the two people that were convicted
Speaker 6: for the crime.
Speaker 8: I know that Laverne was assisted, that her boyfriend friend
Speaker 8: John was guilty of this crime, and that she manufactured
Speaker 8: evidence to got him convicted and ultimately got her convicted
Speaker 8: as well. But they were found guilty, that they serve
Speaker 8: some prison time.
Speaker 6: And can I ask you a question, do you think
Speaker 6: they deserve to stay in prison for what they said
Speaker 6: they did or do you think they should have been released?
Speaker 4: They should have been released.
Speaker 6: Okay, well, my opinion is he should have been released
Speaker 6: and she should have stayed in because she's the one
Speaker 6: who made the accusations. But they get out. As soon
Speaker 6: as they get out, they make a movie about it instantly,
Speaker 6: within a month, about their life story. Who are they
Speaker 6: to bring this up? I was really pissed off because
Speaker 6: if they wouldn't have confessed, they may have caught your
Speaker 6: father before my mom. But no, and it screwed everything up.
Speaker 6: He could have been caught, It may have never happened
Speaker 6: to my mom. It could have saved four or five women.
Speaker 6: Because this lady confessed to a crime she didn't commit
Speaker 6: to get out of an abusive relationship. I've had to
Speaker 6: forgive her also to be able to move on. I
Speaker 6: have to forgive the detectives for not doing a thorough investigation.
Speaker 6: I had to forgive all these people for not doing
Speaker 6: their job. And then I had to truly forgive your father.
Speaker 6: I had to truly forgive my own father. I've had
Speaker 6: a lot of forgiving, and you have to forgive, not forget,
Speaker 6: to be able to move on.
Speaker 5: For all of Don's words about forgiveness, it was apparent
Speaker 5: that jessperson had very much gotten into his head.
Speaker 6: Do you know who Sondra London is?
Speaker 5: No, I've never heard the name.
Speaker 6: This is what your father did. Sondra London, who was
Speaker 6: in love with a serial killer named Van Rawlings in Florida.
Speaker 6: He executed seven women with the machete. She wrote a
Speaker 6: book about him. Your father wrote Sondra London to ask
Speaker 6: her to write a book. She said no, but I
Speaker 6: will create a computer book, diary or whatever. So your
Speaker 6: father proceeds to write her telling her how great it
Speaker 6: is to be in jail, how to get away with murder,
Speaker 6: how to do this. It's still on the internet today.
Speaker 6: It's like twenty two pages.
Speaker 7: From The Oregonian, September tenth, nineteen ninety seven by J.
Speaker 7: Todd Foster. Last year from prison, Jesperson wrote a Jacksonville,
Speaker 7: Florida woman who's fascinated with serial killers and thinks society
Speaker 7: should have unfettered access to their minds. Sondra London, fifty
Speaker 7: then posted Jesperson's letters word for word on the internet,
Speaker 7: as she has other killers letters. On Jesperson's page, which
Speaker 7: features a rotating skull, he compares his victims to garbage
Speaker 7: he discarded along America's roadways as a long haul truck driver.
Speaker 7: His most disturbing writings, however, are contained in the Self
Speaker 7: Start Serial Killer Kit, which offers web browsers a line
Speaker 7: life size blow up doll named for one of his victims,
Speaker 7: Julianne Winningham. Winningham's son Don Findley, twenty five, of Vancouver, Washington,
Speaker 7: read Jessperson's website Tuesday and was appalled.
Speaker 6: He put in part of this stuff that he wrote
Speaker 6: Get yourself Start Serial Killer Kit. It comes with a
Speaker 6: two hour VHS tape of life and death situations that
Speaker 6: are guaranteed to scare the piss or, arouse you or both.
Speaker 6: Take your Julie Winningham blow up doll with an extra
Speaker 6: spring back neck, take her mouth, put it over the
Speaker 6: head of your cock, and you'll soon have the living
Speaker 6: strength to squeeze the shit out of anybody. Why did
Speaker 6: he pick my mom?
Speaker 9: Your mother calls, don't wink at me in court? It
Speaker 9: was fucking funny as I jumped over the fucking barrier
Speaker 9: and was grabbed because this man.
Speaker 5: You could see how much down was affected by Keith.
Speaker 5: He still carries that hurt. But perhaps what's most impressive is,
Speaker 5: even in that emotional state, how he handled himself on the.
Speaker 6: Stand Tanya's brother and sister. You know didn't really do
Speaker 6: in court like I did. Yeah, you know you didn't
Speaker 6: see the whole thing on court. You know I had to.
Speaker 6: I did the rebuttal to your father, and I told
Speaker 6: him this is the last thing I told him. I said,
Speaker 6: as Christians, I forgive you, and God will punish you
Speaker 6: in the way you deserve to be punished. Your father
Speaker 6: put his head down. The judge had a tear coming
Speaker 6: out of his eye. The only reason your father is
Speaker 6: not dead is because he didn't kill two women in
Speaker 6: the state of Washington. But he did kill one right
Speaker 6: over there and right over there, just a mile and
Speaker 6: a half difference. What are your triggers like?
Speaker 10: What triggers you? Even now, having done all the work
Speaker 10: and feeling like you've healed, you were saying that it's everywhere,
Speaker 10: It's like Emuji's, it's Walmart.
Speaker 4: Why?
Speaker 6: Oh, it was because only because of the simple fact
Speaker 6: of the title they gave him on the Happy Face Killer. Psychologically,
Speaker 6: that messed with my head. Everywhere I saw it would
Speaker 6: be a reminder of him. Now that I'm healed, I'm
Speaker 6: over it. But it was his thing. He's not I
Speaker 6: can't let that beat me up because he'll still win.
Speaker 6: As long as I have something going in me that
Speaker 6: he did, I'm never gonna hear. So I have to
Speaker 6: release it, no matter how much it hurts. So you
Speaker 6: would you saw it everywhere everywhere, everywhere, back of jeeps, Walmart,
Speaker 6: people's clothes. How many people walk around with the happy
Speaker 6: face with the bullet in the head, You know how
Speaker 6: many people walk You know what I'm saying. All that
Speaker 6: stuff goes through my head, you know, and I'm like
Speaker 6: just a flashback everywhere I go. I see this guy.
Speaker 6: Now many years it took me to get past that.
Speaker 6: I don't even know.
Speaker 10: God, it's like it's literally like being haunted by a
Speaker 10: real life boogieman like it.
Speaker 6: And I am an overthinker, and I believe your father
Speaker 6: did that on purpose. But then on the other hand,
Speaker 6: I think that he was just being mischievous and smart
Speaker 6: ass and signing it with the happy face, not realizing why.
Speaker 11: It's exactly why he winked at you in court. It's
Speaker 11: his taking something so sinister and heinous and spinning it
Speaker 11: to the polar opposite of like putting. It's his sixth
Speaker 11: sense of humor. It's his way of mocking people's pain.
Speaker 11: It's he gets pleasure from that, and this smiley face
Speaker 11: is as a mockery.
Speaker 6: I get it. Yeah, But why do you feel that
Speaker 6: your dad used my mom's name in the thing I
Speaker 6: told you about that you never knew about and didn't
Speaker 6: use Tanya Bennett or one of the other six victims.
Speaker 11: She was not his typical victim. I mean, he broke
Speaker 11: all of his rules with her.
Speaker 5: I think it's because she stopped him. She's the reason
Speaker 5: he got caught, and so.
Speaker 6: He resents her.
Speaker 7: From I the creation of a serial killer by Jack Olson.
Speaker 7: From his County jail cell, his curly brownish Maine shorn
Speaker 7: by an inmate barber, Keith Jesperson continued his campaign to
Speaker 7: muddy the legal waters. Most of his confessional letters were
Speaker 7: sent after his own lawyer told him to shut up.
Speaker 7: The notes were uniformly upbeat quote have a nice day
Speaker 7: from happy face.
Speaker 5: Regardless of how Don defines the relationship between Keith and Julie,
Speaker 5: Melissa saw her as a woman who could have been
Speaker 5: her stepmother, that in some parallel universe Melissa and Don
Speaker 5: could have been would have been step siblings instead. There
Speaker 5: now forever linked by the emotional scars of Keith's crimes.
Speaker 6: This is a.
Speaker 3: I don't I have my own answer to it. But
Speaker 3: do you think justice was served at first?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 9: Now?
Speaker 6: Yeah, because he loses I told you he has a miserable,
Speaker 6: horrible life. Me and you, we still have the opportunity
Speaker 6: to have this open freedom, positivity. He's around, No, he's.
Speaker 12: Around nothing but negative energy all day as his daughter,
Speaker 12: take back your power, take back that guilt and turn
Speaker 12: it into a positive, which you've tried to do by
Speaker 12: helping and reaching out and doing what you do for people.
Speaker 5: Melissa has tried throughout her adult life to use her
Speaker 5: career to connect the families of victims with the families
Speaker 5: of perpetrators in order to bring about closure and healing
Speaker 5: and ultimately forgiveness.
Speaker 3: I think you're right, yeah, that there is some sort
Speaker 3: of divine intervention. But this is what I struggle with,
Speaker 3: don I struggle with this, like, if there is divine intervention,
Speaker 3: why didn't that divine intervention intervene and save your mom?
Speaker 3: If the universe was telling this man to come and
Speaker 3: take a picture, couldn't the universe have told your mom
Speaker 3: to not be with my dad?
Speaker 6: Like I said, there's a plan. We are supposed to
Speaker 6: help the screw the world that's out there. We need
Speaker 6: to show them that it doesn't. The evil doesn't always win,
Speaker 6: the villain doesn't always get away. We are here, we
Speaker 6: are survivors. We did this. It's been twenty two years.
Speaker 6: We're done, We're over it. Let's do us. The only
Speaker 6: animosity you have is something that you had no control over,
Speaker 6: and I had no control over. So why should we
Speaker 6: let it control us any longer. It wasn't your choice
Speaker 6: to do what he did. It wasn't my choice. But
Speaker 6: yet we're letting his choices control ourselves.
Speaker 5: Melissa's most deeply rooted fear is that she is somehow
Speaker 5: like her father, capable of terrible things. Don almost immediately
Speaker 5: sensed the opposite. He didn't see the capacity for evil
Speaker 5: in her at all.
Speaker 6: You obviously are not him. Okay, obviously you're not, So
Speaker 6: that needs to be the first thing. I'm scared, though,
Speaker 6: That's the first thing you need to get out. You're nothing.
Speaker 1: But I'm scared I look like him.
Speaker 6: No, I have no from him. That's okay, because my
Speaker 6: heart is so turned off.
Speaker 2: I'm afraid I've built like him that I don't know
Speaker 2: I don't hurt people, but I'm scared.
Speaker 6: You're not like him because of that. You're like blocking
Speaker 6: feelings and being cold, whatever you think it may be.
Speaker 6: Because this has been damaged so bad, all it did
Speaker 6: was get covered up and covered up and covered up
Speaker 6: and covered up a scar. You can bring this up
Speaker 6: one hundred more times on television and that scab wouldn't reopen.
Speaker 6: It is a scar. I am okay. I am convinced
Speaker 6: that he is where he deserves to be. My mom's
Speaker 6: in a better place, and he gave this to me
Speaker 6: and you to pass on to people, and no matter
Speaker 6: what we go through in life, we can make it.
Speaker 5: Don also believed there was nothing accidental about the in
Speaker 5: which his mother's body was found.
Speaker 6: Life leads us in a weird path, and we are
Speaker 6: the ying and the yang of one in three point
Speaker 6: one million. Did you know that the odds of what
Speaker 6: your dad did to my mom is one in three
Speaker 6: point one million. Have you met that many people in
Speaker 6: your life? No. I have traveled to the United States.
Speaker 6: I have gone as far as the Caribbean to run away,
Speaker 6: and I still the universe brings me back here. I
Speaker 6: moved all the way to Saint Thomas to the top
Speaker 6: of an island. Leave me alone. No one will know
Speaker 6: anything about me unless I won't tell them. But I
Speaker 6: still end up right back here. I worked in the
Speaker 6: town for six years as a local bartender, heard stories
Speaker 6: about my mom. People come across me every day and say,
Speaker 6: your name's not Leeroy, or people call me up out
Speaker 6: of the blue, I've seen her on television again, I
Speaker 6: saw you on television, so out of the blue, I
Speaker 6: would get random calls. People would be facebooking me from
Speaker 6: all around the country, thinking I can help them, you know.
Speaker 6: So there was a lot going on. But to be
Speaker 6: able to heal, I told myself that your father needed
Speaker 6: to be put away. My mom lived a fulfilled, happy life.
Speaker 6: It was her time to go to a better place. Yes, no,
Speaker 6: because God has a plan. Okay, no, God has Yes,
Speaker 6: he does. Well, let's not call it God. Let's call
Speaker 6: it the universe. Our universe has a plan for each
Speaker 6: and every one of us, and it isn't a kind world.
Speaker 6: I can't believe you see it so nice. I wish
Speaker 6: I could see this. I want to help you feel it.
Speaker 6: You gotta have to let me because otherwise you're gonna
Speaker 6: end up the old cat lady.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that would be.
Speaker 5: Don Lee Roy, whomever he believed himself to be at
Speaker 5: that moment. Also believed that the universe kept putting people
Speaker 5: in his path for a reason, including a man in
Speaker 5: the back seat of his cab.
Speaker 6: I drive taxi and the weirdest stuff happens. I met
Speaker 6: a gentleman who was about seventy two years old. He
Speaker 6: proceeds to tell me that he had a family, and
Speaker 6: after raising his family, he got got tired of working
Speaker 6: for the man, so he decided to start robbing banks. Well,
Speaker 6: he ended up getting eighteen years. He ended up in
Speaker 6: osp We proceed to talk. It's a five hour journey.
Speaker 6: Come to find out he's been locked up the whole time.
Speaker 6: Your dad's been locked up. So this man proceeds to
Speaker 6: tell me what I already knew, how bad life was
Speaker 6: in prison, but how bad your father his life is.
Speaker 6: The stuff he told me made me happy because I
Speaker 6: am able to eat a steak, see a beautiful lady,
Speaker 6: go out and fish. You are still able to do that.
Speaker 6: He will never be able to do any of the
Speaker 6: pleasures in life.
Speaker 4: Again, what did he say that his life is like
Speaker 4: in prison?
Speaker 6: Well, basically, your dad lives in one building. He's not
Speaker 6: allowed to go out of the building. He isn't outside,
Speaker 6: can't go outside. He is in PC's protective custody.
Speaker 1: From I The Creation of a Serial Killer by Jack Olsen.
Speaker 7: Most of the cops and detectives who'd worked the case
Speaker 7: were pissed that I'd gotten two people out of prison
Speaker 7: and beat the death penalty myself, but some of them
Speaker 7: still had a morbid interest and happy face. When we
Speaker 7: pulled into the intake center and Clacamus, one guard asked
Speaker 7: if I would pose with him for a picture. I
Speaker 7: was put in solitary confinement in D Block to keep
Speaker 7: me safe from other prisoners. Lady killers and rapists ranked
Speaker 7: near the bottom of the food chain in the prison system,
Speaker 7: barely above child molesters and crooked cops. I was allowed
Speaker 7: one hour of yard time of day, no books, no cards,
Speaker 7: no nothing. Wherever I went, the pointy fingers came out.
Speaker 7: Everyone wanted a piece of the celebrity.
Speaker 6: So I'm telling this guy the whole story, and he
Speaker 6: proceeds to tell me how he's seen your dad get
Speaker 6: beat up many of times. Your dad is known as
Speaker 6: a snitch. Your dad is locked in his cell. He
Speaker 6: comes out like an hour or two hours a day.
Speaker 6: How big is he now? I can just imagine with
Speaker 6: no exercise in a cage that's as big as he
Speaker 6: is a foot wide. Think about he's six foot eight,
Speaker 6: the sale six by nine. And if all you do
Speaker 6: is put on wait, you gotta be uncomfortable. He never
Speaker 6: gets interaction with anybody. So this guy proceeds to tell
Speaker 6: me that he's even met your dad and had controversy
Speaker 6: with him. And I have every right to believe this
Speaker 6: guy because I feel it. I've seen the tattoos and
Speaker 6: this is too odd. And this man told me that
Speaker 6: he wanted me to stop at a bank so he
Speaker 6: could rob it and go back in to shank this
Speaker 6: guy because he deserves.
Speaker 8: To die because he knew you explained who you were to.
Speaker 6: Him, and the whole time in the case, Abrady kept
Speaker 6: calling me the last victim's son instead of by my name.
Speaker 6: He's like the new generation of inmates aren't willing to
Speaker 6: do like the old school. Some up a long story.
Speaker 6: He told me that he talks to someone inside once
Speaker 6: a month. He said. The next ass whipping j just
Speaker 6: personal notes from me.
Speaker 1: Did it happened?
Speaker 6: How am I going to know. I don't know. This
Speaker 6: was just a few months ago.
Speaker 1: Don't you find that kind of odd?
Speaker 6: That added the blue? A guy like this gets in
Speaker 6: my taxi.
Speaker 5: Yeah, all of Melissa's fears about confrontation, about Gon's hatred,
Speaker 5: anger about her father and what he'd done to Don's mother, everything,
Speaker 5: it was just finally over and there was peace. In
Speaker 5: a sort of strange, if not slightly broken way, there
Speaker 5: was love.
Speaker 3: I'm glad it's not the word. I'm thankful that you
Speaker 3: were willing to take me out here and show me.
Speaker 3: I know this isn't I can tell that after this
Speaker 3: much's time, you you know this is a place you
Speaker 3: can go to. But my mind is just racing. I'm
Speaker 3: thinking of a million of things. I'm thinking about, thinking
Speaker 3: about my dad and my picturing it in my mind. I've
Speaker 3: been in that cab of the truck. I'm picturing exactly
Speaker 3: what he said, what he must have done, like how
Speaker 3: quickly I would have taken off. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 3: definitely I can I can visualize it.
Speaker 5: But how has healing on your own? How has it
Speaker 5: shaped you as a person? How is it shaped like
Speaker 5: you didn't ask to.
Speaker 6: Become this person? How's it shaped me? Well, people will
Speaker 6: tell you now that you've healed, are you going to
Speaker 6: find Donald or are you going to stay Leroy? Well,
Speaker 6: I'm not sure yet Donald. When Donald was the victim,
Speaker 6: Leroy was the survivor. So in my story would go
Speaker 6: how it went from Donald, Bernard Finley to le Roy
Speaker 6: because of the traumatic events that have happened in my life.
Speaker 6: And then at the end, when we're all done with this,
Speaker 6: we will see Donald. We got a beginning, a middle,
Speaker 6: and an end, and Donald came out because we hit
Speaker 6: the final piece, the puzzles complete, two people that have
Speaker 6: no answers from anybody else, we can now answer ourselves.
Speaker 5: After all of this, what is Jessperson to you?
Speaker 6: Now? What is Jessperson to me?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 6: Just a tax penny at waste?
Speaker 5: Meeting one another was so therapeutic for both Melissa and
Speaker 5: Don was really a testament to human resiliency and the
Speaker 5: triumph of good over evil. When we left with Shugel,
Speaker 5: it was with the feeling that ultimately Jessperson had lost
Speaker 5: because two of his residual victims had used the power
Speaker 5: of forgiveness to transcend the horror and hopelessness he'd foisted
Speaker 5: upon them.
Speaker 1: Happy Faces, a production of How Stuff Works.
Speaker 7: Executive producers are Melissa Moore, Lauren Bright, Pacheco, Mangesha Tikedur
Speaker 7: and Will Pearson. Supervising producer is Noel Brown. Music by
Speaker 7: Claire Campbell, Paige Campbell and Hope for a Golden Summer.
Speaker 7: Story editor is Matt Riddle, Audio editing by Chandler Mays
Speaker 7: and Noel Brown. Assistant editor is Taylor Chicoigne. Special thanks
Speaker 7: to Phil Stanford, the publishers of the Oregonian Newspaper, and
Speaker 7: the Carlisle family.
Speaker 4: Oh is love Place where they catch you when you fall.
Speaker 4: O his love Place where they catch you when you fall.
Speaker 6: And we are