Keith Hunter Jesperson (born April 6, 1955) is a Canadian-American serial killer who murdered at least eight women in the United States during the early 1990s. He was known as the "Happy Face Killer" because he drew smiley faces on his many letters to the media and prosecutors. Many of his victims were sex workers and transients who had no connection to him. Strangulation was his preferred method of murdering, the same method he often used to kill animals as a child. After the body of his first victim, Taunja Bennett, was found, media attention surrounded Laverne Pavlinac, a woman who falsely confessed to having killed Bennett with the help of her abusive boyfriend, John Sosnovske. Jesperson was upset that he was not getting any media attention. On a bathroom wall hundreds of miles from the scene of the crime, he drew a smiley face and wrote an anonymous letter in which he confessed to killing Bennett and provided proof. When that did not elicit a response, he began writing letters to the media and prosecutors. His last victim was the crime that ultimately led to his capture. While Jesperson has claimed to have killed as many as 185 people, only eight murders have been confirmed.

KGW-TV Portland, OR

KGW