The Real Happy Face Killer: Victims, Capture, and Prison Today

The Happy Face Killer is Keith Hunter Jesperson, a Canadian-born long-haul truck driver who strangled at least eight women across six U.S. states between 1990 and 1995 and earned the nickname by signing taunting confession letters to journalists and investigators with a hand-drawn smiley face. He is serving consecutive life sentences at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, with an earliest possible release date of March 1, 2063.¹

Who Keith Jesperson Is

Jesperson was born on April 6, 1955, in Chilliwack, British Columbia, and his family later moved to Selah, Washington, where he graduated from high school in 1973. He married Rose Hucke in August 1975, had three children with her, and divorced in 1990. During the marriage he took up long-haul trucking, a job that put him on interstate highways and at truck stops for weeks at a time.²

His killings began the same year the marriage ended. He met most of his victims at truck stops, bars, or along highways, and strangulation was his consistent method. He used the truck itself as the crime scene, then dumped bodies at rest areas, roadside ditches, and remote stretches of highway across state lines.

The Eight Confirmed Victims

Between January 1990 and March 1995, Jesperson killed at least eight women in Oregon, Washington, California, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Florida. He has claimed responsibility for more than 100, but only eight cases have been confirmed by law enforcement.³

Taunja Bennett, January 1990, Oregon

Bennett was 23 and had intellectual disabilities. Jesperson met her at a Portland bar on January 21, 1990, brought her to his residence, beat, raped, and strangled her, and dumped her body near the Columbia River Gorge.⁴ Two innocent people would spend nearly five years in prison for this killing.

“Claudia,” August 1992, California

Jesperson picked up a hitchhiker near a brake check area on Interstate 15 south of Victorville, drove her to the Indio/Coachella area, argued with her over money, killed her in his truck, and dumped her body along Highway 95 about seven miles north of Blythe. Her remains were found on August 30, 1992. He called her Claudia; she is still the only unidentified victim among his confirmed kills.⁵

Cynthia Lyn Rose, September 1992, California

Rose, 32, was found strangled behind the Blueberry Hill Café in Turlock, California. She was believed to have been a sex worker.⁴

Laurie Ann Pentland, 1992, Oregon

Pentland, 23, of Carlton, Oregon, was strangled by Jesperson in 1992. He pleaded guilty to her murder in Hillsboro on December 15, 1995.⁶

Patricia Skiple, June 1993, California

Skiple, 45, a mother from Colton, Oregon, was sexually assaulted and killed. Her body was found on June 3, 1993, along Highway 152 near Gilroy, California. For nearly three decades she was known only as “Blue Pacheco,” a reference to the blue clothing on her remains. Jesperson confessed to her killing in a 2006 letter to prosecutors and pleaded guilty in July 2007. Her true identity was not confirmed until April 2022, when the DNA Doe Project used genetic genealogy through GEDmatch to identify her.⁷

Suzanne Kjellenberg, August 1994, Florida

Jesperson picked up Kjellenberg, 34, at a truck stop near Tampa, killed her in his rig at a Florida Panhandle rest area using his fist and zip ties against her throat, and dumped her body near the Holt exit on Interstate 10. An inmate work crew found her remains on September 14, 1994. He first admitted to the killing in February 1996 but knew her only as “Susan” or “Suzette.” She was identified in March 2023 after forensic-grade genome sequencing by Othram, Inc. produced genealogical leads, and Jesperson was formally charged with her murder in October 2023.⁸

Angela Subrize, January 1995, Wyoming

Subrize, 21, from Oklahoma City, met Jesperson at a truck stop in Spokane, Washington. He killed her inside his truck in Laramie County, Wyoming, and her body was later found in Nebraska.⁴

Julie Ann Winningham, March 1995, Washington

Winningham, 41, of Camas, Washington, was Jesperson’s girlfriend and his final victim. He strangled her on March 10, 1995, and left her body alongside a state road. Her murder is what brought the killings to an end.

Where the Smiley Face Came From

Jesperson wanted credit for what he was doing. His first written confession was scrawled on a bathroom wall at a Montana rest stop: “I killed Tanya Bennet [sic] January 21, 1990, in Portland, Ore. I beat her to death, raped her, and loved it. Yes, I’m sick, but I enjoy myself, too. People took the blame, and I’m free.”⁴

After his arrest he wrote to journalists and investigators, including The Associated Press and The Oregonian, confessing to more killings. He signed each letter with a hand-drawn smiley face, and an Oregon journalist gave him the nickname that stuck. One letter opened: “I would like to tell my story! I always have wanted to be noticed … so I started something I don’t know how to stop.”⁹

How He Was Caught

Investigators questioned Jesperson about Winningham’s murder on March 22, 1995, and released him. Two days later, after two suicide attempts, he turned himself in. He confessed not only to Winningham’s killing but to Bennett’s and others, saying he wanted to clear the people who had been wrongfully imprisoned for his crimes.¹⁰

Prosecutions followed across state lines over the next fifteen years. He pleaded guilty to Winningham’s murder in Clark County, Washington, on October 18, 1995.¹¹ He pleaded no contest to Bennett’s murder in Oregon and received life with a 30-year minimum.¹² He pleaded guilty to Pentland’s murder in Oregon in December 1995 and drew a third consecutive life sentence.⁶ In 2007 he pleaded guilty to Skiple’s murder in Santa Clara County, California, drawing life without parole after prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty in exchange for full details.¹³ In January 2010 he pleaded guilty in Riverside County to the murder of the woman he called Claudia and received 15 years to life.¹ The Florida charge for Kjellenberg’s killing was filed in October 2023.⁸

The Two People Wrongly Convicted of His First Murder

Shortly after Bennett’s body was found in 1990, a woman named Laverne Pavlinac walked into a police station and confessed. She told investigators that she and her boyfriend, John Sosnovske, had killed Bennett, provided detailed but fabricated accounts, and led police to the dump site. She later said she had made up the story to get Sosnovske, whom she described as abusive, sent to prison.¹⁴

There was no physical evidence tying either of them to the killing, but both were convicted. A Multnomah County jury found Pavlinac guilty of felony murder in January 1991 after prosecutors played her recorded confession, and she received life with a ten-year minimum. Sosnovske, facing a possible death sentence, pleaded no contest to first-degree murder and kidnapping and also received life.¹⁵

They spent roughly five years in prison while Jesperson kept killing. The case against them collapsed only after he turned himself in and provided verifiable details, including the location of Bennett’s purse.¹⁶

On November 27, 1995, Circuit Judge Paul Lipscomb ordered both released. He vacated Sosnovske’s conviction on the ground that his no-contest plea had been involuntary because it was made under threat of execution. He refused to overturn Pavlinac’s conviction, finding no constitutional defect in her jury trial and condemning what he called her “obsessive and persistent obstruction of justice.” He released her anyway, writing that keeping an innocent person in prison would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.¹⁶ Pavlinac died in 2003. Sosnovske has also since died.¹⁵

The Victim Who Still Has No Name

Seven of Jesperson’s eight confirmed victims have been identified. The woman he called Claudia has not. She was white, between 20 and 30 years old, roughly five feet seven inches tall, with blonde hair and a distinctive tattoo of two small dots on the left side of her right thumb. She was wearing a T-shirt printed with a motorcycle when her body was found along Highway 95 north of Blythe on August 30, 1992.⁵

Investigators believe she was a frequent hitchhiker familiar with the Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and Riverside County areas, with possible ties to Las Vegas and southern Nevada. Using forensic genetic genealogy, the Riverside County Regional Cold Case Homicide Team has identified her biological father, a now-deceased man from Cameron County, Texas who also had ties to Santa Barbara, and several half-siblings on his side. Those half-siblings do not match on the maternal side, so her mother’s identity remains unknown. The maternal family is believed to have roots in Louisiana or southeast Texas.⁵¹⁷

The Riverside County DA’s office has asked anyone with information to contact its Cold Case Hotline at (951) 955-5567 or email coldcaseunit@rivcoda.org, and has encouraged potential relatives to submit DNA profiles to GEDmatch for comparison.¹⁸

Where He Is Now

Jesperson has been held at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem since 1995 and is serving multiple consecutive life sentences from Oregon, Washington, and California. His earliest possible release date is March 1, 2063, when he would be 107. He still faces the 2023 Florida murder charge for Suzanne Kjellenberg’s killing. As of 2024, he continued to cooperate with law enforcement on open cases and was providing DNA samples to investigators trying to confirm or rule out his involvement in unsolved murders.¹⁰

1
The Register-Guard. Public’s Help Needed to Identify Victim of Happy Face Serial Killer
2
Biography. Happy Face Killer
3
ABC7 News. Happy Face Killer Patricia Skiple Identified
4
Oxygen. All About the Real Life Happy Face Killer Keith Jesperson
5
Riverside County District Attorney’s Office. DA’s Office Seeks to Identify Woman Murdered by Happy Face Killer 31 Years Ago
6
The Spokesman-Review. Third Murder Sentence for Happy Face Killer
7
Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office. Cold Case Victim Identification
8
Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office. Happy Face Killer 1994 Jane Doe Victim Identified
9
CNN. Happy Face Killer Unknown Victim California
10
People. Where Is Keith Hunter Jesperson Now
11
The Spokesman-Review. Trucker Pleads Guilty to Strangling Woman
12
Los Angeles Times. Happy Face Killer Sentenced in Bennett Murder
13
The Mercury News. Happy Face Killer Sentenced to Life Term
14
ABC News. Happy Face Killer Case Tapes Reveal Lengths Woman Went To
15
Exoneration Registry. Pavlinac and Sosnovske
16
The Spokesman-Review. Innocent Couple Released
17
Santa Barbara Independent. Nameless Victim of Happy Face Killer Had Santa Barbara Ties
18
ABC7. Happy Face Serial Killer Victims Identified