Serial Killer ‘Broke Own Rule’: How Israel Keyes Lost Control

Serial killer Israel Keyes broke his own rule that he would go to great lengths to distance himself from any of his victims. According to ABC News, it was the meticulous murderer’s loss of control and violation of his own careful rules that ended years of traveling to kill for fun.

Israel Keyes reminds me of TV serial killer Dexter who has a set of rules called “The Code” which dictate his actions in setting up a murder. Israel Keyes has his own “Code,” but unlike Dexter, who only kills other murderers, Keyes’ serial killer rules were all about avoiding capture and did not include a hint of morality.

When stalking an Anchorage coffee stand, Israel Keyes told himself that if the person working inside did not own a car, he would only rob the place and leave. Instead, upon finding teenage barista Samantha Koenig inside, he dragged her out, raped her in his own car, and proceeded to strangle her and hide her body by dismembering it. Keyes then decided to fulfill a risky fantasy by using the dead woman’s debit card. This substantial trail of evidence eventually led to the serial killer’s arrest for her murder.

“In prior cases, he had enough self-control to walk away from it, to not commit the kidnapping, to not commit the abduction and with Samantha he didn’t,” Anchorage homicide Det. Monique Doll said Monday. “He broke his own rule. He had drawn his line in the sand and he couldn’t help himself, he said. He took her anyway.”

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, when investigators questioned Israel Keyes and asked why he committed the murders the answer was startling.

“There were just times, a couple of times, where we would try to get a why,” said Anchorage Police officer Jeff Bell, who helped interrogate Keyes for hours. “He would have this term, he would say, ‘A lot of people ask why, and I would be, like, why not?'”

Oddly enough, Israel Keyes did not consider himself a serial killer even though he had extensively studied the subject.

“He had researched and read other serial killers. He knew a lot about Ted Bundy,” Doll said. “He was very careful to say that he had not patterned himself after any other serial killers, that his ideas were his own. He was very clear about that distinction. That mattered a lot to him. He never identified himself as a serial killer. That was one of the things that he wanted very much, as this investigation progressed, to keep from being identified as.”

Again, like Dexter, Israel Keyes maintained a double life and was very cautious about protecting the life he led with his girlfriend and daughter. His Dexter-like primary motivation was also that the act of killing sparked emotions.

“He was very confident in that fact that he was successful in leading this kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde lifestyle and that no one would ever suspect him of doing these crimes, had he not confessed,” Doll said. “Israel Keyes never expressed in any way, shape or form that he was ashamed or regretted any of his actions and he was very self-aware. He was also very okay with the fact that he did this because he got enjoyment out of it. He didn’t try to rationalize it.”

The world is glad that this serial killer broke his own rule. This loss of control led to an end to the needless loss of life. What do you think about the “reasoning” and motivation behind Israel Keyes’ murders?