ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The search for victims of Israel Keyes remains stymied more than a year after the FBI issued a call for new information about the serial killer who told investigators he buried near Port Angeles a still-missing cache of items he could use to murder.
Anchorage, Alaska, FBI Special Agent Jolene Goeden said in a recent interview that more than 150 people had contacted the FBI about the former Neah Bay resident since August 2013, when her office publicly sought information about the case.
But none of the contacts led to substantial, new information on the case, she said.
“It’s cold. Absolutely, unfortunately, it’s cold at this point.
“We don’t have any cases right now that we have any evidence that he is responsible for [a particular] person’s disappearance.”
None of Keyes’ victims appears to have lived in Clallam or Jefferson counties, Clallam County Undersheriff Ron Peregrin and Jefferson County Sheriff’s Detective Brett Anglin have said.
Keyes told agents he weighed down at least one body with anchors and dumped it from a boat into 100 feet of water in Lake Crescent, west of Port Angeles, but a search was never conducted because there was no indication on where in the 12-mile-long lake Keyes claimed to have disposed of the body.
He is linked to the murders of 11 people between 2001 and 2012, five of whom were killed while he lived in Neah Bay from 2001 to 2007.
Before his death, Keyes admitted to killing at least eight people from Vermont to Washington state.
Keyes had told investigators in Alaska that he killed four people in Washington, including a couple in the state, between 2001 and 2005.
He committed suicide in December 2012 at age 34 in an Anchorage jail.
The day before Keyes died was the first time he talked of a hidden cache of items he stashed near Port Angeles that he could use in a murder, Goeden said.
“Our next meeting was going to be potentially him directing us to that cache,” Goeden said.
“We were going to get out our Google maps, get agents on the ground so we could direct them to where it was.”
The FBI does not plan to look for the cache, lacking any information on its location.
The caches found elsewhere include weapons and chemicals to hasten the decomposition of bodies.
An FBI gallery on Keyes that includes photos of caches he buried in New York state and Alaska is available at http://tinyurl.com/PDN-Israelkeyes.
Investigation Discovery Network’s “Dark Minds” program had suggested in its April 2, 2014, installment that there was a link between Keyes and the June 24, 2006 disappearance of Gilbert Gilman, the head of policy and legislative affairs for the state Department of Retirement Systems.
“That’s something we could very easily rule out,” Goeden said.
“We can concretely place [Keyes] somewhere else at that particular time.”
While Keyes roamed the country looking for victims, he spent most of his time on the West Coast, Goeden said.
He moved in 2007 from Neah Bay to Anchorage, where he committed suicide after admitting to the murder of an 18-year-old barista.
A methodical killer, Keyes was caught after he used the barista’s credit card.
“We viewed that as an error on his part, sloppy,” Goeden said.
“He had gotten away with things for so long.
“He had no intention of stopping, he made that pretty clear.”
The FBI determined that a chilling, blood-smeared suicide note Keyes left did not shed any light on his other victims.
It seemed to recount the murder of one of his victims.
“Now that I have you held tight I will tell you a story, speak soft in your ear so you know that it’s true. You’re my love at first sight and though you’re scared to be near me, my words penetrate your thoughts now in an intimate prelude,” it said, according to ABC News.
“I looked in your eyes, they were so dark, warm and trusting, as though you had not a worry or care.
“The more guiless [sic] the game the better potential to fill up those pools with your fear.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
