The Happy Face Murderer – Keith Hunter Jesperson –5. Claudia

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Claudia
A short time later, Keith read in the paper that two people had been charged with the murder of Taunja Bennett. But rather than her drinking companions, it emerged that a couple Keith described as "barflies" had been arrested instead. The woman had confessed to carrying out the murder with her boyfriend, and this had been enough to convict, especially when the girl had driven the police out to the exact spot where the body was dumped. But as weird as it was, Keith was not going to change anybody's mind. He let the two take the blame for the murder.

Meanwhile Peggy arrived home with her two kids in tow. She went back to waitressing, having abandoned truck driving as too much hard work. Keith was left at home to take care of the kids. The relationship with Peggy was breaking down. Often Keith would wake up in the middle of the night with his hands around her neck. The thoughts of the murdered girl loomed large, and he realized that he would need to get away from the haunted house before he went mad.

Two months after his first murder, Keith moved south. During the drive to Sacramento, thoughts about killing played through his mind. Trying to drive them out, he considered women who he had met during his trucking jobs, considering what they might be up to these days. One in particular, Nancy, occupied his thoughts enough that he decided to pay her a visit. Finding no one at home, he went to a local diner to learn that she had been raped and killed by two men who were now in jail. A shame, Keith thought, as he might have been able to kill her himself.

Back on the road, Keith began to think about the female hitchhikers who were usually trying to pick up a lift at truck stops. A chance encounter with a woman named Jean saw him drive the pair (including Jean's baby) out to a secluded spot. After forcing her into oral sex, Keith's mind ran hot with the idea of murder before he realized he'd have to kill the baby as well. He stepped out of the car and allowed himself to calm down. Jean attempted to run away with the child, but he managed to convince her to allow him to drive her back into town. She agreed, and they set off. Looking back on the incident, Keith was worried. The woman had his name, his destination, and the details of how he'd assaulted her. Chasing the thoughts from his mind, he went back out on to the road.

The incident prompted police interest. Arriving at a hotel, Keith found himself surrounded by cops. He tried to play off the story as a simple misunderstanding, telling the police he regretted having sex with a married woman. If he had wanted to hurt her, he suggested, why would he have let her get away, or why would he have driven her back into town? The cops seemed convinced, but fingerprinted him anyway and told him to check in with a detective back in the town. Keith did exactly this, feeding the detective the same story. Not once did he mention how he had been so sorely tempted to break the woman's neck. The story seemed to be enough, and Keith drove off to attend his new construction job.

The job lasted two months, all spent with the prospect of further recrimination hanging over Keith's head from the police. Once it finished, he headed back to Portland and reconciled with Peggy. But an incident with his and Rose's son, Jason, quickly meant that Keith saw no other option than to move back closer to his original family. With Peggy and her kids in tow, Keith took a trucking job nearer Rose and the kids and hit the road once again, Peggy joining him for the ride. Although it had seemed ideal when viewed through rose-tinted lenses, Keith was soon exhausted and annoyed again. But a stroke of luck saw the couple who had been arrested for Taunja's murder convicted. The woman had changed her plea at the last minute, saying she had just wanted to annoy her boyfriend. However, the process was already too far along. In order to avoid the chance of the death penalty, the couple pleaded guilty and received 15 years to life.

Things didn't continue to be quite so peachy, however. Pulled over for a minor trucking issue, Keith was nearly extradited back to California on charges of sexual assault. When he was being arrested, he told Peggy about how he had killed a girl, though mentioned no names. The charges were eventually reduced, after spending a few nights in the cells, and Keith's trucking company sent him money to catch a bus home. Sitting in one bus stop waiting for a ride, Keith ventured into the toilets. He took out a pen and wrote on the wall. In his piece of graffiti, he confessed to the murder of Taunja Bennett, gave a time and place, mentioned that he had killed and raped the girl, and that he had enjoyed it. The message finished with the proclamation that despite the other people taking the blame, the real killer was still free. He signed the message with a smiley face, summing up the cocky, arrogant attitude he had hoped to convey. Two months later, after nothing had come of the message, Keith did the same in another restroom, this time including the detail about cutting off the button of the girl's jeans. The cops, he thought, must be genuinely too stupid to catch him.

Keith bounced around various jobs but still harbored fantasies about the girl he'd killed. Thoughts of rape led to close calls for a number of women, when Keith abstained at the last minute from pouncing on them in the dark, while he began to solicit prostitutes and, in his own words, "treated them rough." One of these girls fought back and pepper-sprayed him in the face. Despite almost two years passing since his first murder, the thoughts of the second were never far away.

During the hot summer of 1992, these fantasies crept back into his mind. Working on the mechanics of the truck in one stop, Keith was surprised to find a woman introducing herself to him, asking for a ride. She said her name was Claudia, that she wanted a ride to Los Angeles, and that she had been hitching lifts with truckers. To Keith, she wasn't beautiful, but she was "pretty enough." As she was getting into the truck, his mind was already racing with criminal thoughts.

The two spent a short time on the road together before Keith stopped, leaned over, and kissed Claudia. Feeling a lack of returned affection, he sat back to be told that, if he wanted sex, he need only ask. There were set prices for these things. Informing the passenger that he never paid for sex, Keith again pressed against the girl. She still refused, but the moment had taken him, and he instantly starting ripping her clothes off and forcing himself upon her, again and again.

Eventually Keith stopped and drove a little way for lunch. Despite raping her, Claudia didn't run away from Keith as soon as possible. Instead, she asked him for some drugs. When she was informed that he never touched narcotics, she jumped on the CB radio and began to ask any truckers in the area for heroin. Snatching the microphone from her, Keith pressed a twenty dollar bill into her hand. She would not starve in his truck, but he would not tolerate drugs of any kind. Claudia demanded more, threatened to tell a security guard how Keith had forced himself on her. Keith locked the doors.

There was a roll of duct tape hidden beneath his seat, and he grabbed it. Both her arms were taped together in front of her while her ankles received the same treatment. Checking to see if there was anyone else in the parking lot, Keith punched the girl in the side of the neck. She fell unconscious.

Now fully accepting that he was about to murder his second victim, Keith resolved to do a better job of it this time. Taping her to the bed, he decided to rape Claudia again. As he was doing so, a police unit pulled up in the parking lot. They had a dog with them. Parking their car in the shade of Keith's truck, the men went to eat in the diner while the dog cooled down in the car. Starting the truck, Keith pulled out ever so slowly and joined back onto the interstate.

As he was driving along, Claudia was in the back trying to free herself. Unfastened from the bed, she was free of the tape and getting dressed. Braking suddenly, Keith pounced on her and tied the girl down once again. At the next stop, he raped her again. And so he started a lethal game, choking the girl until she was unconscious and then allowing her to breathe again. This happened two, three, four times, again and again and again. When she finally died, Keith pulled to the side of the road, drank an ice tea, and tried to figure out how to dispose of the body.

In the shade of the San Bernardino Mountains, Keith scouted out a deep ravine. He fell asleep, waiting until darkness fell, with only a blanket between him and the dead girl. Waking up around 7 in the evening, the CB radio was alive with truckers talking about a police car parked in front of a truck matching Keith's description. Jumping out, he chatted with the officer and pretended to be concerned about his tires. Satisfied that the cop thought everything was in order, Keith and the corpse pulled out on to the highway and drove some distance.

Over ten miles away, just off Highway 95, Keith pulled over and dragged the corpse into a canyon. Hidden by bushes and taking care to cover the girl with tumbleweed, he was satisfied that she would not be found nearly as quickly. He washed his sleeping bag to rid it of the smell of the dead girl and dried it in the truck's windjammer. To him, Claudia had deserved to die. Having now committed two murders (nearly three) and gotten away with it, Keith was beginning to feel untouchable. The journey was completed as per the schedule, and Keith spent his days thinking about how easy it was to murder.