The Happy Face Murderer – Keith Hunter Jesperson –6. Cynthia Lyn Rose

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Cynthia Lyn Rose
Now, Keith had double the murder fantasies. Thoughts of killing both Taunja and Claudia rifled through his mind. Murder and rape became an obsession. But this new lust wasn't matched by his latest driving assignment. The truck itself and the long hours left him feeling tired and despondent when, pulling into a rest area in California a month later, he met a young girl named Cynthia who asked him whether he wanted to party.

Keith fondled a breast beneath the girl's sweatshirt (his method of guarding against potential police sting operations) but declined. She was either in her late twenties or in her early thirties, he couldn't tell. Saying her name was Cynthia, she pressed the matter. But Keith insisted that he was tired. He might be in the mood later, he told the girl, but right now he just wanted to sleep. He shut down the truck, turning off the light to dissuade any further advances. Thoughts on his mind of violent prostitutes in Florida were recalled, when one woman had started killing truckers she picked up in parking lots.

Just as he was lying down to sleep, the passenger door jolted open, and Cynthia jumped in. Keith was furious. Reaching out and grabbing her neck, he dragged her on to the bed and started choking the life out of her. She went limp soon after, and he realized the girl wasn't conscious. Keith Jesperson's third victim was already dead, and all he could feel was regret that he'd missed the chance to play his death games with her. They hadn't even had sex.

Worried that he was being watched, Keith decided that he needed to leave. He drove the truck away fast, driving barefoot. Still driving, the thought occurred to him that Cynthia might wake up, just like Claudia had done. He stopped the truck, and despite all signs pointing toward the girl being dead, he bound and gagged her anyway. Just then, he heard someone breathing. She was still alive.

Content that the bindings would hold her in place, Keith drove on. The aim was to reach the weigh station a few miles away, hoping to provide a convincing alibi of his whereabouts at the time the girl went missing. It was closed when he arrived. Pulling into the parking lot of a nearby café instead, he began to suspect that the cabin was smelling like death. She might have been dead after all.

Once the truck was parked, he jumped into the cabin to check what was happening. Cynthia was a pretty girl. The bed was wet with her urine. There was no indication as to why she had just jumped into his truck. But now here she was. Dead. There was a tree in the corner of the parking lot, one with weeds and garbage at the base. Dumping the body here would keep it hidden for a while. Ripping the duct tape from her wrists, Keith was worried about other truckers arriving. He flung the body onto the garbage, covering her with tumbleweed as a kind of gravestone.

Paranoia was still reigning in his thoughts, and Keith had to drive fast. He needed to get away from the body and the parking lot where Cynthia had last been spotted. During a brief stop, he cleaned the mattress and threw the sheets away. He tried to catch a bit of sleep in the parking lot of a diner. The act of killing itself didn't bother Keith anymore, but the fear of being caught was very real.

The next week was spent checking every detail of every parking lot. Wherever Keith stopped, he was worried about police attention. In restaurants, he would eat with his back to the wall, watching all the time. After a few weeks glued to the CB radio in fear, it seemed as though nothing was being said. Keith had gotten away with it once again. By this time, the couple who had been imprisoned for Taunja's murder were serving their third year. Keith was on to his third victim. The fear of repercussions, whether legal or religious, stopped being an issue. Keith Jesperson feared no one.