‘Happy Face Killer’ Caught In Oregon
SALEM, Ore. – A man connected to the murder of an unidentified woman in 1992 was arrested this week in Oregon.
Keith Hunter Jesperson has been a person of interest in the murder case of a woman found alongside California State Route 95 on August 30, 1992. Coroners estimated her age at 20-30-years-old at the time, white, 5’3″ tall, with blonde hair. No one ever claimed they knew who she might be, so investigators nicknamed her “Jane Doe.”
In 1996, Jesperson sent a written account of the murder to a reporter at the Statesman Journal in Salem, Ore., according to a declaration in support of an arrest warrant.
In the letter, he provided the specific location near Blythe where he discarded the body of the victim, whom he referred to as “Claudia.”
Jesperson, who was a long haul trucker, wrote that he picked up the woman in the Cajon Pass area on Interstate 15 after she asked for a ride.
He wrote that he had sex with the woman several times at the Burn’s Brothers Truck Stop on Dillon Road in Coachella, but that he killed her after she demanded money for the sex acts.
“We showered together and went out to sleep and play. After play she wanted spending money. I told her while she was with me she wouldn’t starve and I would furnish her needs. I wasn’t going to start handing over money just for the play on the side. She didn’t like the answer she got mad and said we’ll see about that. She died!” the letter states.
He also detailed how he disposed of the body “at the bottom of a canyon with a lot of brush,” which matches the description of where the body was found, according to the declaration.
The case turned cold, and in 2001 it was assigned to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department Central Homicide Unit and their Cold Case Division.
Over the years, investigator Robert Masson probed the case deeper, watching Jesperson as a key person in the investigation.
This week, police made their arrest.
Jesperson was extradited from Salem, Oregon, and booked into the Robert Presely Detention Center in Riverside.
Jesperson is currently serving a life sentence in Oregon for a 1995 murder. He has also pleaded guilty to murders in Washington State and Wyoming.
If you have any information about the case of Jane Doe, call (951)955-2777.
