Samantha Koenig's Surveillance Video Analysis

A surveillance video show the first terrifying moments of Samantha Koenig's abduction. Israel Keyes is seen as a shadowy figure in ski mask and hood outside Common Grounds, a tiny Anchorage coffee shack then partially concealed from a busy six-lane highway by large snow berms. On Feb. 1, 2012, about 8 p.m., Samantha Koenig is shown handing Keyes a cup of coffee, then backing away with her hands up, as if it's a robbery. The lights go out and Keyes next appears as a fuzzy image climbing through the drive-thru window. Authorities outlined his next steps:
Keyes forced Koenig to his Silverado; he'd already bound her hands with zip ties and gagged her. He hid her in a shed outside his house, turned on loud music so no one could hear if she screamed, then returned to the coffee shack to retrieve scraps of the restraints and get her phone and then driving to her home to steal her debit card. Just barely escaping to his car before Koenig’s boyfriend could catch him. On Feb. 2, Keyes raped and strangled Koenig. He left her in that shed, flew to Houston and embarked on a cruise, returning about two weeks later.
He then took a photo of Koenig's body holding a Feb. 13 newspaper to make it appear she was alive. Keyes wrote a ransom note on the

back, demanding $30,000 be placed in her account. He texted a message, directing the family to a dog park where the note could be found. Her family deposited some money from a reward fund. In the following days, Keyes dismembered her body before driving to Matanuska Lake and using a chainsaw to cut a hole in the still-frozen lake and stuff Koenig’s body into the abyss.
On Feb. 29, Keyes withdrew $500 in ransom money from an Anchorage ATM, using a debit card stolen from Koenig's house. The next day, $500 more was retrieved from another ATM. Then on March 7, far away in Wilcox, Arizona, Keyes withdrew $400. He traveled to Lordsburg, New Mexico, and took out $80. Two days later, a withdrawal of $480 in Humble, Texas. On March 11, the same amount from an ATM in Shepherd, Texas.
By then, authorities had a blurry ATM photo and a pattern: Keyes was driving along route I-10 in a rented white Ford Focus.

On March 13, nearly 3,200 miles from Anchorage, police in Lufkin, Texas, pounced when they spotted Keyes driving 3 mph above the speed limit. Inside his car was an incriminating stash: Rolls of cash in rubber bands. A piece of a gray T-shirt cut out to make a face mask. A highlighted map with routes through California, Arizona and New Mexico. The stolen debit card. And Samantha Koenig's phone. Monique Doll, the lead Anchorage police investigator in the Koenig case, and her partner, Jeff Bell, rushed to Texas to arrest Keyes. He was arrested at a gas station in Texas and was brought back to Alaska on March 13,

2012.
Confessing to Koenig's killing, Keyes used a Google map to point to a spot on a lake where he'd disposed of her dismembered body and gone ice fishing at the same time. He wasn't done talking, though. He declared he'd been "two different people" for 14 years. He had stories to tell, stories he said he'd never shared. He made seemingly plural references and chilling remarks such as, "It takes a long time to strangle someone."
As prosecutors Kevin Felids and Frank Russo and investigators from the FBI and Anchorage police listened that day in early 2012, they came to a consensus:
Israel Keyes wasn't talking just about Samantha Koenig. He'd killed before.
In 40 hours of interviews over eight months, Keyes talked of many killings; authorities believe there were nearly a dozen. He traveled from Vermont to Alaska hunting for victims. He said he buried "murder kits" around the country so they would be readily accessible. These caches – containing guns, zip ties and other supplies used to dispose of bodies – were found in Alaska and New York.
At the same time, incredibly, Keyes was an under-the-radar everyday citizen – a father, a live-in boyfriend, a respected handyman who had no trouble finding jobs in the community. Keyes claimed he killed four people in Washington State, dumped another body in New York and raped a teen in Oregon. He said he robbed banks to help finance his crimes; authorities corroborated two robberies in New York and Texas. He confessed to burning down a house in Texas, contentedly watching the flames from a distance.
His trial was scheduled to begin in March 2013, however he committed suicide on December 2, 2012 by slashing his left wrist and then hanging himself by his bedsheet, leaving behind a suicide letter on a torn piece of paper. Police hoped it might mention the names of his past victims but had no such luck. Instead they got a dark and disturbing poem:
“Back in your ride, the night is still young, streetlights push back the black I neat rows. Off to the right a graveyard appears, lines of stones, bodies molder below. Turn away quick, bob your head to the seat, as straight through that stop sign you roll loaded truck with lights off slams into you broadside, your flesh smashed as metal explodes.
You may have been free, you loved living your lie, and fate had its own scheme crushed like a bug you still die.
Soon, now, you'll join those ranks of dead or your ashes the wind will soon blow. Family and friends will shed a few tears, pretend it's off to heaven you go. But the reality is you were just bones and meat, and with your brain died also your soul.
Send the dying to wait for their death in the comfort of retirement homes, quietly/quickly say "it's for the best" it's best for you so their fate you'll not know. Turn a blind eye back to the screen, soak in your reality shows. Stand in front of your mirror and you preen, in a plastic castle you call home.
Land of the free, land of the lie, land of scheme Americanize! Consume what you don't need, stars you idolize, pursue what you admit is a dream, then its American die.
Get in your big car, so you can get to work fast, on roads made of dinosaur bones. Punch in on the clock and sit on your ass, playing stupid ass games on your phone. Paper on your wall, says you got smarts. The test that you took told you so, but you would still crawl like the vermin you are, once your precious power grids blown.
Land of the free, land of the lie, land of the scheme, Americanize.
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.
I looked in your eyes, they were so dark, warm and trusting, as though you had not a worry or care. The more guiles the game the better potential to fill up those pools with your fear.
Your face framed in dark curls like a portrait, the sun shone through highlights of red. What color I wonder, and how straight will it turn plastered back with the sweat of your blood.
Your wet lips were a promise of a secret unspoken, nervous laugh as it burst like a pulse of blood from your throat. There will be no more laughter here.
I feel your body tense up, my hand now on your shoulder, your eyes…Forget the lady called luck she does not abide near me for her powers don't extend to those who are dead.
[Illegible words] would that I could keep you, let you be the master of your own fate...knowing full well what's at stake? My pretty captive butterfly colorful wings my hand smears...I somehow repaint them with punishment and tears.
Violent metamorphosis, emerge my dark moth princess, I would come often and worship on the altar of your flesh…You shudder with revulsion and try to shrink far from me. I'll have you tied down and begging to become my Stockholm sweetie.
Okay, talk is over, words are placid and weak. Back it with action or it all comes off cheap. Watch close while I work now, feel the electric shock of my touch, open your trembling flower, or your petals I'll crush."