Calif. police seek help to identify B.C.-born serial killer’s last unknown victim
For five years in the early 1990s, Keith Jesperson, a B.C.-born long-haul trucker, crisscrossed the western United States in his truck, killing women he met along the way.
From 1990 to 1995 he killed at least eight women, ensuring his notoriety by sending anonymous confession letters to journalists and investigators which he often signed with a smiley face.
And while Jesperson — known widely as the “Happy Face Killer” for his unusual letter sign-off — has since confessed to the serial killings and is serving four life sentences at the Oregon State Penitentiary, police are asking for help in identifying Jesperson’s final unknown victim.
Officials with Riverside County in California released a new sketch and DNA-renderings of a California woman whom Jesperson referred to as “Claudia” — although investigators are unsure if that’s her true name.
Her body was found on Aug. 30, 1992, along a highway near the California-Arizona border, and is the only victim left to be properly identified.
“We hope to give this victim back her identity,” said Riverside Country District Attorney Mike Hestrin in a video statement released Monday. “We are hopeful someone hearing any of these details may remember anything that could help us reunite this woman with the family.”
In an effort to identify Claudia, reports CNN, cold case investigators interviewed Jesperson behind bars late last year.
He told police that he first encountered her while at a brake-check area in Victorville, Calif., when she asked him for a ride to Los Angeles. Jesperson said he was heading to Arizona instead, and Claudia accepted his offer to ride with him.
Jesperson told police they got into an argument about money while eating at a rest stop, which led to his decision to
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