The “Happy Face” serial killer almost acknowledged the killings of a teenager’s daughter

Melissa G. Moore had breakfast with her father Keith Jesperson on the dinner when he almost exposed his secret double life.

A high school student, who was preparing to get a driver’s license, pushed her because of obtaining her freedom. She was also excited to spend time with her father, a trucker who divorced Moore’s mother at that moment.

“I was on the verge of being 16,” Moore recalled in Fox News Digital. “He visited my brothers and sisters immensely and wanted to go breakfast with him before the school started. My brothers and sisters had other obligations, so they couldn’t join us. … We talked about what my first car would be. I remember saying he would buy Pontiac, and I was discussing with him.

Investigators find the relatives of ‘happy face’ the last unknown victim of a serial killer in a mission to identify her

“Then the topic began to turn to the next time I saw him,” Moore split. “He was looking forward to seeing us during the summer break. But the way he spoke, it sounded like it wanted to think … … Then he began to say,” I have to tell you something, but you will tell the authorities. “That stopped me.

“At first, I thought,” There must be rumors about which my mother told me he was fired because of the theft of his employer. “Did he stole him? He’s like,” No, no, I can’t tell you. “I started to feel sick in my stomach.

“Looking back at that conversation, I feel he knew his crimes were caught.”

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Moore was 15 when Jesperson, a fertile serial killer, is notorious about drawing smiles in the media and prosecutor’s letters. The case is now the subject of the Paramount+ True-Crime drama, “Happy Face”, in which Annaleigh Ashford and Dennis Quaid are acting in the act.

Moore previously shared his story in Memoir of bestsellers, “broken silence” and Podcast “Happy Face” from 2018.

“I am proud of this series because I think that the members of the victims’ family will feel seen, so the members of the perpetrator of the family will also,” she explained. “I have never seen anything like this. When you look at the serial killer show, they do not show the complex nature of the relationships they have with their own family.”

Moore described her childhood as “pretty normal” in rural Washington. Her father, who was standing in a high 6 feet-6, 300 pounds, worked as a truck driver with a long way. Her mother stayed at home with three children couple.

“I grew up in the countryside where we had freedom to wander,” Moore said. “If my father returned home from his long trucks, he was very back. He was very sweet.”

Watch: Serial killer Happy Face admits he killed an eighth victim in conversation with Florida officials

“He used to like to ride a bicycle and always wanted children with him,” she split. “He was a very practical father. He would read our sleep stories. He would play games with us. He would hang out with us as much as possible.”

But there were signs that her home life was not so idyllic. Moore said that when she was 5, she was a witness to “animal abuse on our property.”

“My father would kill animals for sports,” she explained. “He would kill cats. He would kill dogs. It was something that, as a young person … you just feel it is wrong. But that was really not discussed. It was just Keith Bio Keith. Not that we accepted it, but no one really wanted to admit it.”

Look: ‘Happy Face’ Dennis Quaid’s star thinking about playing a series killer from real life Keith Hunter Jesperson

Jesperson was arrested in 1995 On suspicion of killing his girlfriend in Washington. In the end, he admitted that he had killed eight women between 1990 and 1995 in California, Washington, Oregon, Florida, Nebraska and Wyoming. The victims, who included their girlfriend, acquaintances and sex workers, were sexually attacked and strangled.

He was arrested just before Moore’s birthday.

“I found out through my mom,” Moore said. “In the series, this was precisely shown. I came home from school, and my mother called us brothers and sisters together. She had something we needed to say. She informed us all that our father was in prison and that he was charged with murder. She had no more details.

Look: ‘Happy Face’ Stars James Wolk and Tamera Tomakili at work with Dennis Quaid in the Serial Killer series

“As an adult who looks back, I imagine that … she probably didn’t feel comfortable discussing these details with us.”

The news quickly spread to Moore’s hometown. Her friends described how they saw Jesperson on TV as they watched the news, wore an orange overalls and tied. He His name was “a happy face killer.”

“I was fascinated by attending school and deeply ashamed,” Moore said. “Whenever I turned on TV, it was my father’s face, it blinked. My friends told me that their parents saw the news, and they did not want to hang out with me.

“I internalized him,” Moore admitted. “I took it as if something was wrong with me. Maybe the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. It was the beginning of that deep downhill to fight my own identity. I internalized his crimes in a way that he wrapped himself with my own identity.

“It took me years to come to terms with that,” the 47-year-old added.

Today, Jesperson, 69, withstands a few life sentences without the possibility of conditional discharge.

“He never explained why,” Moore said. “I am still interested in why he chose the life he did and decided to commit these crimes. I believe he felt deep insecurity in himself and wanted to have control. I would say it was power and control. … It became a perfect monster.”

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In the show, the viewers will see a letter to Jesperson sent to Moore. She said the scene was correct.

“He wrote to me from the first day since he entered in prison, and [those letters] Go without answering, “she said.” I’m not writing back to him. I collected them and I gave all the letters [executive producer] Jennifer Cacicio. In the series, she used letters for dialogue.

“Unfortunately her house was among the team Lost in California fires. These letters were burned. They left. “

Today, Moore has his family. Sharing his story, Moore managed to create a network of more than 300 people associated with the killers, talking to them on the phone and in person to support, People magazine reported. She said earlier BBC News This project gave her “life and direction”.

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“I’m not proud of who my father is, but I no longer feel the need to hide,” Moore said. “I no longer attribute his crimes to the one who I am as a person. And I am not alone in dealing with these unique questions. There is no group to support the members of the family perpetrators. There is really no group to support families. We are left to find other people like us. … They don’t have to be alone in navigation.”

Speaking, he also helped Moore reconcile with his painful past.

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“My father gave me his greatest sadness, which is a trauma of growing up with him as dad,” she said. “I would say that the series does a really good job by showing that deep desire in myself that I have a father who no longer exists, the father of my childhood. He is no longer here. Maybe he never really existed.”