A murder kit of three knives, rope, razor blades and duct tape that belonged to serial killer Israel Keyes was found near the Bonnet Carré Spillway, according to Josh Hallmark, the host of the True Crime Bullsh** podcast.
Hallmark said the existence of the murder kit was corroborated by a witness account, a Federal Bureau of Investigation timeline of Keyes’ movements, and a map the FBI found on Keyes’ computer with a circle and the number two around the spillway. The discovery of the murder kit was a collaborative effort with Hallmark and his team, the FBI, and producers of the Somewhere in the Pines podcast, Hallmark said.
Keyes, who killed himself while in police custody in Anchorage, Alaska in December 2012, is suspected of killing 11 people. The news of the modern-day serial killer, who targeted both men and women and traveled across the country, caught the attention of Hallmark, who started his podcast on Keyes in December 2018. The podcast, which is named after Keyes’ statement to police about “true crime bullsh**,” is now in its sixth season.
“I just kept thinking there are all these missing people out there whose families don’t know what happened to them,” Hallmark said in a phone interview. “We could find these answers, hopefully.”
Earlier this year, a St. Charles Parish resident told Hallmark and his team that he was riding his dirt bike with friends at the Bonnet Carré Spillway in 2012 when a man approached them. The man said he was a tourist from Alaska and asked questions about the spillway. The St. Charles Parish resident, who told the podcasters he wanted to remain anonymous, realized that the man was Israel Keyes a few weeks later when Keyes was arrested in Alaska for the murder of 18-year-old Samantha Koenig in March 2012.
The St. Charles Parish resident told the podcasters that he then went back to the spillway where he found the murder kit almost completely buried and hidden under an abandoned deep freezer. He called St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office and reported that he saw Keyes in the area, and that he found a large bucket filled with supplies, according to Hallmark.
According to the FBI timeline, Keyes stayed at Americas Best Value Inn in Lafayette from Feb. 2 to Feb. 5, 2012, and at the Prytania Park Hotel in New Orleans on Feb. 6, 2012. Keyes visited the Walmart on Tchoupitoulas Street on Feb. 3, 2012, Hallmark said.
The resident said he watched as police removed items from the bucket and took photos. The podcasters have not found the actual murder kit or police photos of the murder kit. But Hallmark said the map on Keyes’ computer, which was verified by FBI Special Agent Ted Halla, and the witness account, are big findings in the case.
“I think this is probably the win that is going to change everything because new evidence, I believe, is going to start avalanching from this,” Hallmark said.
Hallmark said Keyes marked at least 10 different spots on his map of the greater New Orleans area.
“It’s likely that some of those marks on the map will lead us to other evidence,” Hallmark said.
The murder kit near the spillway could possibly be linked to two missing person cases in the area, Hallmark said.
James Lamar Tidwell and Mark Julian Oldbury both disappeared separately from Texas in early 2012, around the time that Keyes was traveling in Louisiana and Texas. Hallmark said Keyes was known for abducting victims from one state and burying them in another to muddy the investigation.
While in police custody in Alaska for the murder of Koenig, Keyes, a 34-year-old construction worker, told investigators that he killed two other victims – Bill and Lorraine Currier, a middle-aged couple from Vermont. He also gave police clues about other murders he said he committed around the country, according to the FBI’s website.
Some of those clues led the FBI to two of Keyes’ murder kits – one near Eagle River Road in Alaska and one in Blake Falls Reservoir in Parishville, New York. Those kits included weapons, materials to speed the decomposition of a body, and cash, which Keyes stole from banks. According to the FBI’s website, Keyes would bury the kits in advance of his random killings so that he did not have weapons on him while traveling.
No murder kits have been found since Keyes’ death in 2012, Hallmark said. But the account of the murder kit at the spillway, which was detailed in a Sept. 26 episode of the podcast, was a turning point, Hallmark said.
“Not only can [the murder kits] be found, but they can be found by average citizens who are out hiking and out recreating,” Hallmark said. “I think that’s the fascinating thing about Keyes. The mythology of him being the most methodical serial killer of all time is turning out to be very false. He was actually pretty sloppy in his execution of those plans.”
Once the FBI got the tip from Hallmark and his team that a witness could place Keyes near the spillway, the FBI realized that one of the maps on Keyes’ computer included parts of St. Charles Parish and that Keyes had circled the spillway, Hallmark said.
Over 70 topographical maps of various areas around the country were found on Keyes’ computer by the FBI, Hallmark said. Hallmark thinks these maps will help the FBI and others locate more murder kits, cash, or even bodies.
“The FBI’s next steps is now analyzing these other maps and sending people out [to investigate],” Hallmark said.
Hallmark said Keyes usually hid his kill kits in Home Depot buckets and he believes there are close to 30 hidden across the U.S.
“If anyone finds a Home Depot bucket where it’s not supposed to be, don’t touch it and call the FBI immediately,” Hallmark said.
