Wyoming Again In Spotlight With New TV Series About ‘Happy Face Killer’

Bruce Dexter was scrolling through social media on his phone a couple weeks ago at a barber shop in Cheyenne when an ad for the new “Happy Face” Paramount+ series popped up in his feed.

This guy again, Dexter thought. It’s been a while since he’d thought of the infamous serial killer.

Known as the “Happy Face Killer” for the notes he scrawled on bathroom walls and anonymous confession letters he sent to media outlets and law enforcement that he signed with a smiley face, Keith Jesperson admitted to killing eight women across five states, including Wyoming, between 1990 and 1995.

The long-haul trucker preyed on vulnerable women he picked up at various spots along his routes. He showed no remorse for his crimes.

This is what Dexter remembered most about Jesperson all these years later after hearing his confession in 1996 about how he murdered 21-year-old Angela Subrize at a truck stop outside of Cheyenne. Back then, Dexter was a Laramie County Sheriff's Office detective who had been sent with fellow detective, John Harrison, to question Jesperson about the murder.

It didn't take any prompting from the detectives. Jesperson was more than happy to confess. 

"He said it almost like he was proud of it," Dexter told Cowboy State Daily. "He was just so matter-of-fact."

New Series

Over the years, Jesperson has shared his story in books and news articles as has his daughter, Melissa G. Moore, who has spent decades of her life attempting to rectify the truth about her father’s crimes that she’d learned about as a teen.

She first shared her story in the 2009 book, “Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of Serial Killer’s Daughter,” and went on to do numerous television interviews as well as her own podcast, “Happy Face,” in 2018.

The new eight-part Paramount+ series that runs March 20 to May 1 is a fictional rendering based on the podcast that explores the complicated relationship Moore had with her father. Moore’s character is played by Annaleigh Ashford with Dennis Quaid starring as Jesperson. 

Today, Jesperson, 69, is currently serving two consecutive life sentences at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, Oregon, and also faces more prison time in California and Wyoming.

Jesperson did not respond to Cowboy State Daily’s request for interview through an external prison messaging system nor did Moore.

Cold-Blooded

Dexter said he has no plans to watch the series, nor has he followed any of the books, podcasts or other news about the serial killer since first interviewing him nearly three decades ago. 

Over the years, Dexter has been contacted by reporters and crime show producers about sharing his story but never responded to any request for interviews until now.

He recalled the drive with Harrison from Wyoming to Washington in 1996, where they took a boat to what he believes was the McNeil Island Corrections Center, which closed in 2011, where Jesperson was being detained.

In some ways, it was just a formality because Oregon and Washington had already done the hard work in piecing together the investigation before reaching out to Wyoming, Dexter said. 

"We were just another cog in the wheel," he said. 

In fact, by the time Wyoming caught up to him, Jesperson had already been convicted in both Oregon and Washington and was also facing charges in California, Florida and Wyoming.

The Wyoming detectives had been sent to get Jesperson's statement, which he freely gave. 

When questioned, Dexter recalled Jesperson glibly admitting to the murder as well as his reasons for killing her.

“He was just very matter-of-fact,” Dexter said.

Jesperson said he’d picked up Subrize on the highway near Spokane, Washington, with the plan of dropping her off at her father’s house in Fort Collins, Colorado. They’d stopped for the night at the TA Truck Stop outside Cheyenne, where Jesperson planned to sleep for the night.

Subrize, however, wanted to keep going.

“He said she kept bugging him about continuing on the trip,” Dexter said. “She wanted to get going, and he told us he got tired of her nagging him, and he choked and killed her.”

Afterwards, he told the detectives about how he dragged her under his semi for several miles, before dumping her off 1-80 in Nebraska. She was found months later. 

He was so direct about it, Dexter reiterated. 

“It didn’t seem to bother him," he said. 

Dexter had a lot of people confess to crimes over his decades in law enforcement, but nothing quite like that.

This was the first time Dexter had ever interviewed a serial killer – to his knowledge – and he wasn't sure what to expect. He remembered that Harrison had asked the questions, but Jesperson deliberately looked at Dexter when answering, as if playing games. 

"I didn’t see any remorse in him," Dexter said. " He wasn’t upset at all about what he had done.”

Worse, Dexter noted, Jesperson seemed to really enjoy the attention.

Dexter’s heart went out to the family of Jesperson’s victims.

“These people didn't deserve to be murdered," Dexter said, "And I just hate to see Keith get any attention because he eats it up."

The two detectives interviewed Jesperson for about two hours, and Dexter ended up testifying at Jesperson's preliminary hearing months later after he was extradited to Wyoming.

"He never expressed any remorse," Dexter repeated. "The guy just needs to rot in hell."

Political Ploy

Though the Laramie County Sheriff’s detectives were successful in getting Jesperson’s confession, not everyone felt that bringing the notorious serial killer to justice was worth the cost to extradite him to Wyoming for trial.

Since he had already been convicted in at least two other states and was under three life sentences with a minimum of 67 years but had not sentenced to death, then Gov. Jim Geringer was lobbying hard to extradite Jesperson to Wyoming to be charged with the death penalty.

Critics, like former Sen. John Vinich of Hudson, however, cited the cost of the state’s first and only execution to date of Mark Hopkinson, who was put to death by lethal injection in 1992, a process that took a dozen years and cost at least $3 million, according to news reports.

Vinich was quoted in a 1997 Casper Star-Tribune article in which he accused Geringer of “political grandstanding” and “poor judgement.”

Former Sen. Tom Kinnison, R-Sheridan, was equally dismissive of Geringer’s plans for extradition for the same reasons.

Geringer, however, held his ground and even garnered a signed agreement from former Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber who conceded to allow Wyoming to carry out the death penalty if granted by the courts.

Geringer’s spokesman, Jimmy Orr, who is now executive editor of Cowboy State Daily, insisted that the governor’s extradition plans were based on justice, not politics.

“The governor’s overriding philosophy is that we cannot put a price tag on justice,” Orr said in a March 1998 Casper-Star Tribune article.

Pleading Down

Initially, Laramie County prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty at which point Jesperson attempted to change his story with his life now on the table.

He instead insisted that he had actually killed his victim in Nebraska, not Wyoming. He later changed his story again, denying that he had killed her, according to media reports.

Initially, Laramie County District Attorney Jon Forwood estimated that the cost of extraditing Jesperson to Wyoming and the trial would cost the state $80,000, while Wyoming Public Defender Sylvia Hackl said it would cost her office around $100,000 for his defense as quoted in the Casper-Star Tribune.

In the end, Jesperson was extradited to Wyoming in December 1997, where he made his initial court appearance with his court appointed counsel, Mark Voss and Dion Custis, neither of whom responded to a request for comment.

During that court appearance, Jesperson asked Laramie County Judge Robert Allen to keep him from being “accosted by any famous attorneys trying to make a big deal of this,” according to reporting by the Casper-Star Tribune.

Jesperson also requested that he have a hand in selecting the jury.

In the end, however, the trial never took place. The death penalty was dropped in lieu of Jesperson’s pleading guilty to first-degree murder for which he received another life sentence and was transported back to Oregon.

Reporting by the Casper-Star Tribune cites the cost of Jesperson’s defense at around $20,000 with a total cost to the state of about $32,000.

Later, he was also extradited to California where he received a fourth life sentence for the murder of a woman who has yet to be identified.

A Heart Problem

Though Jesperson did not respond to Cowboy State Daily’s request for an interview, he nonetheless has been very chatty over the years.

In 2022, in a four-part series, Jesperson shared letters with journalist Maria DiLorenzo, who published his correspondence in four parts on her blog, “Beyond the Crime: From the Perspective of Those Who Kill” in August 2022.

The fourth letter begins: "Here, it is November 2021 at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. I’m 66 years old, overweight with a heart problem…It is safe to say I’m not going anywhere soon.”

He still feels the need to share his story, he continued, “to clear up the rumors and stories told by everyone, including myself.”

He also bragged about the perks of calling Gov. Geringer an “idiot” on national television and the perceived cost of $136,000 to the taxpayers of Wyoming.

Jesperson boasted about what he considered outwitting Geringer in the end as well as the roughly six months he spent incarcerated in Wyoming.

“In June 1998, I was given a life sentence and sent back to Oregon,” Jesperson wrote. “Governor Geringer had promised his taxpayers that I’d be given the death sentence.  But because he made it political, he lost that chance to pull it off. Idiot!”

While incarcerated in Wyoming, Jesperson also bragged that he was contacted by true crime journalist, Jack Olsen, who would later chronicle Jesperson’s story in the book, “I: The Creation of a Serial Killer” that was heavily panned by critics at the time of its release in 2002.

He further wrote about all the ways he manipulated the media to his greater good. Nowhere in his writings, as Dexter noted, is there any inkling of remorse for his murders.

Now, Jesperson’s life will once again be retold through the lens of his daughter, who continues to bear the guilt of his crimes as she attempts to free herself and her family of the generational trauma.

Contacr Jen Kocher at jen@cowboystatedaily.com

Jen Kocher can be reached at jen@cowboystatedaily.com.