American Predator Quotes

“Adventurers and loners, romantics and desperadoes, eccentrics and slow suicides—the luxuriousness of the place, its seduction and savagery, calls to the wildest among us. Alaska, the land of black moons and midnight suns.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“What Keyes was describing was the textbook progression, from childhood, of a sadist and a psychopath. Torturing and killing small animals, pets especially, is experimentation in controlling and killing another living thing for pure pleasure. It is practice, the last step before graduating to humans. Even as an adult,”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“I've got lots more stories to tell.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“If the FBI hadn’t been informed of this interview, it was highly unlikely the Department of Justice had—and DOJ was the final word, the lone authorizing agency on federal death-penalty cases. Investigators and prosecutors had to do everything—everything—by the book. And Kevin Feldis was pissing all over it. Nor was this an isolated example.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“I decided to go back to my old stomping grounds,” he said. “Back east.” Another clue. Had Keyes killed more on the East Coast than the West? They could tell he was getting off on telling investigators things they’d never heard nor had ever known to fear. It could be difficult to tell how much he was exaggerating, but so much of what he had told them bore out. They were inclined to believe him. “I have hundreds of plans,” Keyes said, “and a grand plan.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Before his death in 2016, Hazelwood spoke about Keyes. Hazelwood’s decades of service had left him with a cynical view of the FBI’s truthfulness in general, and he believed stranger abductions are far more common than the Bureau insists. He was convinced that the proliferation of hard-core pornography, so easily and anonymously accessible online, has contributed to increasingly sadistic crimes and murders.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Another passage nailed Keyes: “The sexual offender is never fully inactive,” Hazelwood wrote. “He may not be acting out against a specific victim, but he will be making plans, selecting new targets, acting out against other victims, or gathering materials. He is never dormant.” Keyes was a cluster bomb. Investigators were learning that some of his tactics were borrowed from different predecessors, reconstituted for the modern age.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Keyes had told investigators that there were two texts that he studied closely, both written by pioneering behavioral profilers in the FBI: Dark Dreams: Sexual Violence, Homicide, and the Criminal Mind by Roy Hazelwood, and Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by John Douglas, in turn the model for Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Then there was the driving, the ability to stay awake without the aid of drugs, just his Americano coffees and soaring adrenaline, moving through five states in as many days. Until Samantha, Keyes had left no digital trail, no cell phone or credit card activity. Until Samantha, he swore he’d never killed in his own backyard. Decades of mayhem, geographical boundaries unknown.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Breaking apart his cell phone and removing the battery was something the team hadn’t seen before either. For Kat Nelson, those dark spots in his history, the hours that his phone gave off no signal, would be a tell. That’s when Keyes was doing something.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“And while investigators didn’t necessarily think Keyes was responsible for all of the missing kids on his computer, their inclusion was disturbing. Who reads about missing children and babies for kicks?”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Chacon retired in July 2014, and at his going-away party said the one thing he’d never miss was pulling another dead child out of the water. He meant it as a joke, but it left his colleagues stunned. To this day, he suffers from post-traumatic stress. He will probably have it the rest of his life. He sometimes thinks that the reason he and his wife were never able to have children despite years of trying, specialist after specialist offering no solution, was so he’d never have to know a parent’s grief.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Before beginning Samantha’s recovery, Chacon had his team gather in one of the tents, where they were invisible to cameras and agents on the ice. They observed a moment of silence, and as they exited, they saw an enormous bald eagle circling overhead. Chacon took it as a sign that Samantha was watching over them. The divers looked at each other, nodded, and silently went to work.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Yet Alaska remains the “Great Land,” as James Michener called it: the closest we have to a time before man, unsullied terrain, nature so titanically overwhelming it’s impossible not to be awed and a little afraid.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“I’m walking this over to you, I’m talking to you, which means this is important.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Studies of twins have shown that psychopathy may be a trait more heritable than environmental, yet good children can thrive despite bad parents, and vice versa.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“...how did a self-employed construction worker with below-average income purchase so many one-way plane tickets and never get flagged by Homeland Security? Was Keyes a beneficiary of racial profiling? He sometimes traveled with guns, breaking them apart and stashing them in carry-ons, yet was never once questioned by the TSA.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Before his death in 2016, Hazelwood spoke about Keyes. Hazelwood's decades of service had left him with a cynical view of the FBI's truthfulness in general, and he believed stranger abductions are far more common then the Bureau insists. He was convinced that the proliferation of hard-core pornography, so easily and anonymously accessible online, has contributed to increasingly sadistic crimes and murders. He believed that technology, the mainstreaming of violent pornography, advances in ever-faster travel, and an overall culture of misogyny, from politics to entertainment, would only contribute to breed more aberrant and dangerous criminals. He made this prediction in 2001. [!!]”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Showered and shaved now, they all looked the same: buzz cuts, khaki pants, black jackets. Chacon joked that it was as close as they could get to wearing "FBI" across their chests.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“The Anchorage Correctional Complex, the Alaska Department of Corrections, and state attorneys are so corrupt that in 2016 these attorneys advised prisons not to keep records and not to document causes or circumstances of inmate deaths. In January 2018, the Anchorage Daily News reported that ACC had secretly wired visitation rooms Keyes used, and that these rooms remained wired ever since, illegally recording attorney-client conversations.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Finally, complaints about the federal prosecutor were made through the proper channels, and these went all the way through chain of command to Washington, DC. Word came back to Feldis: Your behavior is unacceptable. And yet, incredibly, Kevin Feldis remained in the interrogation room, often leading the charge. To this day, no one will say why that was allowed to happen.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“It didn’t take long for Steve Payne to find out about Feldis’s secret interrogation, and when he did, there was, finally, a confrontation. A friend of Goeden’s had first heard about the interview down at the courthouse, and when Goeden was told she didn’t believe it at first. This stuff just didn’t happen, especially with such a high-value suspect. Goeden had to make several phone calls to find out: Yes, it’s true. The prosecutor on your case is totally out of control. The potential damage could be incalculable.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Ted Bundy, who Keyes called his great hero, killed all over the country. James Mitchell “Mike” DeBardeleben, the basis for Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs, kept at least one kill kit. John Robert Williams was a long-haul trucker who killed in one state and left bodies in another. Dennis Rader, the BTK (“bind, torture, kill”) Strangler, posed at least one of his victims in the basement of his church, tied up in sexually degrading positions.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Some agents, like Steve Payne, stuck to traditional investigative methods: the interviews Gannaway was conducting with Heidi; searches through financial records, computers, datebooks, and journals; interrogations with Keyes himself. For other agents—Jeff Bell, Jolene Goeden, and now Ted Halla and Colleen Sanders, two FBI special agents who were starting to research Keyes down in Washington State—the few serial killers Keyes referenced were a source of fascination and, they hoped, insight. These agents began reading and watching every book, film, or TV show Keyes had consumed, building little libraries in their respective field offices and comparing notes.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“If an Israel Keyes existed, someone even more diabolical would follow. They needed to understand the forces that built Israel Keyes, the first sui generis serial killer of the twenty-first century.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Meanwhile, the FBI had gone through the hundreds of images on Kimberly’s computer and were able to identify forty-four people using facial recognition software against all the images on NamUS, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons website. Eleven of those were teenagers. Ten were small children. The two youngest were each one year old. One thing I won’t do is mess with kids. Now investigators had even more reason to doubt this credo.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Another thing: In searching Kimberly’s house, police recovered a piece of paper with random numbers listed: 5, 79, 105, 633, 1.5, 5, 5. Bell Googled them. Up came “Police frequency, Stephenville, Texas.” He pulled up a map of Stephenville—5 was the highway coming into it; 105 was the highway out. Then Bell Googled “1.5-5-5, Stephenville TX.” Up came the scanner frequency.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“Payne thought Keyes was still most concerned about media coverage. Keyes swatted that away. “I know it’s inevitable,” he said. “I’m not in this for the glory. I’m not trying to be on TV.” When Bell heard the tape of this interview, the word “glory” struck him. It was another tell. Who calls the rape and murder of an eighteen-year-old a thing to be glorified for? Payne and his team had come to believe they were dealing with a serial killer. And Keyes had just told Doll and Payne: You’re right. And you’ll never find another body without me. —”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“A few minutes later, all of Samantha’s remains, found in close proximity, were in their possession. Allen and Bart dragged the body bag directly under the hole they’d dived through, where it lay in a shaft of nighttime sunlight. They waited while a white pop-up shelter was pitched above the hole, blocking the media’s view. Once they got the signal, Bart and Allen attached three small nylon lift bags to the body bag and watched it rise. At the surface, Chacon knelt down and looked inside. The first thing he saw was Samantha’s face. Her eyes were wide open.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

“it was, Kat Nelson was having a hard time finding Israel Keyes in any public filings. No property records. No documentation of parents or siblings. No address history, no gun licenses, no academic transcripts. He wasn’t on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. He had left nearly no digital footprint, no paper trail—and this was a guy with an unusual name. If he hadn’t been in custody, Nelson would have a hard time believing Israel Keyes actually existed.”
― Maureen Callahan, American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century