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After I dumped the pothead Julie Winningham, I came across another article about the two losers who were serving time for Taunja Bennett's murder. Something about it pissed me off. I wondered why nobody noticed the graffiti I'd left on the restroom walls. Did they think I was lying?

I decided I needed to give up a little more information to make people believe me. I sent another Happy Face note to the Washington County Courthouse:

I checked the papers for a month and didn't see a word. I wondered what I had to do to get noticed. The only thing I could accomplish with another note was my own arrest and conviction, but I was dying of curiosity about what was happening. My gut told me to butt out, but I couldn't help myself.

I thought,
Maybe if I gave the cops enough information, I could get those two people out of prison without me coming forward
. At the time I didn't know what police and prosecutors will do to keep from admitting their mistakes. Innocent people can die of old age in prison if their case has been marked “solved.” It's just the way law enforcement works.

 

In April 1994, four years after I killed Taunja, I composed another note on pale blue paper. At the top of page one, I drew a circle with two smaller circles for eyes and a little arc for a mouth. I sent it to the biggest paper in the Northwest, the
Oregonian:

Once again there was no reaction, so I scribbled more details for the
Oregonian
:

I didn't sign any of the letters or reread them for errors, but I made a little Happy Face so the paper would know it was the same guy. I figured if the Portland authorities were too stupid to recognize that somebody else did the Bennett murder, maybe the California cops would get to work on the murder in Corning and confirm that I was legitimate.

In the second half of 1994, with five or six murders and a couple of assaults and a screwed-up life behind me, I was getting desperate to understand what was going on in my head, and I began reading magazines and paperbacks about serial killers. Passing through Denton, Texas, I picked up a copy of a true-detective magazine and saw an article called “Does Oregon Have Another Serial Killer?” It was about me.

I wrote the author a letter correcting a few of his points and told him where another body could be found. I kept buying the magazine but never saw any mention of my letter later. Everybody was taking me for a liar.

I went to libraries and looked at books on psychology. Why do we kill and hate ourselves for it and swear we'll change our ways—and then kill again?
And enjoy it?
I found a book by an ex-FBI man that was 90 percent horseshit, but it included something about a trio of symptoms. Apparently you could spot a violent criminal in childhood because they wet their beds, abused animals, and set fires. I thought,
Well, two out of three ain't bad
. Sure, I had a few problems with animals and I set some fires. What kid didn't? But I was toilet-trained at two and never wet my bed after that.

I thought this over and asked myself a serious question:
If I set grass fires in the middle of nowhere, will that relax me? Will it curb my appetite for death?

I decided to give it a try. I invented a simple fuse—you split a book of matches down the middle and set a lit cigarette between the two halves like a little tepee. That gives you eight or ten minutes before the heads flare up.

It was a thrill watching the firefighters and cops from the distance. My arsons probably saved the lives of a few women I'd have killed otherwise. I set fires in different areas of California, Oregon and Washington, and some in Nevada and Arizona. Only once did a police officer check me out. It happened right after I set a 365-acre brushfire on I-97 north of Satus Pass. The traffic was heavy and I was slow getting back to the interstate after I lit the fuse. By the time I got past the Wacky Base Station that monitors CB traffic, I heard fire trucks. The Unicorn Base Station also called in the firemen.

A cop pulled alongside of me while I was parked at the mini-mart off of Simcoe Road, watching the smoke. He asked me a few questions about the fire and I told him I'd heard about it on my radio. He asked if I smoked. I said no and told him a story about my dad breaking his ribs from coughing too hard over cigarettes. The cop left me alone. Later I heard that someone had reported over the CB that a semi-truck had been parked near where the fire started.

 

Pretty soon my arsons were giving me a regular adrenaline rush. I guess it was partly from seeing the flames and partly from the excitement of almost getting caught. It became as addictive as killing. I'd start fires in tall dry grass and drive to a point where I could call in the alarms myself. I set most of my fires at night. I started a small fire above Prosser, Washington, on the incline just above town where Horse Heaven Road starts down the hill. I parked on the shoulder of I-82 west and waited to see how long it took to get put out. Not long enough.

I set three more fires on Satus Pass and then a big one at Biggs Junction in the I-97 canyon. It felt good to drive past later and see the damage. That big scar lasted for months. I set small fires along Highway 14 west of the Dalles, Oregon, on the Washington side and south of the scale houses on I-5 in California, and south of Westley, California, at the I-5 exits. One of my fires burned off 2,000 acres in the Columbia Gorge. I set off 365 acres on top of Snoqualmie Pass in the Cascades. What a rush!

 

In a restaurant in western Washington I overheard two farmers complaining about the low price of wheat. One said he wished a lightning storm would just burn them out. I followed in my semi as they drove out of town. A week or so later I set fire to their fields and about 2,500 acres burned up. It made me feel good to help them collect insurance money.

 

From fires I naturally got into firecrackers, and they helped me to solve a problem for us truckers. We were always pissed at the old snowbirds like my dad for taking up too much space at rest stops on their way to Arizona and southern California. Three or four of those old farts would park their recreational vehicles in our spots, sitting there with their butane tanks having a barbecue. Well, that wasn't the purpose of the truckers' rest areas. Some of the snowbirds would trailer a car, unhook it, and park it in the next space, taking two of our truck spaces! I decided to do something about it.

Driving through an Indian reservation in Nevada, I bought grosses of fireworks—black cats, 2
¹
/2-inch crackers, 1,000 to a package. They'd go off like a machine gun. I'd break off a block of 250, put a little hole in the bottom of the package, stick a lit cigarette inside and slide it under some snowbird's motor home. Then I'd lay another block with a two-minute fuse and head for the restroom. The first round goes off, and the people are thinking,
Oh my God, what's that?
They settle down and the second set goes off and they run like rabbits.

I'd sit in the stall and listen to the noise. Then I'd come out all innocent and unsuspected.

One night in California I followed four RVs in a convoy all the way from Williams to the truck stop south of Bakersfield. They got parked and settled in for the night, and—
bang, bang, bang
. They came running out of their RVs and took off. I'm sure they drove all night to get away from me.

 

It wasn't long before snowbirds up and down I-5 were talking about the firecracker bandit that chased RVers. What fun! I figured it was Dad's nasty sense of humor coming out in me. But the funny thing was, I was doing it to Dad's kind of people!

I visited him at the Happy Wanderer RV Park in Yuma, Arizona, and he said, “Say, Keith, have you heard about this I-5 firecracker bandit?”

I started to laugh.

He gave me a shit-eating grin and said, “You're the son of a bitch doing it!” He'd guessed just from the way I laughed. And from knowing me since I was a kid.

“Yeah,” I said. “I keep a supply of two-inchers in my cab.”

Dad said, “Did you know you gave one guy a heart attack? He almost died.”

I said, “He shouldn't park in a rest area then.”

“You better stop that, Keith.” He was still telling me what to do.

I said, “I'll stop it when you RVers stop taking our parking places.”