In Jan. 2024, Happy Face podcast fans learned a Paramount-Plus series was on the way, with actress Annaleigh Ashford as the Happy Face Killer‘s daughter, Melissa Moore. Around that same time, California police asked for help identifying the Happy Face Killer’s last unidentified victim.
Before watching the Paramount-Plus series, here are further details about the Happy Face Killer case. In the 1990s, Keith Hunter Jesperson — better known as the Happy Face Killer — murdered at least eight women in several states. During the investigation, Jesperson, a long-haul truck driver, wrote taunting letters to the press and police, signed with smiling, happy faces. As well as those letters, Jesperson also wrote a confession signed with a happy face on the wall of a public restroom. Because of that fact, Jesperson earned his now-infamous nickname.
The false confession
During Jesperson’s killing spree, Laverne Pavlinac told the police that her boyfriend, John Sosnovske, was responsible for one of Jesperson’s murders and that she helped him do it. Based on that false accusation, Pavlinac and Sosnovske spent time in prison. Meanwhile, Jesperson continued to kill as Pavlinac and Sosnovske occupied the authorities. In 1995, Jesperson murdered his ex-girlfriend, Julie Winningham, and after two suicide attempts, turned himself in.
Once in custody, he confessed to killing as many as 185 women, including the woman that Pavlinac and Sosnovske were convicted of killing. Police, however, have only confirmed eight, according to True Crime Report (via Wayback Machine). As of 2024, Jesperson was serving a life sentence with no chance for parole at the Oregon State Penitentiary. Pavlinac and Sosnovske were subsequently released.
Jesperson’s daughter, Melissa
Before his killing spree, Keith Jesperson, the Happy Face Killer, was married to Rose Hucke, and the couple, who divorced in 1990, had two daughters and one son. Melissa Moore, one of Jesperson’s daughters, has gone on to tell her story and to advocate for serial killer victims’ families. When she was 15, Melissa found out the truth about her dad, and among other projects in 2009, she released the book Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer’s Daughter.
Moore’s book became the basis for the hit Happy Face podcast, upon which the Paramount-Plus true-crime series Happy Face is based. The eight-episode dramatized series is expected in 2025, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The last Happy Face killer victim
Around the same time the Happy Face Killer Paramount-Plus series was announced, California police said they were seeking the public’s help identifying one of Jesperson’s last known victims Jesperson confessed to killing in 1992, CNN reported. Jesperson told the police her name was Claudia but had no further information about who she was. Advances in DNA testing and DNA-based genealogy helped the police create a sketch of the victim and have come close to tracking her family. Claudia’s real name, however, remains elusive.
In a video statement announcing the release of what Claudia may have looked like, Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said, “We hope to give this victim back her identity. We are hopeful someone hearing any of these details may remember anything that could help us reunite this woman with the family” (via CNN).
