Serial killer wrongly issued razor before suicide

Serial killer wrongly issued razor before suicide

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Confessed serial killer Israel Keyes was mistakenly issued a razor before he committed suicide, according to a report released today by the Alaska Department of Corrections that also said “it appears that razor was not retrieved.”

Keyes’ body was found in his jail cell on Dec. 2, months before he was to have gone on trial for the 2012 slaying of 18-year-old Anchorage barista Samantha Koenig.

Though Keyes’ death was classified a suicide, the exact cause is unknown pending autopsy results, the report says.

Before he died, Keyes told investigators he had killed Koenig and at least seven other people across the country, including Bill and Lorraine Currier of Essex, Vt. Investigators believe there could be more victims in Washington, Oregon and Texas.

The state had previously denied an open records request from The Associated Press for details of events surrounding Keyes’ death. Corrections officials didn’t immediately return phone calls from the AP Wednesday.

Keyes, 34, was set for a March trial in federal court in the abduction and killing of Koenig.

She was abducted at gunpoint from a coffee stand just before closing time on Feb. 1, 2012. Investigators concluded she was raped and strangled. Her body was left in a shed outside Keyes’ Anchorage home for two weeks while he went on a cruise.

The abduction gripped Anchorage as investigators held out hope that she remained alive.

Keyes was arrested in March in Lufkin, Texas. He had sought a ransom and used Koenig’s debit card.

Three weeks after the arrest, Koenig’s dismembered body was found in a frozen lake north of Anchorage.

Koenig and the Curriers were the only victims named by Keyes.

Keyes was in state custody in Anchorage because there are no federal prisons in Alaska.