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Keith Jesperson - I: The
Creation of a Serial Killer

Jack Olsen (1925-2002)

I: The Creation of a Serial Killer - In February 1990, Oregon State Police arrested John Sosnovke and Laverne Pavlinac for the vicious rape and murder of 23-year-old Taunja Bennet. Laverne had come forth and confessed, implicating her boyfriend, John, and producing physical evidence that linked them to the crime. Authorities closed the case. There was just one problem. They had the wrong people... 

In January 1990, the battered and raped corpse of Taunja Bennet was found in a ravine in Portland, Oregon. Within a month, the police had a confession, but not from the killer.

A fifty-seven-year old grandmother, Laverne Pavlinac, with no criminal history, reported her boyfriend, John Sosnovske, 43, to the police as the killer. After hours of interrogation, he denied being involved, but Laverne insisted he had boasted about the murder, so he was arrested.

A few weeks later, Laverne had another story. She said that John had forced her to help him dump the body. But then she changed her story again. She said that she and John were arguing. They had the girl in the car and she died as they had sex with her. Laverne was tearful as she told the tale and expressed remorse over the incident. The police put her in jail as an accomplice.

As Laverne prepared to accept a plea offer for a ten-year sentence, she suddenly claimed that she'd been lying all along. She had confessed because she wanted John jailed to get him out of her life. However, the case was going to trial and a jury gave Laverne 10 years and John pled no contest in exchange for a life sentence.

When Keith Jesperson heard there were two people in custody for his crime, he decided that he wanted credit for his murders. He started leaving messages in truck stop restrooms claiming that he was the real killer and signing them with smiley faces. Finally, he sent an anonymous letter to the newspaper in Portland, Oregon. He provided proof, but he always stopped short of revealing his identity.

In 1995, he was finally identified as being seen with a victim. He readily confessed to six murders, including that of the young woman for whom Laverne and John were serving time, so they were released. Jesperson confessed to more than 160 murders but recanted. The authorities settled on an official victim count of eight for the Happy Face Killer, when Jesperson accepted responsibility for crime he could not have done. He is currently serving a life sentence at the Oregon State Penitentiary.

Jesperson said, "It was their fate to die by my hands, like a car accident or illness."

Other best selling books by Jack Olsen:

• The Man with the Candy: The Story of the Houston Mass Murders (1974) - A brilliant, investigative, journalist's story of the mass murder of almost 30 young boys in Houston by Dean Corll, a homosexual owner of a candy factory, and his two teen-aged accomplices, Elmer Wayne Henley, Jr., and David Brooks.

• SON: A Psychopath and His Victims (1983) is the story of Kevin Coe, Spokane's South Hill rapist whose rich and influential mother was sent to prison after trying to hire a hit man to kill the judge and prosecutor who convicted her son.

• Give a Boy a Gun: The True Story of Law and Disorder in the American West (1985)- "Give a boy a gun and you're makin' a man," Claude Dallas, Sr., said this about his son, Claude Jr., a self-made cowboy, trapper, and "mountain man'' who was convicted of manslaughter in the shooting deaths of two Idaho game wardens.  Was this a case of self-defense or outright murder?

• Cold Kill: The True Story of a Murderous Love (1987) - A double murder of Texas lawyer James Campbell and his wife Virginia by their daughter Cindy and her lover, David West.

• Doc: The Rape of the Town of Lovell (1989) is an incredible account of a rural Wyoming doctor who relied on his patients' naiveté and Mormon female submissiveness to rape generations of women on his examining table.

• Predator: Rape, Madness, and Injustice in Seattle (1991) - This book focuses on three men: McDonald ("Mac") Smith, a serial rapist who preyed on women; Steve Titus, a carefree partygoer who was wrongly convicted of the predator's crimes; and Paul Henderson, a reporter for the Seattle Times who won a Pulitzer Prize for tracking down the truth.

• The Misbegotten Son: A Serial Killer and His Victims (1993)- An account of the life and crimes of convicted killer Arthur Shawcross describes how Shawcross, after being found guilty of the murders of two children, was released only to murder eleven prostitutes.

• Charmer: A Ladies' Man and his Victims (1994) - A true crime story of George Russell, Jr., a charismatic young African American from an affluent Seattle suburb who targeted and killed three beautiful women and whose charming outward appearance kept him from suspicion.

• Salt of the Earth: A Mother, A Daughter, A Murder (1996) - Joe Gere said he died on the afternoon his twelve-year-old daughter Brenda disappeared. It was left to Brenda's mother Elaine to sustain her stricken family, search for her missing child, and pressure the authorities for justice. From the first minutes of the investigation, suspicion fell on Michael Kay Green, a steroid-abusing "Mr. Universe" hopeful, but there was no proof of a crime, leaving police and prosecutors stymied.

• Hastened to the Grave: The Gypsy Murder Investigation (1998) - This true crime features a delightful hero: a female private investigator who calls herself "Rat Dog Dick." Rat Dog relies on an ancient Everex 286 computer (Evil Evie), a Toyota Tercel (The Frog Prince) that is so outrageously green it's useless for surveillance, and a big, funny-looking dog (Beans). Once she gets her teeth into the "Foxglove" case in which several old people have dwindled and died quickly after being "befriended" by a local Gypsy family, Rat Dog is outraged that the police are ignoring clear evidence of elder abuse.

• Last Man Standing: The Tragedy and Triumph of Geronimo Pratt (2000) - This is a story of true crime American injustice. Pratt, a war hero and leader of the Black Panther Party, was convicted of murder based on the perjured testimony of a paid FBI informant. After spending twenty-seven years in prison, he was finally declared innocent and released.

For more information on Jack Olsen, click on this link Jack Olsen

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