Plot Synopsis

In the early 1990s Keith Hunter Jesperson dreams of being a cop, but after an injury and a failed marriage he takes to the road as a long-haul truck driver. Crisscrossing the country, he soon begins to kill. He strangles his first victim following an argument, and is back on the road again the very next day, killing at least eight women over a five-year span. Upset after a woman falsely confesses that she and her boyfriend are responsible for one of his murders, he begins to taunt the authorities by sending a series of disturbing letters to newspaper editors, even scribbling confessions on the walls of highway rest stops admitting that he loved killing his victims. By signing his morbid notes with a smiley face, he earns himself the notorious nickname, Happy Face Killer. FBI agent Melinda Gand, the lead investigator in the case, is determined to bring him to justice, and in 1995 he is arrested for the murder of his girlfriend. He is currently serving three consecutive life sentences at the Oregon State Penitentiary.