Israel Keyes was born in Cove, Utah on January 7, 1978 to a large Mormon family, who deconverted from the faith when he was 3–5, turning instead to radical Fundamentalist Christianity he later described as a ‘more militant militia sort of church’ and ‘amish’. He was the second of ten children born to Heidi Keyes (née Hakansson) and John Jeffrey Keyes. Israel and his siblings were homeschooled. When Keyes was between the ages of three and five years old, his family moved to the Colville, Washington area, where they lived in a one-room cabin without electricity or running water. In Colville, Keyes’ family became neighbors and friends with the family of Chevie Kehoe (convicted of three 1996 murders). When he was a child Keyes and his family attended the Ark, a church which taught Christian Identity. As well they attended the Christian Israel Covenant Church, another church which taught Christian Identity. Keyes renounced the Christian faith by his teenage years, and in his later teenage years he became interested in satanism.

Keyes served in the U.S. Army from 1998 through 2001 at Fort Lewis, Fort Hood, and in Egypt. While at Fort Lewis, Keyes served on a mortar team in the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division. According to his military records, Keyes entered the Army in Albany, New York, on July 9, 1998, and was discharged from Fort Lewis on July 8, 2001, at the rank of specialist.

In 2007, Keyes started a construction business in Alaska, Keyes Construction, working as a handyman, contractor, and construction worker.

Keyes confessed to at least one murder in New York State. Authorities have not determined the identity, age, or gender of the victim, or when and where the murder may have occurred, but regard the confession as credible. Keyes had ties to New York; he owned ten acres and a run down cabin in the town of Constable. Keyes also confessed to committing bank robberies in New York and Texas. The FBI later confirmed that Keyes robbed the Community Bank branch in Tupper Lake, New York, in April 2009. He also told authorities that he burglarized a Texas home and set it on fire.

Keyes claimed to have killed a woman in April 2009 in New Jersey and buried her near Tupper Lake in upstate New York. Keyes also admitted to killing Bill and Lorraine Currier of Essex, Vermont. Keyes broke into the Curriers’ home on the night of June 8, 2011 and tied them up before driving them to an abandoned farmhouse, where he shot Bill before sexually assaulting and strangling Lorraine. Their bodies have never been found. Two years prior to the Curriers’ deaths, Keyes hid a “murder kit”, which he later used to kill them, near their home. After the murders, he moved most of the contents to a new hiding place in Parishville, New York, where they remained until after his arrest.

Keyes’ last known victim was 18-year-old Samantha Koenig, a coffee booth employee in Anchorage, Alaska. Keyes kidnapped her from her workplace on February 1, 2012, took her debit card and other property, sexually assaulted her, then killed her the following day. He left her body in a shed and went to New Orleans where he departed on a pre-booked two-week cruise with his family in the Gulf of Mexico. When he returned to Alaska, he removed her body from the shed, applied makeup to the corpse’s face, sewed her eyes open with fishing line and snapped a picture of a four-day-old issue of the Anchorage Daily News alongside her body, posed to appear that she was still alive. After demanding $30,000 in ransom, Keyes dismembered Koenig’s body and disposed of it in Matanuska Lake, north of Anchorage.

While being held in jail at the Anchorage Correctional Complex on suspicion of murder, Keyes died by suicide on December 2, 2012, via self-inflicted wrist cuts and strangulation. A suicide note, found under his body, consisted of an “ode to murder” but offered no clues about other possible victims.

Keyes was arrested by Texas Highway Patrol Corporal Bryan Henry and Texas Ranger Steven Rayburn in the parking lot of the Cotton Patch Café in Lufkin, Texas, on the morning of March 13, 2012, after he had again used Koenig’s debit card, which he had previously used in New Mexico and Arizona. Keyes was subsequently extradited to Alaska, where he confessed to Koenig’s murder. He was represented by Alaska federal defender Rich Curtner. Keyes was indicted in the case, and his trial was scheduled to begin in March 2013.

In 2020 the FBI released the drawings of eleven skulls and one pentagram, which had been drawn in blood and found underneath Keyes’ jail-cell bed. The FBI believes that 11 is the total number of victims.