More than 30 years after a woman was violently killed by the “Smiley Face Killer,” Riverside County investigators are close to a breakthrough in identifying her, but are seeking the public's help.
The serial killer, whose name is Keith Hunter Jesperson, boasted of killing the woman and seven other female victims in the early 1990s, sending letters to the press about his exploits that he signed with a smiling face.
He referred to the woman he killed in Riverside as “Claudia,” but investigators have never been able to confirm her identity, according to the Riverside County District Attorney's Office.
“Our goal is to identify this victim and provide closure to his family, wherever they are,” Dist. Attorney. Mike Hestrin said in a statement. “We are hopeful that someone who hears any of these details remembers something that can help us reunite this woman with the family who may have been searching for her for more than three decades.”
Jesperson has been detained since 1995 and pleaded guilty to the murder of Jane Doe in 2010, according to authorities. In his confession, Jesperson said he met the victim in August 1992 at a brake check area along Highway 15 south of Victorville.
Jesperson had been working as a long-haul truck driver. The woman hitchhiked with him, saying she was going to Los Angeles, but Jesperson was heading southeast toward Arizona on his truck route.
He drove her south to Cabazon and then to a rest stop in the Coachella Valley, where Jesperson killed her in his truck after a dispute over money, he said. He then drove seven miles north of Blythe on Highway 95 and dumped the woman's body on the side of the road. Her remains were discovered on August 30, 1992.
Jesperson described the woman as being in her 20s, approximately 5 feet 6 inches and 140 to 150 pounds. She had shaggy blonde hair and a tattoo of two dots on the left side of the thumb of her right hand. She was wearing a T-shirt with the image of a motorcycle when her body was found.
Forensic investigators using DNA evidence and genealogists determined that the woman's biological father, now dead, came from Cameron County in Texas. Her mother remains unidentified, but she could have been from Louisiana or southeast Texas. Investigators contacted several people they believe are half-siblings of the woman, although they were told they were unaware of her and could not identify her.
Anyone with possible leads can contact the Riverside County District Attorney's Cold Case Hotline at (951) 955-5567 or by emailing [email protected].
