What’s the difference between a podcast host who researches serial killers as a hobby and a budding psychopath who researches serial killers as a hobby? Motivation? Destiny? Being in the right place at the wrong time? Seriously, we’re asking you. We don’t know. What we do know is that Eli and Mel have been doing the DUSE for three years! The only casualty has been a few marbles here and there, which is more than we can say for this episode’s criminal mind: Israel Keyes. Raised in isolation in the Pacific Northwest, Keyes grew up an uber-religious White separatist who rapidly became the family’s black sheep. It wasn’t his grotesque acts of sadism that drove a wedge between them, or even his friendship with junior domestic terrorist Chevie Kehoe, but his declaration of atheism. That was the last straw. Shunned by the only people willing to put up with him, Keyes took his show on the road, criss-crossing the country to set things on fire, rob banks, kidnap, rape, torture, murder, and… fish? Yep. Fish. We may never know how many victims he took with him to the grave between Alaska, New York, Washington, Texas, Oregon, New Jersey, and Florida, but he definitely did some fishing in… Vermont!
Music Credit: “Game Boy Horror” by The Zombie Dandies
Originally aired October 20, 2025