By Yereth Rosen
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Feb 13 (Reuters) – The disposable razor
that a confessed serial killer used in his suicide in an Alaska
jail last December was mistakenly issued to him by a prison
employee, state officials said on Wednesday.
Israel Keyes, a 34-year-old contractor who told
investigators he killed an Anchorage barista, a Vermont couple
and at least five other people across the country over the past
decade, was found dead in his Anchorage cell on Dec. 2.
He slashed his wrist with the razor and used some bedding to
strangle himself, officials said.
“It was learned a razor had been mistakenly issued to Keyes
and it appears that razor was not retrieved,” said a statement
from the Alaska Department of Corrections.
Keyes’ suicide cut short any further disclosures he might
have made about his crimes or the identities of all his possible
victims. Investigators have said the true toll from Keyes’
crimes could be higher.
He had been awaiting trial for the kidnapping and killing of
an 18-year-old barista who disappeared from an Alaska espresso
stand in February 2012 and whose body was later found in an
iced-over lake.
Five days before his death, Keyes was disciplined for
possessing an object crafted into a handcuff key, the department
said in its statement, which summarized a federal-state
investigation of the suicide.
He obtained the razor despite being barred due to the
makeshift key incident from using razors or anything metal, said
Kaci Schroeder, spokeswoman for the Alaska Department of
Corrections.
(Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Peter Cooney)
