There's nothing happy about this.
During an exclusive sneak peek at Oxygen's Snapped Notorious: The Happy Face Killer, airing Sunday, Oct. 10, investigative journalists M. William Phelps and Lauren Bright Pacheco unravel the haunting tale behind Keith Jesperson, a.k.a. The Happy Face Killer.
The two-hour special marks the 30th anniversary of the Snapped franchise and Jesperson's story is certainly the most frightening of all: the married father of two starts a killing spree after his wife leaves him. The Happy Face Killer strangled eight women in his murderous career, dumping each of their bodies along the side of the road.
Jesperson spoke with crime novelist Phelps from behind bars over the course of nine years, and finally took ownership of his crimes...after someone else originally plead guilty to them. Jesperson inspired true crime podcast, Happy Face Killer Podcast, co-hosted by Pacheco and Jesperson's own daughter, Melissa Moore Jesperson.
In a sneak peek at the Snapped Notorious special, Jesperson chillingly details one of his attacks.
"I pulled into the Turlock rest area on Highway 99 southbound at around 3:30 in the morning, and I ran into this gal there," the Happy Face Killer states. "I told her, you know, I basically didn't want any company but she wanted to have company anyway."
As Pacheco comments, "To hear Jesperson tell it, she was a sex worker who climbed into his trunk even though he told her he wasn't interested in her services."
Jesperson continues, "There were probably 30 of them working the lot and she was the first one to jump up inside of my truck."
After, Phelps recalls that Jesperson told him, "'and that angered me'" about the seemingly unwanted sexual advances.
Pacheco had a different take on Jesperson's motive: "[Her profession was] in and of itself was reason enough to kill her. He bragged about that subsequently and dismissed her as a 'prostitute.'"
According to Phelps, Jesperson's twisted game of torture had a shocking result. "He's going to bind her, he's going to rape her and then he's going to kill her," Phelps describes. "That's his thing now."
He adds, "Killing somebody by strangulation, which Jesperson did to every one of his victims, is a personal crime. That means Jesperson wanted to stare into their eyes and watch the life leave their body when he strangled them, and he loved that feeling."
Or, to hear Jesperson tell it in his own words: "I strangled her and put her out of her misery."
Watch the bone-chilling preview above.
Snapped Notorious: The Happy Face Killer premieres Sunday, Oct. 10 at 7 p.m. on Oxygen.
(E! and Oxygen are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)