Israel KeyesWe may finally have a clue to the motive of confessed serial killer Israel Keyes, the man who committed suicide in his jail cell earlier this week. His early death seemed to be the end of the mystery of at least a dozen murders committed across the United States, including that of young Alaska barista Samantha Koenig, whose kidnapping and killing landed Keyes in jail. But cops now say that they did get something out of Keyes when he confessed to killing Koenig.

Get ready, America. This isn't the motive that we all hoped would make us feel better. Israel Keyes allegedly murdered nearly a dozen people because, well, hey it seemed like a good idea at the time.

When cops would ask Keyes why he murdered people from Vermont to Alaska, they said he had a pat answer:

He would have this term, he would say, ‘A lot of people ask why, and I would be, like, why not?

OK, sane people like you and me have plenty of reasons why NOT. Because it's wrong. Because it's illegal. Because it's wrong ...

We could almost understand someone who had a horrific childhood who didn't know anything but killing. Not excuse it, mind you, but maybe it would be something we could wrap our heads around and say, "OK, so that's WHY." We could then move on thinking about ways to protect innocent children in the future.

But cops say Keyes thought this was fun; he got a rush from killing people.

How do you move on from that?

Moving on is what we want from these motives, ways to figure out how to prevent these sort of atrocities from happening again. But Keyes' seemed to lack a moral compass. That's what sets him apart from a normal American. That's what makes these tragedies so incomprehensible and so troubling.

You can't correct for someone being born a psychopath. You can't make their life better and hope that they'll figure out how to care. And you can't throw them in jail and lock them up, until, unfortunately, they've done what cops say Keyes confessed to doing ... brutally murdering innocent people.

Maybe we hoped a motive would help us move on from this case, but I'd say this revelation that a serial killer was killing "just for the fun of it" does anything but.

What do you make of this sick, twisted motive? Is this what you expected?

 

Image via Anchorage Police Department