Growing Up with the Happy Face Killer | Post Mortem Special
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Welcome to a special episode of Postmortem. I'm your host, Anne-Marie Green, and today I'm sitting down with Melissa G. Moore, the daughter of serial killer Keith Hunter Jesperson, and Jennifer Casicio, the executive producer of the new series Happy Face, starring Anna Lee Ashford as Melissa and Dennis Quaid as her father, which premieres with two episodes on Thursday, March 20th, exclusively on Paramount+.

So Happy Face is inspired by the true life story of Melissa G. Moore. At 15, Melissa discovered that her beloved father, Keith Jesperson, was the prolific serial killer known as Happy Face. As an adult, she changed her name and guarded that secret, all while her father continues to be serving a life sentence in prison. Jesperson is responsible for killing at least

eight women in the early 1990s and was dubbed the happy face killer because he signed his letters to the media and law enforcement with a smiley face. And Melissa, I listened to the podcast because this was a podcast before it became this TV series. And that's what the TV series is based on. I want to thank you for joining us and I want to dig into it. So thank you so much, guys. Thank you for having us. Yes. Thank you so much.

So, Melissa, your father was arrested in 1995 for the murder of his girlfriend, Julie Winningham. You were only 15 at the time. He goes to trial and then he confesses to a number of other murders. He's recanted when it comes to some of them. But what was it like at 15 to wrestle with this realization that your father is not the person you thought he was?

It was blindsiding, obviously, to hear that he was arrested for the murder of Julie Winningham. At that time, he wasn't known as a happy face serial killer. He was dad and he was a suspect that was charged with the crime of Julie Winningham's murder. So I went to the prison to see if I could look him in the eyes and see the monster that everybody's saying he is. So I show up to the jail with my aunt.

And I remember his hair being shaved. He had really lush, thick hair and he was very vain about it and proud about it. And so it was shocking to see him completely shaven and shackled. When I saw him, I wanted to see if I could see the color. And the first thing he said to me is, Missy,

My best advice is to change your last name. And that's when I knew he was admitting guilt and that this was all, this was true. So I, as a teenager, I just started sobbing and crying because at that point, my dad was my savior. He, he was our financial hero. My mom was destitute financially. And when he would roll into town, he would bring groceries like off of his truck. He would bring boxes of, of like,

Pop-Tarts. Like, that's like a memory. It's weird what sticks out in your head. Like, to this day, I go to the grocery store and I see the Pop-Tarts and I'm like, I don't want those. Wow. Like, it's his association, right? You know? Yeah. Yeah. I only have good memories. Well, not maybe all good memories, but majority of them really positive memories growing up. Jen, I want to ask you just how did you come to know

Melissa and her story. Yeah. First of all, I never knew that he said you should change your last name. You never told me that. I know. Oh, season two. I'm going to put that in the flashback. So I just listened to the podcast like any other fan. I was working on a show called Your Honor.

at the time. And I had a long commute, like an hour each way. And so I listened to podcasts every morning in the car and I listened to, you know, tons of true crime. And so I listened just to the first episode and called my agent immediately and said, you know, does someone have the rights to this? I want to write it. It would be such a good show. You know, I have to have it. And I

The producers on Your Honor were Liz Glotzer and then Robert and Michelle King. And so I had gotten to know them and I was looking for a project to develop with them. So I went into work and I said, I'm going to try to get this podcast. And so I was lucky enough that Melissa trusted me with it in the end.

So, Melissa, I don't want to give too much away in terms of how the TV series unfolds. But obviously you're here talking with us now about who your father is. But what it did occur to me, you know, you could have stopped just at the podcast.

and been like, OK, I got it out of my system. So I'm curious why you didn't choose to do that and why you're still speaking about it. Well, the more I talk about my story, the more I connect with other families that have a killer or a perpetrator in their family. And it's surprising to me when I came forward with my story originally, that was quite shocking because I felt alone. And then all of a sudden, my inbox just started getting filled up

And whenever I would see the subject line in my inbox say, I'm just like you, I knew it was authentic. I would open up the email and it would be a story. I'm so-and-so. My...

Family member is this person. Here's a link to the news that, you know, to validate like this is who I'm related to. And thank you for telling me your story. I actually get them daily. Just like today, I got a message from a woman whose husband tried to burn her alive.

And so it's also survivors of crime and family members related to the victims. When I was thinking about you and your relationship with your dad, when he shows up, he's like he's Santa. He's bringing food. He's bringing toys. But he's also bringing you trinkets. It turns out that these trinkets are not just things for you, but they're things for him, too.

Well, I think that's where Jen really took the liberty of the true story. Jen, I'll let you lead off with that. Yeah, that was one thing that we definitely took a bit of liberty with. I knew that he brought change and little trinkets and candy, but the idea that it linked to a murder is invented. Why did you choose to include it? So in any places where we took liberties with

I always kind of checked in with myself to make sure that we were still sticking to the spirit of each and every character and the spirit of the story. And, you know, it's one of those things where I know that in real life, Melissa has felt extreme guilt and shame and connectedness to her father's crimes. And so it was a way of kind of linking those things in a visual way and in a concrete way to,

for the audience. There's a symbolism here, right? Definitely. And it's that, Melissa, you have all of these memories of your father, and then you get these additional memories as you start to learn about his movements, the places he went, the women that were killed. Right. And so I wonder, like, you must want to keep the good memories.

Is there a way to keep the good and ignore the bad? That's my vulnerability, though. So my vulnerability is wanting to hold on to the good and the idea of this wonderful dad because that is...

The weak point for me and the stronghold my father has to me, which you will see in the series, it's an emotional, toxic entanglement. He preys upon my desire to have that loving father again. And when he lures me in and pulls me in, that's when he strikes.

I would receive letters from my father in prison, phone calls from strangers. Like he constantly was trying to stay in communication with me. And people always ask me, why do you keep these letters from your dad? And I'm like,

I couldn't bear to open them because I know he's going to go after my heart. And so I just didn't want to read them. Right. I want to play a little bit from the series. There's a scene where the character, Melissa, and a TV producer interview Keith Jesperson in prison. I want to share that clip. We're here for the truth, Keith. So go ahead and tell us. I will as soon as possible.

Missy here tells me why she's acting like she's God's gift when she's the one that benefited from every killing that I did. Excuse me? Every time a woman took her last breath, you got presents. Time with that. I needed to be around you because it kept me out of the darkness.

So that scene, I think, encapsulates exactly what you were talking about. So I found myself as I was watching it, Melissa, thinking, does he want her to love him or does he want just to get attention? I have a theory that he thinks that I am a part of him because what we know about narcissists is that they only self-serve.

So if I'm an appendage of him, then that might evoke why he does the actions he does. That's just my theory. That's fascinating. Jennifer, you're sort of agreeing with that.

Yeah, I think that's how I see him. And obviously, I haven't met him. But, you know, when Melissa didn't know what to do with all those letters, she gave them to me and I read them all. And they're really what informed Keith's character. His character is really Melissa's version of him and who he is to her. And to me, really, season one is about him.

you know, can you love a monster or what it means to love a monster? And that's really the question that we're exploring.

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Welcome back. You know, one of the things that you see in the series is the attraction and interest that many people have in serial killers. And in the first few episodes that I saw, you sort of see the gamut, right? The people who are just interested in true crime, like a lot of people who are going to be listening to this podcast, the people who think they can save the serial killer, the people who are drawn to the morbid.

I wonder if this is something, Jennifer, that you were sensitive to and even Melissa in telling this story. Yeah, I definitely see this as a fictionalized, inspired by story. And I think it could ask some bigger questions about true crime. And I think there's just been plenty of serial killer shows where you're just saying,

It's all about the killer, you know, and it's all about the psychology of the killer. And we're all interested in that for obvious reasons. But I just hadn't seen a show that's exploring everybody and everything around that, you know, and how can we get at some of these more nuanced elements of these crimes and all these other people that are affected in different ways. I always tell people, you know, yes, it's about crime.

generational trauma and the daughter of a serial killer and facing your demons. And but like, it's not a bummer. It's fun to watch, you know. There's a lot of levity in that. Some of my favorite scenes and what I love about Annalie is that there's the episode where my dad in prison has a girlfriend, which happened in real life.

by the way. My dad had a lot of women writing to him and he would invoke these women to reach out to me and try to have a relationship with me. What do you think that was about?

Oh, I don't know. It's hard to say what that's about, but I found it to be really humorous because it's so absurd. It's so absurd. It's funny. And so I like that Annalie, she got that. And so there's moments of levity. Yeah, it's how we cope. Yes. So what was it like to see Annalie Ashford portraying you?

On camera. Like, I have to say, when I looked at her and looked at you, I thought, oh, my gosh. I mean, they really got an actress that looks very similar to you. You guys could almost be sisters. I think she's incredible. I've really appreciated how she respected me as a person. And I also really appreciated her sensitivity to the people that she meets in the series, because I feel like...

In my own life, I feel like I care and I feel like she portrayed how I care. And then what about Dennis Quaid portraying your father? Oh, there's scenes that from his profile or just the way he speaks, he really embodied the matter of factness that my father has.

One of the letters he wrote to me, I was a great dad, but the only thing that was wrong is my eight errors in judgment, meaning the murders of the eight women. But that's how he would speak about the victims, his eight errors in judgment. And I felt that

Dennis Quaid, he did a great job of portraying my father in that way. Yeah. How does it work sort of behind the scenes? Like, did you all meet with Dennis Quaid? Yeah. I mean, from the beginning, I always knew I didn't want to cast an actor who always played a bad guy. I really wanted someone who...

was known more as a lovable dad because I felt like it was important. You buy that he's a loving dad, you get Melissa's connection to him. And, you know, Dennis, not only is he a movie star, but he's parent trap dad. And he definitely was hesitant to take the part. He was really flabbergasted.

And I just don't want to give him the satisfaction that he's still alive.

And I said, I totally get that, you know, but this show is really about Melissa. It's about your relationship with your daughter. And we're not glorifying Keith's character. We're not showing the murders. You're not going to have to do anything horrific in any flashbacks. You're not going to see extensive, you know, violence against women on screen. And I was really adamant about that. And I just said, you know, it's more about the psychological toll on your relationship with your daughter and

And so he was like, okay, let me think about it. And then the next day he said, yes. And I was shocked. And he said, you know, I've realized that I'm not playing Keith. I'm playing Melissa's version of Keith. And I think that gave him the freedom to do what he wanted because he had asked me, you know, should I try to meet Keith? And I said, no. And he said, I don't really want to, and I don't really want to. So he just decided to do his own thing. And I shared, um,

Some of the letters with him.

I shared some of my notes from what Melissa had told me and answered his questions. And then he kind of just did his own thing. Melissa, in 2018, you hosted a podcast also titled Happy Face. I listened to it. And one of the things that really stuck with me over the years was the episode where you get a brain scan. You are really curious about

about the nature of psychopathy. And you wonder, I mean, am I made of the same stuff? Do I have the same DNA?

Is it nature? Is it nurture? Well, I wanted to get the head scan because I heard from Dr. Fallon. He's a world-renowned expert and researcher on psychopaths and is one himself. And he has this incredible story of how he discovered he's a psychopath by looking at the brain scans of criminals, violent criminals. And for...

one of his studies he had somebody put his brain scan in mixed in with a whole bunch of violent criminals and he put it up on the board and he's like oh here's the psychopath and it's his brain scan but um

I found him really fascinating because there's this negative association with psychopaths. And if you're a psychopath, you're, you know, it's kind of linked to being a killer, but it's actually not the case. He talks about how psychopaths are necessary in our civilization. Yeah.

But he leads me down, if you recall listening to it, he leads me down a long path of like drawing out after he looks at my head scan to see if I'm a psychopath. Right. And I'm just on edge. And then he's like, and you're not a psychopath. I'm like, OK, great. Thank you. Thanks for that. Now I can breathe. But.

For my kids, they were really interested in that as well. They never let me on to think that it was important to them to have that, but they were being bullied in school and people were saying, your grandfather is a serial killer. Because at that point I was...

working in the media and was public with my story. And so that is the dark side of coming forward is you share your story to be a light to others, but then you're also a target. Um, and then inadvertently my children, um, and so they would tell me like, they're so glad that they got that scientific proof because it gave them ammo against the bully saying we're not like him. Yeah. Yeah. Oh,

In 2018, you actually went on the Dr. Oz show. And there's kind of like a fictionalized version of this in the series, the Dr. Gregg show. But I want to play a clip from that episode. All I ever wanted was to have a normal family. And I never want my kids to ever worry about going hungry or getting evicted or having to visit their father in prison. Melissa, you have worked hard to give your children everything you never had in life.

to create a life that looks perfect from the outside. But do you ever worry that part of why you kept your father a secret is because you're afraid that deep down you are like him? So we know that you are not like him and you have the brain scan to prove it. I wonder, though, about the shame.

Have you killed the shame? No, the shame's still there. I think that's going to be my lifelong journey. I'm always looking at my intentions to make sure that they're pure. And...

Probably in a way that other people don't look at their intentions, but I'm constantly evaluating and scrutinizing why I do the things that I do. And that is my North Star always, every day. Right. When I was watching that scene, I became uncomfortable because I'm a 48 hours correspondent. And, you know, you're always asking yourself when you're doing these stories, you know,

am I helping these people? You know, I don't want to be taking advantage of their grief. You're just always sort of checking yourself that you're doing right by them. And so for you, Jennifer, this is a question for you. I wonder if that is something throughout this whole process that you also sort of asked yourself when it comes to Melissa and her family, you know,

Is this OK? Is this going to make their lives even more challenging? Is that something that you sort of had in mind? Yes, always. I always had Melissa front of mind. And, you know, that was also part of the reason I wanted to fictionalize. You know, her kids have different names. They have different ages. You know, the kids are 100 percent invented. Her husband is 100 percent invented. Dr.

Dr. Gregg is invented, even though, yes, she's been on Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz. We wanted to create just someone brand new. And then in addition to all of those concerns, there's also the concern about Keith's victims and their families. It's just I take it really seriously. You know, it's really important to me that we do right by everybody. And yes, it's entertainment, but

But, you know, I never forget that it's people's real lives. Absolutely. So in the podcast, there's kind of a supernatural component to this story, right? Your father, Melissa, feels like there are ghosts around him and he really feels like some of them may be his victims who are waiting for him.

You know, on the other side. Have you had any of your own encounters? Yes, I've had my own encounters. And I believe that there is an afterlife because of what I've experienced. So in the podcast, I go into detail about the first time I enter into a home unbeknownst to me.

that my father had murdered a victim and it felt the energy that I walked into it. I think we all can feel energy. If you walk into a room and people have just been fighting, you feel the thickness when you walk in. And that's what it felt like walking into my father's house. This was his home after my parents had divorced and the house that he murdered his first victim, Tanya Bennett. And I'm at this point, just a young teenager. I felt that energy. But then at night,

That's when it really started to amplify. And I felt like someone was watching me and I felt uneasy. And then my sister talked about, you know, her hair is being pulled. And then I go into the living room and I lay down and on the couch and I had a view of the kitchen and I saw the cupboard.

doors open and shutting on their own. And then I fell asleep and then I was awoken by the TV turning on when I told my dad, this house is haunted. And he said, you know, don't pay them any mind. They bother me too at night. And I look back and I wonder if it was

maybe one of his victims you know tanya from the house i mean obviously i'll never know um i will say that house has a and i'm not referencing that tanya's the dark energy but there's a dark dark energy in that house and you couldn't pay me to stay the night in that house again wow wow so melissa are you a true crime producer now how is this kind of blossomed for you

Yeah. So once people started reaching out to me, I'm just like you. Some of them want to come forward with their stories to connect with other people and some people want to do it on the down low. So not everything is in front of the camera, but then there's some people that want to change the narrative. Like, for example, this last summer, I was the executive producer on the life and murder of Nicole Brown because the OJ Simpson case is such a well-known case.

But I felt like the one thing that wasn't really told was Nicole's story through the archive and through her sisters to really tell how this beautiful person is gone and that their children, OJ and Nicole's kids, are left without their mother. But...

It was about setting the story straight from their point of view. And I feel honored that I get to be in this role, probably like you do, where you get to give a platform for people to tell their story in their own voice. And I'm sure that's what Jennifer feels like as well. It's such a privilege. It really is. Yeah. I mean, it was an incredible privilege. Melissa, what is your relationship like with your father today?

I haven't spoken to him in years. The last time I did speak to him was actually, what, three years ago now. He called me on Father's Day and my mom had just passed away from cancer and she passed away on my dad's birthday. And then I realized, you know, my my family historian is gone and I have so many questions still. She went away too soon.

And I'm going to ask my dad more about his history and more about how he met my mom. And so that really was the genesis for me talking to my dad again was just my own curiosity about their love story. So he calls me at like, I think it's like 5 a.m., 6 a.m. Everybody's sleeping in my house. And it's Father's Day. And I picked up.

And he was shocked. He's like, wow, you know, like, I'm surprised you answered the phone, Missy. So I started asking him questions. Thankfully, the prison has a timer on it and a call is only 15 minutes. And in the pre-recorded

alert says you have one minute left. And he's like, can I call you back? And I was like, no, I'm busy. And he's like, well, you're still my daughter. Wow. And what does that mean to you being his daughter now?

Well, there's a dissociation now. You know, I feel very much like the father that I know has passed back in 95. Like he's gone. And this is a shell, you know, of what that man is. And that's how it's reconciled in my brain is that the real father is gone and this is

the version that's left. Jennifer, what do you hope people get out of watching this series, Happy Face? I hope that it's entertaining to watch and I hope it starts a conversation about true crime and kind of its role in culture and

And just that the show provides a new lens through which to view these kinds of violent crimes and a new way of understanding the nuanced layers that exist for so many people involved. So I hope people walk away thinking like, huh, I never really thought about that aspect of it.

I think that will definitely happen. So congratulations to both of yourself. And I look forward to your future work. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

Tune into the new series Happy Face, which premieres with two episodes on Thursday, March 20th, exclusively on Paramount+, which, like CBS and 48 Hours, is part of Paramount Global. New episodes are available to stream weekly on Thursdays. If you like this series, Postmortem, please rate and review 48 Hours on Apple Podcasts and follow 48 Hours wherever you get your podcasts.

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