Latest news with #ShatteredSilence:TheUntoldStoryofaSerialKiller'sDaughter
Forbes
24-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘Happy Face' Release Schedule—When Do New Episodes Drop On Paramount+?
Inspired by a true story, Paramount+'s new crime drama Happy Face follows Melissa Moore, the daughter of Canadian-American serial killer Keith Jesperson (aka the Happy Face Killer). If you've started watching the series, read on for the full release schedule on Paramount+ so you don't miss an episode. Based on Moore's 2009 autobiography, Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer's Daughter, and her iHeartRadio podcast series, the show follows Melissa (Annaleigh Ashford) as she tries to find out if an innocent man will face the death penalty for a crime committed by her father (Dennis Quaid). Moore was just 15 years old when her father was arrested for murder. Over the span of five years, Jesperson killed at least eight women across six states. He earned the nickname the 'Happy Face Killer' after sending confession letters to journalists and police, each signed with a smiley face. 'After decades of no contact, Keith forces his way back into his daughter's life, and Melissa must find out if an innocent man is going to be put to death for a crime her father committed,' the official synopsis reads. 'In the process, she must face a reckoning of her own identity.' The first two episodes of Happy Face are now streaming on Paramount+, but when do new episodes drop? Keep reading for the full release schedule, episode count and more. New episodes of Happy Face drop on Paramount+ every Thursday at 12 a.m. PT / 3 a.m. ET. Paramount+'s new series Happy Face will have a total of eight episodes in its first season. The first two episodes of Happy Face premiered on Thursday, March 20. New episodes of the crime drama will drop every Thursday until the Season 1 finale on May 1, 2025. Check out the full release schedule below. Happy Face is streaming exclusively on Paramount+. The platform offers two subscription plans: Paramount+ Essential for $7.99/month (or $59.99/year) and Paramount+ with SHOWTIME for $12.99/month (or $119.99/year). New subscribers can take advantage of the platform's one-week free trial to watch Happy Face at no cost. Watch the official trailer for Happy Face below.
Forbes
20-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
The Horrific True Story Behind ‘Happy Face'—What Did Serial Killer Keith Jesperson Do?
Paramount+'s new crime drama Happy Face tells the true story of Melissa G. Moore, whose world is upended when she discovers her father, a truck driver, is the notorious Happy Face Killer. Explore the true story behind the series, from the Happy Face Killer's crimes and victims to how he got his chilling nickname. In the eight-episode series, Annaleigh Ashford portrays Moore, while Dennis Quaid takes on the role of Keith Hunter Jesperson, the infamous serial killer who murdered eight women between 1990 and 1995—and may have claimed even more victims. 'After decades of no contact, Keith forces his way back into his daughter's life, and Melissa must find out if an innocent man is going to be put to death for a crime her father committed,' the official synopsis reads. 'In the process, she must face a reckoning of her own identity.' Moore, who is an author, true-crime journalist, and victim's advocate, serves as an executive producer on the Paramount+ series. She shared her story in her 2009 memoir, Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer's Daughter, and later hosted the Happy Face podcast, where she 'navigates her father's crimes, reckons with the past, and wades through her darkest fears as she hunts for a better future." Yes, Paramount+'s new series Happy Face is inspired by the true story of the Happy Face Killer, aka Jesperson, and his relationship with his daughter, Moore. The Canadian-born long-haul truck driver murdered at least eight women across six states over five years. Jesperson became a suspect after his girlfriend's body was found in March 1995; he later confessed to her murder and several others. Meanwhile, Moore was only 15 years old when her father was arrested for murder. Looking back, she told ABC News that when she was younger, she saw him torture and kill animals—an early glimpse into his dark side. "I think I caught a glimpse of the sociopath, the part of where felt in control over me and that he enjoyed it. I got the sense that there was another side to him," she explained. The Happy Face Killer's first known murder was Taunja Bennett, whom he raped, strangled, and dumped in an embankment in January 1990. "Comments were made and different things and an altercation happened, and I struck her," Jesperson said in a 20/20 phone interview from prison in 2010. 'I actually had hit her in the face and for some reason I just kept hitting her in the face and because of that. I feared going to prison for slugging her in the face and causing her bodily injury and so I killed her.' However, it was after the murder of his girlfriend, Julie Winningham, that he finally confessed to killing her and several others. According to court documents obtained by the Associated Press, he admitted to strangling the 41-year-old following a fight after they had sex, during which she accused him of rape. Winningham's body was discovered on March 11, 1995, along Highway 14 near Skamania County, Washington. Jesperson was linked to the murders of six other women, some of whom remain unidentified to this day: an unknown woman he claimed was named "Claudia" near Blythe, Calif.; Cynthia Lynn Rose in September 1992 in Turlock, California; Patricia Skiple in Gilroy, Calif, and Angela May Subrize in Laramie County, Wyo. In October 2023, authorities confirmed Jesperson's last known victim as 34-year-old Suzanne Kjellenberg, whose remains were found in September 1994 in Crestview, Florida. According to CNN, Jesperson had previously confessed to killing a woman named 'Susan' or 'Suzette' after his arrest, but her identity remained unknown for decades. Jesperson earned the nickname 'Happy Face Killer' for sending confession letters to journalists and police departments across the country, each signed with a smiley face. According to The New York Daily News, he first left an anonymous message on a Montana bus terminal bathroom wall, confessing to Bennett's murder and signing it with a smiley face. He later included the same doodle in letters sent to newspapers, including The Oregonian. "He'd even leave messages on bathroom walls with the happy face. That was kind of his I.D.," Quaid told USA Today. 'He's not smart but thinks he's this master manipulator.' The Happy Face Killer is currently serving seven life sentences at the Oregon State Penitentiary. In a Feb. 2024 interview with The Independent, Jesperson revealed that he remains under investigation for multiple other murders and provides his DNA to help authorities rule him out. Jesperson has no relationship with his daughter, Moore. In a 2014 essay for BBC, Moore shared that she hadn't seen her father in a decade. After her book was published, he sent her a letter stating, 'I don't want the world to judge me as a dad. I was a great dad. My only mistake was my eight errors in judgement.' In her essay, she responded, 'He's talking about murders! He's calling them 'errors in judgement'! That's the way he sees things. How can anyone — even someone as close as a daughter — continue to have a relationship with a person who so completely lacks honesty and compassion?' Moore said she has connected with the families of Jesperson's victims, including those of his first known victim, Bennett. She has also spoken with Daun Slagle, the only woman to survive one of his attacks. 'I won't deny it was hard to hear graphic details about her assault. But I believe it was a powerful gift that she gave me," she said. 'If I wanted to delude myself about what he had done I couldn't any more. I couldn't live in la-la land.' She now works with families impacted by her father. She said she's 'received hundreds of emails from family members of other serial killers thanking me for telling my story, and asking for help and advice.' The first two episodes of Happy Face are now streaming on Paramount+, with new episodes dropping every Thursday. Watch the official trailer below.
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Yahoo
'He's a Monster:' Read PEOPLE's Exclusive 2009 Interview with Happy Face Killer Keith Jesperson's Daughter Melissa Moore
In 2008, Melissa Moore wrote a book called Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer's Daughter, which shared the perspective of growing up as the daughter of the infamous Happy Face Killer and living with the aftermath of his murders and arrest. Now a podcaster and filmmaker, Moore has produced several docuseries about other high-profile murders, and her latest, one about her own family's story, will premiere on Paramount+ March 20. PEOPLE interviewed Moore in 2009, shortly after she released the book. Read the profile in full below. Sitting on the swing in her family's Spokane, Wash., backyard one afternoon last year, Aspen Moore asked her mother a simple question: "Mommy, where's your daddy? Everybody has a daddy. Where's yours?" It was the moment Melissa Moore had been dreading. Though she gave Aspen, then 6, a quick answer— "He lives in Salem, Oregon" — the whole truth was a horror hte young wife and mother of two had spent 15 years trying to forget. Her father, Keith Jesperson, 54, confessed to raping and murdering eight women between 1990 and 1995. Dubbed "the Happy Face Killer" for the bragging letters he wrote to the press and signed with a smiley face, he is now serving multiple life sentences at an Oregon prison. "Every night I would reassure my daughter, 'There's no such thing as monsters,' " says Moore, 30. "How am I supposed to tell her that some monsters are real?" The incident with Aspen was a turning point. Tired of living in shame and secrecy, Moore has written a book, Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer's Daughter. "I was always afraid that if people knew who my father was, they would look for my flaws," she says. "I don't want my children to grow up ashamed — they're not responsible for what their grandfather did. People forget that serial killers have families too.' Growing up in Yakima, Wash., Moore and her two younger siblings, Jason, now 29, and Carrie, 26, had good times with their dad, a longhaul trucker. The 6'6" Jesperson 'was charismatic,' Moore remembers, and more attentive than their mother, Rose. 'He'd take us bowling, fishing. He'd always say he had the best kids because we were well-behaved. I loved him—he was my dad.' Yet there were distinctly troubling signs, such as Jesperson's habit of torturing pets. 'In my earliest memories, he was killing animals,' Moore recalls. He swerved to hit cats on the road and once hung Melissa's four kittens on a clothesline, laughing as they squirmed. When she returned from trying unsuccessfully to persuade her mother to stop him—'I think she thought if she avoided a problem it would go away'—the kittens lay dead in a heap. 'Those were signs,' she says. 'But we weren't looking for clues.' When Melissa was 10, Jesperson left his wife for another woman and floated in and out of his children's lives. Though their mom called him 'Disneyland Dad' because 'he always had some fun activity planned,' Moore says, he was becoming moodier. He even began talking about how to commit the perfect murder: 'I just thought it was something he read about in his detective magazines.' Then, in April 1995, Melissa's sister saw their dad's mug shot on TV. Rose gathered her children together and told them simply, 'Your dad is in jail.' When Jason asked, 'For what?' Rose answered, 'For murder,'' ending the discussion. Stunned and sickened, Melissa, then 15, sought details at the local library. She learned that her father had raped and killed his first victim, a young woman he picked up at a bar in Portland, five months after he and Rose split. Six others followed — all strangers, all raped and strangled. The eighth was a girlfriend, Julie Winningham, and his ties to her — combined with his letter to a local paper and a confession he sent his brother — led police to the truth. Melissa was left reeling. 'My father could kill a woman and then take us to McDonald's?' she says. 'I couldn't wrap my head around it. And I worried it was genetic.' She and her siblings didn't discuss their anguish. 'It was too painful. We acted like Dad's just on a trip.' Nor did she feel she could talk to her mom, who now says she 'had no idea' her husband had the capacity for murder, though she admits, "I should have told the kids more about what was going on after he was arrested. I shut down. But there's not a place to go ask, 'How do you deal if your husband is a serial killer?' " Moore struggled through her remaining high school years, dating only rarely. "I remember guys whispering, 'You know who her dad is!' They avoided me." Her father wrote her letters, saying he missed her and her siblings, and on the one occasion when she and her brother visited him in jail, he apologized that he could no longer care for them and encouraged them to change their name. "He started crying, and I started crying," Melissa recalls. Enrolled in Spokane Community College, she met Sam Moore at a church dance in 2000. When she told him her story, "I had some reservations," admits Sam. "I was keeping an eye out to see, 'Is she a little off?' I never, ever saw it." Marrying Sam, now an account executive at UPS, helped her heal, as did becoming a mother to Aspen, now 8, and Jake, 5. Writing her book helped two, and her siblings are supportive, she says. As for her mother who hasn't read the book, Melissa sees their relationship as a work in progress: "My mom admits she has a lot of regrets." Recently, Moore's paternal grandfather informed her of something she'd never known. After her father was in prison, her grandfather said, " 'He told me he was getting uncomfortable [at one point' because he was having thoughts of killing you kids.' My grandfather thought my dad didn't really mean it. But yeah, he did." (Keith Jesperson did not respond to a request for comment.) After years of having mixed feelings about her father — along with revulsion, "I felt compassion and I felt sad" — she says that now she sees him as "a monster," plain and simple. And when Aspen want to know more about her heritage, as she surely will some day, Moore will pass on to her daughter her own hard-won certainty. "I'm not a monster," she says, "even if my dad is." This article was written independently by PEOPLE's editorial team and meets our editorial standards. Paramount+ is a paid advertising partner with PEOPLE. Read the original article on People
