California ‘Happy Face Killer’ victim ID’d after 29 years

GILROY, Calif. (AP) — A victim of the serial murderer dubbed the Happy Face Killer has been identified nearly 30 years after her body was left near a California highway. The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office says genetic genealogy was used to match DNA to Patricia Skiple of Colton, Oregon. She was found dead in 1993 on the side of California State Route 152 in the Gilroy area. Keith Hunter Jesperson is serving several life sentences in Oregon for the 1990s murder of eight women in California, Washington, Oregon, Florida, Nebraska, and Wyoming. He was dubbed the Happy Face Killer because of smiley faces on letters he wrote to police and the media.