Melissa Moore remembers the moment her father, Keith Jesperson, casually told her, “I know how to kill someone and get away with it.”
She was 13 years old and the duo were driving along the Columbia River, which separates the states of Washington and Oregon in the United States.
He told her he could cut off the victim’s buttons so there’d be no fingerprint evidence and wear cycling shoes to hide his tracks.
Melissa says she shrugged off his comments as a reflection of his love for fictional crime novels.
Years later, she discovered that day he’d taken her to the burial site of his first victim – Taunja Bennett, 23, who he’d killed three years prior.
“I think he wanted to relive it and enjoy the moment again,” Melissa, now 46, told the BBC.
“My dad felt compelled to share his crimes, as he did in the messages that he left at truck stops or sent in letters to the media.”
Signing off each letter with a smiley face, it was this which earned Jesperson the moniker of the ‘Happy Face Killer’.
The duo’s complicated relationship is told in the new drama series, Happy Face, now streaming on Paramount+.
Jesperson’s killing spree began in 1990 shortly after he divorced Melissa’s mother, Rose Hucke.
Over five years, Jesperson strangled and sexually assaulted at least eight women across California, Florida, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming.
The truck driver was finally connected to the series of sick crimes after he murdered his then-girlfriend Julie Winningham.
The 70-year-old is currently serving three consecutive life sentences at Oregon State Penitentiary. Melissa hasn’t visited the prison since 2005.
Learning her father had been arrested for Julie’s murder is something Melissa says was difficult to comprehend as a 16-year-old.
“It was just overwhelming, and I ran to the bed I was sleeping on and started crying,” Melissa said. “I couldn’t fathom how my dad could have done such a thing.
“Somehow I ended up feeling that I had to pay restitution for his crimes. I felt dirty, I felt less of a person, I felt alone.
“There isn’t a book out there called, ‘What DoYou Do When You Find Out That Your Dad’s A Serial Killer?’ There’s nothing out there that tells you what to do.”
Melissa was even worried she could pass on an ‘evil gene’ to her two children.
While Jesperson has met Melissa’s son and daughter, she says she knew their 2005 reunion would be their last.
“I don’t want my dad to get into the psyche of my children and hurt them in any way because he is manipulative. He is a psychopath,” Melissa told ABC News in 2021.
“He has the potential, still, to hurt, even if not with physical violence or murder, but with his words.”
Three decades on, Melissa is determined to not let Jesperson’s crimes define the rest of her life.
She has created a support network of more than 300 people who are related to killers and has published a book about her experience.
“My dad got a life sentence; I got a life sentence,” Melissa told Marie Claire in 2015.
“I’m always going to be the daughter of a serial killer, and I have to choose how that’s going to affect me. I’m always having to make that choice: ‘Do I want to hide today, or do I want to live today?’”
Where to watch Happy Face?
Stream Happy Face on Paramount Plus from $9.99/mth, with a 7-day free trial.
