She was a victim of the ‘Happy Face Killer.’ Investigators close in on ID but ask public’s help

More than 30 years after a woman died violently at the hands of the “Happy Face Killer,” Riverside County investigators are close to a breakthrough in identifying her — but they’re seeking the public’s help.

The serial killer, whose name is Keith Hunter Jesperson, boasted of killing the woman and seven other female victims in the early 1990s, sending letters to the press about his exploits that he signed with a smiling face.

He referred to the woman he killed in Riverside as “Claudia,” but investigators have never been able to confirm her identity, according to the Riverside County district attorney’s office.

“Our goal is to identify this victim and provide closure to her family, wherever they may be,” Dist. Atty. Mike Hestrin said in a statement. “We are hopeful someone hearing any of these details may remember anything that could help us reunite this woman with the family who may have been looking for her for over three decades.”

Jesperson has been in custody since 1995 and pleaded guilty to murdering this Jane Doe in 2010, according to authorities. In his confession, Jesperson said he met the victim in August 1992 at a brake check area along Highway 15 south of Victorville.

Jesperson had been working as a long-haul truck driver. The woman hitched a ride with him, saying she was going to Los Angeles, but Jesperson had been headed southeast toward Arizona on his truck route.

He drove her south to Cabazon and then a rest stop in the Coachella Valley, where Jesperson killed her in his truck after a dispute about money, he said. He then drove seven miles north of Blythe along Highway 95 and disposed of the woman’s body on the side of the road. Her remains were discovered on Aug. 30, 1992.

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The woman was described by Jesperson as in her 20s, about 5-foot-6 and 140 to 150 pounds. She had shaggy blond hair and a tattoo of two dots on the left side of the thumb on her right hand. She was wearing a T-shirt with a motorcycle on it when her body was found.

Forensic investigators using DNA evidence and genealogists have determined the woman’s biological father, now dead, hailed from Cameron County in Texas. Her mother remains unidentified but could have been from Louisiana or southeastern Texas. Investigators have contacted several people they believe to be half-siblings of the woman, though they told investigators they were not aware of her and could not identify her.

Anyone with potential leads can contact the Riverside County district attorney’s cold case hotline at (951) 955-5567 or by emailing coldecaseunit@rivcoda.org.