Calgary police help identify ‘Happy Face Killer’ victim

The Calgary Police Service has been credited for helping the Santa Clara Office of the Sheriff identify a victim of a cold case homicide.

Patricia Skiple of Colton, Ore., was known as “Blue Pacheco” for the colour of her clothing when her body was found on the side of a California highway.

Skiple, a mother known to friends and family as “Patsy,” would have been approximately 45 years old when she was murdered, the sheriff’s office said.

California investigators partnered with the DNA Doe Project, a U.S.-based non-profit organization that helps identify “Jane Does” and “John Does” using genetic genealogy services.

“We were tasked with helping Santa Clara track down Canadian ‘relatives’ that were identified through their genealogy searches,” a CPS spokesperson said.

“There were several hits in Alberta and Saskatchewan, across the country. Our detective and his team helped track them down to rule them in or out as potential family.”

Skiple’s body was found on June 3, 1993, on the side of California State Route 152 in the Gilroy area of the San Francisco Bay Area. The cause of her death was listed as undetermined at the time.

A year later, an Oregon newspaper ran a five-part series where an anonymous letter writer claimed to have committed five murders throughout the west coast. Investigators later identified the anonymous letter writer as Keith Hunter Jesperson, otherwise known as the “Happy Face Killer” for signing off letters to police and the media with a happy face symbol.

He was arrested in 1995 on suspicion of murder in Washington state, according to prison records. He eventually confessed to killing eight women between 1990 and 1995 in California, Washington, Oregon, Florida, Nebraska and Wyoming.

In 2006, Jesperson wrote to the county district attorney’s office and said he sexually assaulted and killed a woman near Highway 152.

He is currently serving four life sentences without the possibility of parole in Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, Ore., according to prison records.

–with files from The Associated Press.