SAN JOSE, Calif., July 28 (UPI) -- A former trucker, already serving two life sentences in Oregon, received a third from a California judge for killing a woman he met at a truck stop in 1993.
Keith Jesperson, known as the "Happy Face" killer because he sent newspapers and investigators letters with happy-face drawings, will be returned to the Oregon State Penitentiary next week, The San Jose Mercury News reported. He agreed to plead guilty to the murder of the woman in California -- and to give as much information about the still-unidentified victim as he could -- in return for a life sentence.
The woman's body was found by another trucker in 1993. Four years later, Jesperson wrote a letter suggesting he killed her, but he was not charged until 2006.
In his guilty plea in Santa Clara County, he said he met the woman at a truck stop off I-5, bought her lunch, gave her a lift, had sex with her and then killed her. He said he drove for several hours with the body in his cab before dumping it.
Jesperson claims to have killed as many as 12 women.
