Had Melissa G. Moore’s father come clean to her, she could have been his next victim.
Moore, 46, is the daughter of Keith Hunter Jesperson, commonly referred to as the “Happy Face Killer,” who was sentenced to life in prison after strangling eight women to death between 1990 and 1995. He earned his moniker after sending letters with smiley faces to law enforcement and the media, and has claimed to have killed as many as 160 people.
Moore’s story is now the subject of a new series, Happy Face, which has a two-episode premiere on March 20 on Paramount+. Moore is portrayed by Annaleigh Ashford, while Dennis Quaid stars as Jesperson.
It has always been difficult for Moore to try and reconcile the crimes of a man she always knew as her father. Speaking with PEOPLE, however, she recalls when her father nearly confessed to her before he was ultimately arrested.
AP Photo
Moore was in high school at the time and remembers that she was on the verge of getting her driver’s license. She and Jesperson, who at that point was divorced from Moore’s mother and working as a trucker, were eating lunch together at a diner.
“The conversation was just a natural conversation between a daughter and a father about a first car and that he was offering to pay for that first car and I was excited for my freedom,’” she recalls. “And then it turns into this really abnormal conversation which was, ‘I have something I need to tell you, but you’ll tell the authorities.’”
Jesperson ultimately didn’t reveal anything further. But looking back, Moore now realizes that he was referring to the murders he had committed.
“He was on the verge of telling me and had he told me and I was alone with him, he would’ve had to drive me back to school,” Moore says. “And I don’t think he would’ve driven me back to school, I think he would’ve regretted telling me and would’ve had to resolve the problem, which would be to end my life.”
Moore now suspects that at the time of the near-confession, her father was struggling to maintain his double life.
“I think that he was living more of his other life than his facade,” says Moore. “I think his mask was leaking, and I think he had a hard time juggling it.”
When Moore actually found out what her father had done, she was living with her mom and two siblings in the basement of her grandparents’ home in Spokane, Wash.
Moore remembers her mother gathering the three kids and explaining that their father had been arrested for murder. She later found out that Jesperson had written his children a letter, but to this day she has never read it.
Moore, who now has two adult children of her own, has since written about her experience with her father in a 2009 book and has advocated for families of crime victims, as well as the families of perpetrators whose lives have also been impacted. Her 2018 podcast, Happy Face, is the basis for the upcoming eight-episode series.
“I feel really proud of the series because it just shows how there’s so many more people involved when a crime happens and how they’re affected,” Moore says.
Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.
Though she stayed mostly on the sidelines during production of the show, Moore shared her story with the producers and even gave them unopened letters from Jesperson that she’s never looked at.
Moore acknowledges that her own kids have gotten a “crappy deal” because of who their grandfather is. But she is hopeful that the series will serve as a reflection of her parenting and the work she does.
“I think, watching the series, it’s given me a way of looking at my own story as an observer, and that’s a unique gift that I don’t think a lot of people get,” she says. “I appreciate the gift of observing my own experience and how I parented. Now that my kids are adults, it’s kind of my graduation and my report card.”
This article was written independently by PEOPLE’s editorial team and meets our editorial standards. Paramount+ is a paid advertising partner with PEOPLE.
Read the full article here
