Alleged Serial Killer Going To Court

Keith Jesperson, the so-called Happy Face Killer, is to appear in court later this week in the slaying of a woman whose body was found behind an east Salem store three years ago.

Jesperson, 40, will appear at a 10 a.m. hearing Friday in a Hillsboro courtroom rather than in Salem, said Mark Makler, a deputy district attorney for Marion County.

Although Laurie Ann Pentland’s body was discovered in Salem, investigators believe the slaying actually occurred in Washington County, Makler said.

Jesperson, 40, claims to have killed eight women in five states, including Pentland, 23.

On Nov. 27, a man and a woman who served four years for a 1990 strangling were released from prison, three weeks after Jesperson was convicted of the crime.