"Happy Face Killer" gets 2nd life term in plea deal

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The so-called "Happy Face Killer," who once stalked the Pacific Northwest, was handed another life sentence after pleading guilty to strangling a woman in California and dumping her body near a highway overpass in 1993.

Keith Hunter Jesperson, who is already serving two consecutive life terms for murders in Oregon and Wyoming, entered the plea Friday in Santa Clara County Superior Court. He was known for drawing happy faces in letters in which he boasted of his crimes to authorities and an Oregon newspaper.

Jesperson was expected to return to Oregon this week to serve the rest of his sentences.

Prosecutors said Jesperson sent them a letter from prison confessing he had strangled a truck-stop prostitute, who has never been identified, and dumped her body in Santa Clara. As part of a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, Jesperson told authorities he picked her up in May 1993 at a rest stop off Interstate 5 in Corning.