The ‘Happy face’ killer left 8 women dead and his daughter traumatized. A new TV show will bring their story to life
What’s it like to have a serial killer for a father? Melissa G. Moore knows.
She’s spent most of her life dealing with the fact that her father, Keith Jesperson, is a notorious serial killer known as Happy Face who slaughtered multiple women across several states during his time as a truck driver in the 1990s.
Moore grew up under the same roof as her father in Spokane, Washington, but she didn’t see him much, as he was always out on the road for his long-distance trucking job. It wasn’t until she was teenager that she discovered her father’s twisted side.
When Jesperson was convicted of his crimes and sent to prison, Moore distanced herself from him and changed her name.
For years, she guarded her secret. But in 2008, she was faced with having to explain to her own daughter about their family history. So she decided to speak out — and in turn, ended up helping others.
Moore wrote a memoir, appeared on talk shows and produced a podcast. Hundreds of emails flooded in from family members of other serial killers thanking her for telling her story.
Now, that story will be brought to life in a new Paramount+ Original Series “Happy Face” that premieres on March 20. Instead of directly focusing on Jesperson’s heinous crimes, the series will play out from the point of view of his daughter, Melissa Reed.
Annaleigh Ashford plays Melissa, who must find out if an innocent man is going to be put to death for a crime her father committed, according to the press release.
“He wasn’t always a monster. He became one,” she says in the series. “Before that, he was just my dad.”
Melissa discovers the impact her father, played by Dennis Quaid, had on his victims’ families and must face a reckoning of her own identity.
“If I don’t deal with him, there is a family who lost a daughter, who will never get answers,” she says in the trailer for the drama.
The eight-part series, which is based on the Happy Face podcast and book, will premiere March 20 with the two episodes, and then new episodes will drop weekly ahead of the season finale on May 1.
“The reason why I wanted to tell my story is because I felt alone. We don’t really see about serial killers’ families,” Moore told Deadline in a recent interview.
“We see serial killer documentaries, and it really focuses on the offender, but there’s a lot of other people affected by the criminal … I just never felt seen in any true crime films, and so for me, it was really important to put my story out there to connect with other families.”
