Debra Feldman, a 48-year-old white woman, disappeared from her Hackensack, New Jersey apartment on April 8, 2009. Her life had seen its share of difficulties; she struggled with drug addiction and had a strained relationship with her son. The last time her son saw her, she was in desperate need of money. On the day she vanished, she had reportedly gone to meet a male client and was never heard from again. Her roommate reported her missing when she failed to return, setting off an investigation that would go cold for years. With no activity on her bank accounts and no contact with family, her case remained a troubling mystery.
The investigation into Debra's disappearance took a significant turn nearly three years later with the arrest of a man named Israel Keyes in March 2012 for the murder of a young woman in Alaska. As investigators delved into Keyes's background, they began to uncover a horrifying history of meticulous and brutal crimes spanning across the United States. Keyes was not a typical serial killer; he had no specific victim profile and chose people at random, often traveling great distances to commit his crimes and using 'murder kits' he had buried years in advance.
During interrogations, federal agents pressed Keyes about other potential victims. He confessed to abducting a woman from an East Coast state on April 9, 2009, the day after Debra was last seen. He admitted to driving this victim across state lines into upstate New York, where he murdered her and buried her body near Tupper Lake. While showing Keyes photos of various missing persons, agents noticed a distinct change in his demeanor when he saw the picture of Debra Feldman. He paused before stating, 'I don't want to talk about that yet.' Further investigation of his computer revealed that Keyes had repeatedly searched for information about Feldman's missing person case prior to his own capture.
Although Keyes never made a direct confession to the murder of Debra Feldman, the FBI has confirmed her as one of his victims. Authorities had planned to bring Keyes to the Tupper Lake area to locate her remains. However, before that could happen, Israel Keyes took his own life in his Anchorage jail cell in December 2012, taking the secrets of his many crimes, including the final resting place of Debra Feldman, with him to the grave. Her body has never been recovered.
