DoctorOz: Happy Face Killer's Daughter Faces Her Biggest Fear | Oz True Crime

Today we have a story very near and dear to me and to our entire Oz family. Crime Correspondent Melissa Moore is the daughter of the Happy Face serial killer Keith Jesperson. She spent years coping with the darkest parts of her past. In her new hit podcast Happy Face, Melissa is going further than she ever has before. Today she's here, finally ready to find out the answers about her health that will change her life forever. We know that psychopaths like Jesperson can pass genetic traits to their children and that has left Melissa asking, am I a psychopath like my father? When I was 15 years old my father was arrested, charged and convicted of murdering eight women. He was a serial rapist and killer. There isn't anything I could say that would describe the amount of shock, betrayal, shame. Being the daughter of a serial killer isn't something that you grow out of, it's something that you grow into. I wrestled my whole life trying to understand that the man I loved and called dad was someone who murdered multiple women. My father today is serving life in prison, multiple life sentences. But every time I look in the mirror I see my father's features on my face. His eyes, his nose, his smile and every day I face my greatest fear. Could I have inherited his brain as well? Could I actually be a psychopath? Melissa joins us now and I do appreciate you coming. I know this is difficult, it's very personal. Yeah, it's different being on this side, you know, the storytelling. I like to be with other people and helping them tell their story but I didn't think I'd get so emotional so fast. I think you're good at getting people to tell their stories because you're examining your story. Right, this was the hardest journey I've ever gone on in my entire life and it took every bit of courage within me to face it. And I only felt safe here with the Oz team and the family because it was a question I've been asked so many times, you know. Thank you. You know, I'm a mother, I have children and people would ask me, you felt okay having children knowing, you know, your family history? And so they're like, are you worried about genetics? That's always a question that came up right off the bat with strangers that would eventually learn about my father. And I had guilt after they would ask me this because like, did I potentially pass on something to my children? And so I would look at my children to see signs of empathy but then this was always something I questioned within me. If I laughed at something maybe inappropriately, you know, or if I did one little thing, if I didn't have empathy on something, if I didn't, I just criticized myself all the time. And so it's heavy. It's been a very heavy burden. I never thought about you fearing for your own children but I get it now and of course you're fearful for yourself. You have those trends. What were the darkest moments where the shame was just deep that you felt for your father? Well, it definitely felt when my father was arrested. I was just 15 years old and that's when this all kind of came to head where I was guilty by association. The parents of my friends would feel like I was contagious, you know, like there's something wrong with me. And so obviously there's a great deal of shame with that. I wanted to isolate myself. And then there's that comment, you know, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. So I wanted to help Melissa get some answers about whether she may be a psychopath like her father. And it's a harsh term. I'm going to explain what it means in a second as a clinician. But let's walk up if you don't mind. And I know we've been walking you through this but it never hurts to see it with everybody else. Right. So in a nutshell, a psychopath is considered someone who's able to make big decisions quickly without emotion. That's not always a bad thing. Right. In the context of a serial killer, it could mean killing somebody. Right. But that's not what most psychopaths are. And it's not really a formal medical diagnosis, but there are some neuroscientists studying this and they say they can see real and very specific differences in the brain of a psychopath and the brain of someone who is not. This is a brain scan of someone who is not considered to be a psychopath. Now, this is the back of the brain. This is the front of the brain up here, the forehead, right? You notice how the front of the brain has yellow up in the outside there. You all see that? All right. All right. That's the part of the brain that's believed to control decision making, emotional responses, morality. Right. You sort of want to have yellow here. Right. Because it means a lot of activity. Now watch carefully the same area. Right. And this guy is somebody considered to be a psychopath. Now you notice there's yellow in the back. Right. That's where you see stuff, for example. And up here, the yellow where you move your arms around. But in terms of this front area, see how different they are? Right. This means there's not a lot of activity in the area around decision making, around the emotional responses, again, around morality. It's empty because it's not there. It's not being used. So I offered to set up a test for Melissa, and I wanted to find out if we could actually do a scan, a PET scan that would allow her to answer this question that has troubled you for so many years. So after a lot of thought, Melissa very bravely made the decision to have her brain scanned to see if it had the hallmarks, the hallmark of a psychopath. Take a look. I just woke up. I slept horrible. I had nightmares all night. I've been afraid of telling people that I'm getting a PET scan because I want to know why. And I don't want to tell them that I'm afraid that I might be like my dad. My kids know that I'm going today and Sam knows I'm going. I always wondered if I'm like my dad and I'm scared that I might be. Okay, it's four in the morning. I have to be there at the hospital at by 530. I know it's an hour drive to the hospital and my mind's probably going to be racing. Like what is this going to mean for me? I don't know. Because what if it, what if it turns out that my brain is like my dad, a psychopath? I don't think there's a way to mentally prepare for this. If my brain is like my dad, then I have to deal with a lot of things and I don't know if I'm prepared for that. That was an intense night. Yeah, I could tell. All right, coming up we're going to see the results of Melissa's brain scan to answer her biggest fear. Is she considered to be a psychopath? And she's sharing the letters from her serial killer father for the very first time. We'll be right back. We're back with crime correspondent Melissa Moore who went away to brain scan to determine if her biggest fear was real. Is she a psychopath like her serial killer father? So Melissa, I understand you were so worked up the night before you got your results that you actually took these out. These are letters your dad had written. Many of them you hadn't ever read before. And you began to go through them. Why did you do that? Well, these letters are the only connection that I have to my father. I don't speak to him on the phone. And so I thought, well, with the clarity of mind that I have now, maybe there's something in these letters that could give me a clue that I'm not like my father. But instead I got something very different. Yeah, very, very different. One of the most powerful moments since I've been on the show was watching you go through these letters. So let's take a look at the night Melissa decided to visit her dark past. The truth according to Keith. The story to sell the public. The gore, the thought process to why I killed. But dad, you're not telling the truth. I'll tell you a story, Ms. Know-it-all. Neither are you. I know you think you can say anything you want and it will be published because you are the victim here. Are you carrying what I did and holding it high to tell the world, hey, look at me. I'm the daughter of the happy face killer. I'm a victim here. I told you back when you and Jason came to see me and in county that you should change your name to get away from this. Did you? It is more. But it seems now that you want the world to know who you are. Not Melissa more, but the daughter of the happy face killer. You need a doctor that will tell you the truth. I've created a monster in you. He's insane and he's hurtful and that's not. This is why I don't read these letters. This is why I don't read them. Don't you understand? This is for you. Oh, it just hit me. It just, just really hit me. I felt like my dad just was there with me and it's been two decades since I heard his voice, but I felt like he was right there with me. He knows all my fears and he put all my insecurities on two pages of paper and it felt a little prophetic in some ways when he said, you need a doctor and tomorrow I'm going to go see a doctor. Not only a doctor can really tell me what's, you know, can tell me the truth. My ex-husband, Sam truly understands the stakes of my emotional results. Because it would validate what her dad says in her own mind. But I like the idea. I mean, if you think about it, if he came back and said, you're not, how awesome would that be? And so for, I think tomorrow could be a great day for Melissa. God, it's hard to even watch it. I experienced the panic attack, you know, and watching it. Wow. You know, it was really intense to read it and to, and to hear the words that he said, you know, I'm not who he says I am. What's the main thing these letters revealed to you? The game, the manipulation, the tactics he used to control me. But I need, I still need a scientific proof. I still need it just to prove to myself and, and to other people so that I could finally be free once and for all with, with what he's given me. This is, this is what he's provided for me as my, I guess, legacy, you know. Coming up, the brain scan results that will change Melissa's life forever. The answer is next. I am back with crime correspondent Melissa Moore, who got a brain scan to determine if she might be a psychopath like her father, Keith Jesperson, the Happy Face serial killer. Melissa's brain scans were examined by Dr. James Falun, a neuroscientist and one of the world's top experts studying the brains of psychopaths. And what is truly amazing is Dr. Falun knows a lot about psychopaths because he is a psychopath. So most of us think psychopaths are criminals, but it's often not the case. Psychopaths can have positive traits like assertiveness. They can make decisions without emotion and gas. That could be a good thing. If you're in the middle of an operation, right, you need to make a decision without worrying about how it's going to feel or affect people afterwards. You got to do what's right. Law enforcement, same thing, because emotions can cloud judgment. So that's why I think there are psychopaths in those fields and many others that are important because people depend on us. So are you ready to share your scan results? Yes, I'm ready. Yeah. All right. Take a look. Today I find out if my worst fears and insecurities are true. Ever since I got the pet scan, my mind has been wondering if I truly am a psychopath and what does that mean to be a psychopath. I started thinking back to times that maybe I wasn't so empathetic. I started thinking about times when I might have laughed at the wrong thing. I started thinking about, you know, my sensitivity or lack of sensitivity in certain moments. My biggest fear about meeting Dr. Falun and him reviewing the pet scans is that it will be concluded that my brain is the brain of a psychopath, similar to serial killers. Hi, Dr. Falun. Hi, how you doing? Good, nice to meet you. Okay, great, thank you. A neuroscientist, professor, and author, Dr. Falun is not what I expected a psychopath to be. I mean, I inherited all these psychopathic related genes. I always assumed because it was in my head, everybody was thinking this way, and they're not. The difference is that I never act them out. I mean, I got absolutely clean record and I got a family. I'm still dating the girl I dated at 12 years old. We were both 12. We've been married forever and I've had a really great job forever and I have kids and grandkids and I have a normal family life. What I lack is the criminality and the really antisocial stuff. I really have no interest in hurting people. He explained the role of nurture over genetics. You can inherit them, but if you've been treated okay, and especially with love, it kind of negates that effect. So having the genes per se is not the death sentence. So, okay, it happens. What happens early to regulate those genes, which is fixed, is the problem. Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready. All right. With that reassurance, I was ready for my results. Different kinds of scans probe different circuits in your brain. Then we can compare it to normal people and full-blown psychopaths. We can look for those implied circuits in the brain, these functional scans, having to do with violence or different kinds of empathy. This is your brain? It's the same pattern on all the psychopaths and it turns out to be my PET scan. That's turned off and you can see these splotches in the amygdala. So part of the amygdala is turned way up, which parts turned down. That's abnormal. And here is your PET scan. You see right here? Yeah. And up here, they're dark. That's what has really turned on. Here you are and here's the normal. And it turns out yours is completely normal. Yeah. How do you feel about those results? You're normal. Your brain is normal. You know, I can't explain to you how free I am. I mean, since that moment, my life has changed for the better because I feel so much more self-confident, so much more secure with myself and feeling okay in the world. I just feel like I belong again to the world. Like, I don't feel like I'm an outcast anymore. I thought you always belonged in the world. I adore getting to know you. Thank you. So I've got a big announcement. We teamed up with the podcast masters at How Stuff Works to co-produce Melissa's chilling new podcast. It's called Happy Face. I have been absolutely infatuated with it. I mean, audio magic. So if you don't mind, give everyone a little bit of insight in how you've told your story in this podcast. Great. This is a unique, well, it was actually a terrifying journey at first. This is part of the journey that I went through is to find out about my genetics, but also I went on this path to find out the truth because in the letters, you know, my dad says a lot of lies. And so I realized I need the truth and I can't get the truth for my father. So I went on this journey and along the way I discovered family secrets. I discovered shocking new truths. It just changed my whole life, including this test, doing this to find out about my genetic background and what I'm capable or not capable of being, you know, it was, it was absolutely, I wish I had words for it, but I think everybody could relate to it in the sense that I was so afraid to face my fear, but then I walked over that fear and went through it. And I came out the other side and I think anybody can relate to that, you know, going on their own journey to face their fears. Well, speaking as a dad, I'm very proud of you. And that's what I feel most that you've been able to not just weather the storm and get through a lot of baggage that wasn't yours to push off stuff that are lies, but a perfectly designed to hurt you. Cause the person who wrote them knew that you'd be able to create art from that and shed light for all of us. So God bless you. Thank you. This is podcast. Happy faces available now on iTunes, wherever you like to find your podcast, check it out, spread the word. It is very enlightening and invigorating. Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe and turn on notifications. You never miss out on new videos to live the good life.