By Todd Russell
Ed. Warning: this article is somewhat on the depressing side, but comes with an underlying message. It also shares the dubious distinction of being one of the longest in draft articles here to date, with the first draft completed over a year from the date it was published. At some point almost scrapped it, but readers will see why at the end it was included. It’s something different we wouldn’t normally do here.
It might seem a stretch to connect familicide over 10 years ago to videogames, but there is a bit of a mostly unrelated connection that will be learned before this is over. Stay the course. Gamers are all one giant gaming family, connected through gaming at one point or another.
Somehow, I missed this local story of recent high school graduate Kaylene Keller and her mother, Lynette, victims of a totally senseless murder at the hands of her own father, Peter Keller.
This monster in father and husband’s clothing spent months digging out a cave in the woods, meticulously building a nomad existence for after he began his detour into madness. And to add to his spiraling, he kept a secret vlog of the excavation and construction.
According to the video below, it’s “extremely rare” to see video of a murderer’s thinking before they commit their diabolical deeds. But did Peter Keller intend for his vlogs to end up on YouTube? It sounds like he meant for the footage to go up in a mobile home house fire that didn’t go as expected.
The video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vorUEpbHNU) goes into much more graphic detail, might be too hard for some (most?) to watch, and I’ve spoiled the details already. It’s difficult not watching this and thinking, “WTF? Why?” For those that don’t want to watch it, I’ve tried to summarize most of the pertinent details.
Peter Keller was planning to be holed up for quite some time in a Rambo-like cave dwelling in the woods near a creek, with “thousands” in cash found inside his bunker.
In the end, at least that money went to a good cause: developing a game-related scholarship fund according to a Seattle Times article in 2012.
The scholarship will be for female students interested in attending the DigiPen Institute of Technology in Redmond, where Kaylene dreamed of going to further her education in video-game design.
At the time of her death, Kaylene was a student at Bellevue College and was working as a video-game tester, according to her relatives and boyfriend, 19-year-old Carson Brammer.
The Seattle Times: Peter Keller, killer of wife, daughter said: ‘I can always shoot myself’
Ahhh, Digipen. There’s a name I haven’t heard of in some time. Good to see the school that teaches all things programming is still around, albeit like most higher learning, tuition is expensive.
One can only dream in this world what Kaylene might have created had she ever been able to get out of Digipen? Perhaps in a parallel existence, where her father didn’t lose his mind, she is part of some amazing creation. If for no other reason, this post is dedicated to the memory of Kaylene Keller. The only thing worse than death is to be completely forgotten. We at PGM will remember Kaylene and her dream.
18 years old is way, way, wayyyy too young to leave this earth. RIP.