Israel Keyes’ New York Property Searched While Authorities Executed Search Warrant in Anchorage

Accused killer of Samantha Koenig may be suspect in Lower 48 murders

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By Lacie Grosvold

Story Created: Oct 25, 2012 at 3:19 PM AKDT

Story Updated: Dec 2, 2012 at 6:52 PM AKDT

CONSTABLE, N.Y. - As FBI and Anchorage police armed with metal detectors searched around the home Israel Keyes lived in before his arrest, another search was going on thousands of miles away.

CBS 11 News has learned New York state police and the FBI were also searching a piece of property Keyes owns in upstate New York.

According to Keyes' neighbors in Constable, New York, dozens of state police and FBI investigators were digging up the property on Tuesday and Wednesday.

But what they were looking for remains a mystery.

The cabin is on ten acres in a rural area that the 34-year-old has owned since 1997.

Things were quiet there Thursday, but neighbors say for the last two days dozens of teams have been combing over it.

Prosecutors say Keyes abducted and killed 18-year-old Samantha Koenig in February of year, in one of the most notorious cases here in Alaska.

But in court papers his attorneys say they know their client is the subject of other investigations.

According to sources in Vermont, Keyes is the prime suspect in the June 2011 murders of Bill and Lorraine Currier, who disappeared from their Essex home.

Their bodies have never been found.

Two days before the state and federal search teams arrived to look around the property in Constable, neighbors say state police were there asking questions.

Chana O’Leary, Keyes’ neighbor in New York, says the authorities were "…asking me if I knew him. Also, why I was here? And who lived in this property during the year I was gone?"

The search in New York took place at the same time FBI and Anchorage police were executing a search warrant at the Turnagain home Keyes lived in.

That warrant is sealed and the U.S. Attorney's office will not say what they were looking for or whether they found anything.

KTVA also asked Kevin Feldis of the U.S. Attorney’s Alaska office about the New York search, but Feldis said he couldn’t comment.

Keyes is facing a number of charges, including kidnapping resulting in death, for Samantha Koenig's murder, and prosecutors have to decide by the end of the year if they will seek the death penalty.

Right now Keyes is still behind bars here in Anchorage.

He is scheduled to go on trial March 11 of next year.
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