Heidi Keyes

This is a Studio Both And production.

[upbeat music] It's impossible to deep dive Hunters, Washington, and its importance to Keyes and his crimes without further exploring the Keyes family, the Christian Identity movement, and Keyes' childhood girlfriend, Annie.

Let's begin with the Christian Identity movement as a whole and how and when the Keyes family became involved.

You may recall all the way back in season one, episode five, I briefly examined some of the tenets of the Christian Identity and the two Colville churches that the Keyes family were members of during their time there: The Ark and the Christian Israel Covenant Church.

In this episode, we'll be taking a look at the histories of these churches and their contemporaries and how multiple factions of the same teachings coalesced in Stevens County, Washington, and shaped how the Keyes family came to be who they were and where they were.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Christian Identity principles started to become a more widespread movement around the early nineteen fifties when Ku Klux Klan organizer Wesley Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ-Christian in Lancaster, California.

The church was founded largely in response to the Civil Rights era.

And despite losing the majority of its parishioners, Peters rebuilt.