EXCLUSIVE: Scott Rosenbaum, showrunner of USA Network’s Queen of the South, is adapting Maureen Callahan’s book American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century, as a television series.
The book investigates one of America’s most elusive and terrifying criminals, Israel Keyes.
Keyes was a predator who struck all over the United States. He buried “kill kits”–cash, weapons, and body-disposal tools–in remote locations across the country. Over the course of fourteen years, he would fly to a city, rent a car, and drive thousands of miles in order to use his kits. He would break into a stranger’s house, abduct his victims in broad daylight, and kill and dispose of them in mere hours. And then he would return home to Alaska, resuming life as a quiet, reliable construction worker devoted to his only daughter.
The book, which was published by Penguin Random House in 2019, reveals the true story behind how the FBI ultimately caught Keyes, and tries to understand what it means for a killer like Keyes to exist, a killer who left a path of monstrous, randomly committed crimes in his wake–many of which remain unsolved to this day.
Neshama Entertainment, the Canadian producer behind series including Hallmark’s The Way Home, is producing. It is distributed by Fox Entertainment Global.
Rosenbaum is also exec producer on series including Fox’s Gang Related, NBC’s Chuck and ABC’s V and he recently created pirate drama Sandokan for Fremantle and Italy’s Lux Vide.
