The Laverne Pavlinac story is a bizarre case of a false confession that derailed a murder investigation and allowed a serial killer to remain free. In 1990, following the murder of 23-year-old Taunja Bennett in Portland, Oregon, 57-year-old Pavlinac concocted a detailed lie to frame her abusive boyfriend, John Sosnovske, as a desperate way to get him out of her life. She eventually implicated herself as an accomplice, leading to both of them being convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1991, despite Pavlinac recanting her story at trial. Because police closed the case based on her fabrications, the real perpetrator—the notorious "Happy Face Killer" Keith Hunter Jesperson- went undetected and murdered at least seven more women over the next several years.