See Dennis Quaid as a Murderous Serial Killer in First Happy Face Trailer: Watch

The first trailer for Happy Face is here!

A preview at the new Paramount+ show documenting a serial killer’s daughter, played by Annaleigh Ashford, fighting for justice has been released. Based on the real-life story of murderer Keith Jesperson and his daughter Melissa Reed, Happy Face stars Dennis Quaid as the dangerous Happy Face Killer.

“What do you know about the Happy Face Killer?” a talk show host named Dr. Greg (David Harewood) asks Reed at the start of the trailer. “Perhaps we should just explain why you’re here.”

After flashbacks of her childhood appear on the screen, she reveals her secret.

“Because he’s my father,” she tells the audience.

A series of clips of Reed investigating cases she believes are linked to her estranged father then play while she contemplates reconciling with him for the sake of a man being put in jail for crimes Jesperson actually committed.

“Every violent act is a rock dropped in water,” she says. “If you stay silent, the ripples of trauma just keep pulling everyone they touch underneath.”

It ends with her decision: a visit to the prison where her father is being held.

“It’s so good to see you, Missy,” he whispers as the two come face-to-face.

Jesperson’s killings have been a topic of public interest since 2010 when he was convicted and given three life sentences for the strangulation deaths of eight women in the 1990’s (he once claimed to have as many as 160 victims). His last victim was only recently discovered in 2023, 29 years after her murder.

Jesperson was only dubbed the “Happy Face Killer” after the murders when he allegedly began drawing smiley faces on letters to police and the media during their investigation.

His daughter, who goes by Melissa Moore, has been outspoken about the impact her father’s crimes had on her life, even writing a book about it in 2009, called Shattered Silence. She later opened up about it in an interview with 20/20 in 2015.

“We are secondary crime victims. We carry that shame and we want to remove that,” Moore said at the time” “I feel in a sense I am related to my father, but I didn’t cause the pain. But knowing that my father caused some pain causes me pain.”

She also admitted that there were signs everyone in Jesperson’s life overlooked, recalling one time during her childhood that he tortured and killed kittens.

“I think I caught a glimpse of the sociopath, the part of where felt in control over me and that he enjoyed it. I got the sense that there was another side to him,” she explained in a 2010 interview with the outlet.

She has gone on to work with others in the same position as her and help people who lost loved ones in unsolved murders.

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Happy Face will be available to stream on March 20 on Paramount+.