Keith Eugene Wells was born on May 11, 1962, in Moab, Utah. He was the sixth of eight children born to Paul and Loral Wells. His family was close-knit and followed the Mormon faith. They later moved to Pocatello, Idaho, where Wells grew up.

At a very young age, Wells started experimenting with alcohol and cigarettes. He was only 4 years old when he first tried alcohol. By 10 or 11, he began smoking marijuana. During his grade school years, he often got into trouble. Court reports show that he fought in school and sometimes skipped classes. He also stole money and household items from both family and friends.

By the time Wells reached ninth grade, he developed a drug problem that cost his family about $200 each month. He regularly used amphetamines and marijuana. At the age of 14, stealing became common for him to support his drug addiction. From 1975 to 1978, he admitted to being involved in around thirty thefts and assaults, which led to multiple run-ins with the law.

Wells was first jailed at 15 for vandalism. When he was 17, he was imprisoned for other offenses. After being released, he found it hard to stay out of trouble. Throughout his teenage years, he was in and out of prison a total of three times.

On December 20, 1990, two bodies were discovered in a back room of the Rose Pub in Boise, Idaho. The victims were John Justad, 23, and Brandi Rains, 20. Rains was the bartender, and Justad was a customer. Both had been severely beaten with a blunt object, which led police to initially believe robbery was the motive, as money was missing from the cash register. The attacker had fled through the back door, leaving footprints in the snow, but the police lost the trail at a nearby intersection.

Four months later, on April 23, 1991, Keith Eugene Wells was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder. A judge ordered him to be held without bail. At his preliminary hearing, which began on June 5, a police detective testified that Wells had confessed he killed both victims. However, Wells changed his story multiple times. Initially, he claimed Justad and Rains owed him money, but he later said he had gone to the bar with two cohorts who were the true killers.

Wells pleaded innocent, but his trial started on October 15, 1991, and he was found guilty on October 24. On April 7, 1992, he was sentenced to death. In February 1993, Wells asked to drop his appeals and expressed a desire for his execution to continue. He later confessed to the murders during a telephone interview from death row, stating that he had gone to the pub with a baseball bat and intended to kill someone that night.

On January 6, 1994, Wells was executed by lethal injection at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution. Ninety minutes before his execution, he apologized to the families of his victims. The execution began at 12:40 a.m., and he was pronounced dead at 12:50 a.m. He had no final words. His last meal included lobster, prime rib, fries, salad, ice cream, and soda. Wells was the first person executed in Idaho since 1957 and remained the only executed inmate in the state for nearly eighteen years.