Deaths of Male College Students-General Discussion #1

[SeriouslySearching]

Excellent question, Suzi. I don't know unless it was the circumstances of his clothing being left on, the way his arms were in front of him, and various other things which preclude a normal drowning in the decision LE came to. Their theory didn't match the evidence.

Here is what they said: When the detectives took a look at Jenkins' death, they discovered that the position of his body and other physical evidence proved that the college student didn't drown accidentally. The cause of death on Jenkins' death certificate was changed to "homicide."

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=4738621&page=1

 

[Jeana (DP)]

Detectives: 40 Drowning Victims May Have Been Murdered by 'Smiley Face Gang'

Monday , April 28, 2008

At least 40 young men who drowned may have died by far more sinister means — serial killings at the hands of a national gang that revels in murdering young men and leaving smiley-face markings at the scene, a team of retired New York City police detectives and criminal justice investigators said Monday.

They believe the victims, including University of Minnesota student Chris Jenkins and Fordham University student Patrick McNeill, didn't accidentally drown but were actually killed by members of the so-called "Smiley Face Gang."

A smiley-face symbol was found painted at some of the drowning locations — in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa, they said.

"They're telling you here that they're into evil, they're very happy as most serial killers are," said retired NYPD Det. Kevin Gannon. "They're content with their work and what they're doing and the fact that they're thwarting the police."

Jenkins' body was discovered in the Mississippi River about four months after he disappeared in 2003. To police, his death looked like an accidental fall after a night of drinking.

McNeill drowned in New York City in 1997, also after bar-hopping.

The task force that formed to solve the crimes believes a national crime network has killed at least 40 men — mostly white college students and 20-somethings, often with high grades and impressive athletic records — in about 10 different states.

The team investigated 89 separate cases dating back a decade and said it had connected 40 of them through a variety of evidence — including matching sets of gang graffiti.

It was Jenkins' death, however, that tipped off police. His body was found encased in ice in the Mississippi, his hands folded across his chest in an odd pose that was inconsistent with a chance drowning.

Gannon and another NYPD detective, Anthony Duarte — along with the other investigators — believe a gang of killers has been trolling interstates from New York to Wisconsin, staging the drownings.

The FBI and local authorities don't agree with the theory that all the drownings are linked and the work of a gang.

But families of the victims have long believed their loved ones' deaths were suspicious.

"The people that murdered Chris have murdered before him and they've also murdered people after him, Jan Jenkins said on "Good Morning America." "Those people are still at large."

 

[SieSie]

We just got a forum for this, here's the link:
Deaths of Male College Students/The River Killers

I definitely have a lot of catching up to do - some of these cases are 10 years old and it's in multiple states. This is going to be a hard one to follow, thank heavens the mods gave us the new forum for it!!

 

[MissHolmes]

Another interesting comment from the GMA article:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/comments?type=story&id=4738621
superexcitedguy 12 - I was also a native of La Crosse and attended college there. I also worked in law enforcement for the county of LaX. I will back up your claims that many people speculate the involvement of an officer or somebody dressed up as one. I remember a few of my friends and I would go out after midnight and sit in our car....doing a "look out" at RiverSide and how we had many thoughts going through our "heads" of who could be doing this.
Posted by:
Oceangreen22 12:39 PM

SuziQ, that one also really stuck out to me. These young men would probably trust an officer. Say for instance the "officer" comes up to them, threatens them with arrest for being drunk in public, the young man goes with them or follows them. Maybe the officer says he wont arrest them if they do this or that, or offers them "a ride home". Makes sense to me

 

[TheShadow]

How would the kilers know that these guys had high GPA's and were often top athletes unless they actually KNEW them from the school and specifically targetted them?

 

[SuziQ]

Excellent question, Suzi. I don't know unless it was the circumstances of his clothing being left on, the way his arms were in front of him, and various other things which preclude a normal drowning in the decision LE came to. Their theory didn't match the evidence.

Here is what they said: When the detectives took a look at Jenkins' death, they discovered that the position of his body and other physical evidence proved that the college student didn't drown accidentally. The cause of death on Jenkins' death certificate was changed to "homicide."

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=4738621&page=1

Maybe it was a matter of just looking at the existing evidence differently. Or having someone point out things that the ME merely didn't take into consideration. Yeah, the slip on clogs remaining on his feet and shirt remaining tucked in doesn't make since if the official LE theory is that Chris was thrown from a bridge. And what evidence does LE have that Chris was thrown from a bridge?

 

[DeltaDawn]

The officer angle struck me two because in reading of the drowning death of the young man in WVA he was with friends, an officer came up , he ran, they never saw him again.

In more then a few of these an officer seems to be the last person to see them? Hmm..if they were so intoxicated wouldn't they take them either to jail or detox unit?

 

[SuziQ]

How would the kilers know that these guys had high GPA's and were often top athletes unless they actually KNEW them from the school and specifically targetted them?

It's worked on female vics before.

 

[DeltaDawn]

Oh, OK! My mind isn't clicking today. You are right, of course. I wonder why they haven't released those? Interesting.

Welcome to WS, MsHolmes! We did throw that one around a bit on an earlier thread. While it is odd, I couldn't make a real connection from the story to the crimes in this case.

I thought maybe it was part of the agreement they made with the reporter. She had to keep this quiet for two years, but she may have said then when we start to go forward I want the names of the MIN/WIS vics released first.

 

[SuziQ]

This is on the front page of Fox now:

Detectives: 40 Drowning Victims May Have Been Murdered by 'Smiley Face Gang'

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352960,00.html

 

[SeriouslySearching]

I wish we had WSers in those areas to go look for the "smiley faces".

I had another thought, too. Will there be people out there that want their case researched badly enough to go and possibly paint these themselves to try to get the detectives interested? Horrible thought, isn't it?

 

[SuziQ]

I wish we had WSers in those areas to go look for the "smiley faces".

I had another thought, too. Will there be people out there that want their case researched badly enough to go and possibly paint these themselves to try to get the detectives interested? Horrible thought, isn't it?

Horrible thought but something to consider. Shows why some info should never be released to the public.

 

[SeriouslySearching]

Yes, I considered that...but they should be able to tell if the paint is old or not for some cases. Maybe they haven't disclosed other things about the smiley faces for that very reason.

 

[aj1020]

How would the kilers know that these guys had high GPA's and were often top athletes unless they actually KNEW them from the school and specifically targetted them?

I'm with you - especially the high GPAs that was common among many of the victims. Like I said in a previous post, if it was a random target and the killer(s) walked into any given bar in a college town, they'd get a wide selection of handsome college-aged men, but it would be a crapshoot trying to pick the ones with "high GPAs". I realize that probably not every victim had a high GPA or was even in college, but it must be a pretty noticeable trend for the detectives to mention it as a commonality.

 

[shadowraiths]

Something occurred to me that I keep forgetting to mention... imho, it would be useful to compile info and run stats on the following:

Missing date
Found date
Estimated date of death

Missing location
Found location
Estimated point of entry​

 

[Blink34]

Horrible thought but something to consider. Shows why some info should never be released to the public.

Unfortunately without that info I dont think we would have this forum. I'm going to keep the faith they have enough going to have presumed that may happen unfortunately. But honestly when your desperate about what happened to somone you love, you'd do almost anything. Hopefully our work will help facilitate their cases being reviewed.

 

[SuziQ]

Unfortunately without that info I dont think we would have this forum. I'm going to keep the faith they have enough going to have presumed that may happen unfortunately. But honestly when your desperate about what happened to somone you love, you'd do almost anything. Hopefully our work will help facilitate their cases being reviewed.

What information to release and when is a tough call for an investigator.

 

[Filly]

Hope I'm not throwing more in the game here. If this has been posted already my apologies. There's a guy who was a college student and in a band who planted pipe bombs. His name is Lucas John Helder and he planted them in Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa, Colorado and Texas. He told authorities he wanted to plant these mailbox bombs geographically in a smiley face pattern. I don't know my geography and I'm sure these murderers have nothing to do with this but hey I found it interesting.http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/05/09/mailbox.pipebombs/

 

[SuziQ]

I haven't watched the entire vid yet. But wanted to get it up asap as they are disclosing new info. Including a message that was left with a smiley face. The vid is on the right side of the page.

http://kstp.com/article/stories/S426475.shtml?cat=1

 

[SuziQ]

At the above linked video a new piece of graffiti with a message is revealed. The detectives say they have spoken with people inside the gang. They can prove some victims were kept alive for awhile and at least one was drugged.

ETA: Scott Radel is now linked. Do we have him in our victims thread?

ETA: Once again Minnisota detectives refuse to consider Gannon's and Duarte's information.

ETA: In the intro the reporter says they learn the Smiley Face killers may have targeted their victims through the internet. IMO, that would be probably Facebook or Myspace.