A powerful and thought-provoking article about missing and murdered college students in the Midwest:
Brian is mentioned here. Taken from this website:
http://vanceholmes.com/court/trial_missing.html
Use the "Find" command in your web browser, type Brian's name and an article comes up about him
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Serial Killer or Serial Coincidence? (Snipped from the above website)
Wishing to distance myself from crazy conspiracy theories, I am compelled to point out that the rash of Midwestern, male, college student serial killings or serial accidents -- or whatever it was -- has largely disappeared. While from time to time, there are news articles about a student partying with friends who goes missing and later turns up dead in a nearby river, the headlines are no longer routinely filled with such stories.
The unusually high number of wintertime, missing student "drowning" incidents stopped sometime around 2008. That was also . . . coincidentally . . . the year the FBI finally looked into the matter. The federal investigation found no evidence "substantiating the theory that these deaths are the work of a serial killer or killers."
Of course, a conspiracy theorist could say the fact that it suddenly stopped happening in 2008 proves that something WAS happening before then. The question is: What was "it" that was happening? The question was not a crazy one when first asked on this website in 2002 and it's not crazy today. I don't know that any of the cases detailed on these pages have anything to do with a serial killer. I know something was definitely happening. I know the number of nearly identical incidents was simply too high to be explained away as mere happenstance.
A Conspiracy in Context
Looking back on the (admittedly hysterical-sounding) question Serial Killer or Serial Coincidence? it seems important to define the different groups of included cases and the originally observed Missing/Drowned Student Mystery commonalities or profile points.
There are (at least) three sets of cases.
There was the group of missing/drowned male student incidents in Minnesota and neighboring states (along highway I-94) that happened in the winters between 2001 and 2006. There was also a 10-year string of similar cases in the La Crosse, WI area dating back to 1997. A third category includes a much wider set of missing/drowned student incidents -- mainly from the upper Mid-West, but also New York and other states -- that are thought of by some as potentially part of the "Smiley Face Murders."
While clearly not all of the dozens and dozens of mysterious deaths were caused by some nefarious ring of serial killers, certain facts and patterns have emerged over the years that show some of the student deaths were, in fact, homicides -- and some, possibly related.
Commonalities:
Male college students, Mainly White, between the ages of 17-27
1.) Good-looking, good-natured, well-known and well-liked
2.) No history of alcohol or drug abuse; No history of erratic behavior or unexplained absences
3.) Tend to be high-achieving, academic stand-outs
4.) Tend to be gifted athletes (or notably skilled in some other area)
5.) All disappeared at night -- always between the months of September and April
6.) All last seen drinking at a local bar with friends, or at a party
7.) Somehow become separated from friends, often in an area very close to home
8.) All immediately reported missing by classmates, friends and family -- who immediately sense something is wrong
9.) Student remains missing for weeks, sometimes months - yet his phone, wallet, baseball cap or other personal items are often found in unexpected places
10.) When recovered from a nearby river or lake, the victim's body has no signs of a shooting, stabbing, beating, or any other obvious mechanism of death; Authorities find no signs of foul play (NSOFP)
11.) Closed cases were determined to be accidental drownings -- often based solely on the fact that the remains were finally found in a waterway
12.) Many of the (presumed) drowning victims' remains were eventually located in the same general area where the student first went missing -- often in a place previously searched by divers who found nothing
13.) An undercurrent of suspicion runs through the story. There are too many odd occurrences -- too many mysteries. Too many missing pieces. The character of the student doesn't fit the plot.
Satch
