My story of my encounter with the Smiley Face killers
This was in a Kansas City Westport area Bar named Harpo’s, just after College football season started. the year? I’m not certain 2001 to 2004 maybe earlier. It was before dark around 7 pm , I think I went down to an art show the plaza area has, but found no parking , so I went to have a drink there and possibly try the art show later.
I entered Harpo’s bar and notice first many drunk to very drunk Nebraska corn husker fans/Alum, like they were still drinking after the game on TV was over .
the front bar sits like a reverse L. I see a bartender at this short section and approach but there are three college age white men together blocking me from it. Two are around 5’7” or less, the other around 6 ft (my size), I try to get around the smaller ones but they move to block me. It is loud in the bar with the Neb. fans.
I moved one of the guys out enough to squirt through, only to have the other short guy block me from the bar. I was not wanting to fight these guys for a beer and tried to leave but the taller guy blocked that, also I saw this guy had a fake gote or mullet mustache , but of the quality of stage
make-up, which seemed very strange. Then the guys started talking to themselves around me, I moved to squeeze thru, twice but it was going to come to a shoving match. I was looking to catch the beer-tender to order a draft beer and to move away from these guys.
They started talking actors ,loud enough I could hear every word, arguing about the best US actor, they seemed to really be into actors/ pro acting.
they said which one they liked and then why he /she was best. The guy my height ,I’ll call Goate moved near me and asked me the actor question.
I stated I don’t know then said Jack Nickolson, just to end the conversation. I attempted to evade these 3 again got passed the 1st but the others blocked me, then that they would get me a beer, and soon the man at the bar was getting a bottled beer , not what I wanted.
One of the smaller guys moved to Goate and whispered something ,Goate answered back ....yeah it’s on. I should say these 20 something men were prep-y dressed , Goate in a jeans with a tweed sport coat. the beer bottle was on the bar and Goate asked for the $ which was Budweiser which I never drink.
As he reached into pay and hand me the bottle his sport coat left side opened up, I starred at a 2in. plus sized yellow smiley face button, and the odd condition of it ,Goate saw that I was starring at it and encouraged me to see it in detail. I did the bottom of it had 5 stress cracks in the paint like it got bent but also there were 15 -20 3/16 in. scratches made with a scratch all, some very fresh, some yrs old. Why would he like to have this messed up button, I wondered. Also there was a small orange one and I think a faded very small half in. pink one.
Goate took my bottle and turned away from me , hiding it from me for 30 sec. I tried once to spin him around ,then he handed it to me , I knew something was up and did not drink from it , although a short guy insisted I do I took a fake drink and swallow and saw them have a sigh of relief.
In a booth back of us three hot babes were there, with a guy that looked like Goate’s twin Bro, sitting like he just popped over to talk to them.
The guys kept ignoring me trying to push past them, I still motioning to move away one of them clanged his bottle to mine and the foam erupted out of it . I used this as a tool to put it on this smaller guy and he moved not wanting to get it on his clothes.
I escaped and was walking around to the long part of the bar , I had to hold up because of the rowdy college football fans in the way.
I got a feeling I needed to turn around and finnally did to see the shorter more aggressive guy trying to sneak up crouched way over to not be seen with something ,I thought was a knife in his R hand , I caught his head and held it down ,he moved that R hand up to expose a loaded up syringe.
I was able to grab his r wrist with my L hand and dropped my beer in my R and finally used it to take the syringe away from him , I’m yelling at this guy and people are aware of whats going on , a scuffle. the guy fell to the floor and got away from me ,running back to his group , A Neb. fan a young attractive ,very drunk , pointed out shouting “Hes got a syringe” The bartender was looking at me and said call the police! I stated one of them had it and tried to use it on me ,I pointed to the group of guys ,this bartender looked that way as did I , they were in the process of skeedataling ASAP . and the guy with the 3 hot girls was notified by Goate and he reluctantly got up starring at me as he did he told another short guy come on we are going, so there were 5 men involved in this.
The bartender yelled at me to bring him the syringe ,which I did telling him the pertinent events that just happened , that I took it away from the guy as he snuck up on me to use it. He said I believe you we called security 25 min. ago on them,but they never came.
I think one of the bouncers was ordered to and was following them as they fled. some of the Neb. gang were going to grab me drunk as they were, I headed out the back and left a minute or 2 later thinking these guys could regroup and sneak up on me.
About this time we had a Shakespeare in the park play , only a mile away I think this guy with the fake gote was part of it and or toured the country to perform in these plays , I think he had the awful looking thing (Gote) on so pretty girl would make fun of him then he could say ,yeah I doing Shakespeare in the park , a pretty good comeback and panty dropper.
I had seen a news segment on TV about this Smiley face killers some time before, when it happened I didn’t associate this with them until replaying the event in my head weeks or months later. note I complained about the price of this beer Goate exclaimed man that's $6 in anywhere in NY. another said or Iowa. places they are suspected to have killed as I understand.
