40 Drowning Victims May Have Been Murdered by 'Smiley Face Gang&#3

[Jonathon 0]

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."

 

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

 

Why so serious?

[Vampiro69 0]

For some reason I thought of the Joker gang. Looks like Jonathon did too.

[Twisted Intestine 0]

How do they know it's a gang and not just one person?

[2GOLD 0]

they're very happy as most serial killers are

 

They are?

[Jingus 0]

This sounds like some kind of comic book shit. An entire gang of serial killers, roaming the whole country and racking up dozens of victims, while somehow leaving zero evidence behind?

[snuffbox 0]

The La Crosse River Killer and his Droogs.

[Ripper 0]

Seriously, how do they know its more than one person? I mean...wouldn't everything about this suggest one person doing it?

[Mike wanna be 0]

I guess they figure a guy driving through five states to drown people would've left more evidence than a big group would have.

[Jingus 0]

No, it doesn't work that way. Lone serial killers are hard to catch precisely because they tend to be loners, and nobody else has any idea what they're up to. Groups of criminals almost invariably end up collapsing one way or another. In everything from the Mafia to this recent cult of polygamist childfuckers in Texas, there's always at least one poor bastard who decides they can't take it anymore and ends up snitching the whole group out.

[EricMM 0]

It?

[Dobbs 3K 0]

The whole theory sounds pretty outlandish, really.

[milliondollarchamp 0]

They may have struck agian

 

May 8, 2008 (WPVI) -- Some intriguing new developments since Action News broke the story last week.

The medical examiner may be taking a second look, and local police will be comparing notes with the detectives who've been following this thread for 10 years.

Twenty-four-year-old Tommy Booth was last seen on video surveillance last January as he and friends arrived at Bootleggers bar in Ridley Township.

Two weeks later, after the ice melted, his body was found in Ridley Creek behind the bar.

 

Police had been puzzled by what appeared to be an unlikely drowning.

"No signs of any trauma to his body," said Ridley Township Det. Scott Willoughby.

Now detectives are investigating the possibility that Tommy's drowning may be connected to the so-called Smiley Face killings. The deaths involve 40 young men, who apparently drowned in 11 states.

In each case, a familiar calling card is found -- a smiley face painted where the victim disappeared.

Ridley Township police found one last week on the wall under the party deck behind Bootleggers.

Two retired New York police detectives have tracked the cases for ten years. One of them, Kevin Gannon, will be coming to Ridley Township to check out the scene of Tommy's drowning.

Gannon and Anthony Duarte have been tracking the suspicious drowning deaths of young men across the country ever since they investigated the death of college student Patrick McNeill, who drowned in New York City in 1997. Gannon made a promise to McNeill's parents that he would never give up on his case.

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."

Depending on what Gannon and local police learn, the Delaware County Medical Examiner is prepared to reopen his autopsy findings and do further testing.

Dr. Frederick Hellman said he has not made a final ruling on the cause of death.

Local detectives are also intrigued by another open case in Vermont involving the disappearance of college student Nicholas Garza.

A smiley face was found near a riverbank where he may have disappeared. It is strikingly similar to the one found in Ridley Township, with slashes for eyes and a three pointed crown on its head.

Paul McCabe of the FBI office in Minneapolis said the bureau investigated some of the deaths late last year and concluded that they were accidental drownings. He told ABC News that an FBI behavioral analysis, requested by a Wisconsin police chief, concluded that there was probably not a serial killer at work.

McCabe said his office is not actively investigating any of the deaths but would be interested in seeing any new information that Gannon and Duarte had discovered.