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Welcome back to the Pathwind, Chile
for part two of our series about the

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unexplained death of Chris Jenkins. Robin, do you want to catch everyone up

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on what we talked about in our
previous episode. Well, this is a

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Halloween mystery and involves a twenty one
year old student named Chris Jenkins who was

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attending the University of Minnesota at that
time. On Halloween in two thousand and

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two, he decided to go out
to a bar to celebrate with his girlfriend,

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Ashley Rice, and he was dressed
in a Native American costume, but

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because it didn't have any pockets,
he had to leave his cell phone,

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his keys, and his wallet with
Ashley, who put them inside her purse.

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And the circumstances are murky, but
Chris wound up being kicked out of

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the bar that night, and he
because he was separated from his friends and

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Ashley had all his items, he
couldn't contact them and let them know what

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happened, and they would not let
him back into the bar, so he

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presumably had no ride home and was
trying to make his way back. It

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would later turn out that there was
an off duty police officer named Mike Casey

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at the bar who was supposedly trying
to hit on Ashley. So it's been

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rumored that he arranged for the bouncers
to throw Chris out in order to get

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him out of the picture so that
he would have Ashley for himself. But

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unfortunately, Chris never returned home and
he was missing for four months, and

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the Minneapolis PD did not want to
perform an investigation because they knew it looked

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bad for Officer Casey because he acted
very negligent. And then finally on February

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of two thousand and three, and
they found Chris's body underneath the nearby bridge

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in the Mississippi River. But there
were there's a lot of evidence to indicate

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that it did not look like he
had been in the river for the entire

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four months, but there were no
noticeable signs of foul play, so they

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were inclined to rule his death in
accident. But four years later, they

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appointed a new police chief who did
a new investigation and pretty much ruled that,

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hey, the evidence is pointing to
foul play here, so he officially

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reclassified Chris's death as a homicide and
issued a public apology to the Jenkins family.

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But even though the investigation was reopened, they've been unable to fight any

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conclusive evidence of what happened. There's
a guy in prison now named Jeremy Alford

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who has committed another murder who has
possibly been linked to this case, but

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they've never been able to fight any
conclusive evidence to incriminate him. And unfortunately,

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after all these years, the investigation
is pretty much out a standstill where

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the police chiefs who overturned the homicide
ruling is now saying that he's now only

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fifty percent certain that it was a
homicide. And there really isn't any one

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theory about foul play or accidental which
makes one hundred percent complete sense. So

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this remains a huge head scratcher.
So I suppose it's now time to address

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a major elephant in the room in
regards to this case. So let's talk

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about the smiley faced murder theory,
which has been heavily discussed in true crime

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circles these past two decades. In
case you're not familiar with it, this

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theory was originally dreamed up by two
retired New York City detectives, Kevin Gannon

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and Anthony Duarte. They started to
notice a disturbing pattern in the deaths of

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a number of young men who were
found in bodies of water throughout New York

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and the midwestern United States during the
late nineteen nineties and early two thousands.

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The two detectives looked into at least
forty five of these deaths, which involved

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college staged males who would go out
to a borrow or party, get intoxicated

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before they left, and would eventually
turn up dead in a body of water.

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Even though the majority of these deaths
would be classified as accidental drownings,

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Gannon and Duarte believed these young men
may have been the victim of a serial

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killer or group of killers. The
cases would be linked together because of graffiti

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of a smiley face that was apparently
discovered in close proximity to where a number

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of these victims' bodies were found.
This is how the Smiley Face murder theory

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was launched, and the alleged perpetrator
or perpetrators have been classified as the Smiley

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Face Killer or the Smiley Face Gang. Now, since Chris Jenkins was a

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college aged male who was found dead
in a body of water under suspicious circumstances

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after drinking at a bar, you
will often see his name featured on lists

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of potential Smiley Faced victims at the
time Chris disappeared. He was one of

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four separate college students from Minnesota and
Wisconsin who went missing during an eleven day

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period after leaving a bar or party. One of these students was actually a

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female named Erica Dlquist, but her
remains were found and her killer was eventually

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charged with her murder. The other
two students were males, one of them

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Michael Knowle, who was found in
a lake in a probable accidental drowning,

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while the other, Joshua Giemond,
has still never been found. In fact,

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Joshua Geemon's case was actually featured on
the Unsolved Mysteries Netflix reboot last year,

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and the episode even made a brief
mention of Chris's case. Of course,

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the Jenkins family expressed frustration that law
enforcement devoted all their resources attempting to

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search for those other three missing students, while the Minneapolis p D did nothing

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to find Chris. Now, it's
never been officially confirmed that any Smiley faced

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graffiti was found in relation to Chris's
case. During an interview, jan Jenkins

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once said that when she asked police
if they ever found Smiley faces, they

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never actually gave confirmation about this.
She felt that their reaction seemed to indicate

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that the answer was yes, But
that is purely her interpretation. So it's

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not the police that are necessarily saying
that Chris is part of this smiley face

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murder theory, right, It's the
community or perhaps people just trying to link

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these crimes to one another. I
think so. I think it's mostly online

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sluice because, like we just mentioned, there's never been any confirmation that a

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smiley face was found in Chris's case, and if there is, they never

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released it publicly. But I think
it's been classified because they've had all these

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other drowning deaths which took place during
this small window of time over the course

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of eleven days in the Midwest,
and I do think that smiley faces were

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found with the other victims. So
I guess people are automatically assuming that Chris's

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case is connected, but we don't
even know if the smiley faces have any

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significance, Like, just because you
find a smiley face stick or nearby does

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not mean that a gang of killers
is responsible for killing all these people.

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So if I said, I feel
like this is horse crud I'm on the

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right path. I think, Yes, that's about what I'm gonna say next.

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Yeah, okay. I was like, I don't buy this. He

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says, you were telling you,
and I went, what is happening here?

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Why? Why? Ashley was just
tucking in her daughter when we took

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a break between our episodes one and
two, and Robin and I were talking

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and be like, a smiley face
is so ubiquitous. It's something that is

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literally everywhere. It would be in
like the nineteen seventies, like seeing a

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peace sign somewhere or the like,
you know, late sixties, early seventies,

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seeing a peace sign. It would
be something that would be graffiti literally

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everywhere. So the chance of finding
a body in a proximity of that type

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of graffiti is pretty high. When
you're looking at like, you know,

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only this many bodies. It's not
that many, right, but you think

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of how many people either die accidentally
or are murdered, the chance of them

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being in the proximity of a smiley
face or you know, at that time

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period of peace sign would be pretty
high. So it just seems so ridiculous

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to me. Anyway, Well,
the entire smiley face murder theory phenomenon has

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become popular online among true crime puffs. The entire thing has pretty much been

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discounted by most law enforcement agencies,
including the FBI, who do not believe

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that any of these deaths are connected
at all, and that most of them

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were just tragic accidents brought on by
alcohol. They believe that the appearance of

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any smiley faced graffiti is nothing more
than a coincidence and dispute the notion that

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all these men were victims of a
serial killer or gang of killers, and

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quite frankly, I'm inclined to agree
with them, As the smiley face murder

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theory is one true crime conspiracy I
have never found that compelling. We could

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probably do an entire podcast about this
topic, but I think we should switch

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the focus back to Chris's story.
No, I do not believe that Chris's

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death is connected to any smiley faced
murder conspiracy, and I know that at

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least one suspect has implied there is
a connection, but we'll get back to

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that in a little while. And
while there likely wasn't any foul play involved

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in most of these other so called
smiley face deaths, something shady definitely did

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occur in Chris's case, and there
is still a big mystery here, agreed.

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And that's all I get to say
about that. Yeah, when you

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were described and I just went,
what in the heck? Like there was

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nothing. There's not much evidence at
all in this case, much less to

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link it to some serial killer groups
where even the victims don't seem to be

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linked in anyway. So very very
bizarre. So we'll have to start from

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the beginning and talk about the weird
circumstances of how Chris went missing in the

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first place. All we know is
that he exited the Loane Tree bar and

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left his girlfriend and friends behind.
But while some of the employees tried to

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claim that Chris walked out on his
own, the implication seems to be that

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he was tossed out by the security
supervisor and that an off duty cop named

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Mike Casey was the one who set
this in motion. Even though Casey was

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working security for the adjacent Hennepin Center
for the Arts rather than the actual bar,

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the Loan Tree was apparently a prominent
hangout for cops, and Casey was

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a regular there, so you can
see why the employees might have listened to

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him. Since Chris's girlfriend, Ashley
Rice, actually worked at the bar.

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She seemed to be well acquainted with
Casey, particularly since he allowed her to

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borrow his uniform shirt as part of
her sexy Halloween costume. We do know

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that Ashley introduced Chris to Casey as
her boyfriend. Casey was apparently very flirtatious

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with her, and he ultimately wound
up driving Ashley home after Chris disappeared.

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Now, I should make it clear
that it's never been officially confirmed that Ashley

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and Casey were involved in some sort
of affair, But even if they weren't,

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I can see how this whole situation
would look bad for him. Casey

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was married and he had kids,
and on the surface, it appears that

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he arranged to have a younger girl's
boyfriend removed from a bar so he could

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have her to himself that night.
And since this boyfriend went missing and turned

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up dead, you can't imagine the
potential scandal. Yeah, and the fact

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that people say that Casey was incredibly
flirtatious with her and he ends up driving

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her home is very upsetting. And
we have this guy who has the ability

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to get Chris removed from the bar. He's the same person who's allowing someone

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to borrow his uniform since he's off
duty, and it just seems very distasteful,

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unprofessional. If nothing else, these
are young kids, and this is

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a police officer. You don't need
to be partying with college kids at a

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bar and flirting with some college girl, especially if you're married. Did something

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happen, Maybe not, but your
behavior is something that I guarantee if your

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wife was watching, she wouldn't be
very proud of. What would she say

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if one of the officers was like, well, you know, there's this

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girl, Ashley who works at the
bar. We know your husband does security

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for Hannah Pin and he hangs out
at the Lone Tree, and clearly that

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you were acquainted. He lent her
his uniform for her Halloween costume, and

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then later on he drove her home. How do you feel about that?

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I know if it were me and
that was my husband, I would not

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be having any of that. I
would be extremely angry, especially when you

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learn that there's all these other rumors
surrounding him flirting with her and getting the

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boyfriend ejected. That could cause major
strife in a marriage, But it is

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certainly not a reason not to question
Casey, given the fact that Chris disappears

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and is later and later winds up
to be deceased. All that being said,

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we're not trying to imply that Casey
killed Chris or at any direct involvement

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with his death. Given how lax
the Minneapolis PD was at investigating Chris's disappearance

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and how quickly they wrote off his
death as an accident, it's easy to

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assume they were covering up some foul
play in order to protect one of their

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own. Well. I do believe
they were trying to protect Casey, but

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not because he was a killer.
It seems obvious that the reasoning for removing

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Chris from the bar was completely unjustified. The story seems to be that a

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drink was spilled on Chris's lap,
causing the staff to assume he was so

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drunk that he urinated himself, though
in actuality it does not sound like Chris

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was all that intoxicated at the time. Whatever the reasoning was, one thing

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which cannot be debated is that it
was pretty negligent to toss Chris out under

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the street on a freezing twenty degree
night while he was dressed in nothing more

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than a thin Halloween costume. If
they didn't want to let him back inside,

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at the very least, they should
have grabbed his coat for him,

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given him the chance to retrieve his
wallet. He's in cell phone from Ashley's

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purse. Hell, they wouldn't even
let him speak to his friend who was

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still inside the bar, and drove
him there that night, so Chris had

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no ride home, without any means
to pay for a cab ride or call

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someone. The guy literally had no
other options but to attempt to walk back

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to his place on a cold,
dark night. It's incredibly disgusting to think

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of the negligence that they operated under. Chris is wearing, like you said,

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a thin Halloween costume. We all
know what those feel like, that

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awful silky sea through material. And
he had worn his jacket there right,

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He had covered up with other winter
clothes because it was so cold outside.

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He had given Ashley all of his
his belongings, including his keys and cell

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phone, and he was responsible and
had somebody else drive him there. You

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don't kick him out on the street
as a kid and say best of luck.

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You go find his party and tell
them guess what your friends leaving the

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bar. That means you are to
get out and have them leave with him.

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You make sure he's dressed appropriately,
and if you're assuming he's so intoxicated,

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you get him a ride home.
You don't send him out in the

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middle of nowhere as a kid intoxicated
and hope for the best. It's just

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not the way you're supposed to do
things. Yeah, and that's why I

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think they were probably acting under Casey's
directive that even though he didn't work for

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the bar, he was a police
officer, and they pretty much said get

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him out of here by any means
necessary. And that's why they were so

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inflexible about letting him back inside to
get his coat in his personal items.

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I just feel like somebody could have
got a coat for him, Like,

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did nobody have the presence of mind
to think that this could end in disaster

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if he was indeed intoxicated, or
even if he wasn't. You're giving his

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kid no means to contact anybody to
come and pick him up. He can't

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even get into his apartment because he
doesn't have his keys, he doesn't have

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a vehicle, and he's got no
coate in his twenty degrees outside. It

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is so irresponsible and so upsetting,
and I can't imagine what his family felt

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when they found out that those were
the circumstances for which Chris was ejected.

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It was just so negligent. And
the point is, if Officer Casey was

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the one who gave the order for
Chris to be removed from the bar when

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he was not an actual employee there, then you can imagine some potential liability

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issues. Even if Casey had no
direct involvement in Chris's death, he paved

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the way in allowing it to happen. And if his motive for kicking Chris

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out of the bar was to make
the moves on his girlfriend, and this

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would not only look bad for Casey, but the entire Minneapolis PD. Remember,

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they tried to justify their decision not
to interview Casey by saying they did

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not want to potentially break up his
family. So I think their lack of

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follow through on Chris's death was not
so much an attempt to cover up a

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murder, but an attempt to cover
up irresponsible behavior by one of their officers.

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This would also explain why the employees
of the Lone Tree Bar became so

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defensive about sticking to their story about
Chris leaving on his own and why their

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owner told them not to speak with
anybody without an attorney present. For all

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we know, the police might have
legitimately believed that Chris's death was nothing more

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than an accident and hope the case
would just go away, but did not

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anticipate just how resilient the Jenkins family
were at seeking answers. Remember, Tim

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Dolan was not the Minneapolis Police chief
at the time that Chris died, so

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he may not have felt any loyalty
towards Casey, which prompted his decision to

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have the investigation reopen. Oh,
a new set of eyes, a new

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fresh body, and a police department
can change everything. So when Chief Dolan

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takes the role of chief and he, like you said, has no loyalties

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towards Casey, doesn't need to protect
anybody, and says, there's this kid's

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death three to four years ago that
we really need to reinvestigate. I love

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that he sits there and he reopens
it. I would like to know what

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causes him to change his mind later
down the road. And he went to

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all that effort to say, instead
of being undetermined, I'm going to rule

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it a homicide and go from there
and then announced that there's actually progress and

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possibly making an arrest in the case, pressing charges, and then what twelve

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years later on a television show,
He's like, I don't really know what

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happened. It's possible as an accident
in our suicide. Well, then why

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did you change the ruling. Yeah, there's definitely a lot missing from that

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story, but we mentioned this on
our last episode. But the Lone Tree

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Bar has since gone out of business, so at least karma ultimately got to

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them in the end. Now,
even though police tried to push forward the

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theory that Chris fell into the river
while attempting to the problem is that canine

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units use multiple bloodhounds to track Chris
is sent to an underground parking garage across

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the street, a location he would
have had no reason to visit on his

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own, even if you don't put
much stock into the accuracy of tracking dogs.

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Fragments of a feather, which seemed
to match the headband from Chris's Native

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American costume, were found in the
garage, so I think that's a pretty

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good indication he was there. And
there's also the fact that Chriss sent came

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to an end in a parking stall
which was apparently used by one of the

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Lone Tree Bars bouncers. This is
one of the most frustrating aspects of this

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case, as the specific details are
pretty iffy. The only source I've seen

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for this claim about the parking stall
is the book case Studies in Drowning Forensics,

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which is co authored by one of
the Smiley Faced detectives, Kevin Gannon,

256
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as well as criminology professor d Lee
Gilbertson, and they devote an entire

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chapter to Chris's case. All it
says is that the stall had been occupied

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by one of the bouncers and one
of the bloodhounds produced a mild hit for

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Chris's sen when they checked this person's
vehicle, But it's never been made clear

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which bouncer they're referring to or if
they were directly involved with Chris's removal from

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the bar. Chris was seen heading
north when he walked away from the bar,

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and as far as I can tell, he was not being followed by

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any of the bouncers, so I'm
just not sure what circumstances would lead to

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him winding up at that particular stall
across the street. The Bloodhounds also followed

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Chris's sent through the downtown area before
it came to an end at the northbound

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ramp of Interstate ninety four. But
if Chris wound up in a vehicle traveling

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in that direction, who was driving
and where were they going? It's so

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disturbing. Remember that there was the
anonymous source who came forward and said that

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they had actually been drugged by bouncers
at this bar, and that they had

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been attempted to be apprehended and kidnapped
by bouncers from this bar. Had their

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friend unintervened. Well, then all
these signs points to the fact that could

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that really have been a practice that
they were doing. It's really disturbing.

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Like you said, things don't really
line up with this. There's really no

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details that are present to explain who
these bouncers were. There seemed to be

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a pretty big bar, right that
several people were working there. But how

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are the bloodhounds hitting there? If
he wasn't present in that stall in the

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parking garage, and if he wasn't
somehow in that downtown area on the ramp

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at the interstate makes me wonder that
maybe after Chris was ejected there was this

279
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bouncer from the bar who offered like
a sympathetic hand and says, sorry,

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we can't let you back inside,
but if you follow me to my car

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in the parking garage, I'll give
you a ride home. I mean,

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that's the only real explanation I can
think of for why Chris would go into

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that parking garage on his own.
And if he willingly climbed in the car

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with a bouncer and then was taken
somewhere and harmed, that might explain why

285
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there's no evidence of foul play.
But then again, since there were blood

286
00:20:53.759 --> 00:20:59.000
droplets in the garage, maybe he
was attacked there. But if it was

287
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his blood, wouldn't we likely have
seen marks on his body for where that

288
00:21:02.599 --> 00:21:06.920
blood came from, unless he got
like a spontaneous nosebleed. Yeah, that

289
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is true. They never conclusively determined
if that blood belonged to him, so

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for all we know, it might
not have any relevance to the case.

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Now, we previously mentioned that the
Breaking Homicide episode shared two pieces of information

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about the Lone Tree Bar which had
never been released publicly before. Shortly before

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00:21:25.240 --> 00:21:30.640
he left, Chris apparently interjected in
an altercation between two men, one of

294
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whom was angry that some creepy guy
who walked in off the street was hitting

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00:21:33.480 --> 00:21:38.039
on his girlfriend. All Chris did
was play the role of peacekeeper and prevent

296
00:21:38.079 --> 00:21:41.640
a fight from taking place. But
if he left the bar, the creepy

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00:21:41.680 --> 00:21:45.480
guy may have been bitter that Chris
interfered, so we could have followed him

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down the street and eventually caused his
death. I'm not sure if Chris's removal

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from the bar was related to his
involvement in the altercation, but since he

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was left standing alone outside, this
may have provided an opening for someone to

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go after him. Him and our
second piece of new information involves the anonymous

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informant who came forward and agreed to
be interviewed in the Breaking Homicide episode.

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As you'll recall, he shared a
story about having his drink laced with GHB

304
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at the Lone Tree Bar two months
before Chris's disappearance, which led him to

305
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being taken outside by two of the
bouncers and nearly abducted in a vehicle.

306
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Since traces of GHB were found in
Chris's body, you could easily assume that

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someone laced his drink with a drug, and shortly after Chris left the bar,

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he passed out, allowing someone to
take advantage of the opportunity and abduct

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him. One of the things that's
really overwhelming in this case is how many

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potential explanations could have happened. Right. This could have been someone we know

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00:22:44.599 --> 00:22:48.200
nothing about. It could have been
the bouncers. It could have been that

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00:22:48.400 --> 00:22:55.200
individual who claimed who was supposedly a
murderer he and his brother. It could

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have been a gang abduction. It
could have been these people who he broke

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00:23:00.240 --> 00:23:03.240
up the altercation. I mean,
there's so many different incidents that happened to

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00:23:03.240 --> 00:23:08.519
this twenty one year old kid that
night that could have played into what happened

316
00:23:08.519 --> 00:23:14.519
to him, and yet there's almost
nothing. We're sitting here saying, look

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00:23:14.519 --> 00:23:18.039
at all the potentials of what could
have happened, and yet I'm not really

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00:23:18.119 --> 00:23:22.319
sure if any of them have more
weight than the other. The GHB that

319
00:23:22.400 --> 00:23:26.720
was found in Chris's body, one
thing that's really difficult is is that something

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00:23:26.759 --> 00:23:32.960
that was produced by his body after
death or was it something that was ingested

321
00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:36.680
prior to his death. Because GHB
could have made it where he wasn't able

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00:23:36.720 --> 00:23:40.799
to fight back, where he wouldn't
have had defensive wounds on himself and could

323
00:23:40.839 --> 00:23:45.079
have easily been suffocated with a bag
or a pillow or a heavy blanket or

324
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something like that, and he wouldn't
have had any marks on his body.

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So there is a potential there,
JULSI, you would said, like,

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00:23:52.680 --> 00:23:56.839
if it was anything else, wouldn't
you have seen injection marks or you know,

327
00:23:57.160 --> 00:24:00.880
places where he was bound on his
body. Maybe some kind of sedative

328
00:24:00.960 --> 00:24:06.480
like a GHB that was put in
his drink could explain why he didn't have

329
00:24:06.559 --> 00:24:11.359
defensive wounds on him. So now
I'm going to talk about the GHB angle

330
00:24:11.400 --> 00:24:15.640
because a very famous name that we've
talked about on the podcast before actually weighs

331
00:24:15.640 --> 00:24:18.440
in on this topic. I don't
know. I mean, this informant story

332
00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:23.000
sounds like it falls into smiley faced
murders conspiracy theory territory. I mean,

333
00:24:23.119 --> 00:24:26.839
is he trying to imply that there's
a gang of people who like to lace

334
00:24:26.920 --> 00:24:30.160
young men's drinks with GHB and use
this as an opportunity to abduct them from

335
00:24:30.200 --> 00:24:34.160
crowded bars, and then they proceed
to murder these victims, toss their bodies

336
00:24:34.160 --> 00:24:37.759
into a body of water, and
leave smiley faced Booker fee behind as their

337
00:24:37.759 --> 00:24:41.519
calling guard. I mean, I
know there are predators who visit bars in

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00:24:41.599 --> 00:24:45.720
attempt to take advantage of patrons by
lacing their drinks with date rape drugs,

339
00:24:45.960 --> 00:24:51.640
But an organized conspiracy in which multiple
people attempt to abduct someone from a public

340
00:24:51.680 --> 00:24:55.119
place and a van sounds a bit
over the top, and I have my

341
00:24:55.240 --> 00:24:59.799
doubts that's what happened to Chris.
Besides, even though traces of GHB were

342
00:25:00.079 --> 00:25:03.440
out in the system, the body
can't generate this substance naturally after death.

343
00:25:03.960 --> 00:25:10.519
On the Breaking Homicide episode, the
actually consulted with renowned forensic pathologist doctor Cyril

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00:25:10.559 --> 00:25:14.400
Wecked In case you've never heard of
him, Doctor Weckt is considered to be

345
00:25:14.480 --> 00:25:18.359
one of the top figures in his
field and has consulted on thousands of cases,

346
00:25:18.720 --> 00:25:22.720
some of which we've discussed on this
podcast. After reviewing the evidence,

347
00:25:22.039 --> 00:25:26.920
weck concluded that the amount of GHB
and Chris's system was consistent with having been

348
00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:30.839
generated by his body, and he
did not believe that Chris was drugged prior

349
00:25:30.880 --> 00:25:34.400
to his death. Yeah, that's
exactly what I was thinking. I mean,

350
00:25:34.440 --> 00:25:37.880
it was, you know, the
alcohol level in his body wasn't very

351
00:25:37.960 --> 00:25:44.880
high. Alcohol can also be produced
after one's death, right where the decomposition

352
00:25:44.920 --> 00:25:49.799
and the breaking on the body creates
that as well, and GHB those chemical

353
00:25:49.880 --> 00:25:53.759
components can begin to crystallize in form
inside the body after death as well.

354
00:25:53.839 --> 00:26:00.240
So it's so difficult because of the
months that his body had been decomposing and

355
00:26:00.279 --> 00:26:04.720
set into that water. But what
was fascinating is that because of the cold

356
00:26:04.720 --> 00:26:08.880
weather, it was pretty well preserved. So it's one of those back and

357
00:26:08.920 --> 00:26:14.680
forth like decomposition wouldn't have been super
severe on his body, but just shorts

358
00:26:14.680 --> 00:26:18.559
amounts of time can change the chemical
makeup inside even if the external part of

359
00:26:18.599 --> 00:26:23.680
the body is not decomposing. Now
we have one additional lead from the Lone

360
00:26:23.759 --> 00:26:29.160
Tree Bar, and that's the eyewitness
who allegedly saw a group of ten or

361
00:26:29.240 --> 00:26:33.119
more people attacking an unidentified person in
front of the pizza joint across the street.

362
00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:38.119
This pizza place was located right next
to the parking garage, so if

363
00:26:38.160 --> 00:26:42.279
the person being attacked was Chris,
they could have taken him into the garage

364
00:26:42.279 --> 00:26:47.559
against his will and subsequently driven him
away in a vehicle which is parked.

365
00:26:47.599 --> 00:26:52.920
Installs eighty nine or ninety droplets of
blood residue were also apparently found near those

366
00:26:52.920 --> 00:26:57.400
stalls, which would support the idea
of someone being violently attacked. One theory

367
00:26:57.440 --> 00:27:00.759
which has been pushed around is that
the alleged attack could have been a gang

368
00:27:00.799 --> 00:27:04.880
initiation, and that Chris was targeted
at random and was simply in the wrong

369
00:27:04.920 --> 00:27:10.160
place at the wrong time. While
I can certainly believe that a gang might

370
00:27:10.200 --> 00:27:12.920
attack a random, innocent victim in
the street of some sort of initiation,

371
00:27:14.559 --> 00:27:17.640
I'm not sure that they would go
to the trouble of loading the victim into

372
00:27:17.720 --> 00:27:21.319
a vehicle, driving away from the
scene, and disposing of their body.

373
00:27:21.720 --> 00:27:25.240
In situations like this, I'd assume
that gangs would prefer to lea their beating

374
00:27:25.279 --> 00:27:29.480
victims on display in public in order
to send a message. But if this

375
00:27:29.640 --> 00:27:33.680
beating actually took place, and the
victim was Chris and the perpetrators were not

376
00:27:33.839 --> 00:27:37.240
members of a gang, then this
provides a logical explanation of how he wound

377
00:27:37.319 --> 00:27:41.440
up in the parking garage and was
ultimately abducted. Of course, this does

378
00:27:41.440 --> 00:27:45.599
not explain why ten or more people
would decide to gang up on Chris.

379
00:27:45.440 --> 00:27:51.279
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's
ever been specified which time this alleged attack

380
00:27:51.319 --> 00:27:55.839
took place, and if it occurred
shortly after Chris left the bar, if

381
00:27:55.839 --> 00:27:59.880
it occurred while the bar was still
open and the staff was working inside,

382
00:28:00.559 --> 00:28:03.680
then I think this then I think
this would discount the idea of people like

383
00:28:03.759 --> 00:28:08.960
Officer Casey and the bouncers being involved. However, the biggest issue with believing

384
00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.680
that Chris was the victim of this
violent attack is that there were no noticeable

385
00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:18.240
signs of foul play or bruising on
his body. Remember, the Jenkins family

386
00:28:18.279 --> 00:28:23.400
specifically cited the lack of bruising as
evidence to support their theory that Chris was

387
00:28:23.400 --> 00:28:27.599
still alive for days after he went
missing, as he had recently sustained bruises

388
00:28:27.640 --> 00:28:32.720
while playing lacrosse. If he was
held captive for a while, then this

389
00:28:32.759 --> 00:28:36.359
would have given the bruises time to
heal. So, unless Chris was severely

390
00:28:36.400 --> 00:28:41.319
beaten and subsequently kept alive somewhere while
his injuries healed, I think there should

391
00:28:41.319 --> 00:28:45.319
have been more evidence on his body
if he was violently attacked by ten people.

392
00:28:45.640 --> 00:28:48.799
Okay, let me ask you this. I agree, Jules. If

393
00:28:48.799 --> 00:28:52.160
there were ten people beating him,
I think he definitely would have been covered

394
00:28:52.200 --> 00:28:56.200
in bruises. But let me just
throw this out there. He could have

395
00:28:56.279 --> 00:29:02.359
been killed and immediately put into frigid, cold waters. It was twenty degrees

396
00:29:02.400 --> 00:29:07.319
outside, the water was icy.
His body was basically frozen in the water

397
00:29:07.599 --> 00:29:17.599
iced over snow for months. Bruising
can radically slow or not develop as severely

398
00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:21.079
if it's in ice or if you're
cold. They always say, like,

399
00:29:21.400 --> 00:29:22.480
you know, if you get an
injury, put an ice pack on it

400
00:29:22.519 --> 00:29:26.680
immediately and they can minimize the appearance
of the bruise or things like that.

401
00:29:26.359 --> 00:29:33.960
Is it possible that an immediate submersion
in ice water stop some of that from

402
00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:38.240
happening. I don't know. I've
never really looked into that. I'm not

403
00:29:38.279 --> 00:29:42.680
a medical expert, but it does
take bruises sometimes a long time to develop,

404
00:29:42.799 --> 00:29:48.119
and if you're dead, like does
bruising couldn't emerge on your body after

405
00:29:48.119 --> 00:29:52.599
you've already been killed. Liver mortis
is like bruising, yea, yeah,

406
00:29:52.599 --> 00:29:56.200
But if you're in ice. I'm
wondering if that water just seems like it

407
00:29:56.200 --> 00:30:02.200
would have almost like frozen his body. Would the blood have frozen and just

408
00:30:02.279 --> 00:30:06.440
manifested differently in the presence of bruising. I think if the bruise hadn't developed

409
00:30:06.440 --> 00:30:08.119
by the time he went into that
ice and he had died, I don't

410
00:30:08.119 --> 00:30:12.319
think the bruise would maybe continue to
develop. Yeah, I'm wondering just because

411
00:30:12.319 --> 00:30:15.720
of the cold. I mean it's
possible, right because I don't think that

412
00:30:17.039 --> 00:30:21.200
the blood won't continue to pool in
those places after you die. So if

413
00:30:21.200 --> 00:30:23.440
the bruise isn't already there, it
won't continue to develop because it will go

414
00:30:23.480 --> 00:30:26.920
to the lowest point on the body, right, because the heart isn't pumping

415
00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:33.720
and gravity takes place. And then
you also coupled with the cold temperatures,

416
00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:36.759
but the severity of a bruise,
like, yeah, you hit your leg

417
00:30:36.839 --> 00:30:40.200
on something, you might not have
a bruise developed right away, but if

418
00:30:40.200 --> 00:30:45.720
you've been punched or like beat up, typically you can see the beginning stages

419
00:30:45.720 --> 00:30:48.559
of a bruise, so much so
that an experienced medical examiner would be able

420
00:30:48.559 --> 00:30:52.240
to see that trauma in that skin. I would think, Well, I

421
00:30:52.279 --> 00:30:56.720
also don't I definitely don't think that
he was held for days and then put

422
00:30:56.759 --> 00:31:02.599
back into this you know, Native
American and generally had everything tucked in and

423
00:31:02.680 --> 00:31:04.960
presentable. I just don't think that's
the case. I wouldn't have kept his

424
00:31:06.079 --> 00:31:11.880
moccasin covers and all of these different
accessories to his costume intact to put back

425
00:31:11.920 --> 00:31:15.519
on him after several days of holding
him hostage. I just I don't see

426
00:31:15.559 --> 00:31:21.559
that being a very plausible explanation.
Just a good question for you, Robin.

427
00:31:21.880 --> 00:31:26.559
So these bruises from lacrosse, are
these known bruises that his family actually

428
00:31:26.640 --> 00:31:30.799
saw or that other people saw.
Are we just theorizing that he'd likely had

429
00:31:30.799 --> 00:31:36.240
these bruises because he had this practice
that day and he'd had a game recently.

430
00:31:36.799 --> 00:31:38.319
Like, I get the idea that, yeah, he typically had bruises,

431
00:31:38.359 --> 00:31:41.039
and it's weird that we found none. But it seems like the family

432
00:31:41.079 --> 00:31:45.359
are very sure that he had specific
bruises. Do you know if that's true

433
00:31:45.440 --> 00:31:49.279
or not. I haven't heard any
specifics, so I'm thinking this is just

434
00:31:49.319 --> 00:31:53.079
an assumption because he was not living
with his family at that time, so

435
00:31:53.480 --> 00:31:56.480
they wouldn't have been able to see
any bruises he had on his body.

436
00:31:56.759 --> 00:32:00.480
And I think they're just saying,
well, because he was a lacrosse goalie,

437
00:32:00.519 --> 00:32:02.680
he often got bruises. But I
don't think they ever confirmed that he

438
00:32:02.799 --> 00:32:07.200
got any bruises during the practice and
the games he played prior to his death,

439
00:32:07.599 --> 00:32:09.839
so for all we know, he
didn't have any and they were just

440
00:32:09.920 --> 00:32:13.519
kind of using that as an absumption, saying, well, it was common

441
00:32:13.559 --> 00:32:15.680
for him to have these bruises,
so therefore, if they're not on his

442
00:32:15.720 --> 00:32:19.839
body after his death, that means
he was alive for an extended period of

443
00:32:19.880 --> 00:32:22.920
time. But I don't think that
we can say that with one hundred percent

444
00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:28.400
certainty. But now we're going to
discuss the part of this story which causes

445
00:32:28.440 --> 00:32:32.759
the most confusion. When exactly did
Chris's body enter the Mississippi River. It

446
00:32:32.839 --> 00:32:37.720
sounds like many people are skeptical that
he could have remained in the water undiscovered

447
00:32:37.759 --> 00:32:42.079
for nearly four straight months. This
is why his family suspects he was alive

448
00:32:42.160 --> 00:32:45.519
and held captive for an extended period
of time before he was killed. Since

449
00:32:45.599 --> 00:32:50.400
Chris's lungs seemed to weigh a lot
less than normal for a deceased individual with

450
00:32:50.480 --> 00:32:53.319
healthy lungs, they have ascribed to
the theory that he was slowly suffocated to

451
00:32:53.359 --> 00:32:58.960
death, possibly with a plastic bag
over his head. Whoever is responsible then

452
00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:02.720
plays Chris's body in the Mississippi at
an unknown location before it floated down to

453
00:33:02.759 --> 00:33:07.359
the upper Saint Anthony Falls Damn and
was finally discovered. I have to admit

454
00:33:07.400 --> 00:33:12.519
that trying to figure out what actually
happened here is pretty difficult. One thing

455
00:33:12.559 --> 00:33:15.640
I'm pretty certain of is that,
due to the lack of broken bones or

456
00:33:15.640 --> 00:33:20.000
injuries, it's very unlikely that Chris
wound up in the river after falling or

457
00:33:20.079 --> 00:33:22.880
being tossed off one of the bridges
in the area. This lends credence to

458
00:33:22.920 --> 00:33:27.480
the idea that someone placed Chris in
the water after he was already dead,

459
00:33:27.759 --> 00:33:30.960
which would explain why he was found
with his arms crossed in front of him.

460
00:33:30.640 --> 00:33:34.920
I agree with the assessment from doctor
Michael Baden that if Chris had gone

461
00:33:34.920 --> 00:33:37.640
into the river while he was alive, he would not have been in that

462
00:33:37.720 --> 00:33:40.200
position. His shirt probably wouldn't have
still been tucked in, and he likely

463
00:33:40.200 --> 00:33:45.000
would have lost his slip on moccasins, and it seems doubtful that a clump

464
00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:47.720
of Chris's own hair would have been
clenched in his fist, as grabbing one's

465
00:33:47.720 --> 00:33:52.200
hair and pulling it out just does
not seem like something a person would do

466
00:33:52.319 --> 00:33:55.599
if they had fallen into some water
and were struggling to swim ashore. However,

467
00:33:55.640 --> 00:34:00.519
the analysis from the hydrologists at the
University of Minnesota only adds more confusion

468
00:34:00.559 --> 00:34:05.000
to the case, as they found
it most likely that Chris's body had to

469
00:34:05.039 --> 00:34:08.679
have entered the river sometime in early
February of two thousand and three and floated

470
00:34:08.719 --> 00:34:13.239
to the damn after the thaw on
the twenty seventh. But if that's the

471
00:34:13.239 --> 00:34:16.480
case, where was Chris during the
preceding three months? Was he really being

472
00:34:16.559 --> 00:34:22.000
kept alive somewhere all that time?
No, I don't think so. I

473
00:34:22.079 --> 00:34:24.199
just don't think so. I think
that he was put into the water shortly

474
00:34:24.239 --> 00:34:29.199
after he was killed that night.
I think that when you look at the

475
00:34:29.239 --> 00:34:32.239
fact that he has his hair clenched
in his hands like that he had ripped

476
00:34:32.239 --> 00:34:37.119
out his own hair. The only
thing I can think is imagine someone wrapping

477
00:34:37.159 --> 00:34:43.159
something around your head and pulling tight
to suffocate you, or putting a pillow

478
00:34:43.199 --> 00:34:45.559
over your face and pressing down on
your face, and you gripping at the

479
00:34:45.599 --> 00:34:50.360
corners of that pillow trying to push
it off your head. And I could

480
00:34:50.440 --> 00:34:52.920
see you grabbing a fist full of
your own hair in the process while you're

481
00:34:52.960 --> 00:34:57.920
trying to push your attacker off of
you and get the item off of your

482
00:34:57.960 --> 00:35:01.719
face. I think he was d
that water. It's icy, it's snowy.

483
00:35:01.760 --> 00:35:08.159
They say that the river had iced
over, that it was twenty degrees.

484
00:35:08.199 --> 00:35:12.559
Then he went missing and only got
colder as we progressed from October to

485
00:35:12.599 --> 00:35:15.679
February when he's found. And so
I just think that there weren't a lot

486
00:35:15.679 --> 00:35:20.239
of people down by the water.
If there were people down by the water,

487
00:35:20.639 --> 00:35:25.880
you wouldn't necessarily be able to determine
a body against wood or a log

488
00:35:27.239 --> 00:35:31.840
or some kind of rock structure that
has ice clustered all around it. The

489
00:35:31.880 --> 00:35:37.840
body could have easily been caught directly
under the ice or kind of frozen to

490
00:35:37.000 --> 00:35:42.320
another item, and you just wouldn't
have known it was a body. I

491
00:35:43.079 --> 00:35:46.360
do not think someone held him against
his will for days, much less months.

492
00:35:46.679 --> 00:35:51.360
I don't think so either. I
just think the likelihood of that is

493
00:35:51.519 --> 00:35:53.800
so low, especially because we don't
see any marks on his body. His

494
00:35:54.880 --> 00:36:00.000
costume is pristine, And what would
be their objective? But did they ever

495
00:36:00.079 --> 00:36:05.519
speak about any signs of sexual assault
or anything on the body, Like if

496
00:36:05.559 --> 00:36:07.800
there was something like that, we
likely would have heard about it. Would

497
00:36:07.800 --> 00:36:12.960
we not have Robin. I think
so. Yeah, they've never given any

498
00:36:12.960 --> 00:36:15.599
indication that there were signs of sexual
assault on Chris's body, because if there

499
00:36:15.639 --> 00:36:20.960
were, then you could completely rule
out accidental debt. That's pretty much concrete

500
00:36:20.960 --> 00:36:24.719
evidence that he was assaulted and likely
murdered, So that if there's no sexual

501
00:36:24.719 --> 00:36:28.760
assault, why is someone going to
hold Chris captive for a long period of

502
00:36:28.800 --> 00:36:34.280
time. Well, on the aforementioned
breaking homicide, they came up with a

503
00:36:34.320 --> 00:36:38.760
potential theory to explain where Chris's body
could have been. Minneapolis had a parcel

504
00:36:38.800 --> 00:36:43.519
of land known as Nicolette Island,
which is located in the middle of the

505
00:36:43.519 --> 00:36:49.159
Mississippi River, underneath the Hennepin Avenue
Bridge and a short distance northwest from the

506
00:36:49.159 --> 00:36:53.320
location where Chris's body was found.
The island was searched multiple times during the

507
00:36:53.360 --> 00:36:58.800
time period he was missing, and
while bloodhounds did detect his scent, they

508
00:36:58.920 --> 00:37:04.159
never found anything. Nicolette Island is
easily accessible by road from the mainland,

509
00:37:04.519 --> 00:37:08.400
and the northeast section of the island
has a series of underground utility tunnels which

510
00:37:08.440 --> 00:37:12.400
people have been known to hang out
in, and one of them is known

511
00:37:12.400 --> 00:37:15.760
as Satan's Cave. It earned the
name because there are images of demons and

512
00:37:15.800 --> 00:37:20.199
Satan carved into the walls. So
I don't want you to think that we're

513
00:37:20.199 --> 00:37:23.360
trying to imply that Chris was taken
there and sacrificed in some sort of Satanic

514
00:37:23.440 --> 00:37:28.480
ritual or something. However, it
is a place one might be inclined to

515
00:37:28.519 --> 00:37:34.000
hang out and party on Halloween night
if they were feeling adventurous. What's interesting

516
00:37:34.119 --> 00:37:37.639
is that these tunnels contain shafts filled
with water which can flow into the Mississippi

517
00:37:37.679 --> 00:37:42.639
River. If for whatever reason,
Chris's body wound up in one of these

518
00:37:42.639 --> 00:37:46.320
shafts, it could have remained under
water and been relatively well preserved for around

519
00:37:46.360 --> 00:37:52.360
three months or so until it eventually
floated into the river. If this occurred

520
00:37:52.400 --> 00:37:55.719
at the time when the Mississippi froze
over, this would explain why the body

521
00:37:55.760 --> 00:38:00.079
was in the river for weeks before
it floated downstream and eventually arrived at the

522
00:38:00.159 --> 00:38:06.360
upper Saint Anthony Falls down where it
was discovered on February twenty seventh. This

523
00:38:06.440 --> 00:38:10.119
is a very intriguing theory which would
account for Chris's whereabouts during that four month

524
00:38:10.199 --> 00:38:15.880
period and explain why search teams never
found anything on Nicolette Island, and even

525
00:38:15.960 --> 00:38:20.320
if Chris's body wasn't in the caves, it could have been submerged in the

526
00:38:20.320 --> 00:38:24.159
water somewhere around the island for months
without being discovered. But of course,

527
00:38:24.199 --> 00:38:29.440
what this doesn't account for is how
Chris would have wound up on Nicolette Island

528
00:38:29.480 --> 00:38:32.719
to begin with, since he didn't
have a ride home. Perhaps Chris got

529
00:38:32.760 --> 00:38:37.000
into a vehicle with someone who convinced
him that Satan's Cave would be a cool

530
00:38:37.039 --> 00:38:42.760
place to hang out and party before
driving him there. It's possible his death

531
00:38:42.800 --> 00:38:45.559
may have been nothing more than an
accident which was covered up. Of course,

532
00:38:45.599 --> 00:38:49.840
if you're a conspiracy theorist, you
could assume that Chris was attacked and

533
00:38:49.880 --> 00:38:53.079
abducted by the Smiley Faced Gang after
he left the Lone Tree Bar, and

534
00:38:53.119 --> 00:38:57.320
they thought it would be cool to
kill him inside a place called Satan's Cave.

535
00:38:58.480 --> 00:39:00.519
Okay, so I'm not a conspiracy
so I'm gonna go ahead and scratch

536
00:39:00.599 --> 00:39:07.599
that last one. I honestly think
weather and the temperature of the water had

537
00:39:07.599 --> 00:39:10.280
more to do with this than anything
more nefarious than that. I think he

538
00:39:10.440 --> 00:39:16.159
was killed and dumped in the water
on Halloween night, and his body was

539
00:39:16.159 --> 00:39:22.400
simply frozen in the elements. It
was difficult to search for We hear cases

540
00:39:22.440 --> 00:39:25.639
all the time where investigators say,
I knew we had three weeks to find

541
00:39:25.679 --> 00:39:29.800
the body, or else we'd have
to wait till spring to find it,

542
00:39:29.840 --> 00:39:35.519
because there's just a it's complicated.
When ice and snow and you know,

543
00:39:35.599 --> 00:39:39.800
things freeze over. It changes the
way everything looks, the terrain, the

544
00:39:39.840 --> 00:39:44.960
way that that river flows, it
all changes. And so the fact that

545
00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:47.400
he went missing at such a critical
time when the weather was changing and getting

546
00:39:47.440 --> 00:39:51.559
colder. I think his body was
in that water the night he died,

547
00:39:51.880 --> 00:39:55.280
and I think that was Halloween night. So I think now it would be

548
00:39:55.320 --> 00:40:00.159
an appropriate time to talk about Jeremy
Alford as a potential suspect. As recall,

549
00:40:00.519 --> 00:40:04.320
Alfred claimed he was part of a
gang called the Dealers of Death,

550
00:40:04.519 --> 00:40:07.360
which was responsible for the deaths around
thirty to forty people, and his right

551
00:40:07.360 --> 00:40:13.079
hand man was nicknamed Zamilee. That
sounds pretty absurd, but believe it or

552
00:40:13.079 --> 00:40:16.719
not, it turns out that Somiley
is actually a real person who was questioned

553
00:40:16.719 --> 00:40:22.159
by the New Brighton Police Department after
Jeremy Alford was charged with the murder of

554
00:40:22.199 --> 00:40:25.639
Douglas Miller. His real name has
never been disclosed, but he was apparently

555
00:40:25.679 --> 00:40:30.800
on antipsychotic medication at the time and
living in a tent by the river.

556
00:40:30.599 --> 00:40:36.320
We mentioned in our last episode that
the Hanneben County District Attorney's office had declined

557
00:40:36.320 --> 00:40:39.679
to file charges against a suspect for
Chris's murder in two thousand seven, and

558
00:40:39.760 --> 00:40:45.400
I have a feeling that the suspect
was Alfered. All investigators would say about

559
00:40:45.400 --> 00:40:49.559
the suspect was that he was in
custody in another state on an unrelated charge.

560
00:40:49.800 --> 00:40:53.079
But even though Alfred murdered Douglas Miller
in Minnesota, he was actually arrested

561
00:40:53.079 --> 00:40:58.320
for the crime in Iowa before he
was extradited. I've also deduced that the

562
00:40:58.320 --> 00:41:02.239
witness who claimed he saw in a
quain throw Chris off the heanepin Avenue Bridge

563
00:41:02.400 --> 00:41:07.679
was Zamiley, But in addition to
all the credibility issues with his story which

564
00:41:07.719 --> 00:41:12.199
I mentioned earlier, Somiley apparently said
that the victim's name was Andrew, not

565
00:41:12.360 --> 00:41:16.719
Chris. If the only evidence they
had against Alfred was Somiley's eyewitness testimony,

566
00:41:17.079 --> 00:41:21.760
that I can see why they declined
to file charges against him. Yeah,

567
00:41:21.800 --> 00:41:27.239
I don't think Zamiley would be the
most amazing witness when you put them on

568
00:41:27.280 --> 00:41:32.840
the stand. However, as a
homicide expert, how the hell have I

569
00:41:32.920 --> 00:41:37.760
never heard of somebody named Jeremy Alford
who supposedly killed thirty to forty people.

570
00:41:38.760 --> 00:41:42.719
Yeah, he's only been charged with
one murder, which was the death of

571
00:41:42.719 --> 00:41:45.760
Douglas Miller, but he has never
been connected to the deaths of thirty to

572
00:41:45.840 --> 00:41:49.880
forty people. So yeah, I
do think that is an exaggeration and that

573
00:41:49.920 --> 00:41:53.760
there's no gang called the Dealers of
Death. Okay, So he's claiming he

574
00:41:53.880 --> 00:42:00.480
killed me, Yes, exactly,
you think you? Okay, I literally

575
00:42:00.559 --> 00:42:02.079
said her, and I went,
who when you're telling me? I'm like,

576
00:42:02.079 --> 00:42:05.239
come on, Ashley, rack your
brain. Who's this person? And

577
00:42:05.280 --> 00:42:07.719
I went, surely I would have
heard of this individual. Okay. So

578
00:42:07.800 --> 00:42:13.679
he's full of it, and so
is smiling exactly. Okay, fair enough.

579
00:42:13.880 --> 00:42:15.320
So it's funny. I was picturing
you thinking, is this the guy

580
00:42:15.360 --> 00:42:21.880
that the Alfred plea is named after? Shush, it's not, thank you,

581
00:42:22.159 --> 00:42:29.320
it's not. Another thing which has
caused speculation that Alfred might be involved

582
00:42:29.320 --> 00:42:32.679
in Chris's death are issues with his
alibi on Halloween Knight in two thousand and

583
00:42:32.719 --> 00:42:37.920
two, Alfred's sister claimed that he
was supposed to go trick or treating with

584
00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:42.079
her and never showed up, though
Alfred's girlfriend at the time claimed that he

585
00:42:42.159 --> 00:42:45.920
was with her that night. But
there have been rumors that Alfred was at

586
00:42:45.920 --> 00:42:50.079
the Lone Tree Bar and may have
crossed paths with Chris. So what if

587
00:42:50.079 --> 00:42:54.559
Alfred was a creepy guy who was
involved in the altercation Chris allegedly averted This

588
00:42:54.639 --> 00:43:00.840
could have prompted Alfred, along with
I possible accomplices, to follow Chris outside

589
00:43:00.840 --> 00:43:05.159
and attack him before taking him away
from the scene, murdering him and disposing

590
00:43:05.199 --> 00:43:08.320
of his body. While here's my
issue with the theory about Alfred being the

591
00:43:08.320 --> 00:43:14.280
perpetrator. Just read up on the
details about the Douglas Miller murder. If

592
00:43:14.320 --> 00:43:16.920
you were to look up the definition
of the words subtle, this would pretty

593
00:43:16.960 --> 00:43:22.119
much be the polar opposite. Jeremy
and his brother Louis proceeded to bludgeon Miller

594
00:43:22.440 --> 00:43:27.159
with such items as a hammer and
a metal bar, and they stabbed him

595
00:43:27.199 --> 00:43:30.320
twenty times with a knife and barbecue
ford. They then proceeded to burn down

596
00:43:30.360 --> 00:43:35.159
Miller's mobile home with his body still
inside, and fled the scene and the

597
00:43:35.239 --> 00:43:39.159
victim's stolen van before dumping it in
the river. The crime was so brazen

598
00:43:39.559 --> 00:43:44.639
that it should come as no surprise
that the Alfred brothers were arrested the very

599
00:43:44.679 --> 00:43:49.639
next day. Now, compare that
with Chris Jenkins's death. He was found

600
00:43:49.639 --> 00:43:52.280
with no signs of trauma or violence
on his body, which is why it

601
00:43:52.360 --> 00:43:55.639
was so easy to assume that he
might have been the victim of an accidental

602
00:43:55.719 --> 00:44:00.599
drowning. In fact, the entire
genesis of the Smiley Face murder theory is

603
00:44:00.599 --> 00:44:05.920
that the perpetrators go to the trouble
of making their victims' deaths look like a

604
00:44:06.000 --> 00:44:09.679
drowning by leaving no noticeable signs of
foul play. So if you believe that

605
00:44:09.800 --> 00:44:15.000
Jeremy Alfred was a member of the
Smiley Face Gay then this would mean that

606
00:44:15.079 --> 00:44:20.360
he spent years participating in these very
meticulous and carefully planned murders, but then

607
00:44:20.400 --> 00:44:24.039
wound up getting caught because he decided
to kill a guy in the most brutal,

608
00:44:24.280 --> 00:44:30.159
unsubtle fashion possible. One issue I've
always had with these claims that Alfred

609
00:44:30.159 --> 00:44:34.079
and his crew were regulars at the
Lone Tree Bar is that Alfred would have

610
00:44:34.119 --> 00:44:37.599
only been nineteen years old on Halloween
night in two thousand and two, and

611
00:44:37.679 --> 00:44:40.519
the legal drinking age in Minnesota is
twenty one. Of course, that doesn't

612
00:44:40.559 --> 00:44:45.519
completely discount the idea of Alfred being
at a bar at the same time that

613
00:44:45.599 --> 00:44:49.440
Chris went missing, and it's possible
that he was a regular because they were

614
00:44:49.440 --> 00:44:54.079
pretty loose about serving alcohol to underage
people. But unskeptical now. Alfred did

615
00:44:54.119 --> 00:45:00.280
apparently divulge some inside information about Chris's
death, which was not public knowledge at

616
00:45:00.280 --> 00:45:04.920
the time, so I won't completely
rule out the possibility of him being responsible.

617
00:45:05.480 --> 00:45:09.119
But while Alfred has never directly denied
any involvement in Chris's death, he's

618
00:45:09.119 --> 00:45:14.159
also a braggard serving a life sentence
who now has nothing left to lose,

619
00:45:14.519 --> 00:45:16.840
so I can see why he might
be inclined to string people along for his

620
00:45:16.840 --> 00:45:22.239
own amusement. You're right, his
MO doesn't line up with anything that happened

621
00:45:22.280 --> 00:45:28.000
to Chris. Chris has found in
his body's pristine, his costumes pristine,

622
00:45:28.719 --> 00:45:31.639
There's no sign of injury, so
whoever did kill him was pretty sophisticated.

623
00:45:32.519 --> 00:45:37.079
Alfred. I was picturing some like
fifty five year old like rough looking man

624
00:45:37.119 --> 00:45:42.960
who's killed thirty to forty people,
and come to find out it's some insecure

625
00:45:43.039 --> 00:45:46.760
nineteen year old kid who doesn't know
how to tell the truth, you know,

626
00:45:46.840 --> 00:45:51.679
as much as he knows how to
do much anything else. So it's

627
00:45:51.719 --> 00:45:54.199
interesting to me that, like you
said, he'd be willing to claim he's

628
00:45:54.320 --> 00:45:59.760
like this head ring master of a
deadly gang and has killed thirty to forty

629
00:45:59.760 --> 00:46:04.280
p people, but he wouldn't want
the notoriety from killing Chris. I mean,

630
00:46:04.320 --> 00:46:07.480
if you're serving a life sentence and
you want people to think you're one

631
00:46:07.760 --> 00:46:10.519
bad mammagi Emma, then why not
just say yeah, I killed him too,

632
00:46:10.559 --> 00:46:15.239
and here's how I can prove it. It's a weird contradiction because when

633
00:46:15.239 --> 00:46:17.559
he was questioned about Chris's case,
his exact words were, I do not

634
00:46:17.679 --> 00:46:22.440
like to comment on cases on crimes
I have never been charged with or convicted

635
00:46:22.480 --> 00:46:23.800
of. Yet at the same time, he's bragging that he's part of a

636
00:46:23.840 --> 00:46:29.000
gang that killed thirty to forty people, So make up your mind, fella.

637
00:46:29.079 --> 00:46:31.400
I've also discounted the idea of Chris
being a victim of the Smiley Face

638
00:46:31.519 --> 00:46:37.719
Killer or the Smiley Face Gang,
and I haven't hesitated to express my skepticism

639
00:46:37.760 --> 00:46:40.840
about the entire theory. If Chris
was not murdered by Jeremy Alford or a

640
00:46:40.840 --> 00:46:45.639
gang of killers, then what did
happen to him? And most of these

641
00:46:45.679 --> 00:46:49.760
other so called smiley face murders,
you can come up with a logical explanation

642
00:46:49.880 --> 00:46:52.559
to explain the victim's death, and
it usually boils down to nothing more than

643
00:46:52.599 --> 00:46:59.039
an intoxicated young person accidentally falling into
a body of water. But Chris's case

644
00:46:59.119 --> 00:47:02.119
is nowhere near that simple, and
it's clear that something very odd did happen

645
00:47:02.159 --> 00:47:07.119
to him. I do think there's
enough evidence to suggest foul play, but

646
00:47:07.199 --> 00:47:10.079
trying to figure out when and where
Chris was actually killed is a real head

647
00:47:10.079 --> 00:47:15.400
scratcher. This is one unsolved case
where we have a lot of different pieces,

648
00:47:15.440 --> 00:47:19.280
but they just don't quite fit together. I think the full story is

649
00:47:19.320 --> 00:47:22.519
some sort of strange anomaly. A
number of people showed poor judgment by having

650
00:47:22.599 --> 00:47:27.199
Chris kicked out of a bar,
and everyone went the extra mouth to try

651
00:47:27.239 --> 00:47:30.960
and cover their asses after he went
missing and turned up dead, which looked

652
00:47:30.960 --> 00:47:36.400
incredibly suspicious. However, the actual
circumstances of Chris's death may have nothing to

653
00:47:36.440 --> 00:47:38.920
do at all with the events which
took place inside the bar, and it

654
00:47:38.960 --> 00:47:44.000
was just a tragic coincidence where Chris
wound up crossing paths with a person or

655
00:47:44.119 --> 00:47:46.400
pershins who did him harm while he
was trying to find his way home.

656
00:47:47.000 --> 00:47:52.480
Whatever happened, the Minneapolis Police Department
really did a piss poor job at handling

657
00:47:52.519 --> 00:47:55.039
Chris's case, and it's a shame
that it would be four years before there

658
00:47:55.079 --> 00:48:00.039
was a proper investigation. Sadly,
even though Chris's death was reclassified as a

659
00:48:00.039 --> 00:48:05.760
homicide and the Jenkins family received a
formal apology, it doesn't seem like there's

660
00:48:05.760 --> 00:48:09.119
been much progress with uncovering the truth. This is one case where I really

661
00:48:09.159 --> 00:48:13.760
can't come up with a concrete theory
for what happened, But I am inclined

662
00:48:13.800 --> 00:48:16.400
to think that Chris met with foul
play shortly after leaving the bar, and

663
00:48:16.440 --> 00:48:21.719
that his body was concealed somewhere for
months before it was discovered in the Mississippi

664
00:48:21.800 --> 00:48:27.199
River. When Chris originally vanished.
The slogun on his missing poster was someone

665
00:48:27.320 --> 00:48:30.519
Knows Something, which, as you
might know, also happens to be the

666
00:48:30.519 --> 00:48:35.400
title of a very popular Canadian true
crime podcast. But I think that slogan

667
00:48:35.480 --> 00:48:38.760
does ring true because regardless of whether
Chris's death was murder or an accident,

668
00:48:39.039 --> 00:48:43.280
there has to be someone who knows
something about what actually happened to him.

669
00:48:43.760 --> 00:48:45.960
So, if you happen to have
any information on the unsolved death of Chris

670
00:48:46.039 --> 00:48:52.039
Jenkins, please call the Minneapolis Homicide
Unit at six three six ninety two.

671
00:48:52.079 --> 00:48:57.760
Tips that six one three six nine
two eight four seven seven Jules Ashley,

672
00:48:57.920 --> 00:49:00.880
any final thoughts on this case?
Well, you guys weren't kidding when you

673
00:49:00.880 --> 00:49:06.000
said this is one of those cases
where it's very difficult to know what the

674
00:49:06.039 --> 00:49:10.760
heck happened and who the heck did
it because there's so many different explanations in

675
00:49:10.840 --> 00:49:15.159
this set. You know what six
hour period, five hour period where this

676
00:49:15.199 --> 00:49:20.159
poor kid goes on hallomy night to
a bar to hang out with his girlfriend

677
00:49:20.239 --> 00:49:23.159
and his friends. He's kicked out
under these circumstances that don't seem to make

678
00:49:23.199 --> 00:49:28.719
any sense. And what could have
happened, Well off to the police officer

679
00:49:28.760 --> 00:49:30.679
could have had something to do with
it, He could have had the bouncers

680
00:49:30.679 --> 00:49:32.960
of the bar that could have had
something to do with it. He could

681
00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:36.280
have been the people that he was
trying to break up in a fight,

682
00:49:36.760 --> 00:49:39.480
found him outside and attacked him.
It could have been a group of gang

683
00:49:39.519 --> 00:49:43.719
members who attacked him. It could
have been a stranger. It could have

684
00:49:43.840 --> 00:49:47.800
been devil worshippers. It could have
been all kinds of different things that came

685
00:49:49.119 --> 00:49:54.039
across Chris's path and resulted in his
death. I do not think that Chris

686
00:49:54.079 --> 00:50:00.800
died from a suicide at all.
He had plans to go on several job

687
00:50:00.800 --> 00:50:05.000
interviews. He was there with his
girlfriend that night and his friends having fun,

688
00:50:05.559 --> 00:50:08.800
and he was still in his Halloween
costume. So I just don't think

689
00:50:08.840 --> 00:50:12.880
that would have been the result.
After he gets kicked out of a bar

690
00:50:13.360 --> 00:50:15.360
that he automatically says, this is
the time I'm going to take my own

691
00:50:15.400 --> 00:50:22.000
life. That usually just doesn't happen
like that. But what's so heartbreaking is

692
00:50:22.039 --> 00:50:25.360
that this family is in the same
spot we are. They have no answers,

693
00:50:25.400 --> 00:50:29.639
they have no idea what happened,
and they've kind of been put on

694
00:50:29.719 --> 00:50:35.559
a ferris wheel of a journey with
the police department and with anyone really helping

695
00:50:35.599 --> 00:50:39.119
them. Yes, it was ruled
undetermined to start, but four years later,

696
00:50:39.320 --> 00:50:45.039
there's a massive move where the new
police chief says, we're changing this

697
00:50:45.119 --> 00:50:49.760
classification. I apologize to the family. It's time to rule this as a

698
00:50:49.760 --> 00:50:53.719
homicide. And he changes that and
says to the family, you were right.

699
00:50:54.159 --> 00:51:00.719
I validate what you said. And
then almost years later he says,

700
00:51:01.119 --> 00:51:05.559
ah, I have no idea what
happened. This could have been a suicide

701
00:51:05.599 --> 00:51:08.519
and accident or a homicide. It's
almost going back on what you said.

702
00:51:08.840 --> 00:51:15.079
And that doesn't feel good to a
family who's been advocating for almost two decades

703
00:51:15.440 --> 00:51:19.440
that their loved one was murdered.
So for me, it's one of these

704
00:51:19.440 --> 00:51:22.000
things where there was going to be
an interest and there wasn't. It was

705
00:51:22.079 --> 00:51:25.159
homicide. Now was it a homicide? The rigormarole that the family is going

706
00:51:25.199 --> 00:51:30.639
through has to highly compound the grief. And this case is only from two

707
00:51:30.679 --> 00:51:34.320
thousand and two. Guys. It's
not like we're talking about a nineteen sixties

708
00:51:34.400 --> 00:51:37.000
murder or something that happened in the
eighties. This was in two thousand and

709
00:51:37.079 --> 00:51:40.920
two, So people who would have
been around at the time are likely still

710
00:51:42.119 --> 00:51:46.199
very young, very healthy, very
cognizant, and sound of mind. Someone

711
00:51:46.320 --> 00:51:52.119
knows what happened to Chris when he
left that night and maybe we're at a

712
00:51:52.159 --> 00:51:57.519
point twenty one years later that relationships
have changed and that time might be on

713
00:51:57.599 --> 00:52:01.000
the side of this case. It
would be to give this family answers.

714
00:52:01.320 --> 00:52:07.079
While that's the furthest thing that they've
gotten at this point, my heart goes

715
00:52:07.079 --> 00:52:10.280
out to the family. I can't
imagine what they dealt with initially when dealing

716
00:52:10.280 --> 00:52:15.360
with the police department, having them
say things like, of course is out

717
00:52:15.360 --> 00:52:19.320
there sowing his wild oats, which
is so ridiculous, and then knowing the

718
00:52:19.320 --> 00:52:22.880
way in which the lone tree bar
treated him, throwing him out into the

719
00:52:22.880 --> 00:52:25.719
freezing cold without any cell phone,
without a coat, without his keys,

720
00:52:27.320 --> 00:52:31.519
and without any way of contacting anybody
who could help him is just so rossly

721
00:52:31.679 --> 00:52:37.519
responsible. And then the attitude about
not questioning Casey, which I'm not saying

722
00:52:37.519 --> 00:52:39.119
I think he has anything to do
with it, but he may have been

723
00:52:39.119 --> 00:52:44.679
able to give them some kind of
information as to how exactly and why he

724
00:52:44.800 --> 00:52:49.119
was ejected that they didn't want to
break up Casey's happy family, and so

725
00:52:49.599 --> 00:52:53.960
it's more covering up his bad behavior. And then we see Dolan step on

726
00:52:54.000 --> 00:52:59.840
the scene, and like Ash just
mentioned, the ruling gets overturned from accidental

727
00:53:00.079 --> 00:53:05.360
to homicide, and I'm more inclined
to be like seventy five percent homicide twenty

728
00:53:05.400 --> 00:53:08.760
five percent accident. I don't buy
suicide for a second. I just think

729
00:53:08.840 --> 00:53:13.840
that so many things line up,
like the state of his lungs being like

730
00:53:13.960 --> 00:53:17.760
half the weight of like healthy lungs, which is common with suffocation. They

731
00:53:17.800 --> 00:53:22.119
weren't filled with water, which you
would typically see in a drowning. The

732
00:53:22.199 --> 00:53:25.159
tuft of hair in his hand,
I think goes back to what Ashley had

733
00:53:25.199 --> 00:53:29.800
said about a bag being over the
head. You might grab your own hair

734
00:53:29.880 --> 00:53:32.480
trying to grab that bag off.
I don't think if you're flailing in the

735
00:53:32.519 --> 00:53:37.320
water, you would be grabbing at
your own hair. And there's no evidence

736
00:53:37.360 --> 00:53:40.320
of flailing. He isn't found in
a position that a drowning victim typically is,

737
00:53:40.360 --> 00:53:45.920
which is face down and arms out. He's found with his arms crossed

738
00:53:45.039 --> 00:53:50.679
across his chest. I think the
probability to he was found in Nicolette Island,

739
00:53:50.719 --> 00:53:53.400
I mean I can go fifty to
fifty. That seems like a logical

740
00:53:53.440 --> 00:53:59.320
explanation for where a body could have
been stash and then floated out once you

741
00:53:59.360 --> 00:54:02.519
know the thawing started to happen and
that could explain why searchers never found the

742
00:54:02.519 --> 00:54:07.559
body. As far as who did
this, I honestly have no idea.

743
00:54:07.760 --> 00:54:13.400
I'm completely dumbfounded by this. I
think there's so many possibilities and potentials when

744
00:54:13.440 --> 00:54:17.760
we have so little evidence. I'm
just completely confounded by this case. Yeah,

745
00:54:17.840 --> 00:54:21.639
when I first learned about it several
years ago, it was all when

746
00:54:21.679 --> 00:54:24.519
I was learning about the Smiley Pace
murder theory and I saw his name listed

747
00:54:24.639 --> 00:54:30.159
on a list of potential victims,
And of course I not hesitate to express

748
00:54:30.199 --> 00:54:34.079
my skepticism about the Smiley Pace murder
theory, and looking through most of the

749
00:54:34.159 --> 00:54:37.800
cases, it's pretty obvious that they're
just accidental drowning deaths. But I got

750
00:54:38.039 --> 00:54:42.679
involved into Chris's and thought it was
something different, where it's like, well,

751
00:54:42.840 --> 00:54:45.840
even if it was an accidental death, you can find a lot of

752
00:54:45.840 --> 00:54:49.840
people liable because the circumstances of how
he was kicked out of the bar are

753
00:54:49.920 --> 00:54:53.719
just so irresponsible that it's just a
major tragedy. And you can understand why

754
00:54:53.760 --> 00:54:57.920
people were thinking that there was some
sort of cover up going on and that

755
00:54:58.039 --> 00:55:01.199
something suspicious happened. We talked about
in this episode. We've done so many

756
00:55:01.280 --> 00:55:07.599
cases where victims have died in accidental
death or they're deaths ruled a suicide,

757
00:55:07.920 --> 00:55:10.280
and even though their families are certain
that they were the victims of foul played,

758
00:55:10.360 --> 00:55:15.119
the police steadfastly refused to change their
perspective. So here it was just

759
00:55:15.239 --> 00:55:20.159
a major eye opener when the police
chief held a press conference to say they're

760
00:55:20.199 --> 00:55:24.199
reclassifying Chris's death as a homicide and
admitted that they were wrong and issued apology

761
00:55:24.239 --> 00:55:28.840
to the family, because that almost
never happens. But at the same time,

762
00:55:29.039 --> 00:55:31.800
he made this announcement seventeen years ago, and we're no further in the

763
00:55:31.880 --> 00:55:36.559
investigation, it seems, And now
Chief Dolan says, well, I'm kind

764
00:55:36.599 --> 00:55:38.519
of fifty to fifty now it might
be a homicide, but I'm not one

765
00:55:38.639 --> 00:55:44.119
hundred percent sure. So it seems
that whatever this new investigation uncovered, they

766
00:55:44.119 --> 00:55:47.039
have just not found any conclusive answers
about what happened, or have never been

767
00:55:47.079 --> 00:55:51.599
able to prove that Chris was the
victim of a homicide. I mean,

768
00:55:51.679 --> 00:55:55.079
there is a promising thing with Jeremy
Alfred because he is a killer who's in

769
00:55:55.199 --> 00:55:59.920
prison, and obviously the police thought
there was a decent chance he was responsible.

770
00:56:00.320 --> 00:56:01.840
But like I said, his one
murder he's been confirmed of, he

771
00:56:01.920 --> 00:56:07.400
brutally stabs someone twenty times and set
their mobile home on fire. Whereas Chris,

772
00:56:07.480 --> 00:56:09.639
there are no noticeable signs of foul
play, and it just not fit

773
00:56:09.679 --> 00:56:14.320
the profile of someone like Alfred,
who only would have been nineteen years old

774
00:56:14.440 --> 00:56:16.960
at the time Chris was killed.
So I don't see him being able to

775
00:56:17.039 --> 00:56:21.519
commit this very subtle, perfect murder. But at the same time, I

776
00:56:21.599 --> 00:56:24.039
can't figure out what happened to Chris, Like, was this a premeditated thing,

777
00:56:24.199 --> 00:56:28.760
did he get his drink drugg did
someone follow him or lure him into

778
00:56:28.800 --> 00:56:31.039
the parking garage, or did just
Chris happen to cross paths with the wrong

779
00:56:31.119 --> 00:56:36.000
person while he was walking home.
There's just nothing that makes one hundred percent

780
00:56:36.119 --> 00:56:38.920
complete sense. I am inclined to
think he was a victim of a homicide

781
00:56:38.960 --> 00:56:43.599
and that whoever killed him placed his
body in the Mississippi River where it was

782
00:56:43.719 --> 00:56:46.519
undiscovered for four months. But you
just have to wonder how did they do

783
00:56:46.639 --> 00:56:50.679
it, and what was their motive? And did they suffocate him? Is

784
00:56:50.719 --> 00:56:53.159
that why there were no noticeable signs
of foul play. We just don't have

785
00:56:53.199 --> 00:56:57.920
any evidence to work with, and
that's why this case is so frustrating,

786
00:56:58.320 --> 00:57:01.719
and it's just so sad that his
family has been without answers for two decades

787
00:57:01.800 --> 00:57:06.000
now. But that's why we keep
cases like this in the spotlight. Maybe

788
00:57:06.039 --> 00:57:08.280
there is someone out there who knows
the truth about what happened to Chris,

789
00:57:08.639 --> 00:57:14.400
and I hope they do eventually come
forward and possibly provide his family with some answers.