Speaker 1: So the deaths of dozens of young men across eleven
Speaker 1: states and twenty five cities were declared accidental drownings. But
Speaker 1: now new surveillance video puts them back in the headlines.
Speaker 1: It's called a smiley faced killer. That case has become
Speaker 1: front page news again. There's a lot more to it
Speaker 1: than we know.
Speaker 2: This was abducted in a cargo van.
Speaker 1: He was driven around Minneapolis for hours and tortured.
Speaker 2: These are young, highly intelligent, very athletic young men that
Speaker 2: disappear if the night of drinking very suspiciously. You Most
Speaker 2: of them have GHB, which is how did this drug
Speaker 2: wind up in the body incapacitated them.
Speaker 3: They have injuries.
Speaker 2: They are held for a period of time because there's
Speaker 2: no decomposition on the body for the amount of time
Speaker 2: that they're missing, and then they're the positive bodies of
Speaker 2: water to be recovered later drowned. But most of them
Speaker 2: doesn't even have water in their lungs.
Speaker 1: And we knew it wasn't and it was just you know,
Speaker 1: one of those things where he walked out and it
Speaker 1: was never seen again.
Speaker 3: I would like Brian to know that if you're out
Speaker 3: there and you can come.
Speaker 4: Home, if I would have known that was the last
Speaker 4: time I was ever going to see him.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't let him go.
Speaker 4: With so many cases of young men going out to
Speaker 4: bars and or parties with groups of friends and ending
Speaker 4: up disappearing for weeks or even months at a time,
Speaker 4: only to be found in random nearby water sources, deceased
Speaker 4: under very strange circumstances, there was bound to at some
Speaker 4: point be a theory that popped up. This would be
Speaker 4: what we know as the smiley faced killer or killer's theory.
Speaker 4: The connections in these cases were discovered and parameters for
Speaker 4: such cases were set, put together and advanced retired New
Speaker 4: York City detectives Kevin Gannon, Anthony Duarte, and doctor Lee Gilbertson.
Speaker 4: Gilbertson is a criminal justice professor and gang expert at
Speaker 4: Saint Cloud State University. The theory alleges that a number
Speaker 4: of young men found dead in seemingly random bodies of
Speaker 4: water across the United States, with specific attention being focused
Speaker 4: on the Midwestern States between the early nineteen nineties and
Speaker 4: twenty tens, did not in fact drowned, but were the
Speaker 4: victims of foul play. Law enforcement agencies across the country
Speaker 4: are denying there's any kind of connection, usually with the
Speaker 4: corners signing off on the typical got drunk, wandered off
Speaker 4: and into water source and drowned due to intoxication.
Speaker 3: That's the cause of death.
Speaker 4: However, these two detectives and a doctor deorized that these
Speaker 4: specific drownings, with several very specific parameters which we'll discuss
Speaker 4: in this documentary, are all connected somehow. They believe all
Speaker 4: of them to be the work of a serial killer
Speaker 4: or group of killers, who reportedly leave a smiley face
Speaker 4: in some type of graffiti near the sites where these
Speaker 4: boys and young men are said by law enforcement to
Speaker 4: have drowned accidentally. How many times could there be such
Speaker 4: a situation near the water where a young man, after
Speaker 4: night of innocent partying and fun, was separated from his
Speaker 4: group and never seen again until his body was recovered
Speaker 4: Before we all agree it can't be a coincidence anymore.
Speaker 4: Let's look further into it now, and at the end
Speaker 4: you tell me what you think. Is it possible that
Speaker 4: a killer or a group of killers could be so
Speaker 4: skilled as to never leave any trace of their existence
Speaker 4: behind during an alleged span of twenty or more years,
Speaker 4: No forensic evidence, no physical evidence, not one single shred
Speaker 4: of evidence of foul play.
Speaker 3: Well not quite.
Speaker 4: Let's start with the case of Christopher Jenkins in two
Speaker 4: thousand and two. Christopher Jenkins was a university student in
Speaker 4: Minnesota State. He decided to go out drinking at a
Speaker 4: bar in Minneapolis on Halloween night with a group of
Speaker 4: friends and his girlfriend. The crew ended up at the
Speaker 4: Lone Tree Bar, which is allegedly in a sketchy part
Speaker 4: of the town. Chris dressed up as a Native American
Speaker 4: that night. It was in a full costume. While reports
Speaker 4: very greatly the story told, the most was that for
Speaker 4: some reason or another, an intoxicated Chris was asked to
Speaker 4: leave the bar that night, so he was basically thrown
Speaker 4: out and decided to walk home alone. Again, since he
Speaker 4: was with his girlfriend and a large group of friends
Speaker 4: that night, is unknown why he was walking home alone.
Speaker 4: Many say it's what he wanted to do to blow
Speaker 4: off some steam as he was angry for being thrown
Speaker 4: out of the bar. A bouncer who remembered asking Chris
Speaker 4: to leave and also walking him out the door, reported
Speaker 4: he had taken a left on Hennepin Avenue. He had
Speaker 4: left his wallet phone, and jacket behind when he exited
Speaker 4: the bar and walked into the freezing cold Minnesota night.
Speaker 4: Some people claim Chris left on his own that night. However,
Speaker 4: that doesn't make much sense if he left all those
Speaker 4: things behind the bar. Chris Jenkins would be found four
Speaker 4: months later in the Hennepin River in the Horseshoe Dam area.
Speaker 4: His Native American costume was still completely intact, and his
Speaker 4: legs and arms are crossed. He was also found with
Speaker 4: some hair in his hands, and it's been a huge
Speaker 4: controversy over whether or not the hair found clutched in
Speaker 4: the death grip of his fingers was his own or
Speaker 4: someone else's. Some are adamant that it was his own hair,
Speaker 4: while others are just as mheman it was someone else's.
Speaker 4: Upon taking another look at the autopsy, it was determined
Speaker 4: that the only way his body would have been found
Speaker 4: in the position it was in was if there had
Speaker 4: been a struggle. Despite this, his case was labeled as
Speaker 4: he took his own life. In two thousand and six, however,
Speaker 4: there was a new police chief in Indianapolis named Tim Dolan, who,
Speaker 4: upon a closer look, reopened the case as a homicide
Speaker 4: and started immediately reinvestigating it. Dolan went so far as
Speaker 4: to hold us conference and apologized to the family for
Speaker 4: not investigating Chris's case as a homicide all along. There
Speaker 4: were just too many unanswered questions. The sticking point for
Speaker 4: many who believed from the very beginning it was a
Speaker 4: homicide or who came around to that opinion later on
Speaker 4: was the hair found in his hands?
Speaker 3: Whose was it?
Speaker 4: It was also reported, upon further examination of the toxic
Speaker 4: college report, that Chris had nowhere near enough alcohol in
Speaker 4: his system to be considered inebriated enough to not be
Speaker 4: able to walk or talk on his own. In fact,
Speaker 4: it's been said that most likely, if they hadn't found
Speaker 4: the GHB in his system, he may not have been
Speaker 4: impaired at all. Upon further investigation and what was now
Speaker 4: being considered a homicide, a witness turned up who had
Speaker 4: stated he had been drinking at the same bar a
Speaker 4: couple of months prior to Chris having gone missing there,
Speaker 4: and he claims he was extremely sick and ineborated after
Speaker 4: only consuming his first drink of the night. He also
Speaker 4: claims that quote a few men unquote tried to put
Speaker 4: him in a car, but his friends found him before
Speaker 4: this could happen and saved him. Were these men just
Speaker 4: good samaritans trying to give what seemed to be a
Speaker 4: very intoxicated man or ride home. If that's the case,
Speaker 4: then why have they not yet come forward and made
Speaker 4: themselves known to the very least get rid of some
Speaker 4: of the confusion regarding the matter. Were these the actual
Speaker 4: Smiley Face killers or at least a few of them.
Speaker 4: If you go down the rabbit hole into this whole
Speaker 4: murder theory, you will find that the main idea is
Speaker 4: there's an extremely large group of individuals throughout the country
Speaker 4: who are somehow operating together to drug and abduct these smart, athletic,
Speaker 4: good looking, well liked and normally fairly responsible young men
Speaker 4: and do whatever it is they're doing with it before
Speaker 4: throwing them into random water sources nearby to where they
Speaker 4: were last seen, but quite far from the intended end destination.
Speaker 4: The only connection the Smiley Face, which will inevitably be
Speaker 4: found in close proximity to the back to the supposed
Speaker 4: almost abduction witness his friends who were nice enough to
Speaker 4: take him immediately to the hospital because of his poor state,
Speaker 4: and it was found through tests he had an extremely
Speaker 4: high level of GHB in his system. The police were
Speaker 4: able to obtain this man's toxicology report with his permission,
Speaker 4: of course, through the hospital records from when he came
Speaker 4: in that night. He was exhibiting all the symptoms of
Speaker 4: someone who had either taken or had their drink dosed
Speaker 4: with GHB. Now a little background. GHB synthetic gamma hydroxyl
Speaker 4: butty rate or GHB, is a nervous system depressant which
Speaker 4: was once manufactured in the lab with the hopes of
Speaker 4: inducing sleep and providing pain relief for patients undergoing surgery
Speaker 4: or having other major medical procedures. It was eventually found
Speaker 4: to be ineffective at relieving pain and was deemed completely
Speaker 4: unsafe for distribution after the clinical studies showed a large
Speaker 4: number of test subjects for having seized intense and almost
Speaker 4: constant vomiting and swings between consciousness and unconsciousness, so basically
Speaker 4: the subjects were randomly passing out and waking up over
Speaker 4: and over and over again. Unfortunately, GHB became popular in
Speaker 4: athletic circles as many athletes heard about its effects on metabolism,
Speaker 4: mainly its.
Speaker 3: Ability to speed it up.
Speaker 4: It stimulated the human growth hormone, which is known to
Speaker 4: reduce body fat while increasing muscle mass and athlete's dream
Speaker 4: come true. Later on, in the nineteen nineties, when these
Speaker 4: bizarre water deaths started occurring, GHB became a very popular
Speaker 4: recreational drug in the so called club scene. It was
Speaker 4: used here because of its euphoric effects and was commonly
Speaker 4: combined with methamphetamines or MDMA, as each drug played off
Speaker 4: the other to enhance it. Unfortunately, the fast rate of
Speaker 4: unconsciousness is what has gained GHB its more dubious reputation.
Speaker 3: It's been used in.
Speaker 4: An almost exorbitant amount of sexual assaught cases, particularly those
Speaker 4: cases pertaining to sexual assaults on a date, due to
Speaker 4: not only the fast rate of knocking the victim unconscious,
Speaker 4: but also because of the after effects. There's almost no
Speaker 4: memory of the events which have occurred after you've taken
Speaker 4: a certain.
Speaker 3: Amount of the drug.
Speaker 4: So now we know a bit about GHB and its
Speaker 4: origins and how it could possibly be a very important
Speaker 4: part of evidence going forward. Let's move on to some
Speaker 4: other cases. It should be said that while the body
Speaker 4: makes a very small amount of GHB on its own,
Speaker 4: it's not enough to even have any effect on a
Speaker 4: person at its natural rate of metabolism of the body.
Speaker 4: It has to either be surreptitiously given or purposely consumed
Speaker 4: in larger doses to have any significant effect whatsoever. Also,
Speaker 4: it isn't automatically tested for in most autopsies and toxicology screenings.
Speaker 3: Drowning deaths included next case.
Speaker 4: On January twenty fifth, twenty seventeen, at around eleven thirty pm,
Speaker 4: twenty three year old graduate student Dakota James was walking
Speaker 4: back to his apartment after night out parting with a
Speaker 4: group of his friends and co workers. The last known
Speaker 4: sighting of him was a surveillance camera in the downtown
Speaker 4: area that picked him up walking in the direction of
Speaker 4: his home. He is seen in this footage walking into
Speaker 4: a dark alley and is never seen alive again. When
Speaker 4: James didn't show up for work the following morning, his
Speaker 4: boss was concerned enough to call his family, who in
Speaker 4: turn notified the police interported him as missing. They unfortunately,
Speaker 4: were falsely told that they had to wait seventy two
Speaker 4: hours to do so. When nothing seemed to be getting
Speaker 4: accomplished by the local police, the family hired a private
Speaker 4: investigator who organized a massive search of the downtown area
Speaker 4: where Dakota was last known to be seen on.
Speaker 3: That video footage.
Speaker 4: This search is what led to the discovery of his
Speaker 4: body in the Ohio River forty days after he was
Speaker 4: last known to be alive. Pittsburgh police go included that
Speaker 4: he had been crossing a bridge and accidentally, due to
Speaker 4: his drunken state, fell into the river and drowned. Before
Speaker 4: its discovery, however, the police determined that the body had
Speaker 4: most likely traveled almost ten miles and even had to
Speaker 4: squeeze through a dam before eventually ending up where it
Speaker 4: was found. This would be all well and good except
Speaker 4: for the fact that the body had almost no visible
Speaker 4: damage on it. How could it be in so Pristina's
Speaker 4: shape after having traveled almost ten miles in the heavily
Speaker 4: trafficked river. Since the cases since been closed and labeled
Speaker 4: a mere drowning, we may never actually get the answers. Also,
Speaker 4: no tests were performed to discover if there were any
Speaker 4: GHB in his system or not. A smiley face was
Speaker 4: found spray painted on a nearby underpass. Keep in mind
Speaker 4: that on that last bit of footage of Dakota he
Speaker 4: entered the alley he was looking down at his cell phone.
Speaker 4: This is another common occurrence in these strange disappearances, either
Speaker 4: the victim makes the shady, bizarre final phone call or
Speaker 4: seen looking down at their phone in the last known moments.
Speaker 3: Of their lives.
Speaker 4: Dakota's parents say there is no possible way he could
Speaker 4: have drowned because he was a star athlete and his
Speaker 4: school's swim team captain. They also said their son was
Speaker 4: not an inexperienced drinker and there is no way he
Speaker 4: would have allowed himself to become so ineviated as to
Speaker 4: accidentally fall into a river from bridge and then not
Speaker 4: be able to get himself out. Four years later, and
Speaker 4: there's no new information in Dakota's case at this time.
Speaker 4: It's still closed and still ruled an accidental drowning. His
Speaker 4: parents still have no answers to their many questions, mainly
Speaker 4: could this have been the work of the smiley face
Speaker 4: killer or killers. Next case, on January nineteenth, twenty eighteen,
Speaker 4: in Woodland, Pennsylvania, a young man named Tommy Booth was
Speaker 4: out celebrating his birthday marhopping with his friends. This has
Speaker 4: yet an nother case which displays one or several of
Speaker 4: the parameters known to be a smiley faced killing possibility.
Speaker 4: Tommy Booth was captured on the bar of surveillance footage
Speaker 4: entering the bar, but there was no video evidence of
Speaker 4: him ever having left. This is far more common than
Speaker 4: you might think. It's one of the main things which
Speaker 4: people who subscribe to this theory think is extremely strange
Speaker 4: and cannot easily be explained away. How can someone be
Speaker 4: captured on surveillance video entering a place but then not exiting,
Speaker 4: only to be found later on deceeased somewhere in a
Speaker 4: seemingly random nearby water source. Many people take this evidence,
Speaker 4: or lack thereof, alone as a reason to point to
Speaker 4: a group of killers, or possibly an individual being responsible
Speaker 4: for these seemingly accidental deaths. There's just too much here
Speaker 4: that doesn't make sense. Tommy Booth was found face down
Speaker 4: in the creek right behind the bar two weeks after
Speaker 4: he'd gone missing. There were no signs trauma on his body,
Speaker 4: and it was ruled a probable drowning. This is another
Speaker 4: way in which it seems the authorities involved in these
Speaker 4: cases try to play it fast and loose with rewarding
Speaker 4: in these autopsy reports. What exactly does probable drowning mean
Speaker 4: it means the corner isn't sure exactly what happened and
Speaker 4: thinks it might mean that the young man drowned loose
Speaker 4: case is not the only autopsy to have this determination
Speaker 4: of death, and it's downright confusing. How are these cases
Speaker 4: both Tommy Booths and those similar with the same death
Speaker 4: determination being closed if the autopsy doesn't have an exact
Speaker 4: cause of death. This is where the human element comes
Speaker 4: into play, whether you're discussing the inability for the corner
Speaker 4: to determine an exact cause of death or wondering how
Speaker 4: a person or even a group of people could possibly
Speaker 4: continuously pull off these seemingly perfect yet completely confusing deaths
Speaker 4: without leaving behind any evidence at all or being caught.
Speaker 4: In fact, these smiley faced killers must be so adept
Speaker 4: at their work that most people don't even believe they exist,
Speaker 4: and most investigators won't acknowledge that they just might. Another
Speaker 4: very strange thing about Tom Booth's case is not only
Speaker 4: his body having no signs of any kind of trauma
Speaker 4: to it, but the place where his body was discovered.
Speaker 4: It had been searched several times in the two weeks
Speaker 4: before he was found there and apparently nobody even noticed it.
Speaker 4: He was right out in the open, though so many
Speaker 4: involved think that for him to have been found there
Speaker 4: says it all. There must have been some kind of
Speaker 4: foul play because he obviously wasn't there the whole time.
Speaker 4: Groups of searchers had gone back and forth down the
Speaker 4: creek for weeks and found nothing. This is yet another
Speaker 4: parameter we must look for it while investigating these cases.
Speaker 4: According to information released in the book case Studies in
Speaker 4: Droughting Forensics, written by Kevin Gannon and doctor Lee Gilbertson,
Speaker 4: Boost's body was in full rigor mortis. This is important
Speaker 4: because if you remember, he was missing for two weeks
Speaker 4: and found in an area which had been repeatedly searched
Speaker 4: again like so many of these other cases, and full
Speaker 4: rigor almost always dissipates within twenty four to thirty six hours.
Speaker 4: This was just more proof to his friends, loved ones,
Speaker 4: and even the volunteers and searched for him that foul
Speaker 4: play was afoot. This would be a very reasonable explanation
Speaker 4: as to why his body just seemed to randomly appear
Speaker 4: one day. He couldn't possibly been there the whole two weeks.
Speaker 4: He was missing, and in fact had only been deceased
Speaker 4: for twenty four to thirty six hours, So where had
Speaker 4: he been the rest of the time. This is another
Speaker 4: question commonly asked when reviewing the possible victims of the
Speaker 4: Smiley Faced killer autopsies. Many many of these young men
Speaker 4: are found in places which were already searched, and also
Speaker 4: they hadn't been deceased nearly as long as they been missing. However,
Speaker 4: law enforcement across many states and counties have given over
Speaker 4: to just ignoring this one little fact and pretending as
Speaker 4: though it is somehow possible for all this to be occurring,
Speaker 4: acting as if it makes perfect sense in the hopes
Speaker 4: that they do not have a group of killers on
Speaker 4: their hands who have been operating at a perfect success
Speaker 4: rate right under their noses for.
Speaker 3: Over twenty years now.
Speaker 4: Kevin Gannon and Lee Gilbertson were also the opinion that
Speaker 4: the body had been carefully staged. There seemed to be
Speaker 4: three sticks strategically placed around the body, and there were
Speaker 4: shoeing drag marks in the soil. A smiley face was
Speaker 4: found painted under the deck of the bar on a
Speaker 4: wall very nearby the body. These are just a few
Speaker 4: of the many, many cases where, in the opinions of
Speaker 4: most civilians familiar with what happened, the authorities should have
Speaker 4: had some serious questions. Each case has at least one
Speaker 4: thing mary blatant which stands out is not right or off.
Speaker 4: How is it that police and investigators aren't seeing these things?
Speaker 4: How is it the medical examiners aren't asking the very
Speaker 4: same questions such as whose hair is that? Question in
Speaker 4: his hand? And how did those sticks get placed like that?
Speaker 4: And how did he drag his own body? He's unanswered
Speaker 4: questions and many many more. Or what continued to fuel
Speaker 4: this theory? Is there something going on out there at
Speaker 4: which the government, local authorities, and even the media are
Speaker 4: trying to keep from us the general public sure seems
Speaker 4: that way to many of the families of the victims too.
Speaker 4: Take the tragic case of Lucas Holman forget another example,
Speaker 4: another tragic death which, no matter where you look at
Speaker 4: it just doesn't quite add up. Lucas Holman was a
Speaker 4: twenty one year old who vanished on September twenty ninth,
Speaker 4: two thousand and six, from Lacrosse, Wisconsin. Lucas case is
Speaker 4: almost the exact same as the others. He was out
Speaker 4: celebrating October with a group of friends. Everyone was drinking, partying,
Speaker 4: and having a right time. But here's where things get
Speaker 4: extremely confusing and even bizarre. In this case, Lucas and
Speaker 4: one of his friends left the bar at around ten pm.
Speaker 4: They started to walk home together, but somehow, and it's
Speaker 4: still unknown exactly what happened and how it happened, Lucas
Speaker 4: and his friend got separated. The friend ended up in
Speaker 4: a local emergency room that night with a pretty serious
Speaker 4: head injury and no memory of what had occurred. For
Speaker 4: almost entirety that night, it was all just coming up blank.
Speaker 4: So here we had the point of random separation and
Speaker 4: somebody possibly being knocked out and waking up from the hospital.
Speaker 4: Many people feel this is two coincidental and could possibly
Speaker 4: indicate the friend was knocked out and someone or a
Speaker 4: group of someone's swooped in and abducted Lucas. This is,
Speaker 4: after all, the very basis of the Smiley Face killer theory.
Speaker 4: While the paranormal community searches transwers to all the missing
Speaker 4: people just vanishing around the world without a trace, in
Speaker 4: the supernatural realm, some people are looking for a human element,
Speaker 4: things like the GHB levels that we mentioned and this
Speaker 4: particular friend's head injury and blackout as to what led
Speaker 4: them down this path At this point, it's actually more
Speaker 4: like a rabbit hole than a path. When Lucas didn't
Speaker 4: show up for a golf outing the next day, he
Speaker 4: was reported as missing. Search dogs scouted the area where
Speaker 4: Lucas had been seen, and, according to the official police report,
Speaker 4: one of the dogs actually got a hit. The dog
Speaker 4: alerted on a band that belonged to a local band member.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure if these were just regular search dogs
Speaker 4: or could have her dogs, but either way, that was
Speaker 4: a pretty interesting lead. This band member just happened to
Speaker 4: have been playing a gig in the same bar where
Speaker 4: Lucas was last seen leaving the night before. Somewhere someone
Speaker 4: came to the conclusion that the dogs alert was inconclusive
Speaker 4: and the band member was never named as a suspect
Speaker 4: or charged with any crime. In Digging a little deeper
Speaker 4: beneath the surface, though, the story actually gets a little
Speaker 4: bit stranger. The friend who was with Lucas that night,
Speaker 4: the one who said he just blacked out. When he
Speaker 4: turned up in the emergency room with a head injury,
Speaker 4: he was charged with obstruction of justice when the authorities
Speaker 4: found out. Despite him telling the investigators he couldn't remember
Speaker 4: he had told multiple stories to different people who later
Speaker 4: came board.
Speaker 3: And told the police.
Speaker 4: None of these alternate stories he was running around telling
Speaker 4: anyone who would listen had him blacking out. In fact,
Speaker 4: he seemed to tell almost the same story to everyone,
Speaker 4: was just minute differences here and there. He had been
Speaker 4: overheard saying that Lucas had gotten into an altercation and
Speaker 4: fled and that was the last time he saw him.
Speaker 4: He then reported to he yet another person that he
Speaker 4: had been cut when he was punched the head injury
Speaker 4: because Lucas had gotten into a fight with three other
Speaker 4: bar patrons. He also told the story about how Lucas
Speaker 4: had decided to yearnate outside of the bar, right next
Speaker 4: to the band's van, well of the members of the band. Coincidentally,
Speaker 4: depending on what you believe, it was the same band
Speaker 4: member who owned the van.
Speaker 3: That the dog hit on.
Speaker 4: Allegedly, this band member thought Lucas said you're NATed on
Speaker 4: some of their equipment and started beating Lucas up until
Speaker 4: the friend ran off after trying to break it up
Speaker 4: and getting hit. It confuses some people because if this
Speaker 4: friend actually got hit during an altercation outside of a bar,
Speaker 4: would it really be that bad that you not only
Speaker 4: need to rush to the mergency room, but also you
Speaker 4: feel the need to lie to police officers conducting an
Speaker 4: investigation into the disappearance of your friend, who you were
Speaker 4: the last one to see alive besides his killers. Three
Speaker 4: days after last being seen walking home from the bar,
Speaker 4: Lucas Holman's body was found floating in the Mississippi River.
Speaker 4: The autopsy report listed acute alcohol intoxication as a major
Speaker 4: contributing factor in Lucas's death. Lucas' parents are more than confused,
Speaker 4: to say the least. His mother, Patty, said that she
Speaker 4: was terrified of her son going anywhere near the Mississippi River.
Speaker 4: She said that every time he would leave her when
Speaker 4: they were visiting, she would yell, don't go near the water.
Speaker 4: The reason's parents were so concerned with the water was
Speaker 4: the seven other young men who had gone missing and
Speaker 4: ended up in the river, seven mysterious drownings in even
Speaker 4: fewer years more early, when lucas mother would yell this
Speaker 4: to him about the water, she said he would respond
Speaker 4: by laughing and explaining to her. Mom I've never even
Speaker 4: been to the water. Everything we do is away from
Speaker 4: the water. I have no reason to go to the water.
Speaker 4: Lucas parents, Patty and Jerry, said his death makes no
Speaker 4: sense because they know for an absolute fact he wouldn't
Speaker 4: have gone anywhere near the river's edge, and also the
Speaker 4: river was nowhere near his route home, which is allegedly
Speaker 4: where he was walking to when he left the bar
Speaker 4: that faithful night. This is yet another case where the
Speaker 4: blood wasn't tested for GHB. It is a normal substance
Speaker 4: for an autopsy to test for.
Speaker 3: Maybe it should be. The weekend before he.
Speaker 4: Went missing, Lucas and his friends were just casually discussing
Speaker 4: the tragic and mysterious drowning desks of the previously mentioned
Speaker 4: seven other young men when Lucas allegedly told his friends, quote,
Speaker 4: you pretty much have to be a dummy to drown in.
Speaker 3: The river end quote?
Speaker 4: Have there ever been more faithful words spoken? In a
Speaker 4: recent documentary about some of these strange drowning cases and
Speaker 4: the possibility of a smiley face killer or killers, an
Speaker 4: underwater forensic expert was brought in to help review some
Speaker 4: of the evidence in the Lucas Homan case. And what
Speaker 4: they had to say was very interesting, to say the least.
Speaker 4: The underwater forensic expert's name is Bobby Chacombe. The team
Speaker 4: also consulted with both a forensic footwear specialist named Marty
Speaker 4: Lutis and William Moore, who is a forensic tool mark analyst.
Speaker 4: All three of these men are experts and very well
Speaker 4: respected in their fields. Jack On estimated that Lucas had
Speaker 4: only been in the water for three hours, which goes
Speaker 4: against what the police wrote in their official statement, which
Speaker 4: was that he had been in the water the entire
Speaker 4: time he was missing, around fifty hours. This begs the question,
Speaker 4: if you'd only been in the water for three hours,
Speaker 4: then where was he for the other forty seven hours
Speaker 4: he was missing. This is something that comes up constantly
Speaker 4: when discussing the Smiley Faced killers. A lot of the
Speaker 4: victims are found in water and have been missing for
Speaker 4: days or even weeks, but it's later found they've only
Speaker 4: been in the water for maybe a few hours or
Speaker 4: even a day or two. Where were they the rest
Speaker 4: of the time being tortured? Unfortunately we still don't know,
Speaker 4: and maybe we never will. Bobby Chacne wasn't the only
Speaker 4: one whose expert opinion contradicted the official autopsy and Corners findings.
Speaker 4: Either Moore and Loutis analyzed the marks and bruises, scrapes,
Speaker 4: and scratches.
Speaker 3: All over Lucas's body when he was pulled out of
Speaker 3: the river.
Speaker 4: The police and eventually in the Corner stated officially that
Speaker 4: these marks were all completely consistent with being dragged through
Speaker 4: a river and hitting logs and rocks and anything else
Speaker 4: which might have gotten in the way of a decomposing body. However,
Speaker 4: Lucas and Moore concluded that the marks on lucas forehead
Speaker 4: were consistent with someone pinning him down with the sole
Speaker 4: of their boot, so a boot pressed against his forehead
Speaker 4: keeping him from getting up. Many people started asking questions
Speaker 4: about all this and wondering how the world the official
Speaker 4: police reports and the autopsy could have been so very
Speaker 4: different from the subsequent investigation findings. After all, what would
Speaker 4: these outside experts have to gain. The local authorities and
Speaker 4: even the corner probably thinking about the absolute panic and
Speaker 4: hysteria which would surely follow an announcement of this magnitude.
Speaker 4: A single killer or a group of killers running around
Speaker 4: abducting and murdering our nation's youth without leaving any trace
Speaker 4: across the span of more than a decade. Were they
Speaker 4: covering this up on purpose or were they just inept
Speaker 4: at their job to have gotten it so horribly wrong?
Speaker 4: At least according to these three outside forensics experts, based
Speaker 4: on the minimal body decomposition and wound pattern, these experts
Speaker 4: concluded that Lucas Horman's death could not have been that
Speaker 4: of an accidental drowning, Though it doesn't say officially where,
Speaker 4: it supported in other smiley face killer investigations that there
Speaker 4: was in fact a smiley face painted near Lucas's body. Next,
Speaker 4: we have Todd Gabe. He was just another bright young
Speaker 4: man out having some fun at a bonfire party with
Speaker 4: some friends on the night of June twelfth, two thousand
Speaker 4: and five. The party was very close to the twenty
Speaker 4: two year old's house in Casanova, Michigan. The bonfire took
Speaker 4: place in the early morning hours, and Todd was reported
Speaker 4: his missing later that day. On the night of his disappearance,
Speaker 4: he made several phone calls to numerous different friends, but
Speaker 4: only one had actually answered. The friends stated that when
Speaker 4: he answered, he heard Todd say I'm in a field
Speaker 4: before the call ended. To this day, no one is
Speaker 4: sure if Todd ended the call, if the phone died,
Speaker 4: if he lost service, or if something completely unknown happened.
Speaker 4: What we do know is that this is the last
Speaker 4: call Todd's phone would ever make, and it would go
Speaker 4: straight to voicemail from then on. His body was found
Speaker 4: three weeks later. Surprisingly, it was found in a lake
Speaker 4: which was near the bonfire he had last been seen
Speaker 4: that that had already been searched more than once. And
Speaker 4: as if this weren't strange enough, the position of Todd's
Speaker 4: body definitely raised some eyebrows. His body was found with
Speaker 4: the head and shoulders sticking out of the water. He
Speaker 4: was just bobbing there if he had jumped in to
Speaker 4: take a quick swim and had been just standing there,
Speaker 4: if the searchers hadn't known better, That's exactly what it
Speaker 4: would have looked like, as though Todd were simply waiting
Speaker 4: in the water up to his shoulders. Todd's body also
Speaker 4: had very little signs of decomposition. According to reports, his
Speaker 4: body's decomposition was that of how it should have been
Speaker 4: the day he went missing, twenty two days earlier. So
Speaker 4: this all once again begs the question where was Todd
Speaker 4: for that other twenty one days. He was definitely not
Speaker 4: in the water, according to the breaking down of his
Speaker 4: body after death twenty two days.
Speaker 3: So where was it?
Speaker 4: Nobody seems to be asking these questions other than the family,
Speaker 4: let alone answering them. The authorities closed this case as
Speaker 4: another accidental drowning and shalked it up to Todd having
Speaker 4: had too much to drink and accidentally wandering into the lake.
Speaker 4: Todd would have been able to easily stand on the
Speaker 4: spot of the lake where he was found too. Why
Speaker 4: didn't he just walk out of the lake and save himself.
Speaker 4: While both alcohol and antidepressants were found in Todd's bloodstream,
Speaker 4: neither were to the level of incapacitation and hardly even
Speaker 4: at the level be considered intoxicated at all. Why didn't
Speaker 4: he save himself? Where did the antidepressants come from? They
Speaker 4: weren't prescribed to Todd, and he was not clinically known
Speaker 4: to be suffering from any form of depression at the
Speaker 4: time he ended up in the lake. The note a
Speaker 4: smiley face was painted on a tree near the spot
Speaker 4: of the lake crew was found, and later on a
Speaker 4: smiley face sticker was placed on his gravestone as well.
Speaker 4: Nobody knows who put it there now. Depending on who
Speaker 4: you ask, some will say the smiley faced killer or
Speaker 4: killers have taken the lives of more than forty young
Speaker 4: college men with tons of potential throughout the course of
Speaker 4: two decades. These were star athletes, those are above average intelligence,
Speaker 4: many with Germanic heritage. If you ask others, though, some
Speaker 4: may tell you there is no killer and there's something
Speaker 4: else going on. Entirely, here is the case for there
Speaker 4: being a killer responsible for all of these accidental groundings.
Speaker 4: After all, how much can we talk up to coincidence
Speaker 4: without our gut telling us something just isn't right. Between
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety seven and two thousand and eight, authorities across
Speaker 4: eleven states and in more than twenty five cities removed
Speaker 4: the bodies of more than forty white, young talented men
Speaker 4: from local lakes and rivers, being pulled dead under very
Speaker 4: suspicious circumstances out of bodies of water they had no
Speaker 4: business or reason to be anywhere near. In fact, in
Speaker 4: most cases, the young men who ended up in these
Speaker 4: watery graves would have had to go far out of
Speaker 4: their way to reach these water sources. When considering where
Speaker 4: they were last seen or said to be going.
Speaker 3: Almost all of them.
Speaker 4: Had been last seen either leaving or in a few
Speaker 4: cases still in bars or clubs, and what looked to
Speaker 4: be an inebriated state. As we've seen already, though and
Speaker 4: I'm sure we'll come across again, many of them weren't
Speaker 4: actually even drinking that much, And almost none of them
Speaker 4: did any kind of drugs either, despite the one drug
Speaker 4: which keeps coming up over and over again, and i'm
Speaker 4: sure will come up more upon, more thorough and in
Speaker 4: foreign investigations. Yes, we're talking about GHB. Unfortunately, the authorities
Speaker 4: responsible for investigating these tragic deaths have time and time
Speaker 4: again concluded that and they're alleged and neborated and drunken
Speaker 4: states these men have somehow accidentally fallen or ended up
Speaker 4: in the water. However, as you will come to see
Speaker 4: if you haven't already, they don't seem to be taking
Speaker 4: into account all the evidence and are merely putting only
Speaker 4: surface effort into closing these cases and finding out what
Speaker 4: really happened. Even more tragically, this leaves the victims' families
Speaker 4: to have to investigate the horrible deaths of their sons, brothers, nephews, uncles,
Speaker 4: and even in some cases their fathers by themselves. This
Speaker 4: is all the more tragic and all the more reason
Speaker 4: we all need to start paying attention and putting it
Speaker 4: all together, having it so all the evidence is included
Speaker 4: in the investigation. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like that's going
Speaker 4: to happen anytime soon. In the cases which have already
Speaker 4: been closed and deemed accidental, the police and investigators involved,
Speaker 4: despite compelling new evidence in many of the cases, are
Speaker 4: unwilling or unable to come forward and admit a mistake
Speaker 4: was made. Therefore, are these families really receiving justice? Twenty
Speaker 4: two out of these forty cases have had some form
Speaker 4: of smiley faced symbol very near to where they were found. Coincidence,
Speaker 4: you'd be the judge. Detective turned private investigator Kevin Gannon
Speaker 4: and his partner Anthony Duarte don't think so, and have
Speaker 4: set out on a mission to help these loved ones
Speaker 4: find some real answers. Their take on the whole thing
Speaker 4: Smiley faced killers. They hypothesize that there is a group
Speaker 4: of serial killers abducting these young men after drugging them
Speaker 4: and somehow getting them to leave their group of friends behind.
Speaker 4: Usually without saying anything. Most of the time, it seems
Speaker 4: like these young men just get very inebraated, very quickly
Speaker 4: and wander off accidentally because they don't know any better
Speaker 4: at that point, or possibly are they lord away. One
Speaker 4: of the investigators even commented about the alleged group of killers,
Speaker 4: they're psychopaths.
Speaker 3: They have no remorse.
Speaker 4: The case, that is the basis for most of their
Speaker 4: theory and what kind of started it all is the
Speaker 4: tragic death of Patrick McNeil. Patrick McNeil was a twenty
Speaker 4: one year old Fordham University student in New York when
Speaker 4: he went missing on February sixteenth, nineteen ninety seven. On
Speaker 4: this night, Patrick was last seen leaving a bar called
Speaker 4: The Dapper Dog, which is located in the Upper East
Speaker 4: Side of Manhattan. At this point in time, the world
Speaker 4: had never heard of the smiley faced killer or killers,
Speaker 4: and this seems to be the first documented case. Now
Speaker 4: there are many conflicting reports about Patrick and what happened
Speaker 4: the last night he was alive. It starts with some
Speaker 4: witnesses stating that he was highly intoxicated and others saying
Speaker 4: he barely had a drink. Frustrating, I know, but the
Speaker 4: inconsistencies don't stop there. They should be mentioned here that
Speaker 4: by the time Patrick and his college buddies decided The
Speaker 4: Dapper Dog was going to be their main hangout spot,
Speaker 4: this place already had numerous citations, not only for serving
Speaker 4: customers who are visibly intoxicated in should probably have been
Speaker 4: cut off, but also for serving to underage drinkers, so
Speaker 4: not a very reputable establishment in the opinion of most.
Speaker 4: One of Patrick's roommates, who it should be mentioned, didn't
Speaker 4: like Patrick one bit, was the master of ceremonies. On
Speaker 4: this particular night, Patrick wanted to show up, despite the
Speaker 4: rift between him and this other kid, to try and
Speaker 4: ease attention and possibly make peace by showing his support
Speaker 4: as a possible friend and roommate. He didn't want the drama,
Speaker 4: thought the guy might give him a break if he
Speaker 4: showed up and win his support. It's also said, though,
Speaker 4: that the main reason Patrick actually showed up wasn't because
Speaker 4: he cared at all about this roommate who didn't even
Speaker 4: like him, but because he was in charge of booking
Speaker 4: entertainment acts for his university and was there for this reason. Again,
Speaker 4: this is just some of the conflicting information which has
Speaker 4: never been sorted through. Patrick had six roommates at Fordham
Speaker 4: On campus, with him being number seven of the young men.
Speaker 4: In one house. Of these young men, the aforementioned master
Speaker 4: of ceremonies confessed publicly, both to his face andrals behind
Speaker 4: his back, that he disliked Patrick because he was a womanizer.
Speaker 4: The other student also alleged that he disliked Patrick because
Speaker 4: he was always preening and cared too much about academic status. Indeed,
Speaker 4: Patrick McNeil was known for being both attractive and studious.
Speaker 4: Patrick was about six feet tall and one hundred and ninety
Speaker 4: five pounds and took hay. He looked very seriously. He
Speaker 4: took care of himself and worked out regularly. When Patrick
Speaker 4: said goodbye to his friends and roommates that faithful night,
Speaker 4: he informed them that he was going to hit the
Speaker 4: subway and take the train back to the Bronx campus.
Speaker 4: Some witnesses sat Patrick was just standing out in front
Speaker 4: of the bar.
Speaker 3: Allegedly, he stated.
Speaker 4: He was waiting for a female friend to come and
Speaker 4: take the subway with him. However, whether that's what he
Speaker 4: was actually doing loitering in front of the bar for
Speaker 4: a while or not, a female never turned up, and
Speaker 4: after a while Patrick was back on his way again,
Speaker 4: trying to get to campus called a knight. As Patrick
Speaker 4: made his way south from the bar, several passers by,
Speaker 4: and describes his state as falling over and stumbling. He
Speaker 4: allegedly even fell to the ground several times, enough that
Speaker 4: some motorists passing by stopped and offered to help him.
Speaker 4: He refused to help each time and kept stumbling forward
Speaker 4: on his way. These witnesses who allegedly saw him that
Speaker 4: night in this drunken state also reported something else, something
Speaker 4: very eerie and interesting. Given how this whole situation turned out,
Speaker 4: There are more than several witnesses who came forward and
Speaker 4: stated that they had observed a vehicle following Patrick from
Speaker 4: the time he walked out of the Daffer Dog until
Speaker 4: he turned the corner at ninetieth Street and seemingly vanished
Speaker 4: into thin air. Apparently this vehicle was so so suspicious
Speaker 4: one of the other drivers on the road who had
Speaker 4: observed what was going on had to mind to write
Speaker 4: down a partial plate for the vehicle in question. When
Speaker 4: Patrick made the left on the nineteth Street and was
Speaker 4: never seen again. It supported this vehicle made the left
Speaker 4: as well. We must keep in mind here that in
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety seven, surveillance everywhere was just in its infancy,
Speaker 4: and it wasn't everywhere you turned at that point like
Speaker 4: it is today. It's worth mentioning that the vehicle was
Speaker 4: never found or seen again either, even having the partial
Speaker 4: license plate and reporting it to the police. Despite several
Speaker 4: witnesses coming forward about this suspicious vehicle and what the
Speaker 4: possible intended the driver could have been, the car was
Speaker 4: never found. Patrick was found on April seventh, approximately twelve
Speaker 4: miles before he was last seen. It was wearing only
Speaker 4: socks and jeans. Multiple detectives and police officers, along with
Speaker 4: some staff and the owners of the Dapper Dog, allegedly
Speaker 4: made some pretty aggressively judgmental statements about Patrick. These derogatory
Speaker 4: statements were made to the public and also to Patrick's
Speaker 4: family insistence from the authorities that he was running away
Speaker 4: from the females he impregnated. They also stated things like
Speaker 4: he didn't want to be in college and is somewhere
Speaker 4: being free of his responsibilities, and downright accused him of
Speaker 4: being a heroin addict. Now, it's never been substantiated that
Speaker 4: Patrick had done any illicit drugs, had run away from
Speaker 4: his problems, had gotten even one female pregnant, let alone.
Speaker 4: A few were that he had any plans of not
Speaker 4: finishing school. In fact, he was right on track to
Speaker 4: achieving his ultimate goal, which was working for the FBI.
Speaker 4: All of this, it seemed to many, was just the
Speaker 4: police not wanting to have to deal with the search
Speaker 4: because they had no leads and therefore no answers to
Speaker 4: give the grieving family as to why the owners and
Speaker 4: some staff of the bar he was last seen at
Speaker 4: were also making character assassination statements against Patrick. Well, many
Speaker 4: chalked that up to them not wanting to be in
Speaker 4: the middle of a missing person's mystery on top of
Speaker 4: all the other troubles they were in on a free
Speaker 4: regular basis. They all seemed to want to distance himself
Speaker 4: from Patrick and his disappearance and eventual death. After all,
Speaker 4: Patrick McNeil's case had become one of the largest missing
Speaker 4: persons cases in the.
Speaker 3: City's history at that time.
Speaker 4: All of this unproductiveness obviously wasn't getting anyone any closer
Speaker 4: to finding Patrick or figuring out what had happened to him.
Speaker 4: Once they finally did discover his body, Multiple false reports
Speaker 4: of a man matching his description being called in during
Speaker 4: the few months when everyone was actually searching. Wasn't helping
Speaker 4: matters either. Of course, none of these sightings have ever
Speaker 4: been substantiated, and most likely, now that we know where
Speaker 4: Patrick ended up, were not Patrick at all and had
Speaker 4: nothing to do with anything but wasting police of time.
Speaker 4: NYPD Detective Kevin Gannon stated about Patrick's death, Patrick's death
Speaker 4: was not an accidental drowning. He was stalked, abducted, held
Speaker 4: for a period of time, murdered, and disposed of. Patrick Neil,
Speaker 4: at least when speaking on the Smiley Face Killers, is
Speaker 4: often referred to as victim zero. One last thing about
Speaker 4: Patrick's autopsy which really stumped and even angered a lot
Speaker 4: of people who were invested in the case and also
Speaker 4: very frustrated with the investigating authorities. The coroner actually wrote
Speaker 4: in the final report that Patrick's alcohol level was more
Speaker 4: than a little, but less than a lot. What a
Speaker 4: ludicrous statement once again, and made this statement about the
Speaker 4: case and started filling the police in on all the
Speaker 4: strange circumstances surrounding the death. The police did reopen the
Speaker 4: case intentively started to reconsider it as a potential abduction
Speaker 4: and murder, pending further investigation by the police. Again, it
Speaker 4: had been reviewing the evidence and photos of the body
Speaker 4: after his recover from the water, and he noticed that
Speaker 4: due to skin slippage, it was highly unlikely Patrick had
Speaker 4: been in the water in the entire couple months he
Speaker 4: was missing, and it was much more likely that he
Speaker 4: had only been in there a.
Speaker 3: Couple of days.
Speaker 4: Now this poses the obvious question of or was he
Speaker 4: until then, or was he up until a few days
Speaker 4: before he was found when it seemed he had entered
Speaker 4: the water. Gannon and some experts he brought in to
Speaker 4: help him review the photos and information, which he thought
Speaker 4: were all very suspicious. We're also calling attention to the
Speaker 4: fact that people who accidentally drown are found face up,
Speaker 4: as Patrick was, and also they normally don't have ligature markings, specifically.
Speaker 3: Rope burns around their necks.
Speaker 4: There were also other markings that indicated some sort of
Speaker 4: possible strangulation and or hanging scenario.
Speaker 3: That happened before he's put in the water by his
Speaker 3: murder or murderers.
Speaker 4: According to Gannon's theory, at least many people believe the
Speaker 4: most compelling evidence to back up the theory Patrick had
Speaker 4: in fact been held and then killed and put into
Speaker 4: the water. Are the findings of a renowned medical, legal,
Speaker 4: and forensic pathologist who became a consultant on many of
Speaker 4: these cases eventually, doctor Cyril wecked. Doctor Weck is very
Speaker 4: well respected and regarded as top in his field. He
Speaker 4: said about Patrick's body, I'm saying that the fly larvae
Speaker 4: that had been laid in the growing area, it was
Speaker 4: from an indoor fly and could not have been from
Speaker 4: an outdoor fly. It was an indoor fly, and the
Speaker 4: larva we was there did not move ahead into the
Speaker 4: later stage. So we have a body that was already
Speaker 4: dead before it was placed in the water. I would
Speaker 4: call it a homicide.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 4: Gannon became the only friend in law enforcement to the
Speaker 4: family who believed with Gannon that Patrick had indeed been murdered.
Speaker 4: Kevin Gannon believed Patrick would slipped something, in his opinion,
Speaker 4: probably rowe, hypnol or GHB, both of which are extremely
Speaker 4: fast acting and both of which could cause the stumbling,
Speaker 4: confusion and disorientation Patrick had been allegedly exhibiting once he
Speaker 4: left the bar that night. This is what witnesses who
Speaker 4: saw him had reported. These substances are also broken down
Speaker 4: very quickly and are basically untraceable in an autopsy, mainly
Speaker 4: because even if they were in the system and it
Speaker 4: hadn't been metabolized off yet, neither is automatically searched for
Speaker 4: the results for these two substances must be specifically made
Speaker 4: and wouldn't be for someone considered to have accidentally ground
Speaker 4: due to intoxication. Another angle Kevin Gannon was looking to
Speaker 4: pursue was finding the owner and occupants of the storage
Speaker 4: vehicle multiple witnesses had reported was stalking and following Patrick
Speaker 4: for the second he walked out of the bar till
Speaker 4: the second he and the vehicle both turned left onto
Speaker 4: nintieth Street. However, all of this speculation, as much sense
Speaker 4: as it made, was for nothing because it has never
Speaker 4: been proven one way or the other what actually happened
Speaker 4: to Patrick McNeil or why Twenty four years later and
Speaker 4: we still have no tangible proof he was abducted and killed.
Speaker 4: Despite all this, police were convinced Patrick's death was to
Speaker 4: as old of a series of unfortunate random events that
Speaker 4: led the poor young man into the water that night.
Speaker 4: Case closed. It wasn't for lack of trying. Though, for
Speaker 4: his part, I'd like to mention at least one more
Speaker 4: thing Detective Gannon had tried to do to help in
Speaker 4: the investigation, and that was requesting police do what is
Speaker 4: called a lawman's search to determine the rest of the
Speaker 4: characters on the partial plate they have been given on
Speaker 4: the suspicious vehicle. The police in charge the case declined
Speaker 4: Gannon's request, however, as they said the twelve hundred dollars
Speaker 4: price tag was too much money, and also the time
Speaker 4: and effort it would take on their department, which was
Speaker 4: already stretched right then to begin with, would be a waste.
Speaker 4: They refused to acknowledge any evidence of the contrary to
Speaker 4: their initial statement and conclusion of the accidental drowning. This
Speaker 4: is not the only case this has happened in, and actually,
Speaker 4: if you dig deep enough in the forty plus cases
Speaker 4: that have happened since Patrick's case in nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 4: you will see that this has become a very familiar
Speaker 4: and very unfortunate pattern. Now are the police, media, and
Speaker 4: even the medical examiners involved so easily able to blow
Speaker 4: off such compelling and tangible evidence. Well, that's the question,
Speaker 4: isn't it. On April sixteenth, nineteen ninety seven, the Chief
Speaker 4: Medical Examiner for New York City, despite all the evidence
Speaker 4: brought to him by Gannon himself, the experts Gannon brought in,
Speaker 4: and even just the eyewitnesses to Patrick's condition on the
Speaker 4: last night he was seen alive, concluded officially that Patrick
Speaker 4: had died of accidental drowning, with cause of death still undetermined.
Speaker 4: Many involved, including the family, of course, had a very
Speaker 4: hard time understanding that statement. Cause of death drowning, cause
Speaker 4: of death undetermined, stated all in the same sentence.
Speaker 3: Unbelievable.
Speaker 4: Next case you'd like to examine in depth, twenty four
Speaker 4: year old Navy veteran William Hurley was attending a Bruin's
Speaker 4: hockey game in Boston, Massachusetts, on April eighth, two thousand
Speaker 4: and nine. William, as yet another young man who suddenly,
Speaker 4: and without any reasonaby explanation, became very dizzy, disoriented, and
Speaker 4: sick while simply sitting in his seat at the game.
Speaker 4: He was feeling so terrible, in fact, he called his fiancee,
Speaker 4: Claire Mahoney, to come and pick him up. He'd attended
Speaker 4: the hockey game with two friends and decided to leave
Speaker 4: early because of how terrible he was feeling, and he
Speaker 4: knew he had to work early in the morning. Anyway,
Speaker 4: William Hurley walked outside and was supposed to wait for
Speaker 4: Claire to arrive. When Claire arrived, however, William was no
Speaker 4: hor in sight, despite them having agreed upon a specific
Speaker 4: meeting place. She decided to call him and ask exactly
Speaker 4: who he was, because she was right at the main
Speaker 4: entrance and couldn't have been very far from him. She
Speaker 4: was close by when he initially called, and it didn't
Speaker 4: take long for her to originally get there. That was
Speaker 4: strange in itself, how quickly she had gotten there and
Speaker 4: his not being there. According to Claire, when he answered
Speaker 4: the phone, she heard him ask somebody where he was located,
Speaker 4: and she heard an annoying male voice respond ninety nine
Speaker 4: National Street, which William then relayed to her. He also
Speaker 4: informed her that his phone was just about to die,
Speaker 4: so she may not be able to call him back.
Speaker 4: Neither seemed very worried about this, and she was literally
Speaker 4: just seconds away from the address he had just given her.
Speaker 4: When Claire pulled up in front of the National Street address, however,
Speaker 4: William was once again not there. He was nowhere in sight.
Speaker 4: She attempted to call him again, but his cell phone
Speaker 4: must have died after all, because the call went straight
Speaker 4: to voicemail without even ringing. Claire says she drove around
Speaker 4: and around all throughout the stadium, Nashville Street in the
Speaker 4: surrounding area for an entire hour before leaving and returning home.
Speaker 4: She figured there was a miscommunication somehow, or because his
Speaker 4: phone had died, William was never to let her know
Speaker 4: he'd gotten another ride. She assumed when she got home
Speaker 4: he would be there. However he wasn't. Claire immediately reported
Speaker 4: William missing, and several searches were conducted in the following days.
Speaker 4: Six days after he disappeared, however, Williams's body was found
Speaker 4: in the Charles River, almost exactly even in the water
Speaker 4: with the spot he had originally asked her to pick
Speaker 4: him up from. Why wasn't he there when she got
Speaker 4: there though? Who was the unknown man that gave William
Speaker 4: what most people think was the wrong location address. How
Speaker 4: did he get far enough away that Claire couldn't find
Speaker 4: any trace of him when she only had to make
Speaker 4: a quick right hand turn from where she was When
Speaker 4: she was on the phone with him the second time
Speaker 4: to the address he gave her of National Street. According
Speaker 4: to the official autopsy, William's death was ruled an undetermined drowning.
Speaker 4: Investigators stated there was no signs of foul play, another
Speaker 4: coincidental accident. However, William's mother wasn't satisfied with the investigation
Speaker 4: or lack thereof in this case, or the coroner's findings,
Speaker 4: so she obtained a copy of the report and gave
Speaker 4: it to an outside position to examine what this outside
Speaker 4: expert found a shocking considering who the official reports all stated.
Speaker 3: Stated that William had.
Speaker 4: Suffered blunt forced trauma to the head, behind his left
Speaker 4: eye socket and on his left leg, So essentially, William
Speaker 4: was severely beaten before entering the water. Additionally, when William's
Speaker 4: cell phone was located, it was smashed to bits. There
Speaker 4: was nowhere near the main entrance to the stadium or
Speaker 4: the address on National Street, both of the places he'd
Speaker 4: asked Claire to come.
Speaker 3: And get him from.
Speaker 4: Many people wonder why there was no further search into
Speaker 4: the mysterious man who gave William the address, why William's
Speaker 4: phone was smashed, or why he kept giving the wrong addresses.
Speaker 4: No testing for GHB was done, and he had hardly
Speaker 4: any alcohol in his system. What made William so sick,
Speaker 4: so suddenly, so disoriented and confused that he decided to
Speaker 4: leave the game early in the first place. All valid questions,
Speaker 4: all still without answers, And yes, a smiley face was
Speaker 4: found painted somewhere near the river. Though the number of
Speaker 4: alleged victims of this alleged killer or killers is officially
Speaker 4: in most reports lists of forty, that's only between nineteen
Speaker 4: ninety seven and twenty ten, there have been even more
Speaker 4: recent cases, and some say the number is as high
Speaker 4: as one hundred or more. For some, this widely unaccepted
Speaker 4: theory only took place between the above mentioned twenty three years. However,
Speaker 4: if you look beyond the year twenty twenty, you'll find
Speaker 4: many more strange and suspicious deaths, which made all the
Speaker 4: crackhire for the theory that Detective Kevin Gannon came out
Speaker 4: of retirement to investigate. Imagine, if there really is a
Speaker 4: group of killers out there going around and abducting our
Speaker 4: nation's young, fit, and intelligent men. All the victims were
Speaker 4: exceptional in some way or another. How can this possibly
Speaker 4: be a coincidence? Though the victims of these alleged serial
Speaker 4: killers are almost all exclusively Caucasian.
Speaker 3: There are certain exceptions.
Speaker 4: This particular exception is almost more bizarre and tragic than
Speaker 4: any of the others we've discussed. Let's take a look
Speaker 4: at Gelanni Dante Brinton. Because of his race that being
Speaker 4: African American, many people are even more baffled by Jilani's death.
Speaker 4: Even some of those who believe in Themiley Faced Killer's
Speaker 4: theory wholeheartedly have a hard time deciding if they believe
Speaker 4: this case is connected. In the book case Studies in
Speaker 4: Drowning Forensics, the authors list Jilanni as a victim of
Speaker 4: their theorized killers. On April seventeenth, two thousand and nine,
Speaker 4: Jelanni and a coworker from his job at Sprint in
Speaker 4: Brooklyn Park drove to another friend and co worker's house
Speaker 4: in a Naka after work. The very next day, when
Speaker 4: he failed to return home, his mother reported Jelani as missing.
Speaker 4: The search was conducted of the immediate area of the
Speaker 4: friend's house in Annaka on Kennedy Street, where he was
Speaker 4: last seen the night of the search. And stocking cap
Speaker 4: in one shoe were found in a neighbor's yard that Sunday,
Speaker 4: after what she'd been missing for two days, and the
Speaker 4: day after his shoe and cap were found. His other
Speaker 4: shoe was located outside of a nearby business. About a
Speaker 4: week later, at the green Haven golf Course in Anaka,
Speaker 4: Jelani's body was found in a pond. This golf course
Speaker 4: was a very short distance from Jelani's friend's house, where
Speaker 4: he was last seen alive. The official autopsy stated Jelani
Speaker 4: was placed in the water anywhere from twelve to twenty
Speaker 4: hours after he died, so again, this begs the question
Speaker 4: where was he for the rest of the time. Investigators
Speaker 4: spoke with the last three men to have been with Jelanni,
Speaker 4: and while they initially cooperated, they all gave conflicting statements
Speaker 4: and some are no longer being cooperative with the authorities.
Speaker 4: All three men did state, however, that Jelani was only
Speaker 4: in the home for less than five minutes, and all
Speaker 4: of a sudden he got up and took off, running.
Speaker 3: Out of the residence into the dark knight.
Speaker 4: They claimed this was the last time anyone has ever
Speaker 4: seen him alive. Geiulanni had a daughter at the time,
Speaker 4: and while he didn't know it, he was about to
Speaker 4: become a father again to his son, who would be.
Speaker 3: Named after him.
Speaker 4: Many people speculate that there are per of interest in
Speaker 4: this case, being the last three men to be with him,
Speaker 4: that this cannot possibly be a case of the smiley
Speaker 4: faced killers. Some, on the other hand, beg to differ.
Speaker 4: Nobody knows if the theory about the group of killers
Speaker 4: is real, let alone.
Speaker 3: Who is involved.
Speaker 4: What if one or possibly all of the men he
Speaker 4: was with last are involved somehow in the killings of
Speaker 4: all or most of the men? What is the theory
Speaker 4: on how these killers operate? That differs depending on who
Speaker 4: you ask. The theory most widely speculated about is the
Speaker 4: dark web theory. This theory goes that there's a group
Speaker 4: of people all throughout the United States and possibly other
Speaker 4: countries as well. England's can now push her in Manchester
Speaker 4: that are somehow operating deep in the dark web. They're
Speaker 4: so tech savvy and careful that whatever their communication is,
Speaker 4: it's undetectable. This is all, of course, pure speculation and
Speaker 4: a general overview of a much larger theory in case
Speaker 4: studies of droughting forensics. The authors go on to theorize
Speaker 4: that not only is this a group of very meticulous
Speaker 4: and well coordinated killers pulling off extremely efficient murders across
Speaker 4: the Midwest and Northeast. But that actually more than one
Speaker 4: thousand people may be participating in these crimes. Yes, that's
Speaker 4: what they conjecture, one thousand killers. They're all in inter
Speaker 4: ex communication one another somehow. Now the dark web is
Speaker 4: a strong possibility. These people are believed to be broken
Speaker 4: down into smaller subgroups, if you will, or cells of
Speaker 4: twelve to fifteen across multiple cities. While this may seem
Speaker 4: totally far afetched to some, to others, it's as horrifying
Speaker 4: as it is fascinating, as terrifying as it is interesting.
Speaker 4: Could a group of human beings really be disorganized and
Speaker 4: adept be able to kill possibly one hundred or more
Speaker 4: physically fit and above average integent young men and do
Speaker 4: it with one hundred percent efficiency and accuracy as to
Speaker 4: not leave any trace of themselves or their organization behind.
Speaker 4: In these days of touch DNA to be able to
Speaker 4: do this for more than thirty years now, many believe
Speaker 4: it's not only possible but likely. When we as a
Speaker 4: society think of murder, usually we think perhaps the crimes
Speaker 4: of passion, while most of us would never go so
Speaker 4: far as to commit a murder under any circumstances. At
Speaker 4: least a crime of rage or jealousy is somewhat understandable.
Speaker 4: Serial killers, though, are still incomprehensible, if not captivating. There
Speaker 4: are those who point to things such as the smiley
Speaker 4: faces found near the bodies, all being of different type
Speaker 4: and size, with color, et cetera. Also, which many of
Speaker 4: them were put near the bodies, have never been able
Speaker 4: to conclusively be determined. This means that a smiley face,
Speaker 4: which by the way, is possibly the most popular or
Speaker 4: freedi symbol of the United States and has been since
Speaker 4: the hippy days of the nineteen sixties, could have been
Speaker 4: there for years before the body was put or at
Speaker 4: least found in these nearby water sources. Maybe they are
Speaker 4: even in some cases put there after someone trying to
Speaker 4: fuel the theory. Could this be the case, or are
Speaker 4: the smiley killers just taunting law enforcement by putting them
Speaker 4: in place later. Could the Smiley faced killers theory have
Speaker 4: actually created the smiley faced killers in the first place.
Speaker 4: Could this, as some people speculate, have in fact put
Speaker 4: the idea to organize and kill in a group of
Speaker 4: messed up individuals heads. Think about it, though, Why else
Speaker 4: would the victimology suddenly change? At first, and for decades,
Speaker 4: the victims are always Caucasian, no exceptions. Now we're seeing
Speaker 4: all different races and even a handful of openly gave
Speaker 4: victims for the first time. Is one theory beginning another?
Speaker 4: Maybe someday we'll know, but probably not if there are
Speaker 4: no investigators willing to do the work it's going to
Speaker 4: take to catch these possible maniacs. Is there such a
Speaker 4: focus on debunking the smiley face aspect that the people
Speaker 4: in charge are ignoring practically smoking gun evidence simply to
Speaker 4: not want to give attention to the graffiti. Are these
Speaker 4: investigators not doing their jobs when everything about these cases,
Speaker 4: even on the face.
Speaker 3: Is all wrong.
Speaker 4: The similarities in all these cases goes well beyond being
Speaker 4: a mere coincidence. It couldn't get more cookie cutter in style.
Speaker 4: It's almost embarrassing. Some say, how obvious it is these
Speaker 4: are serial murders taking place when the police just smile
Speaker 4: on the face of the families and feign ignorance.
Speaker 3: Oh he got too drunken drowned. We don't think so.
Speaker 4: With all this being said, let's take one more look, folks,
Speaker 4: a look at what many believed to be a possible
Speaker 4: survivor of the Smiley Faced Killers. On January eighth, two
Speaker 4: thousand and six, at around seven o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 4: a twenty one year old named Colin Fortney walked into
Speaker 4: the hospital emergency room in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. Culin was disheveled,
Speaker 4: soaking wet, and his feet were picked with mud. The
Speaker 4: young man seemed to be a bit confused and exhausted,
Speaker 4: but for the most part, had his wits about him.
Speaker 4: He was wearing no coat and no shoes on a
Speaker 4: January morning in Wisconsin. That's freezing cold weather for him
Speaker 4: to be in this state of andres According to hospital staff,
Speaker 4: he had stated he had fallen into the river somehow,
Speaker 4: but couldn't remember when or even how it had happened.
Speaker 4: Colin was a student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Speaker 4: The night before, he had a few friends had taken
Speaker 4: a cab to some bars to have a night out
Speaker 4: drinking and having some fun. Some speculate the bar they
Speaker 4: spent the most time at is as a bar where
Speaker 4: another theorized victim of the Smiley Faced Killers went missing,
Speaker 4: but this hasn't been confirmed. Colin later told police that
Speaker 4: he left the bars at around one forty five am,
Speaker 4: when he somehow became separated from two of the friends
Speaker 4: he was supposed to be leaving with, Jay Larson and
Speaker 4: Jay Hoffland. He stated he couldn't remember anything after walking
Speaker 4: out of the bar and realizing he wasn't with his
Speaker 4: friends anymore. The next thing he knew, he was traveling
Speaker 4: rapidly downstream and fighting an extremely rough current in the
Speaker 4: nearby river. After what probably felt like an eternity, but
Speaker 4: he estimated it was actually about fifteen minutes, Colin stated
Speaker 4: he was somehow able to gather this drink to grab
Speaker 4: on to some kind of concrete structure and pull himself
Speaker 4: out of the river. He said he remembers nothing after
Speaker 4: this again until he woke up some time later near
Speaker 4: the hospital he eventually checked himself into. He claims to
Speaker 4: have lost his hat, coat, shoes, cell phone, and twenty
Speaker 4: dollars cash. Somehow, he still had his wallet. Though the
Speaker 4: doctors were able to figure out what Colin's blood alcohol
Speaker 4: level was at the time he left the bar somehow
Speaker 4: by checking what it was at nine am the same morning,
Speaker 4: a few hours after he initially entered the hospital and
Speaker 4: started telling his bizarre story. They determined his blood alcohol
Speaker 4: content would have been point zero one sixty three at
Speaker 4: the time he left the bar one forty five am.
Speaker 4: The police were eventually able to recover some of the
Speaker 4: items Calin stated he had lost when they searched the river.
Speaker 4: The family believes in the investigators wholeheartedly when they said
Speaker 4: no foul play was involved and that Colin simply had
Speaker 4: a misadventure while drunk. Had the thirty two degree water
Speaker 4: gotten him all the way under, this story may have
Speaker 4: had a more tragic ending. Colin's family say they feel
Speaker 4: the police did an outstanding job in investigating what happened
Speaker 4: to him. However, there was a very odd twist in
Speaker 4: this case. The police passed it off as a series
Speaker 4: of coincidence, but some aren't so sure. Allegedly, one of
Speaker 4: the young men who had been at the bar with
Speaker 4: Colin that night also ended up at the same hospital, unconscious,
Speaker 4: in not remembering how he'd gotten there or anything before
Speaker 4: leaving the bar that night after being separated from Colin. Also,
Speaker 4: there's a very confusing and vague reference to a stolen
Speaker 4: truck on CCTV, which just to sum it up, alleged
Speaker 4: that someone stole a van and indeed was caught trying
Speaker 4: to kidnap either Colin or's friend. Many believed this person
Speaker 4: to be one of the SFKS Smiley Faced Killers. I
Speaker 4: highly encourage you all to do your own research so
Speaker 4: as to be able to make informed decisions about coming
Speaker 4: to your own conclusions about these cases mentioned above and
Speaker 4: the many many more out there were the same exact
Speaker 4: circumstances and alleged set accince sent. While we have investigated
Speaker 4: and talked at lengthd about the deaths allegedly caused by
Speaker 4: the Smiley Faced Killers and one possible survivor of this
Speaker 4: mob of fiends, there is yet another element all this,
Speaker 4: those who were never found. There are quite a few
Speaker 4: cases where a young man who fits the profile of
Speaker 4: the Smiley Face Killer victims goes missing, never to be
Speaker 4: seen or heard from again. One such case is the
Speaker 4: case of Nathan Andrew Edburg. On the night of April fourteenth,
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety nine, Nathan was last seen leaving Decoy's Bar
Speaker 4: and Grille on Fourth Street in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.
Speaker 4: Nobody there that night could remember the last time they
Speaker 4: had seen him or what time. He had left shortly
Speaker 4: after he was last seen, and the exact date and
Speaker 4: time are unknown. Nathan's pickup truck was found in a ditch.
Speaker 4: There was no sign of him at the scene where
Speaker 4: the truck was found, and according to investigators, there was
Speaker 4: no sign of foul play. What they did come across, though,
Speaker 4: were a few footprints heading east away from the accident's site.
Speaker 4: Authorities said it appeared as though Nathan missed the turn
Speaker 4: onto the highway and ended up in the ditch. He
Speaker 4: has never been seen or heard from again. The bartender
Speaker 4: at Decoys told authorities Nathan was a regular customer in
Speaker 4: the place and most of the staff knew who he was.
Speaker 4: He stated Nathan had arrived that night at around seven
Speaker 4: thirty pm and ordered a beer. The bartender claimed that
Speaker 4: Edburgh was much happier than he had been on previous
Speaker 4: visits to the establishment. This is considered relevant because, according
Speaker 4: to those closest to him, Nathan was dealing with some
Speaker 4: serious depression in April nineteen ninety nine due to a
Speaker 4: bunch of different things going on in his life. His
Speaker 4: parents were divorcing, he'd lost both his job and his
Speaker 4: longtime girlfriend, and he was living with his cousin because
Speaker 4: he couldn't afford his own place. His parents hadn't even
Speaker 4: thought to report him missing until they somehow received news
Speaker 4: of the truck had been impounded for several days when
Speaker 4: they hadn't heard from him, They just assumed he needed
Speaker 4: some space to work through his issues and would be
Speaker 4: back around when he was ready. They were trying to
Speaker 4: give him this space, knowing what he was going going through.
Speaker 4: His case remains unsolved to this day, and while police
Speaker 4: are still actively looking for him, he is only considered
Speaker 4: a missing person at this point. The police insists there
Speaker 4: is no evidence of foul play at the crash site.
Speaker 4: Many people speculate, however, that this may very well be
Speaker 4: a case of the Smiley Faced Killers. The close proximity
Speaker 4: from where he was last seen where his pickup was
Speaker 4: found to the water strikes him as suspicious at the
Speaker 4: very least. Also, the direction of the footprints were headed
Speaker 4: leading away from the crash area. We're headed in the
Speaker 4: direction of the nearby water source as well. Could the
Speaker 4: police just innsotantly not be putting all this together, or
Speaker 4: are they purposely downplaying one of the few cases of
Speaker 4: the Smiley Faced Killers that.
Speaker 3: They can due to lack of a body.
Speaker 4: Nathan's father unfortunately passed away in two thousand and one,
Speaker 4: but his mother is still looking for answers and praying
Speaker 4: to see her.
Speaker 3: Son one day.
Speaker 4: Well, folks, there you have it. What do you think
Speaker 4: of this theory? Now, again, this is just a theory.
Speaker 4: It's neither been proven nor disproven. Although I've heard very
Speaker 4: strong opinions on either side of the fence, I think
Speaker 4: it does bear looking into. Surely there can't be this
Speaker 4: many coincidences, considering the type of young man, where they were,
Speaker 4: how they were found, seems like something nefarious is a
Speaker 4: foot here. I look forward to reading your comments on
Speaker 4: this one, but please be respectful and friendly. Meanwhile, be
Speaker 4: good to yourselves and each other. Be safe when you
Speaker 4: go out, always let somebody know where you're going when
Speaker 4: you plan to return, and be aware of your surroundings.
Speaker 4: I'll see you just a little farther down the trail.
Speaker 4: I'm Steve Stockton, and I'll talk to you next time.