UPDATE AT THE END OF POST
This is an editorial about the so-called "Smiley Face Gang," and the murders they may have committed. So far, I'm not buying it.
So far.
I get tips regarding crime stories in the news all the time. Recently, I've received a number of e-mails with links to variations on this story:
"'Smiley Face Gang' Linked to 40 Murders."
I linked that story because it is more concise than many of the articles I've read so far. Quoting:
Gannon, Duarte, and Gilbertson believe that as many as 40 similar deaths in the 11 years since McNeill died may be connected.
Gilbertson told NBC that "This is a nationwide organization that revels in killing young men."
Kevin Gannon said that he believes this organization is "specifically targeting a small, narrow group of individuals," namely healthy young college guys in their 20s. Race isn't an issue for the killers, if they exist. Most of the victims have been white, but not all.
Generally, this gang is just going after young dudes out on the town. They supposedly use drowning as a method to both kill and conceal. Then they sometimes leave a smiley face spray painted somewhere nearby. Gannon and Duarte say they've found this surreal signature in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana.
Another reason this story is getting attention is the fact that at least one of the mysterious deaths possibly attributed to the Smiley Face Gang has indeed been declared a homicide.
Univ. of Minnesota student Chris Jenkins vanished on Halloween night, 2002. His body was found in the Mississippi River in February, 2003. Jenkins's death was initially declared "undetermined" and the case closed. However, after tests were done in 2006, the Minneapolis PD re-opened the case as a homicide and apologized to the Jenkins family.
Other families who lost their sons and brothers in a similar way are beginning to support Gannon and Duarte's theory.
This is a compelling story, no doubt about that. How could you ignore it? Fine young fellows in the prime of life meet their end in the night, in the water, at the hands of a shadowy cabal of killers. In the morning, only a macabre smiley face somewhere near the scene of the crime marks what happened there.
Sounds like a short pitch for a new suspense novel, doesn't it?
That's part of my problem with what Gannon, Duarte, and Gilbertson propose. It sounds too much like fiction. Granted, there will always be crime stories that are even stranger than fiction. It's rare when one sounds perfectly suited to the work of Thomas Harris or Jonathan Kellerman. I guess in one sense, I'm just talking about the smell test. For me, this story hasn't passed it, yet.
Two retired NYPD cops certainly lend weight to the tale. After all, both Gannon and Duarte have investigated everything on their own dime -- that's impressive and lends them further credibility.
At the same time, though -- serial murder isn't typically a group activity. There have been couples, of course -- Paul and Karla, Doug Clark and Carol Bundy -- but there is a lot of truth to the stereotype of the loner working in the shadows and the dark. Serial killers keep their counsel and they blend into society. Dennis Rader was a family man who was a bit prickly and obsessive-compulsive, but he remained free from police scrutiny for 30 years after he began killing as BTK. Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, was a typical schmoe working at a factory job. He kept to himself and a had a penchant for prostitutes, but DNA outed him for the monster he truly was.
Neither man (and there are many other examples I could cite) was what you'd call much of a team player. While Rader was involved with his church and the Boy Scouts, he wasn't necessarily the guy on the team -- he was usually in a leadership position, which likely suited his pathological narcissism just fine (in fact, it may have kept him from killing more than he did). Rader didn't want to be the guy who passed the ball. He wanted to be in charge, making all the jump shots and calling the plays.
Serial murder seems like a pretty poor choice for a team sport. Eventually, someone has a little more vestige of a conscience than other members of the team, and they talk. That was how Charlie Manson and his Family were brought down -- they were the closest thing to a serial killing team in modern history. But someone not in on Charlie's grand plan did some talking, and the Family's house of cards fell down.
But so far, I'm just talking about my gut reactions and what I know of serial murder in general.
Another problem I have with this story is that it resembles other stories from the past that were eventually debunked to one degree or another. If not debunked, at least subject to a lot of skepticism.
In 1988, Maury Terry published The Ultimate Evil. He linked The Process Church -- an outfit some see as Satanic (click the link to read the better-than-average Wiki on this "church") -- with the Son of Sam, David Berkowitz, the Zodiac Killer and Charles Manson. While Terry's book was well-written and seemed thorough, it never made it out of the true crime/conspiracy theory pigeonhole -- meaning that only those already disposed to believe in far-reaching and terrifying conspiracies among evil people think Terry's work is the gospel truth. Most others take it with a grain of salt. Has it been thoroughly discredited? I don't know. I know Terry's theory has never been proven.
When Dennis Rader decided to resurrect BTK in 2004 and he began sending out new letters and packets of evidence to police, a slew of theories about BTK and his possible connections to other killers could be found all over the Web. Frequently they incorporated BTK into Terry's wide-ranging band of killers. A guy named Ken Mosbaugh even managed to get Wichita TV station KSN to buy into his theory (mostly borrowed from Terry and some Zodiac theorists) that BTK was linked to Zodiac, Son of Sam, and Manson. Eventually Mosbaugh must have been debunked (Dennis Rader's arrest probably helped), and KSN removed all trace of their report from their website. You can still read the article in question here, on a message board where someone copied it into a post.
Some folks were even sure BTK and Zodiac were one and the same. Dennis Rader's arrest scotched all of that speculation. His real status as a Lutheran dog catcher in Park City, Kansas lacked a certain glamor. He'd never been part of any group of like-minded psychos at all. Rader might have admired what the Zodiac did, emulated the still-unknown California psychopath, but that was as far as it went.
One thing that made earlier theories of bands of killers using similar methods seem untenable was the lack of easy, fast communication. Were they burning up the phone lines, chatting about the next kill? Were they passing coded messages through classified ads? Possibly, but common sense really said no.
That's one element in favor of the theory of the Smiley Face Gang -- communication.
If this theoretical gang of killers exists and they began working in 1997, they had a still-new tool to work with: the Internet. People had been dialing into online bulletin boards since the 1980s by 1997, and the message board format was already hopping. Kansas serial killer John Robinson started seeking victims online in 1993, and he did it with chat rooms and message board posts.
Robinson could draw victims into his web from California and Indiana, and do it in relative anonymity.
The Web's capacity for instant communication across great distances (chat rooms, forums) would permit the formation of a gang of killers. That doesn't mean it has happened, yet.
I have some issues with the linking of the smiley faces to the crimes, too. How far away were the faces from the victim's point of entry into the water? Was there a way to determine when the faces were painted? How was each dead man's actual entry point into the river or body of water determined? In Chris Jenkins's case, the water in his body was tested to find out where he'd been thrown (or fallen) in.
Television interviews with Gannon and Duarte are sometimes confusing. They frequently allude to knowing much more, even mentioning "witnesses," only to turn around and say they can no longer afford to fund their investigations and the FBI needs to take over. They've gone public, yes... but the story remains maddeningly vague.
Overall, this may be a case where I will learn more and realize that something immensely strange and unprecedented truly is going on.
In fact, you could come back to this site and find I've come around completely to Gannon, Duarte and Gilbertson's way of thinking.
After all, here in the South, we've recently had strikingly familiar disappearances -- familiar to anyone who has followed the deaths now allegedly linked to the Smiley Face Gang:
For me, the jury is still out on the theory of the Smiley Face Gang. Count me among the skeptics, in general.
But my mind is still open. Hell, even as I was writing this, it occurred to me that one of the smiley faces found in Gannon and Duarte's investigation had a cross between the face's button eyes. That triggered a mental image from news footage of Charles Manson's trial in the early 70s in LA. At one point, Manson and all his followers who were not incarcerated shaved their heads and carved crosses in their foreheads. After I imagined that, I remembered Manson saying in interviews since he was convicted that his followers were still out there. Who the hell knows? Manson tends to speak in vaguely menacing terms most of the time, but perhaps he's been stating more concrete truth than anyone has realized. Maybe his followers have gone deeper underground than anyone realizes.
See? It isn't hard to go down certain roads, once you start.
State your case, your thoughts in the comments below. Lively discourse is welcome; flaming and insults are not.
UPDATE
If I had time I'd write another post, but for now I wanted to make a note:
Let's admit it -- even the FBI's skepticism won't dissuade die-hard conspiracy theorists.
Other sources:
"The (smiley) face of a killer?" by Mike Celizic, for TODAYShow.com.
This is an editorial about the so-called "Smiley Face Gang," and the murders they may have committed. So far, I'm not buying it.
So far.
I get tips regarding crime stories in the news all the time. Recently, I've received a number of e-mails with links to variations on this story:
"'Smiley Face Gang' Linked to 40 Murders."
I linked that story because it is more concise than many of the articles I've read so far. Quoting:
As many as 40 young men believed to have accidentally drowned may actually have been murdered at the hands of a vicious gang of killers.Retired NYPD investigators Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte, working in concert with Prof. D. Lee Gilbertson of St. Cloud State University, believe they've uncovered a pattern of murders going back to 1997. That was when young Patrick McNeill vanished after a night out drinking in New York City. McNeill's body was eventually pulled out of the Hudson River, his death declared a suicide.
That's the conclusion reached by a group of retired New York City detectives who have spent the last 11 Years connecting the deaths...
Gannon, Duarte, and Gilbertson believe that as many as 40 similar deaths in the 11 years since McNeill died may be connected.
Gilbertson told NBC that "This is a nationwide organization that revels in killing young men."
Kevin Gannon said that he believes this organization is "specifically targeting a small, narrow group of individuals," namely healthy young college guys in their 20s. Race isn't an issue for the killers, if they exist. Most of the victims have been white, but not all.
Generally, this gang is just going after young dudes out on the town. They supposedly use drowning as a method to both kill and conceal. Then they sometimes leave a smiley face spray painted somewhere nearby. Gannon and Duarte say they've found this surreal signature in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana.
Another reason this story is getting attention is the fact that at least one of the mysterious deaths possibly attributed to the Smiley Face Gang has indeed been declared a homicide.
Univ. of Minnesota student Chris Jenkins vanished on Halloween night, 2002. His body was found in the Mississippi River in February, 2003. Jenkins's death was initially declared "undetermined" and the case closed. However, after tests were done in 2006, the Minneapolis PD re-opened the case as a homicide and apologized to the Jenkins family.
Other families who lost their sons and brothers in a similar way are beginning to support Gannon and Duarte's theory.
This is a compelling story, no doubt about that. How could you ignore it? Fine young fellows in the prime of life meet their end in the night, in the water, at the hands of a shadowy cabal of killers. In the morning, only a macabre smiley face somewhere near the scene of the crime marks what happened there.
Sounds like a short pitch for a new suspense novel, doesn't it?
That's part of my problem with what Gannon, Duarte, and Gilbertson propose. It sounds too much like fiction. Granted, there will always be crime stories that are even stranger than fiction. It's rare when one sounds perfectly suited to the work of Thomas Harris or Jonathan Kellerman. I guess in one sense, I'm just talking about the smell test. For me, this story hasn't passed it, yet.
Two retired NYPD cops certainly lend weight to the tale. After all, both Gannon and Duarte have investigated everything on their own dime -- that's impressive and lends them further credibility.
At the same time, though -- serial murder isn't typically a group activity. There have been couples, of course -- Paul and Karla, Doug Clark and Carol Bundy -- but there is a lot of truth to the stereotype of the loner working in the shadows and the dark. Serial killers keep their counsel and they blend into society. Dennis Rader was a family man who was a bit prickly and obsessive-compulsive, but he remained free from police scrutiny for 30 years after he began killing as BTK. Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, was a typical schmoe working at a factory job. He kept to himself and a had a penchant for prostitutes, but DNA outed him for the monster he truly was.
Neither man (and there are many other examples I could cite) was what you'd call much of a team player. While Rader was involved with his church and the Boy Scouts, he wasn't necessarily the guy on the team -- he was usually in a leadership position, which likely suited his pathological narcissism just fine (in fact, it may have kept him from killing more than he did). Rader didn't want to be the guy who passed the ball. He wanted to be in charge, making all the jump shots and calling the plays.
Serial murder seems like a pretty poor choice for a team sport. Eventually, someone has a little more vestige of a conscience than other members of the team, and they talk. That was how Charlie Manson and his Family were brought down -- they were the closest thing to a serial killing team in modern history. But someone not in on Charlie's grand plan did some talking, and the Family's house of cards fell down.
But so far, I'm just talking about my gut reactions and what I know of serial murder in general.
Another problem I have with this story is that it resembles other stories from the past that were eventually debunked to one degree or another. If not debunked, at least subject to a lot of skepticism.
In 1988, Maury Terry published The Ultimate Evil. He linked The Process Church -- an outfit some see as Satanic (click the link to read the better-than-average Wiki on this "church") -- with the Son of Sam, David Berkowitz, the Zodiac Killer and Charles Manson. While Terry's book was well-written and seemed thorough, it never made it out of the true crime/conspiracy theory pigeonhole -- meaning that only those already disposed to believe in far-reaching and terrifying conspiracies among evil people think Terry's work is the gospel truth. Most others take it with a grain of salt. Has it been thoroughly discredited? I don't know. I know Terry's theory has never been proven.
When Dennis Rader decided to resurrect BTK in 2004 and he began sending out new letters and packets of evidence to police, a slew of theories about BTK and his possible connections to other killers could be found all over the Web. Frequently they incorporated BTK into Terry's wide-ranging band of killers. A guy named Ken Mosbaugh even managed to get Wichita TV station KSN to buy into his theory (mostly borrowed from Terry and some Zodiac theorists) that BTK was linked to Zodiac, Son of Sam, and Manson. Eventually Mosbaugh must have been debunked (Dennis Rader's arrest probably helped), and KSN removed all trace of their report from their website. You can still read the article in question here, on a message board where someone copied it into a post.
Some folks were even sure BTK and Zodiac were one and the same. Dennis Rader's arrest scotched all of that speculation. His real status as a Lutheran dog catcher in Park City, Kansas lacked a certain glamor. He'd never been part of any group of like-minded psychos at all. Rader might have admired what the Zodiac did, emulated the still-unknown California psychopath, but that was as far as it went.
One thing that made earlier theories of bands of killers using similar methods seem untenable was the lack of easy, fast communication. Were they burning up the phone lines, chatting about the next kill? Were they passing coded messages through classified ads? Possibly, but common sense really said no.
That's one element in favor of the theory of the Smiley Face Gang -- communication.
If this theoretical gang of killers exists and they began working in 1997, they had a still-new tool to work with: the Internet. People had been dialing into online bulletin boards since the 1980s by 1997, and the message board format was already hopping. Kansas serial killer John Robinson started seeking victims online in 1993, and he did it with chat rooms and message board posts.
Robinson could draw victims into his web from California and Indiana, and do it in relative anonymity.
The Web's capacity for instant communication across great distances (chat rooms, forums) would permit the formation of a gang of killers. That doesn't mean it has happened, yet.
I have some issues with the linking of the smiley faces to the crimes, too. How far away were the faces from the victim's point of entry into the water? Was there a way to determine when the faces were painted? How was each dead man's actual entry point into the river or body of water determined? In Chris Jenkins's case, the water in his body was tested to find out where he'd been thrown (or fallen) in.
Television interviews with Gannon and Duarte are sometimes confusing. They frequently allude to knowing much more, even mentioning "witnesses," only to turn around and say they can no longer afford to fund their investigations and the FBI needs to take over. They've gone public, yes... but the story remains maddeningly vague.
Overall, this may be a case where I will learn more and realize that something immensely strange and unprecedented truly is going on.
In fact, you could come back to this site and find I've come around completely to Gannon, Duarte and Gilbertson's way of thinking.
After all, here in the South, we've recently had strikingly familiar disappearances -- familiar to anyone who has followed the deaths now allegedly linked to the Smiley Face Gang:
"Missing in Georgia: Justin Gaines" -- Justin, age 18, vanished after a night of drinking on November 1, 2007. He hasn't been found yet. If I had to guess, I'd say someone whom Justin thought he knew caused his disappearance. Still, he was athletic, a college student, and he vanished after a night of drinking.Could this "gang" have moved South? Branched out? Or is there something more basic at work -- something having to do with youth, inexperience, and perhaps too much alcohol, on occasion?
HelpFindKyle.com -- Kyle Fleischmann, age 24, disappeared November 9, 2007 after a night of drinking at the Buckhead Saloon in Charlotte, NC. Like Justin and most of the victims now attributed to the Smiley Face Gang, Kyle was athletic, attractive, and had been out drinking.
For me, the jury is still out on the theory of the Smiley Face Gang. Count me among the skeptics, in general.
But my mind is still open. Hell, even as I was writing this, it occurred to me that one of the smiley faces found in Gannon and Duarte's investigation had a cross between the face's button eyes. That triggered a mental image from news footage of Charles Manson's trial in the early 70s in LA. At one point, Manson and all his followers who were not incarcerated shaved their heads and carved crosses in their foreheads. After I imagined that, I remembered Manson saying in interviews since he was convicted that his followers were still out there. Who the hell knows? Manson tends to speak in vaguely menacing terms most of the time, but perhaps he's been stating more concrete truth than anyone has realized. Maybe his followers have gone deeper underground than anyone realizes.
See? It isn't hard to go down certain roads, once you start.
State your case, your thoughts in the comments below. Lively discourse is welcome; flaming and insults are not.
UPDATE
If I had time I'd write another post, but for now I wanted to make a note:
"FBI disagrees with river drownings theory."The following is a quote from the article:
The FBI says there’s no evidence to support a reported link between serial killers, and the river drownings of 40 college-age men in the Upper Midwest...FBI Agent Richard Kolko told reporters that the Bureau took a look at information provided by Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte and concluded that most of the deaths in question "were alcohol-related."
Let's admit it -- even the FBI's skepticism won't dissuade die-hard conspiracy theorists.
Other sources:
"The (smiley) face of a killer?" by Mike Celizic, for TODAYShow.com.
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