Carter Roy (6:25)
On February 16, 1997, Patrick McNeil went out to the Dapper Dog Bar in Manhattan. He needed to blow off a little steam, have a few drinks. Patrick was 20 years old, strong and athletic. In high school, he was the captain of his football team. But now he wasn't sure what he wanted to do with his life. He was in his second year, studying accounting at Fordham University in New York City. Lately, though, he'd been considering a career in law enforcement. That said, he was a Bit of a rebel. He'd recently gotten a tongue piercing and used his fake ID to get into bars. At the Dapper Dog, Patrick had some beers, but according to friends, he seemed unusually disoriented, almost like he was on some kind of narcotics. But Patrick didn't do drugs, as far as anyone knew. And before long, Patrick was found on the bathroom floor, unable to stop throwing up. People offered to help him get home, but he started stumbling back to his apartment on his own. Witnesses reported seeing a car falling close behind him, stopping whenever he stopped. Then, eventually, Patrick turned a corner. The car followed, and no one ever saw him again. That's when Detective Kevin Gannon entered the picture. Kevin wasn't just any cop. He was something of a legend within the NYPD. He'd received two medals of valor for bravery and had over 1,000 felony arrests under his belt. Kevin had been working on the force for almost two decades, and he liked to think the system worked the way it was supposed to. He believed his job was to help people find justice, no matter the cost. Until he was assigned Patrick's case. After Patrick's disappearance, Kevin started collecting evidence. He didn't have much to go on, except for what people told him about the car that had followed Patrick. Bystanders claimed a man and woman were in the vehicle. Luckily, one witness was able to provide Kevin with a a partial license plate number. Kevin requested a search from the nypd, but doing so without a full plate number was more complicated and therefore more expensive. It would have cost the department about $1,200. Today, that's around $2,500. To Kevin's disbelief, his superiors denied the request because of the price. Suddenly, the trail had gone cold, and Kevin couldn't do anything about it. And that wasn't the only bad news Kevin received. Two months after he disappeared, in April of 1997, Patrick's body washed up on the banks of the East River. He was found near a pier in Bay ridge, Brooklyn, about 12 miles from where he was last seen. Authorities were quick to label the death an accidental drowning, but Kevin wasn't convinced. The autopsy showed soft tissue breakdown and bloating, which is typical in cases where there's prolonged water exposure. And his lungs were reportedly filled with fluid, a key marker of drowning. But there were also a number of strange discrepancies, all of which indicated that Patrick might have died before he went into the water. For starters, Patrick was found only in his jeans, underwear and socks. It's pretty unlikely that he took off his shirt and jacket before falling into the water, especially in the middle of winter. It also didn't make sense that Patrick's body appeared where it did. Kevin thought the only way he would have shown up by that pier was if his body had been dumped there. According to the medical examiner, Patrick's body showed no signs of injuries, assault or defensive wounds. But this didn't make sense to Kevin. There were marks on his neck suggesting he had been bound, and charring on his head and back showing he may have have been burned. But the smoking gun was his blood alcohol level. It was 0.12 when he died. Definitely enough for him to be drunk, but not as intoxicated as he reportedly was. In Kevin's eyes, the evidence told a clear story. He strongly believed that Patrick's death wasn't accidental. He had been drugged, abducted, tied up and murdered before being dumped into the East River. When Kevin went to his superiors with his theory, they took him off the case and barred him from investigating further. It was obvious to Kevin that they weren't interested in the truth. But he couldn't seem to stay away. And before long, he came across more information that seemed to suggest Patrick had been a victim of foul play. On New Year's Eve 1996, a month and a half before Patrick went missing in February 97, 22 year old Lawrence Andrews Jr. Disappeared after a night of drinking in New York City. His body was recovered from the East River 43 days later near the same spot as Patrick's. Five months after that, 19 year old Joshua Bender went missing from his college campus in the city before being found on the banks of the same river. Like Patrick, both men disappeared under suspicious circumstances and their bodies showed possible signs of foul play. But when Kevin brought this up to his bosses, they shut him down. Like Patrick, their deaths were ruled as drownings. And that was final. And so Kevin tried to move on with his life. Kevin went back to work. Then in 1999, he became the head of the Bronx Homicide task force. After 20 years of service, he retired from the NYPD in 2001. In 2003, Kevin was diagnosed with cancer. But he wasn't one to back down from a fight. After a year and a half, his cancer was in remission. Kevin had a new lease on life. And he knew exactly where he wanted to start. Even though he'd been retired for a couple of years, Kevin had never forgotten about Patrick. He kept turning one question over and over in his head. How many other cases like Patrick's were there? Not just in New York, but all over the country? Kevin started researching online, and in 2005, he learned something that sent a chill down his spine. Over the past few years, at least 25 young men disappeared across the Midwest under mysterious circumstances, only for them to turn up in bodies of water many miles away. All of them were supposedly accidental drownings. But after Patrick's case, Kevin wasn't so sure. He wanted to find out what really happened. And this time around, he knew he'd need some help. Kevin called up his friend and fellow retired NYPD Detective Anthony Duarte to ask if he was interested in teaming up. Kevin and Anthony had met at the police academy and were both highly decorated officers. Anthony knew all about Patrick's case and shared Kevin's frustration. So when he heard about these other drownings, he was eager to get involved. In April 2006, the two retired detectives reviewed the case files. They quickly realized that many of the men who'd gone missing in Minnesota and Wisconsin shared a lot of similarities with the victims in New York. Most were athletic young white men who had gone out drinking and never came home. Kevin continued to research, and a few months later, in October 2006, he found something that would change the course of his investigation. One of the men who'd gone missing in the Midwest was a student named Scott Radel. He was a junior at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. In March 2006, Scott's body surfaced in the Mississippi river and was quickly ruled drowning. But one person wasn't convinced by that explanation. A man named Doc Gilbertson. Dr. D. Lee Gilbertson, or Doc, was an assistant professor of criminal justice at St. Cloud, where Scott had gone to school. But Doc didn't just teach students about criminal investigations. He consulted with law enforcement officers about forensic victimology and. And crime analysis. When Doc read about Scott's case, it didn't pass the smell test. Just before he disappeared, Scott called his friends to tell them his location. When they went to find him, he was gone. Here's the thing. Scott was nowhere near the banks of the river the night he vanished. But according to investigators, Scott had stumbled all the way there before accidentally falling into the water. It seemed a little fishy to Doc, so he did some research online. Doc started by searching for missing student drowned. To his surprise, Scott Radel's name wasn't the only one that came up. Hundreds of websites reported similar cases. And like Kevin, Doc started putting the pieces together. Together with some of his graduate students, Doc compiled the cases into a comprehensive spreadsheet and analyzed their similarities. Eventually, they published their research and gave a few presentations but interest died down after a bit. Doc figured that was it. Then in October 2006, Kevin found Doc's research. Soon enough, he and Anthony were on a plane to Minnesota. The three men shared information and realized they were all on the same page. Something didn't feel right about these cases. Maybe they were connected and maybe they weren't. But one thing was for sure, the authorities weren't taking them seriously. Doc, Kevin and Anthony were determined to get to the bottom of things. So before long, they formed a detective agency known as Nationwide Investigations. One of the first cases they focused on Scott Radel's. And that's when they found a detail that didn't just transform the case, it would come to define it. A block away from where Scott's body was discovered, there was a piece of graffiti on the wall. A smiley face. After forming nationwide investigations in 2006, Kevin Gannon, Anthony Duarte and Doc Gilbertson started going through each case file with a fine tooth comb. If they were going to prove that these young men had been murdered, they were going to need some hard evidence. Kevin personally financed a lot of their investigations. He even remortgaged his house to pay for their work. But he really believed they were onto something. If it could help the victim's loved ones, it was worth it. And it didn't take long to see results. The team started going to the crime scenes themselves. Unlike police, they didn't just look at where the bodies were discovered. Using GPS and water flow analysis, Kevin and Anthony hoped to triangulate the locations where the bodies had entered the water. The more they did this, the more they started to see a familiar pattern. Many of the supposed sites had a smiley face spray painted nearby. But they weren't all the same. When investigating an Iowa river where one body was found, Kevin and Anthony discovered a smiley face that seemed different from the rest. It was done in red with its tongue sticking out, devil horns and a cross on the forehead. Next to it was a note reading evil happy smiley face man. After that, Kevin and Anthony decided the smiley faces were some kind of marker. One that was left behind behind by the people responsible for those supposed drownings. In the detectives minds, the graffiti was there to taunt the police. Even with all these connections, the scope of the case was enormous. Kevin, Anthony and Doc had identified over 80 suspicious drownings from 1997 to 2006 that could be murders. They occurred in 25 cities in 11 different states. And the only real consistent location was in Lacrosse, Wisconsin, where eight students had allegedly drowned in the Mississippi River. Over a few years time. Besides that, some of the disappearances happened on the same day across several different states. This got the team thinking that they weren't just dealing with a potential serial killer. They were dealing with groups of them. Problem was, they didn't know if these deaths were coincidental or a coordinated effort. And they didn't have much to go on. The best evidence they had was the graffiti. In addition to the smiley faces, Kevin and Anthony had discovered at least 12 other tags at several of the dump sites. Many of these were gang affiliated, Giving some credence to the idea that the attacks were connected. But then there was one that puzzled them. While investigating in Michigan, they found a piece of graffiti that read sinsinnowa. They learned it was a native American word meaning rattlesnake, or home of the young eagle. They couldn't figure out why the killers might have tagged it at the scene of the crime until they investigated the disappearance of Matt Kruzycki. In late November or early December 2005, 24 year old Matt disappeared from East Dubuque, Illinois. His last known location, Sinsinnowa street. Sinsinawa street was in East Dubuque, But Matt was from heartland, Wisconsin, Nearly three hours away. According to Matt's friends, he was in East Dubuque to pick up his car. Apparently, Matt said he knew some people in the area and decided to go out partying with them while he was there. Nearly three months later, on March 18, 2006, his body was discovered in the Mississippi river near Dubuque. Matt's death was ruled an accidental drowning, but his family wasn't so sure. Matt was staying at a hotel in Dubuque, Iowa, but went across the river to a dive bar in East Dubuque. The Mississippi runs through Illinois and Iowa, and according to Matt's dad, It almost seemed like Matt was lured across the river, then killed. After learning about Matt's case, Kevin and Anthony agreed with his dad and they thought the Sinsinawa tag backed it up. But to prove their theory, they'd need to do a lot more than point to a piece of graffiti, because now they had to explain how a massive network of killers had been operating in over two dozen American cities without anyone suspecting them. The team believed the first component was pure evidence collection. When bodies are discovered in water, it's hard to pin down the exact location of where they went in. The surrounding area isn't usually examined as thoroughly as a typical crime scene would be. And because of that, a lot of potential evidence in these cases, like the smiley faces went Unfound. Additionally, dumping a body into water can wash away a lot of evidence. And including fingerprints and fibers, that meant a lot of the time. The autopsy results were a mixed bag. Most showed signs of drowning, but they also revealed possible evidence of foul play. According to Kevin and Anthony, police chose to go with the accidental drowning explanation because it was the easy option. This way, they wouldn't have to put in the time and resources for a full scale investigation. But there was one detail in particular that Kevin couldn't ignore. Many of the victims had gamma hydroxybutyric acid, or ghb, in their systems. This is a central nervous system depressant, often used as a date rape drug. Kevin felt strongly that earlier victims, including Patrick McNeil, had unknowingly ingested the drug. That would explain why Patrick had seemed as intoxicated as he did. But testing for GHB didn't become common until the mid-2000s, which meant Kevin would never be able to prove that Patrick or any of those previous victims had been slipped the drug. Even so, the Nationwide Investigations team was eager to present their theory to law enforcement. In 2006, they started reaching out to the various police departments. But almost always the police assured them that their investigations had been thorough. Kevin and Anthony weren't scared off so easily, though. They decided to take things a step further by going to the FBI. But the bureau was just as uninterested in what they had to say. And the FBI put out a statement saying, to date, we have not developed any evidence to support links between these tragic deaths or any evidence substantiating the theory that these deaths are the work of a serial killer or killers. Kevin was incredibly frustrated, but he also wasn't surprised. In his mind, the FBI was either covering up for the police or for themselves. By 2008, the team had identified evidence of foul play in over 40 drowning deaths. And they knew they couldn't rely on law enforcement to move the needle forward. If they were going to find these killers, they needed to get the word out themselves. But first, they needed something concrete. They needed a case that was for sure a homicide. That's when they came across Christopher Jenkins. Chris fit the profile of the other victims they had looked at. 21 years old, good looking, popular, with job prospects ahead of him. On Halloween night in 2002, Chris went out drinking with friends in Minneapolis. But they got separated at the end of the night. Nearly four months later, he was found in the ice cold waters of the Mississippi river, still wearing his Halloween costume. Chris was discovered floating face up, which is extremely unusual for a drowning victim. These victims are almost always found face down. But even that discrepancy wasn't enough to stop the authorities from claiming Chris fell into the river on his own and drowned. Chris's family never bought the story. They believed that someone else was involved. No one seemed to believe them until four years later in 2006, when Minneapolis police got a tip from an inmate. Allegedly, the man said Chris was killed, but he wouldn't give any other information. The details are murky, but we know that after this, Chris's case was upgraded to a homicide. In 2007, the Minneapolis Police Department even named a suspect to the county attorney hoping to make an arrest. But the attorney's office said the case didn't have enough evidence to bring charges against anyone. Interest in Chris case didn't die down though. The people of Minneapolis wanted answers, and the Nationwide Investigations team felt they had them. On April 24, 2008, KSTP News reporter Christy Peele published an article titled Chris Jenkins Murder Connects Dozens Around Country. Christie interviewed Kevin, Anthony and Doc for the story. According to them, Chris was murdered by the Smiley face Killers. Specifically, they thought he was stalked and drugged at a bar. He was then abducted, tortured and killed before being dumped into the river. The Nationwide Investigations team thought Chris and the other victims were targeted because of their youth and success, which meant the killers were acting out of jealousy. Kevin, Anthony and Doc certainly knew there would be skepticism about their theory, but they hoped that at least a few people would believe what they were saying, and they ended up reaching a lot more than a few people. The KSTP article went viral and eventually the team's story was international news. A lot of people suddenly knew about the Smiley face killers and they wanted to help catch them before they could strike again.
