By Chris Bartholomew
What we know: At least 40 people, young college men, have been killed by drowning in eleven states. Twenty-two smiley faces have been found at the crime scenes, nine of the 22 faces were drawn with horns, like an “evil, happy, smiley man.”
While there has yet to be a sexually-driven motive identified in the smiley face case, criminologists told ABCNEWS.com that it's an example of the kind of signature typically left by psychopathic killers who derive sexual arousal from their killings and are so proud of their murders that they'll do anything they can to get credit for them.
The victims in all the cases shared roughly the same profile: young men of college age who disappeared after a night of drinking, and drowned.
At least two of the victims were last seen entering some kind of white utility van. One of the victims may have been driven around and tortured for hours before being put in a body of water.
They were found with their shoes on, in at least one case flip-flops. Their arms were crossed over their bodies. No one tries to save themselves from drowning in this position. In each case their personal possessions were found on the body, except their cell phones, which were found away from the crime scene.
It began with the 1997 death of Patrick McNeill, a young man whose body was found in the Hudson River after he had gone missing after a night on the town. McNeill had been drinking and the death was ruled a suicide. His parents refused to believe that, and Kevin Gannon, then a detective sergeant, told McNeill's parents he would never give up on the case.
Retired Detectives Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte say Patrick McNeill, 20, a Fordham accounting major, was killed by what they are calling the Smiley Face Gang, which they say has struck in 25 cities in 11 states since 1997.
Gannon and Duarte came forward with information on their eleven year search for answers for the McNeill family, hoping that the FBI would get involved in the case. They are also out of money and can't do any more on the cases unless they get donations. They have looked at 89 cases and say that they can connect about 40. They have 19 cases they have yet to look at, of which they think 10 or 15 of those could prove to be connected.
In one interview, the television channel was asked by the detectives not to report everything they told them, and in fact to hold back some key details of the murders such as motive and the identities of the informants. They hope that information will someday be used to file criminal charges.
The police in most of the 40 cases still do not think the detectives are right, as the two have not given any new information to the police. The FBI said there is no proof that dozens of young men who died in mysterious drownings were actually murdered by a nefarious network dubbed the “Smiley Face Gang.” In none of the cases that were looked at by the two detectives did they talk to the law enforcement officers in the area.
The smiley faces were found not where the bodies were found but where the Detectives think the bodies went into the water.
In Michigan, they found something strange among the graffiti: the word 'Sinsiniwa.' They couldn't figure out what it meant until a few months later when they arrived in Dubuque, Iowa to investigate the death of Matt Kruziki, who was found in a river on Sinsiniwa Avenue. They also say that they have found nicknames of some of the dead men in the graffiti.
In two cases, they were killed on the same day, and this is why it is supposed that there is more than one person involved in the killings. It is assumed that they are communicating on the internet.
Theories run all over the board on who this killer or killers is or are.
One group writes, 'The smiley face killer, is he a technician with Trane?' And they have a huge theory on how that would work, complete with girls who lure the young men away from the bars or party they were attending at the time. This group contacted the detectives, who apparently thought it was a grand theory and promised to look into it.
Another group thinks it's the satanic cult that Son of Sam talked about.
A lot of online forums talk of reading something online that could possibly have been from one of the 'gang' but each time I tried to go to the place they pointed to, the post was gone.
I did find something interesting though. A man had posted a list of ten points he headed 'How to be a SUCCESSFUL serial killer.' The third point advised keeping a map of the city being stalked, on the reasoning that detectives would be building one of their own with pins in it, and suggested leaving bodies at chosen points so that the pins would eventually form a shape: a pentagram, or a smiley face.
Other suggestions: a truck driver, or a group of kids who were harassed at school and this is a way of getting back at society.
One thing is for sure, until and unless the Detectives come forward again with more details of what may or may not be going on, there will be guesses as to how many and who might have killed all these kids. Right now the murdered number is 40 to 600. There just isn't enough information.
Editor's note: this article was written in 2008, shortly after the two retired detectives took their theory public, and nothing has changed the position it describes. No Smiley Face Gang has ever been established. The FBI's assessment, quoted above, still stands: it has repeatedly said it has found no evidence that the drownings are linked or that they were homicides, and the medical examiners in most of the individual cases have recorded accidental drowning. No charge has ever been brought. This archive carries no roster entry, because there is no attributed series to carry. The single quoted passage from an anonymous online post has been summarised here rather than reproduced. Serial Killer Magazine has also published a separate article on this case by Martin Shell, written from the Boston side of it.