The Case of the Drowning Men (14 page)

S
avvy
investigators
are always conscious of th
e
se constraints and
kn
o
w a
predetermination
by law enforcement officials
of “accident”
would be
all the more
likely
in
cases of apparent drownings
,
since
a
murder-by-drowning
motif
is virtually unheard of
in homicide
,
and
because
the target group
for this type of death was
clearly
young
males
known
to have been
partying
into the wee small hours of the morning.

I
f you
are
convinced
you’re
hot on the heels of
a
n unorthodox
killer, it’s
frustrating
coming up against
these
biases, but
they don’t
necessarily represent
sloppy
police
work
either
,
since
m
ortality
rates
and causes are
in fact
measured in
probabilities
and
statistics
, and,
s
tatistically speaking, it’s not
improbable
at all
for
males
between
the ages of
15 and 24
to
meet up with
some
trag
ic
end
by their own
foolish
device
s
.

A
male
in the blush of youth
, therefore,
particular
ly
one
retrieved from a lake or a river
after painting the town red with his friends
,
w
on’t usually get
a
comprehensive autops
y
, despite that he wasn’t swimming or boating or skating
or suicidal
, o
r even
originally
headed in the direction of the water
when last
observed
.

And
,
coincidentally,
be they
absolutely
blind
drunk
at the moment they died
or
stone cold
sober,
a
related
toxicology report will always
register a higher than normal blood/alcohol content
in the deceased
,
because alcohol is manufactured
through
decomposition
.

Anybody
with a background
in
law enforcement
or a connection to the profession
would
know
this
stuff
.
You didn’t need to be
some
high-ranked ex-NYPD
homicide
detective
to be privy to it, j
ust
one
smart killer who’s done
his
homework
on the subject
. Smart, and
very,
very
wicked.

Though he f
irmly b
eliev
ed
it was
not just one
such
individual but
a
national
gang
of them
on a
lengthy
crime spree
,
Detective
Gannon
still
was
n’t
sure
yet
who
th
e
devious
criminals
could be
displaying
such an
intimate
knowledge
of
police
procedures and
forensics
. Only that they
were
dangerously
demented and
had to be stopped
at all costs
.

So he mortgaged his home that he might continue to
give them
chase.

Meanwhile, o
n the opposite end of the killing fields
,
in
the state of
Minnesota, a private investigator holding the same conviction
s
as Gannon h
eld
was
,
on behalf of Chris Jenkins’
bereaved
parents
, steadily whittling away at the Minneapolis
P
olice
D
epartment
’
s
flimsy
account of
their son’s
2002
“accident
al drowning
”
in the Mississippi River
and
challenging
MPD’s
refusal to further investigate
it
.

Week by week,
month by month,
Gannon’s counterpart
in Minneapolis
,
Chuck
Loesch
,
was
amassing enough evidence to
show
the
MPD’s
ruling of “no signs of foul play”
had
either
been reached
as
a
result of
epic
ineptitude or
by
a
deliberate
whitewash
of
similar
proportions
.

Significant a
mong
this detective’s
finding
s
was the fact
that
bloodhounds
on two separate occasions
each traced Chris Jenkins' scent from the Lone Tree bar
,
where he was last seen
alive
,
to a
hidden
location
away from
the bridge in question
and
far
from
the river’s edge.

People
can
hide or distort the facts, but dogs, never
, Loesch emphasized
.
They have no reason to
:

"The dog took us into the parking area,"
he
unequivocally
stated
. "The dog took us down to these stalls here. Both dogs did. One was within
six
days of Chris missing
,
t
he second was about three to four weeks later."
He told the MPD t
he bloodhounds
further
indicated
that
Jenkins got into a
vehicle
which
then
headed west on
to
Interstate
94.

With the same degree of tenacity as Kevin Gannon displayed in
pursuing
the McNeill case, Chuck Loesch persevered for years in the Jenkins investigation. Finally, i
n 2006, b
ased on
his
outstanding footwork
,
he
met with success
:
The
Chris
Jenkin
s
’
cas
e
was
officially
reopened
by the M
inneapolis
P
olice
D
epartment
,
upgraded to
a homicide
,
and a long overdue public apology
for the delay, straight
from
the mouth of
Chief of Police
himself
,
was
issued to
the
victim’s
family.

Yet, unbelievable as it may seem
after all that
, the
MPD
still
took no significant action
to solve the crime
,
and
,
to this day
,
no charges have ever been filed
against
anyone
.
N
o
t a single person
has ever been
detained or
arrested on suspicion of involvement.
This
murder case,
thwarted
from day one, has
since
grown
all but
cold
with
official
neglect
.

The Jenkins
family
themselves
, t
riumphant
at last
but
emotionally
exhausted
and
totally
disgusted
with the MPD’s continued apathy,
then
handed the entire matter over to Gannon and his
team of
experts
who
,
by
this date,
were
already
fully
familiar with the Jenkins affair
, having
established
similarities
with
a number of other
such deaths
throughout
the northern corridor
.

Mrs. Jenkins has since
written and
released a
book
titled
Footprints In Courage
chronicling the ordeal of her son’s disappearance and death
and the long drawn out battle to get the police to
find his killers
.
To
peruse and
purchase it from Amazon’s Kindle
store click
here
.

Kevin Gannon
,
on the other hand
,
relentlessly
continue
d
his pursuit
of
justice
for all the families and victims
concerned
, staking everything he had on the outcome
.
Including his
own
reputation.

T
he Albany
P
olice
reported that
, "Investigator Bell stated he found no text messages in his phone
,
"
b
ut
Szostak’s father said
the Bethlehem Police, who
share
d
jurisdiction
over the case
,
had
actually
taken a
photo
of
it
.
"Somebody had to erase his messages
,
"
he insisted.
"The photograph of the cellphone showed it had eight new messages."

"Based on the totality of the case and an autopsy report, this was an accidental drowning," said Detective James Miller of the Albany Police Department. "It is a tragic accident. That is all it is.”