The Case of the Drowning Men (3 page)

1.
      
Students
are drinking too much
and incapacitating themselves
, a condition
which drives some to seek out the river
to refresh themselves, during which they slip and fall in
.

2.
      
O
nly
men
are
drowning as a result
of intoxication
because
women
are more savvy
these days
and don’t wander around
alone
at night
, especially not if they’ve been partying
.

3.
      
Annually, a
lmost
ten times
as many
males
die
during
water
recreation
al activities
and in other types of accidents
than
females
do
. Alcohol plays a role in a number of these
cases
.

4.
      
There are no drowning deaths at nearby universities
like Madison
because their campuses are
beside
lakes
. W
hereas
La Crosse
’s campus
is
situated
right
on the river
’s edge
, and rivers, being
suddenly
deep and fast flowing, are
far
more
dangerous
.

5.
      
The similarities between the victims
constitute
“illusory correlations” which can
readily
be explained
through
other
qualifying
factors.

Stepping in
to the middle of a community
’s
fray
and trying to mediate it
was
highly
unusual for
a
university,
and,
in light of
the
dire subject matter of the
ir
“data based explanation”
and the negative
impact
advertising it
might
have had on future enrollment
,
a
rather
risky PR move
, too
. But
the professors’ treatise
was also
a
n intelligent, compassionate, and
methodical approach to debunking the serial murderer theory
before it could take root
—the first of many—so
the gamble
was
well
worth it
.
M
oreover,
this
strategy
appears
to have been
quite
successful.
At least
for awhile
.

But
in 2005, 2006
and
2007
,
drunk
and sober
young
men
continued to go missing
along the interstate
s
, sometimes two
or more
in
th
e
very
same
time span
.
T
heir corpses
eventually to be
re
trieved
from
such
rivers
as
the Calumet,
the
Hudson
,
the Charles,
the Mississippi
,
the Milwaukee,
the Wabash
and
the
Wisconsin
,
as well as
a number of
area
lake
s
,
including
Great
Lake Michigan
, Lake LaVerne,
and
the U
niversity at
Madison’s
nearby L
ake Mendota
.
These latter
deaths
occurring
in
seeming
defiance
of
the
UW-L
professors
’
sweeping
assertion
that
a lake
doesn
’t
pose the same
risk
for drowning
because
“
it
becomes gradually deeper and is not moving swiftly.”

Also
helping to rekindle
the flames of conflict
between
believers and nonbelievers of
a
serial
killer
,
new
information
had
beg
u
n
trickling in
f
rom
reliable
outside
investigators
which
suggest
ed
that
dozens
of the questionable drownings could be linked
now
not only
by
an identifiable
victimology and
a
distinct
manner
of
death
, but
also
through
cryptic symbols
like smiley faces
and
other
taunting
messages
left at the scene
s
of
a
some
of the suspected murder
s
.

A
s
ubsequent inspection
throughout the region
confirmed that there
was
in fact sinister-looking graffiti
of this sort
at
many a
river’s edge
or lake
front
,
and
, as with the ruckus at La
C
rosse
Wisconsin
just
a few
years
prior
,
a large percent of the student population
s
in
th
e
se
locations
, together with the
ir
families
and the
local citizenry,
became
understandably
very
worked up
about
the
se
find
ing
s
.
Te
rrified.

It was investigative reporter Kristi Piehl from KSTP-TV
out
of
Minnesota
who
first
broke the story
in 2008
of
serial killers
drowning men
along Interstate 9
0
and 9
4
,
and
of
the doggedly determined
pair of
retired
NYPD detectives in hot pursuit of them
.
T
he
segment
ultimately earning her an Emmy but
apparently
costing her
a
job. From th
at
special
report
, the
concept
of a
“Smiley Face Killer
G
ang
”
was born and
went instantly viral,
not just
on web
sites and in
chatrooms
,
but
also
in the
major
media
outlets
.

ABC, MSNBC
,
CNN
and the Associated Press
, among others,
picked up
the
local
news item
and carried it
nationwide
, in so doing
,
widely
broadcasting the seeds of
what would become one of
the most
hotly-contested
conspiracy theor
ies
of
our
time
.

Once again, pandemonium broke out
as
anxious
c
itizens
began
mobilizing and
actively
tr
ying
to bypass their own police
department
s
’ authority
,
demanding
instead that
federal assistance
be provided in order
to
apprehend a fiendish network of elusive serial murderers stalking, abducting and
drowning
specific types of young
males
across
the
northland
.

Experts in
c
riminolog
y
and
forensic
patholog
y
studied the
various
case profiles
as well
,
and
, noting
the
telltale
spikes
in
certain localities
,
they
also
began
expressing similar opinions
.

"The probability is virtually zero that five intoxicated students just happened to walk similar or even different routes and end up on the riverbank."
Dr. Maurice Godwin, criminal investigative psychologist, commenting on the La Crosse Wisconsin cluster
.

"They could have been murdered but the person was just so good at doing it that they didn't leave any physical evidence…[they] could sedate and drown him in a tub or something like that and then throw him in the river."
John Kelly, psychotherapist and profiler

“The statistics are so stacked against this number of men, young men, Caucasian males, found in bodies of water in that cluster of states, within that period of time.”
Dr. Cyril Wecht,
f
orensic
p
athologist

“I
f you actually look at the statistics on drownings, most drownings occur during the summer and they're related to water activities like boating and water skiing and things like that. Very few drownings actually occur during the winter.
”
Lee Gilbertson, Professor of Criminal Justice at St. Cloud University

T
he
supporting
evidence
for
those
conclusions
was so compelling
,
in fact
,
that two high-level state representatives joined in the furor
.
Senator Sensenbrenner from Wisconsin and
U.S. Congressman
McNulty from New York both submitt
ed
requests directly to the FBI urging the
B
ureau
to formally investigate the serial murders
being perpetrated
in their states and to take swift action
s
to end them.

“Yes, there’s a serial murderer—alcohol,” La
C
rosse’s
flustered
chief of police, Edward Kondracki
,
retorted
when
confronted with
these
latest
developments
.
But,
“
a
rogue cop…or national smiley face gang…t
here is no serial
kill
er!”

In
this
growing war of words,
rival
local
-
news
networks
who had failed to show any real interest in the story before
felt obliged now to
weigh in,
some
seeking to
ridicule
the
award-winning
reporter who had
intrepidly
launched the Smiley Face Murder
T
heory into the national spotlight.