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The Smiley Face Killer Mystery: Accident or Hidden Pattern? · The conspiracy

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Speaker 1: He was smart and he was friendly. The kind of
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Speaker 1: guy that you would trust to walk you home. And
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Speaker 1: one night he would leave a bar alone and he
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Speaker 1: would disappear into the dark. And six weeks later, his
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Speaker 1: body would be found in a river. No sign of
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Speaker 1: a struggle, no suspects, just a smiley face painted on
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Speaker 1: a wall nearby. And then it happened again and again
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Speaker 1: And again, 40 times across 11 states. So are these
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Speaker 1: all just tragic coincidences? A collective hallucination, maybe? Or are
0:33
Speaker 1: we staring straight into the face of America's most ignored
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Speaker 1: serial killer? Crime, conspiracy, cults, serial killers, and murder. All
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Speaker 1: things that I love to consume, and I know you
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Speaker 1: do too, you sick, twisted, intellectual, beautiful....
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Speaker 2: I screwed it up, I'm not redoing it.
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Speaker 1: And anyway, today we are talking about an infamous, infamous case,
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Speaker 1: very highly recommended in the comments. So here we are today,
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Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about the Smiley Face murders. So
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Speaker 1: without further ado, let's unbuckle our seat belts, go Mach
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Speaker 1: 5 down the highway, slam on the brakes, and bust
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Speaker 1: through this windshield into this ignored case together. Patrick McNeil
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Speaker 1: was 21 years old, and he was a junior at
1:38
Speaker 1: Fordham University, and he was majoring in accounting. And he
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Speaker 1: was known for his very clean-cut appearance, his social ease,
1:45
Speaker 1: and his ambition. After all, he wanted to join the
1:48
Speaker 1: FBI after graduation. Not an easy feat. And his friends
1:52
Speaker 1: would describe him as confident and very well-liked, just an
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Speaker 1: all-around great guy. And his roommates would even call him
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Speaker 1: a real ladies' man. But on the night of February 16th, 1997,
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Speaker 1: Patrick would go out with his friends to a bar
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Speaker 1: on Manhattan's Upper East Side, something he did on a
2:07
Speaker 1: pretty regular basis. And this bar was called the Dapper Dog,
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Speaker 1: a very popular Fordham hangout. So Patrick would go out
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Speaker 1: with his friends and hang out at the bar, but
2:15
Speaker 1: at some point during the night, he started to feel
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Speaker 1: pretty sick. And witnesses would recall seeing him actually vomiting
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Speaker 1: in the bathroom. So he eventually decided to leave the bar,
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Speaker 1: telling his friends that he would just head back to
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Speaker 1: the campus by subway by himself. So he would say
2:28
Speaker 1: goodbye to all of his friends, but one of his
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Speaker 1: friends actually said that he was going to join him,
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Speaker 1: so he would go outside and wait for his friend.
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Speaker 1: He would actually just never show up outside. So he
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Speaker 1: just thought, okay, he probably just wants to stay at
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Speaker 1: the bar. So I'm just going to go alone, which
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Speaker 1: as a woman, it's just something we just wouldn't do.
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Speaker 1: You know, not something we do is leave alone, but
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Speaker 1: as a man, pretty normal and pretty common. And what
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Speaker 1: happened next has been the subject of speculation for over
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Speaker 1: two years. So eyewitnesses on Second Avenue reported seeing Patrick
3:00
Speaker 1: stumbling along the sidewalk, clearly intoxicated because he was just
3:04
Speaker 1: at a bar. But they also saw something else. And
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Speaker 1: that was a double parked vehicle. And this vehicle started
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Speaker 1: to slowly trail him, matching his pace and even turning
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Speaker 1: when he turned.
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Speaker 2: Just crazy. creepy as hell.
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Speaker 1: And Patrick would be last seen near East 90th Street,
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Speaker 1: heading toward the direction of the East River. And at
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Speaker 1: this point, by witness accounts, the car was still following him.
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Speaker 1: And after that, Patrick McNeil would never be seen alive again.
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Speaker 1: So obviously his family would notice that Patrick went missing
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Speaker 1: and they would call it into the police. So the
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Speaker 1: NYPD and his family and countless volunteers in.
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Speaker 2: New York searched tirelessly for Patrick.
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Speaker 1: And they would distribute over 10,000 posters, turning it into
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Speaker 1: one of the city's most famous missing persons cases.
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Speaker 2: But weeks and weeks would pass.
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Speaker 1: And then 50 days later, on April 7th, 1997, his
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Speaker 1: body would be found floating in the East River near
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Speaker 1: a pier in Brooklyn, which was roughly 12 miles from
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Speaker 1: where he was last seen. And he would be found
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Speaker 1: wearing only jeans and socks, floating face up in the water,
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Speaker 1: which is uncommon for accidental drownings. And the medical examiner
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Speaker 1: listed the cause of death as drowning. The manner of death, undetermined.
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Speaker 1: And his blood alcohol content was actually recorded at 0.16,
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Speaker 1: which is twice the legal limit to drive, but he
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Speaker 1: wasn't driving.
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Speaker 2: He was just walking.
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Speaker 1: But there was unusual details that stood out. Because despite
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Speaker 1: the cold temperatures, fly larvae were discovered on the body.
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Speaker 1: Which is an anomaly since insect activity is typically dormant
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Speaker 1: in winter months.
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Speaker 2: Dr. Cyril Wett would even quote to say, I'm saying
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Speaker 2: that the fly larvae have been laid in the groin area.
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Speaker 2: It's an indoor fly. Could not have been an outdoor fly.
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Speaker 2: It was an indoor fly. And the larvae were there.
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Speaker 2: Did not move ahead into the later stage. So we
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Speaker 2: have a body that was already dead before it was
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Speaker 2: placed in the water. I would call it homicide. Yes.
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Speaker 1: And there were also reported signs that Patrick may have
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Speaker 1: been bound and possibly burned before being placed in the water.
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Speaker 1: And retired NYPD detective Kevin Gannon, who worked to this case,
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Speaker 1: would later state that he believed Patrick McNeil had been abducted,
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Speaker 1: held for an extended period of time, and then was murdered.
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Speaker 1: And that he wasn't just a simple victim of accidental drowning.
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Speaker 1: But Patrick's case would just close, but Kevin Gannon's investigation
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Speaker 1: had only just begun. And soon he would find other
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Speaker 1: young men with eerily similar profiles, who also vanished near water,
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Speaker 1: who were also ruled as just drownings, but were completely unexplained.
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Speaker 1: So Patrick McNeil's case might have been the beginning, but
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Speaker 1: it didn't end with him because in the years that
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Speaker 1: followed similar cases began servicing and not just in new
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Speaker 1: york but across the country different cities same victim profile
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Speaker 1: and the same tragic end young men in their early
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Speaker 1: 20s college students athletes and high performers and in some
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Speaker 1: of those cases where the bodies were found something else
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Speaker 1: appeared nearby something seemingly innocuous and it was a smiley face.
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Speaker 1: And then there was Lucas Homan. And he would be
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Speaker 1: 21 years old when he was last seen at Oktoberfest
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Speaker 1: in La Crosse, Wisconsin in September 2006. And during Oktoberfest,
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Speaker 1: he would actually become separated with his friends at the festivities.
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Speaker 1: And days later, his body would be found near the
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Speaker 1: shore of the Mississippi River. And the autopsy would note
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Speaker 1: injuries to his head's hands and arms, as well as
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Speaker 1: a footprint shaped bruise on his forehead. And authorities would
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Speaker 1: initially rule this as an accidental drowning. But near the
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Speaker 1: site where he was found was another smiley face. Which
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Speaker 1: like also with the amount of bruises on this person,
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Speaker 1: doesn't it look like he was beat and held captive
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Speaker 1: and then thrown in the river?
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Speaker 2: Neglect in these cases is astounding.
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Speaker 1: And then there was Todd Geeb, and he would vanish
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Speaker 1: when he was only 22 years old while attending a
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Speaker 1: bonfire party in rural Michigan in June of 2005. And
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Speaker 1: at the bonfire, eventually he would kind of disappear, and
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Speaker 1: then he would call his friends saying, I'm in a field,
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Speaker 1: but then the call would completely drop. and he would
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Speaker 1: never be heard from again until he was found three
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Speaker 1: weeks later with his body found in a private lake.
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Speaker 1: And what's odd is that he was found upright in
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Speaker 1: the water with his head and shoulders above the surface,
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Speaker 1: a very just deeply unnatural position for a drowning victim.
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Speaker 1: And what's also odd is that that lake had been
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Speaker 1: searched previously as well. So it's almost like he was
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Speaker 1: dumped in this lake later on after the first search
7:35
Speaker 1: was done. And a toxicology screen would indicate that alcohol
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Speaker 1: and antidepressants were found in his system. But he was
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Speaker 1: reportedly not suffering from any sort of depression.
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Speaker 2: At the time.
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Speaker 1: But something else didn't add up because his body showed
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Speaker 1: signs minimal decomposition, which was extremely unusual given that it
7:53
Speaker 1: would have been present if he actually died on the
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Speaker 1: day of his disappearance, leading experts to question whether he
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Speaker 1: had been in the water the entire time or whether
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Speaker 1: he had been somewhere else before he had died. And
8:05
Speaker 1: to boot, nearby on a tree was, you guessed it,
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Speaker 1: a painted smiley face. Tommy Booth was 24 when he
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Speaker 1: disappeared from a bar in Woodland, Pennsylvania on January 19th, 2008.
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Speaker 1: And he was celebrating a friend's 21st birthday on that night.
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Speaker 1: And surveillance cameras would show that Tommy would enter the bar,
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Speaker 1: but he would never leave. And two weeks later, his
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Speaker 1: body would be discovered in a creek behind the bar.
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Speaker 1: And he would be found with full rigor mortis, which
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Speaker 1: usually dissipates somewhere between 24 to 36 hours after death.
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Speaker 1: And for those of you who don't know what rigor
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Speaker 1: mortis is, it's when the body gets really stiff after death,
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Speaker 1: like almost immovable. And this actually suggested that he hadn't
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Speaker 1: been in the water for the full duration of his disappearance.
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Speaker 1: And spray painted nearby, someone had left an eerie smiley face.
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Speaker 1: And then there was William Hurley. a 24-year-old Navy veteran
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Speaker 1: who disappeared after leaving a Boston Bruins game on October
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Speaker 1: of 2009. Before he left, he would call his fiance
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Speaker 1: for a ride, but when she arrived shortly after, he
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Speaker 1: was gone. And six days later, his body was recovered
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Speaker 1: from the Charles River. And an autopsy found blunt force
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Speaker 1: trauma to his head eye socket and his leg and
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Speaker 1: toxicology revealed something else which was alcohol in ghb a
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Speaker 1: drug often used to incapacitate victims and his death would
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Speaker 1: be ruled an undetermined drowning and once again there was
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Speaker 1: a smiley face near the river and then there was
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Speaker 1: 21 year old chris jenkins he was a student at
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Speaker 1: the university of minnesota and on halloween night 2002 he
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Speaker 1: left a bar in downtown minneapolis and was never seen again.
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Speaker 1: And four months later, his body would be recovered from
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Speaker 1: the Mississippi River. And he was still fully dressed in
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Speaker 1: his Halloween costume. So authorities initially ruled this as an
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Speaker 1: accidental drowning. But in 2006, after years of pressure from
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Speaker 1: his family, the Minneapolis Police Department reclassified his death as
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Speaker 1: a homicide. It was just so sad that like the
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Speaker 1: family had to pressure the police into considering this case
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Speaker 1: as a homicide. Like, do your f * * *
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Speaker 1: ing job. And to Detective Kevin Gannon, the detective who
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Speaker 1: was on Patrick McNeil's case, who was the first case,
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Speaker 1: this wasn't just a win for the family. It was
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Speaker 1: a sort of validation. Proof that one of the earlier
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Speaker 1: cases had been mishandled. And that it could fit the
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Speaker 1: pattern he had begun tracking. Because one case is a tragedy,
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Speaker 1: and two is maybe a coincidence. But when young men
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Speaker 1: across the country begin vanishing under almost identical circumstances? After
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Speaker 1: nights out drinking, always found in water, often with smiley-faced
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Speaker 1: graffiti nearby, at what point do you.
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Speaker 2: Stop calling it chance?
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Speaker 1: And that is the exact question retired detectives Kevin Gannon
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Speaker 1: and Anthony Duarte, who actually joined the Gannon investigation, were asking.
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Speaker 1: Because they weren't seeing isolated drownings, they were seeing a
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Speaker 1: pattern emerge. A mark, a symbol, a face. And sometimes
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Speaker 1: it was large and cartoonish, And other times it was
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Speaker 1: kind of hastily scrawled, but it was seemingly always nearby
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Speaker 1: and always just out of place enough to feel wrong.
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Speaker 1: But to most investigators, these were just coincidences because graffiti
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Speaker 1: is in fact pretty much everywhere and smiley faces are
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Speaker 1: extremely common. But to Gannon and Duarte, they were signatures.
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Speaker 1: though they weren't left at every single crime scene, so
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Speaker 1: they were not predictable, but seemingly intentional. Enough to at
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Speaker 1: least suggest taunting or a pattern or a ritual. So
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Speaker 1: by the mid-2000s, what started as a lingering suspicion had
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Speaker 1: grown into something far more disturbing. And retired NYPD detectives
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Speaker 1: Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte weren't just reviewing cold cases
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Speaker 1: at this point. They were tracking the pattern, as I
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Speaker 1: said before. And this pattern spanned dozens of cities and
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Speaker 1: it was a pattern that no one else seemed to
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Speaker 1: be seeing for some reason. So by this point, the
12:07
Speaker 1: team had compiled a list of over 40 young men
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Speaker 1: and all of them were found in bodies of water
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Speaker 1: and ruled as drownings and all just deemed accidents. But
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Speaker 1: to Gannon and Duarte, the similarities were just impossible to ignore.
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Speaker 1: But to police departments, they were just unrelated tragedies. So
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Speaker 1: Gannon and Duarte started to put all of these pieces
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Speaker 1: together and a map started to take shape. And the
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Speaker 1: shape was not random. And to make sense of it,
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Speaker 1: the team needed more than investigative instinct. They needed someone
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Speaker 1: who could look at the data and explain from the outside.
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Speaker 1: And that's when Professor Dr. Lee Gilbertson came into the picture.
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Speaker 1: He was a criminal justice professor and expert in organized
12:48
Speaker 1: criminal behavior from St. Clown University in Minnesota. And Gilbertson
12:52
Speaker 1: hadn't necessarily set out to solve the case. In fact,
12:55
Speaker 1: his introduction actually came through the classroom because he would
12:58
Speaker 1: actually assign the deaths of several young men as a
13:01
Speaker 1: case study for a graduate course in criminal profiling. So
13:04
Speaker 1: at first it was just academic curiosity because the cases
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Speaker 1: themselves were bizarre, but they were also very distant until,
13:12
Speaker 1: of course, the similarities began to pile up.
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Speaker 2: So then came the phone call.
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Speaker 1: And detectives Gannon and Duarte actually saw the project online
13:20
Speaker 1: and called them to collaborate. And when Gilbertson first initially
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Speaker 1: examined the case files, he didn't just rush to judgment,
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Speaker 1: which I think is good. He approached this theory with
13:30
Speaker 1: great caution, constantly looking for holes and inconsistencies. So he
13:34
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily trying to prove their point. He was just
13:37
Speaker 1: trying to understand it at this point. But he would
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Speaker 1: say patterns were there. There was the same profile, same behaviors,
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Speaker 1: and same aftermath. And the most telling, actually, was the
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Speaker 1: same terrain. Because Gilbertson saw what the others different, and
13:52
Speaker 1: that was that the geography actually might be the key.
13:55
Speaker 1: Because the victims weren't being found in obscure locations, they
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Speaker 1: were actually being found inside of patterns, along specific river paths,
14:03
Speaker 1: in proximity to college towns, and within certain travel corridors.
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Speaker 1: So he argued that the locations actually weren't accidental, they
14:11
Speaker 1: were deliberately chosen. So Gilbertson would pose a theory of
14:15
Speaker 1: his own, one even darker than the idea of a
14:18
Speaker 1: lone serial killer, because he claimed that this didn't look
14:20
Speaker 1: like it was the work of one person, but instead
14:23
Speaker 1: looked like the work of a network. So according to Gilbertson,
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Speaker 1: these cases didn't resemble a serial killer's hunting ground, but
14:32
Speaker 1: a disturbed model more akin to a gang or cell-based activity. Essentially,
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Speaker 1: multiple individuals, which is just even more terrifying terrifying and horrible.
14:43
Speaker 1: And he would suggest that they were operating independently, but
14:46
Speaker 1: they were also connected in some way. And they would
14:48
Speaker 1: select targets based off of certain criteria, leaving behind obscure,
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Speaker 1: possibly symbolic marks.
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Speaker 2: The smiley face.
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Speaker 1: But they hadn't quite found something to link it all
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Speaker 1: together at this point. Gannon and Gilbertson began applying geographical
15:03
Speaker 1: profiling to new cases. So they would locate high-risk areas,
15:07
Speaker 1: tracing victim movements, analyzing proximity to waterways, bars, and surveillance
15:12
Speaker 1: blind spots. So what they were building wasn't just a theory,
15:15
Speaker 1: but it was a map. And in the very center
15:18
Speaker 1: of the map A crude, mocking symbol. One that kept
15:23
Speaker 1: appearing near the water, and one that would give this
15:26
Speaker 1: theory its name. A, you guessed it, smiley face. But
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Speaker 1: as I was saying before, the symbol wasn't consistent in design.
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Speaker 1: There was no single style, no brand-like stamp that screamed
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Speaker 1: serial killer. Like a lot of serial killers we go through,
15:41
Speaker 1: they have a very specific M.O.
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Speaker 2: And they do certain rituals, like leaving marks or.
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Speaker 1: Taking specific items, and in this case, It's a smiley face,
15:49
Speaker 1: but since it's not consistent, it really doesn't seem like
15:51
Speaker 1: it's one person. But this kind of just added to
15:54
Speaker 1: the unease. Because smiley faces were showing up within walking
15:57
Speaker 1: distance of recovery sites, often within 20 feet. But again,
16:01
Speaker 1: it wasn't at every single scene, but in just enough
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Speaker 1: of them to start to raise questions.
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Speaker 2: So in the.
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Speaker 1: Cases like Tommy, Todd, William, and Lucas, the smiley face
16:11
Speaker 1: was there. And sometimes they weren't alone. Because Gannon's team
16:15
Speaker 1: claimed that they actually found additional undisclosed markings at some
16:19
Speaker 1: of the sites. Some were runes, arrows, and abstract figures.
16:23
Speaker 1: But they chose to not release those symbols publicly because
16:27
Speaker 1: they didn't want to inspire copycats. Or alert who was
16:30
Speaker 1: ever behind it. because the team believed that these symbols
16:33
Speaker 1: were kind of a mocking calling card. And in interviews
16:36
Speaker 1: and briefings, Gannon started to refer to the perpetrators, or
16:40
Speaker 1: whoever they were, as part of a syndicate, which is
16:42
Speaker 1: a loose network of individuals or cells possibly communicating across cities.
16:47
Speaker 1: And he suspected that the group selected victims with great care,
16:50
Speaker 1: targeting young men based on profile, vulnerability, and opportunity. And
16:54
Speaker 1: each act carried out in a different place. Each crime
16:58
Speaker 1: was dressed as an accident and each message was tagged
17:02
Speaker 1: with a smile. So at this point, the press just
17:04
Speaker 1: needed a name, of course, and soon they would have one,
17:08
Speaker 1: the Smiley Face Killers. So what started as just a
17:11
Speaker 1: theory was now a brand and one that would spread
17:14
Speaker 1: across the internet. To message boards, true crime communities, and
17:18
Speaker 1: headline after headline, it would just keep coming up, the
17:22
Speaker 1: Smiley Faced Killers. behind that eerie nickname was still a
17:26
Speaker 1: chilling question. If this was real and if someone was
17:29
Speaker 1: really killing young men across the country and leaving behind
17:32
Speaker 1: this cryptic grin, how had no one stopped them at
17:36
Speaker 1: this point or properly investigated them besides Gannon and Dwark,
17:40
Speaker 1: who were just doing this as like something on their
17:43
Speaker 1: off time, basically. So by the time Gannon's team began
17:45
Speaker 1: to speak publicly about the smiley face killer theory, it
17:48
Speaker 1: had already ignited quite the controversy. And not because of
17:51
Speaker 1: what was known, but because of what was missing. Because
17:54
Speaker 1: the idea of a hidden network stalking and abducting young
17:58
Speaker 1: men across multiple states was pretty bold. Because it challenged
18:02
Speaker 1: the very framework most law enforcement agencies used to understand
18:07
Speaker 1: violent crimes. And that made people very uneasy, naturally. And
18:12
Speaker 1: in precincts and college campuses and media circles, a quiet
18:16
Speaker 1: wave of skepticism began to ripple beneath the surface. Because
18:20
Speaker 1: critics weren't just questioning the conclusion, they were questioning the
18:23
Speaker 1: very foundation of the theory itself. And one of the
18:26
Speaker 1: first criticisms was the symbol, the smiley face. Because yes,
18:30
Speaker 1: smiley face graffiti had been found near some of the
18:32
Speaker 1: recovery sites, But it was also kinda everywhere else. I can't, like,
18:37
Speaker 1: every time I've seen graffiti, there is a smiley face
18:40
Speaker 1: somewhere in there. And they're on bridges and underpasses, skate
18:44
Speaker 1: parks and alleyways, where graffiti is very prominent to begin with.
18:48
Speaker 1: And urban graffiti wasn't a rare thing. And the smiley face,
18:51
Speaker 1: like I said before, was arguably the most universal symbol
18:55
Speaker 1: on Earth. So to many, connecting it to the murders
18:58
Speaker 1: felt like seeing faces in clouds. If you looked hard enough, you're.
19:02
Speaker 2: Gonna see a face. Might be a really scary face
19:05
Speaker 2: or something. I've seen some weird shit in clouds, I'll
19:07
Speaker 2: tell you what. But you'll see it if.
19:09
Speaker 1: You're looking for it. And there was the lack of
19:11
Speaker 1: hard evidence. There was no murder weapons, no fingerprints, no DNA.
19:16
Speaker 1: no witnesses, and no direct links between the victims themselves.
19:20
Speaker 1: And each case, when viewed in isolation, could be explained away.
19:23
Speaker 1: It was a college-aged man, a night of drinking, a
19:26
Speaker 1: body in a river. Tragic, yes, but to most authorities,
19:30
Speaker 1: not suspicious. And the profiles, though, were consistent, but so
19:34
Speaker 1: were their environments. College towns, winter weather, nightlife culture, waterfronts, intoxication,
19:41
Speaker 1: And to skeptics, that wasn't conspiracy.
19:44
Speaker 2: That was just a risk.
19:45
Speaker 1: And even some within law enforcement began to question whether
19:48
Speaker 1: Gannon's team was chasing shadows.
19:50
Speaker 2: At this point.
19:51
Speaker 1: Because they saw the theory built on circumstantial links, bound
19:54
Speaker 1: together by grief and frustration and a deeply human desire
19:59
Speaker 1: to make sense of senseless death. Because to them it
20:02
Speaker 1: wasn't murder, it wasn't ritual, it wasn't misinterpretation, it was
20:07
Speaker 1: just So even as the theory began to catch the
20:10
Speaker 1: public's eye behind the scenes, it was already being quietly dismissed.
20:15
Speaker 1: But Gannon and his team were not backing down because
20:18
Speaker 1: for every case critics explained away, but that's when another
20:22
Speaker 1: one surfaced. So Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte had spent
20:29
Speaker 1: years compiling case files, mapping location, and connecting the dots
20:33
Speaker 1: no one else seemed to see. Because they really believed
20:35
Speaker 1: they had uncovered one of the most overlooked serial crime
20:38
Speaker 1: patterns in American history. But at this point, it wasn't
20:41
Speaker 1: enough to believe it. And they needed others to see
20:44
Speaker 1: it too. So they went national, baby. The detectives would
20:47
Speaker 1: appear on ABC's Good Morning America, laying out their investigation
20:52
Speaker 1: to a national live audience. Then, their theory was featured
20:55
Speaker 1: on CNN, where Gannon reiterated the most chilling possibility of all.
21:00
Speaker 1: We believe they're being murdered. And then Duarte added, water
21:03
Speaker 1: destroys evidence, it's the perfect crime. But they didn't name
21:07
Speaker 1: any suspects at this point. And they didn't point fingers,
21:10
Speaker 1: but they posed a terrifying question to millions of viewers.
21:13
Speaker 2: What if these aren't?
21:15
Speaker 1: Accidents in what if someone or some group is hunting
21:18
Speaker 1: young men across the country and the media would take
21:21
Speaker 1: immediate notice and they would latch on to the smiley
21:24
Speaker 1: face killers because it was eerie it was marketable it
21:27
Speaker 1: was viral and that's when public opinion started to light
21:30
Speaker 1: up again so true crime fans amateur sleuths grieving families
21:33
Speaker 1: began to all re-examine the old cases with fresh eyes
21:38
Speaker 1: was there a pattern that no one noticed was there
21:40
Speaker 1: a link between their loss and someone else's And for many,
21:43
Speaker 1: Gannon and Duarte had pulled back the curtain on a
21:45
Speaker 1: dark truth. But for others, they'd stepped into the spotlight
21:48
Speaker 1: with a story too far-fetched to believe. So there are
21:51
Speaker 1: basically two parties, either you believed it or you didn't.
21:54
Speaker 1: And as their theory started to make headlines, they also
21:57
Speaker 1: began to adopt some enemies. And the detectives being in
22:01
Speaker 1: this field for so long had expected some critics. But
22:04
Speaker 1: what they didn't expect was how loud and how fast
22:06
Speaker 1: it would grow. Because the more that Gannon and Duarte spoke,
22:09
Speaker 1: the more resistance they triggered from within the very world
22:12
Speaker 1: that they came from, which was law enforcement, forensic experts,
22:16
Speaker 1: and eventually the big guy, the big guy on campus,
22:19
Speaker 1: the FBI. And the FBI would push back and put
22:23
Speaker 1: out a statement. And it would say, Over the past
22:26
Speaker 1: several years, law enforcement and FBI have received information about
22:29
Speaker 1: young college-aged men who were found deceased in rivers in
22:32
Speaker 1: the Midwest. The FBI has reviewed the information about the
22:35
Speaker 1: victims provided by two retired police detectives who have dubbed
22:38
Speaker 1: these incidents the smiley face murders. and interviewed an individual
22:42
Speaker 1: who provided information to the detectives. To date, we have
22:45
Speaker 1: not developed any evidence to support the links between these
22:47
Speaker 1: tragic deaths or any evidence substantiating the theory that these
22:50
Speaker 1: deaths are the work of a serial killer or killers.
22:53
Speaker 1: The vast majority of these instances appear to be alcohol-related drownings.
22:57
Speaker 1: The FBI will continue to work with the local police
23:00
Speaker 1: in the affected areas to provide support as requested. And
23:03
Speaker 1: this was said Supervisory Special Agent Richard J.
23:06
Speaker 2: Kolko, Washington, D.C., So.
23:07
Speaker 1: That was on April 29th, 2008, and it was very
23:11
Speaker 1: rare for the FBI to put out public statements. But
23:15
Speaker 1: they would dismantle this case in just a few sentences.
23:19
Speaker 1: So it was swift, and it cut directly through the
23:22
Speaker 1: heart of the smiley face killer theory. So the Bureau's
23:25
Speaker 1: position was pretty clear. There was no suspects, no motive,
23:28
Speaker 1: and no forensic evidence linking the cases. So to federal investigators,
23:32
Speaker 1: it wasn't a case. It was basically just a story.
23:36
Speaker 1: And from their perspective, it just didn't hold up. But Gannon,
23:39
Speaker 1: my guy, was not convinced. Guy was persistent as hell,
23:43
Speaker 1: I will give him that. And he would actually fire
23:45
Speaker 1: back at the FBI publicly, accusing the FBI of ignoring
23:50
Speaker 1: key inconsistencies in the cases, which included toxicology reports, signs
23:55
Speaker 1: of staging, unusual injuries, and bodies recovered in places that
23:59
Speaker 1: had already been searched, which we already knew. And it
24:03
Speaker 1: was already pretty obvious F * * * ing suspicious.
24:06
Speaker 1: And Gannon believed that if the FBI actually sat down
24:09
Speaker 1: with them and actually looked at the evidence that they collected,
24:13
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have actually made that statement. Because to him,
24:16
Speaker 1: the Bureau hadn't disproven the theory at all. They basically
24:19
Speaker 1: just dismissed it without digging any deeper. But some of
24:22
Speaker 1: the loudest voices in opposition were the experts. It wasn't
24:26
Speaker 1: conspiracy theorists, it wasn't internet sleuths, but very seasoned criminal profilers, detectives,
24:32
Speaker 1: and forensic psychologists.
24:34
Speaker 2: Many of whom have worked on serial cases. And Dr.
24:37
Speaker 1: Chris Mohandy, a respected forensic psychologist who personally investigated the
24:42
Speaker 1: 2002 death of Christopher Jenkins, saw no evidence of foul play.
24:46
Speaker 1: He would point to inconsistencies in the graffiti as a
24:49
Speaker 1: key problem because the smiley faces varied widely in shape, size,
24:53
Speaker 1: and style. Some were cartoonish, others minimal, and some had
24:56
Speaker 1: been there for years. So to Chris, this wasn't a
25:00
Speaker 1: calling card. It was just urban noise. but uh raising
25:03
Speaker 1: my hand here the smiley face might have nothing to
25:06
Speaker 1: do with it and that that's like a very i
25:08
Speaker 1: think the smiley face part is actually a very small
25:10
Speaker 1: part of it it's how similar these deaths are that's
25:13
Speaker 1: just me though but anyway then we have nanette toosby
25:17
Speaker 1: a former lapd detective who echoed those same concerns and
25:22
Speaker 1: she would note that in many of the cases the
25:24
Speaker 1: locations where the bodies were found and the locations of
25:26
Speaker 1: any graffiti were not close to each other. And she
25:29
Speaker 1: also argued that a serial killer spanning more than 27
25:32
Speaker 1: years and state lines without any sort of trail seemed unlikely,
25:37
Speaker 1: which they didn't claim.
25:39
Speaker 2: They claimed that it wasn't one person, so... Okay. Okay, Nanette.
25:44
Speaker 2: I'm being an asshole. Anyway.
25:45
Speaker 1: But then came Pat Brown, a veteran criminal profiler. And
25:49
Speaker 1: her take was even more blunt. She basically just called
25:53
Speaker 1: it ludicrous. Like, actually, she used the word ludicrous. Luda
25:57
Speaker 1: and the smiley faces were just a red herring. And
26:01
Speaker 1: she said, if you look in any area five miles square,
26:04
Speaker 1: I bet you could find a smiley face. Which... I agree.
26:08
Speaker 2: I do agree with that.
26:09
Speaker 1: Like, they're all really fixating on the smiley face thing,
26:12
Speaker 1: but I really don't think that's the point. I think
26:15
Speaker 1: there's just more than that. That a lot of these
26:18
Speaker 1: deaths look like foul play.
26:19
Speaker 2: I think we should look into that. Stop looking at
26:21
Speaker 2: the f * * *.
26:23
Speaker 1: But the Center for Homicide Research, a Minneapolis-based organization focused
26:28
Speaker 1: on data-driven crime studies, went one step further. And they
26:31
Speaker 1: published a full-length report aiming to scientifically refute the smiley
26:36
Speaker 1: face killing theory. And the argument included this. No proof
26:39
Speaker 1: that smiley faces were painted at or immediately after the
26:42
Speaker 1: time of killing.
26:43
Speaker 2: Graffiti is everywhere. Thanks, Center for Homicide Research.
26:47
Speaker 1: No discernible criteria has been stated for how close the
26:50
Speaker 1: smiley faces must be in proximity to the death site
26:52
Speaker 1: no evidence of victim trauma what the way that intoxicated
26:56
Speaker 1: men accidentally fall into bodies of water is well known
26:58
Speaker 1: and documented that is fair they concluded the theory most
27:01
Speaker 1: likely was a result of observational bias you basically see
27:06
Speaker 1: what you want to see there is Fact in that.
27:09
Speaker 1: I do think that personally. And they thought it was
27:12
Speaker 1: also a result of groupthink. Basically, people influenced by an
27:15
Speaker 1: authority figure, aka prominent lead homicide detective from New York,
27:19
Speaker 1: which has the largest city of population. And these posed
27:22
Speaker 1: a risk of distracting attention from the actual causes of death.
27:26
Speaker 1: But even local law enforcement had their doubts. Because in
27:29
Speaker 1: La Crosse, Wisconsin, a city where eight separate cases were
27:33
Speaker 1: connected to the theory, police issued a very clear response.
27:36
Speaker 1: The deaths were accidental drownings, there was no evidence of homicide,
27:41
Speaker 1: and there was no relevant smiley face graffiti found.
27:44
Speaker 2: Near the site.
27:45
Speaker 1: So to them, it was a problem of alcohol, geography,
27:48
Speaker 1: and tragedy, not of conspiracy. So the message from experts
27:52
Speaker 1: was very clear. The theory supposedly wasn't supported by any
27:56
Speaker 1: evidence and was built basically just on shaky foundation, and
27:59
Speaker 1: they were trying to connect dots that didn't necessarily connect
28:03
Speaker 1: at all. But for Gannon's team, persistent guy, it wasn't
28:06
Speaker 1: about what the experts believed.
28:08
Speaker 2: It was about what.
28:09
Speaker 1: Was happening, and they were determined to uncover more evidence.
28:13
Speaker 1: Because long after criticism came and went, the bodies were
28:17
Speaker 1: still showing up. So Dakota was 23 years old. He
28:26
Speaker 1: was a graduate student of Duquesne University with a promising future.
28:29
Speaker 1: He was very bright and very responsible and not the
28:33
Speaker 1: kind of person who just vanishes without a trace and who.
28:36
Speaker 2: Vanishes with no reason.
28:37
Speaker 1: But on January 25th, 2017, Dakota went out with friends
28:42
Speaker 1: in downtown Pittsburgh. And it was just a casual night out,
28:45
Speaker 1: just drinks after a very normal day, nothing unusual for him.
28:49
Speaker 1: But surveillance footage later showed him walking alone through Katz Plaza,
28:54
Speaker 1: and then down a nearby alley toward Fort Dekesne Boulevard.
28:58
Speaker 1: And that would be the last time he was seen alive.
29:01
Speaker 1: And for 40 days, Dakota was just missing. And the
29:04
Speaker 1: family would just beg the public for information and the
29:08
Speaker 1: searches would intensify. And then he would finally be found.
29:11
Speaker 1: So on March 6th, his body was surfaced in the
29:14
Speaker 1: Ohio River near Interstate 79 bridge over Neville Island. just
29:18
Speaker 1: miles away from where he was last seen. And the
29:21
Speaker 1: Allegheny County Medical Examiner ruled it an accidental drowning. There
29:25
Speaker 1: was no trauma, no foul play suspected, and the case
29:28
Speaker 1: was just closed. But Dakota's family did not accept that,
29:32
Speaker 1: especially his mother, Pamela James, because she believed that there
29:35
Speaker 1: was no way he ended up in the river on
29:38
Speaker 1: his own. And that's when Dr. Sewell Wecht, a renowned
29:42
Speaker 1: forensic psychologist, would enter. And he would go on to
29:45
Speaker 1: review Dakota's case, and he would find it deeply, deeply troubling.
29:49
Speaker 1: And he would make these notes. Minimal decomposition inconsistent with
29:53
Speaker 1: traveling over 10 miles and 40 days in a river.
29:56
Speaker 1: supposedly through a dam as well. Ligature marks around the
30:00
Speaker 1: neck suggesting possible strangulation, not mentioned in the autopsy at all,
30:05
Speaker 1: and the distinct difference in coloration of the fingernail beds
30:09
Speaker 1: of the fourth and fifth fingers on both the right
30:12
Speaker 1: and left hands, which certainly would be consistent with someone
30:15
Speaker 1: reaching up and trying to release the pressure from a
30:18
Speaker 1: ligature that is being applied around the neck. So to Wecht,
30:23
Speaker 1: this wasn't just drowning. It looked more like a staged
30:27
Speaker 1: crime scene. But the police just stood by their ruling.
30:29
Speaker 1: There was no suspects, no evidence of abduction, and no witnesses.
30:33
Speaker 1: Which of course just means he wasn't murdered. Just because
30:36
Speaker 1: you haven't found anything yet, they're like, ah, it was
30:38
Speaker 1: an accident.
30:39
Speaker 2: We can't find anything.
30:40
Speaker 1: You look?
30:40
Speaker 2: Let me look. Let me look really quick.
30:42
Speaker 1: One sec.
30:44
Speaker 2: Nope, case closed. It was an accident. Let's go get lunch.
30:48
Speaker 1: Like the amount of neglect in these cases, it is
30:52
Speaker 1: just so sad, so disheartening, especially for these families just
30:56
Speaker 1: wanting answers as to why their child, their brother, their... uncle,
31:02
Speaker 1: whoever went missing and just turned up dead and they're
31:05
Speaker 1: just being pushed aside.
31:07
Speaker 2: It's disgusting.
31:08
Speaker 1: And obviously to Dakota's family, this was not a tragic accident.
31:12
Speaker 1: They believed it was something else, something much darker. And
31:15
Speaker 1: for those who had been following the smiley face killer
31:17
Speaker 1: theory for years, the details felt hauntingly familiar. So Gannon,
31:22
Speaker 1: once again, would assemble his team. It's like the Avengers.
31:25
Speaker 2: I love it.
31:26
Speaker 1: Including former members Anthony Duarte and Dr.
31:29
Speaker 2: Lee Gilbertson.
31:30
Speaker 1: But this time they added a fellow retired NYPD detective,
31:33
Speaker 1: Michael Donovan. So with fresh eyes and newer tools, the
31:36
Speaker 1: team brought something to the table that most local departments lacked,
31:39
Speaker 1: which was advanced forensic methods, digital reconstruction, and geographic profiling.
31:45
Speaker 1: Because to them, this wasn't about just chasing hunches, It
31:47
Speaker 1: was about following the data and letting digital trail speak
31:50
Speaker 1: for itself. And in several cases, they conducted detailed reviews
31:54
Speaker 1: of cell phone records, GPS logs, and account activity. And
31:57
Speaker 1: these discoveries would form a foundation for a brand new
32:00
Speaker 1: light to be shone on the smiley face killer theory.
32:03
Speaker 1: But more on that in a moment. So in the
32:06
Speaker 1: early days, the symbol was simple. A smiley face, crude, cartoonish,
32:10
Speaker 1: and sprayed onto bridges, tunnels, walls, and riverbanks. And to some,
32:14
Speaker 1: it was just graffiti. But to others, it was a signature.
32:17
Speaker 1: But as the cases mounted, the investigators began to notice
32:19
Speaker 1: something unsettling. And that was, the symbol was evolving. Because
32:23
Speaker 1: the smiley face kind of shifted from concrete to code.
32:27
Speaker 1: And they began to theorize that the symbol was no
32:29
Speaker 1: longer limited to paint cans and underpasses. It had become
32:32
Speaker 1: something more abstract. A digital marker passed through usernames, avatars,
32:37
Speaker 1: and encrypted online communities. And it was a way of
32:40
Speaker 1: signaling identity or allegiance. And then they would find something
32:44
Speaker 1: that changed everything. Because during the course of re-investigation, the
32:48
Speaker 1: team was handed a URL. And the URL had led
32:51
Speaker 1: them not to the surface web, but to something far
32:54
Speaker 1: more concealed. A dark web portal. Yep.
32:58
Speaker 2: We're getting real dark.
33:00
Speaker 1: And the site was not public, so this couldn't be
33:02
Speaker 1: accessed by accident. And before granting entry, it demanded something unexpected,
33:08
Speaker 1: which was webcam verification. And to proceed, they would need.
33:11
Speaker 2: To show their faces. Which again is just, it's just
33:14
Speaker 2: f * * *. Terrifying.
33:15
Speaker 1: And this was a step that no investigator could afford
33:18
Speaker 1: to take, so they would back off. But what lay
33:20
Speaker 1: beyond that login screen has haunted them ever since. And
33:24
Speaker 1: from that moment on, the Gilbertson Networks theory felt much stronger.
33:29
Speaker 1: But this dark web portal helped paint a picture. is decentralized, anonymous,
33:34
Speaker 1: operating in cells across various cities. And each cell, they believed,
33:39
Speaker 1: composed of dozens of individuals capable of recruiting, surveilling, and
33:44
Speaker 1: communicating without leaving a trail at all. And if true,
33:48
Speaker 1: it would explain the uniformity of the victims and the
33:51
Speaker 1: precision of the disappearances and the near total absence of
33:55
Speaker 1: forensic evidence. So the recruitment, they theorized, occurred through encrypted communication.
34:01
Speaker 1: So these weren't just thrill kills, they were coordinated acts,
34:05
Speaker 1: according to Gannon and his team. And the smiley face,
34:08
Speaker 1: it wasn't just to taunt anymore, it was a banner.
34:11
Speaker 1: And to critics, this all just sounded like folklore, digital
34:15
Speaker 1: age myth-making wrapped in fear. But to Gannon's team, it
34:18
Speaker 1: made sense of what nothing else could explain. How could
34:21
Speaker 1: the same kind of victim disappear under the same circumstances
34:26
Speaker 1: in city after city, year after year, without a single
34:29
Speaker 1: suspect ever being caught, even though foul play was present
34:33
Speaker 1: in some.
34:33
Speaker 2: Of the murders.
34:34
Speaker 1: So if the killings were coordinated behind the screen, then
34:37
Speaker 1: maybe the face on the wall wasn't just a signature.
34:40
Speaker 1: Maybe it was just watching you back. So though the
34:48
Speaker 1: cases were live and well with Gannon and his team,
34:51
Speaker 1: and of course the victims' families, the smiley face killer
34:54
Speaker 1: theory had lost a bit of steam over the years.
34:57
Speaker 1: And critics said that it had been debunked and the
34:59
Speaker 1: media just moved on like they always do. So the
35:02
Speaker 1: cases just remained cold. But in 2019, theory returned. And
35:07
Speaker 1: this time it was through a television screen. Because remember
35:10
Speaker 1: that brand new light that I mentioned?
35:12
Speaker 2: This was it.
35:13
Speaker 1: Because the Oxygen Network launched a six-part true crime docu-series
35:17
Speaker 1: called Smiley Face Killers The Hunt for Justice. And it
35:21
Speaker 1: followed Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte and their investigation team
35:25
Speaker 1: as they reopened some of the most controversial cases connected
35:28
Speaker 1: to the theory. And this series wasn't just a recap.
35:31
Speaker 1: It was an extension of the investigation, updated for the
35:34
Speaker 1: digital age. And each episode dove into different cases, revisiting timelines,
35:39
Speaker 1: interviewing families, and challenging the official rulings, and in some cases,
35:44
Speaker 1: revealing new details the public had never heard. And in
35:47
Speaker 1: the case of William Hurley, the Navy veteran who vanished
35:50
Speaker 1: after the Boston Bruins game, they would examine his damaged
35:53
Speaker 1: cell phone. that was recovered near where he was last seen.
35:56
Speaker 1: Because they suspected that the phone had actually been intentionally destroyed,
36:00
Speaker 1: just based on the way that the phone was damaged.
36:03
Speaker 1: And this was potentially to disrupt digital evidence collection. And
36:06
Speaker 1: then came the case of Dakota James. Because in addition
36:09
Speaker 1: to forensic red flags raised by Dr. Cyril Wecht, including
36:13
Speaker 1: the minimal decomposition and possible ligature marks, the investigation team
36:17
Speaker 1: uncovered something very odd in Dakota's digital footprint. And it
36:21
Speaker 1: was a PayPal transaction made two days after his disappearance.
36:26
Speaker 1: So DeGannon and his team, it's suggested a chilling possibility
36:29
Speaker 1: that someone maybe had access to Dakota's accounts after he
36:34
Speaker 1: had vanished. And if this was true, he may have
36:36
Speaker 1: not been alone during that time. And in the case
36:39
Speaker 1: of Todd Geib, who disappeared after the bonfire party in
36:42
Speaker 1: rural Michigan in 2005 and was found three weeks later
36:46
Speaker 1: upright in the lake, the team actually went a step
36:48
Speaker 1: further and they would conduct a forensic decomposition study. Working
36:52
Speaker 1: with forensic biologist Dr. M. Eric Benbow, they would use
36:56
Speaker 1: a pig carcass to replicate the environment conditions of the
36:59
Speaker 1: lake where Gibb was found.
37:01
Speaker 2: And the results?
37:02
Speaker 1: Bodies left in the water for three weeks showed immediate
37:06
Speaker 1: insect infestation and extensive decomposition, which was far more than
37:12
Speaker 1: what was seen in Gibb's case. And to the investigators,
37:14
Speaker 1: this was very significant. It not only suggested Todd had
37:18
Speaker 1: not been in the lake for the full duration of
37:20
Speaker 1: his disappearance, but that someone may have held him elsewhere.
37:24
Speaker 1: And then the body was placed in the water after
37:26
Speaker 1: the fact. So these weren't just one-offs.
37:29
Speaker 2: They were... signposts.
37:31
Speaker 1: Evidence that supported what they had believed for years. And
37:34
Speaker 1: these young men weren't just falling into rivers, they were
37:37
Speaker 1: being put there. So for some, the Oxygen series breathed
37:40
Speaker 1: new life into the old myth. But for others, it
37:43
Speaker 1: served as a reminder for something far more disturbing. That
37:45
Speaker 1: after For two decades, no one could fully explain why
37:50
Speaker 1: so many men were disappearing. Only to be found in water,
37:53
Speaker 1: miles from where they were last seen. But this time,
37:56
Speaker 1: the audience watching wasn't just investigators. It was millions and
38:00
Speaker 1: millions of viewers. and the next wave of believers. So
38:04
Speaker 1: in the modern era, the rules for investigation have changed,
38:08
Speaker 1: and the technology that once didn't exist now might just
38:11
Speaker 1: crack the silence. And today, investigators aren't limited to witness
38:14
Speaker 1: statements and physical evidence. They have data and machines that
38:17
Speaker 1: know where we've been and what we've seen and who
38:20
Speaker 1: we were near, because geofencing now allows authorities to pinpoint
38:24
Speaker 1: every phone in a certain radius at any given time.
38:27
Speaker 1: which is kind of scary, but also helpful in this case.
38:30
Speaker 1: And Wi-Fi logs can place victim or suspect inside a
38:33
Speaker 1: building without a single camera. And phone ping triangulation can
38:37
Speaker 1: quite literally rebuild the final minutes of life with chilling accuracy.
38:41
Speaker 1: So these tools aren't just theoretical. They've already been used
38:45
Speaker 1: in major criminal cases to secure convictions. And if applied
38:48
Speaker 1: to the drownings linked to the smiley face killing theory,
38:51
Speaker 1: they could finally reveal what happened between the time a
38:54
Speaker 1: victim vanished and where their body was found. So the
38:56
Speaker 1: next breakthrough, if it comes, may not be found at
39:00
Speaker 1: the bottom of a river, but buried in data. And
39:02
Speaker 1: for the families left behind, the answers from law enforcement
39:05
Speaker 1: were never enough. And for some, the search for truth
39:08
Speaker 1: never stopped. like Pam James, the mother of Dakota James,
39:11
Speaker 1: has become one of the most outspoken advocates for reopening
39:15
Speaker 1: the cases, because she never accepted that her son died
39:18
Speaker 1: of accidental drowning. And even with the aforementioned evidence discovered
39:21
Speaker 1: by Gannon and Dr. Wecht, including the potential ligature marks
39:25
Speaker 1: on his neck and minimal decomposition, and despite being missing
39:28
Speaker 1: for 40 days, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office refused
39:33
Speaker 1: to change the ruling. But still, Pam continues to speak out,
39:37
Speaker 1: demanding that her son's case be reopened. And she is
39:40
Speaker 1: not alone. The Holman family, the Hurley family, and more.
39:44
Speaker 1: They lost their sons under nearly identical circumstances, and they
39:47
Speaker 1: continue to call for the cases to be formally reexamined.
39:51
Speaker 1: Because for these families, the pain of losing a child
39:53
Speaker 1: had not been compounded by the feeling that no one
39:56
Speaker 1: but them wanted to look deeper. But with Gannon and
39:59
Speaker 1: his team, they looked. And what they found wasn't closure.
40:03
Speaker 1: It was contradiction, and the kind of contradictions that don't
40:06
Speaker 1: lead to peace but just to more questions. So by now,
40:10
Speaker 1: dozens of cases have been reviewed. Autopsy reports, GPS data,
40:14
Speaker 1: surveillance footage, and digital footprints analyzed again and again. And
40:17
Speaker 1: some theories unraveled, some theories refuted, and some leads just
40:21
Speaker 1: went cold. But even after that, some patterns refused to
40:25
Speaker 1: go away. And victim after victim followed the same haunting sequence.
40:28
Speaker 1: College stage man, intelligent, athletic, and well-liked, disappearance late at night,
40:33
Speaker 1: often after leaving a bar or party. And they were
40:36
Speaker 1: found days or weeks later in a body of water
40:39
Speaker 1: with no sign of robbery, no sign of SA, and
40:41
Speaker 1: no motive. And in many cases, the victim's phone was
40:44
Speaker 1: missing or later found damaged. And then there were the
40:47
Speaker 1: geographical coincidences as well. Many of the victims were found
40:50
Speaker 1: in or near major river systems, always in proximity to nightlife,
40:54
Speaker 1: but far enough away that their last known locations raised questions.
40:58
Speaker 1: And some bodies were recovered upstream and others in areas
41:01
Speaker 1: that had already been searched. And a few showed rigor
41:04
Speaker 1: mortis or minimal decomposition inconsistent with the official timelines. So
41:08
Speaker 1: these weren't drug dealings gone wrong. They weren't robberies. They
41:12
Speaker 1: weren't hate crimes. Nothing was taken. Nothing was left behind.
41:16
Speaker 1: And often there was no obvious reason the victim had
41:19
Speaker 1: left where they were in the first place. So why
41:23
Speaker 1: does this keep happening? But here is what the believers say.
41:26
Speaker 1: The victims fit a profile. Too specific to be ran.
41:29
Speaker 1: They always turn up in the same way, in water,
41:31
Speaker 1: days or weeks later, sometimes miles from where they were
41:34
Speaker 1: last seen. The condition in which the bodies are found
41:37
Speaker 1: are questionable. They're found in better condition than they should be.
41:41
Speaker 1: They have strangulation marks or burning marks, and they defy
41:45
Speaker 1: typical drowning behavior. And while the official causes of death
41:48
Speaker 1: are usually listed as accidental, many private pathologists like Dr.
41:52
Speaker 1: Cyril Wecht have raised concerns about potential signs of strangulation,
41:56
Speaker 1: post-mortem water entry, and other red flags overlooked in the
42:00
Speaker 1: initial autopsies. And believers point to the smiley face graffiti
42:04
Speaker 1: as a kind of ritualistic signature, although not always identical,
42:08
Speaker 1: but often close enough to raise eyebrows. And if you
42:10
Speaker 1: step back far enough, you'll also notice something chilling. These
42:13
Speaker 1: deaths aren't localized. They cover multiple states, following major water routes,
42:19
Speaker 1: and appearing in clusters near college towns. And to believers,
42:22
Speaker 1: this isn't sloppy work by a serial killer. It's a network.
42:26
Speaker 1: One that's possibly been active for over two decades, and
42:30
Speaker 1: perhaps operating in independent cells, as Gannon and Gilbertson had theorized,
42:35
Speaker 1: capable of using digital footprints, recruiting new members, and communicating
42:39
Speaker 1: without ever being caught. And each drowning isn't just a mistake,
42:42
Speaker 1: it's a message. And the smiley face was just a
42:45
Speaker 1: symbol that says, we were here.
42:47
Speaker 2: And then we move on. the skeptics view.
42:50
Speaker 1: So while believers say that the theory connects dots between
42:52
Speaker 1: unexplained deaths, the skeptics say the smiley face killer theory
42:55
Speaker 1: isn't a chilling discovery at all. It's just a dangerous
42:58
Speaker 1: distraction that just started with a symbol. The smiley face,
43:01
Speaker 1: the theory namesake, is one of the most common pieces
43:04
Speaker 1: of graffiti in the world. You'll find it under bridges
43:06
Speaker 1: and sidewalks and inside bathroom stalls and the presence of
43:08
Speaker 1: a smiley face near a crime scene is statistically meaningless.
43:11
Speaker 1: There was also no consistent style, no matching handwriting, and
43:14
Speaker 1: often no photographic proof that it was even there in
43:17
Speaker 1: the first place. And then there's the victim profile. Yes,
43:20
Speaker 1: most of the men were young, white, and athletic, but
43:23
Speaker 1: so are millions of college-age men across the country. So
43:26
Speaker 1: skeptics argue this as a survivorship bias, which is basically
43:30
Speaker 1: the human tendency to notice patterns that match our expectations
43:34
Speaker 1: while ignoring the ones that don't. And when you start
43:37
Speaker 1: with the conclusion that these men were murdered, it's easy
43:39
Speaker 1: to retrofit the evidence to support it. And the geography,
43:43
Speaker 1: critics note that nearly all the cases occurred in college
43:46
Speaker 1: towns and cities within rivers and nightlife, places where alcohol
43:49
Speaker 1: consumption is high and environmental hazards are very real. And
43:53
Speaker 1: the combination of drinking, cold weather, poor lighting, and water
43:56
Speaker 1: is already statistically very dangerous. And to them, the pattern
43:59
Speaker 1: isn't conspiracy, it's just a tragic probability. And the list
44:03
Speaker 1: goes on and on, stuff I've already gone over, but
44:07
Speaker 1: they argue that clinging to conspiracy theories can distract from
44:11
Speaker 1: the real dangers like substance abuse, mental health struggles, and
44:15
Speaker 1: unsafe environments. And by replacing those hard conversations with a
44:19
Speaker 1: villain we can't see. Because sometimes the scariest answer isn't
44:22
Speaker 1: that someone is responsible, it's that no one is. So
44:26
Speaker 1: whether you believe the smiley face killer or not, one
44:30
Speaker 1: thing is undeniable, and that is that the story leaves
44:33
Speaker 1: a mark, not just on the families and not just
44:36
Speaker 1: on the investigators, but on all of us. Because what
44:38
Speaker 1: we're dealing with isn't just death, it's disappearance, uncertainty, and
44:43
Speaker 1: a narrative where the ending is never quite satisfying, and
44:46
Speaker 1: the facts just never align fully. And for the families
44:50
Speaker 1: and the victims, the psychological toll is compounded by more
44:53
Speaker 1: than just grief.
44:54
Speaker 2: They're mourning sons, brothers, partners, and friends.
44:57
Speaker 1: And while fighting institutions, confronting doubt, and navigating public speculation,
45:02
Speaker 1: many were told to just move on, to accept the ruling,
45:05
Speaker 1: to let it go. But how do you let go
45:08
Speaker 1: when the final chapter doesn't make any f- How do
45:11
Speaker 1: you grieve when every detail feels just a bit off
45:15
Speaker 1: and enough to haunt you? And for law enforcement, the
45:17
Speaker 1: toll comes in a form of pressure. They fear of
45:20
Speaker 1: missing something bigger or chasing the wrong theory or of
45:23
Speaker 1: being accused of apathy. And for some officers, the cases
45:26
Speaker 1: remain open wounds and for others, just statistics in a
45:30
Speaker 1: filing cabinet. And for the public, it's a lingering chill
45:33
Speaker 1: that comes with every new headline, every new name, every
45:36
Speaker 1: young man who disappears without any sort of explanation. And
45:39
Speaker 1: then there's the internet, a place where tragedy becomes theory
45:43
Speaker 1: and theory becomes obsession. And in the digital age, true
45:46
Speaker 1: crime isn't just a genre, it's a community, a conversation,
45:50
Speaker 1: and sometimes a battleground. On one side, people are desperate
45:53
Speaker 1: for justice, and on the other, skeptics demand proof. And
45:57
Speaker 1: in the middle, there's real lives and real families and
46:01
Speaker 1: real consequences. And conspiracy theories by nature fill the void
46:06
Speaker 1: left by uncertainty. So when the truth feels incomplete, our
46:09
Speaker 1: minds kind of just do the rest. Sometimes we find
46:12
Speaker 1: clarity and other times we find comfort in patterns that
46:15
Speaker 1: aren't really there, potentially. But for those who have actually
46:18
Speaker 1: lost somebody, the ambiguity is the real punishment. Because when
46:22
Speaker 1: a death is ruled accidental, but everything about it feels deliberate,
46:26
Speaker 1: you don't just mourn the person you lost, you mourn
46:29
Speaker 1: the answers you'll never get. But for me, there's just
46:32
Speaker 1: a certain silence in these cases, a stillness that just
46:36
Speaker 1: doesn't feel right. And for every official report that says
46:39
Speaker 1: accidental drowning, there's a grieving family and a set of
46:43
Speaker 1: missing phone records or a toxicology screen that raises more
46:47
Speaker 1: question than it does answers. So I hope that technology
46:50
Speaker 1: can finally break this silence because the families deserve that.
46:54
Speaker 1: But I personally do share that just gut feeling by
46:58
Speaker 1: those investigators and parents and every friend that says that
47:03
Speaker 1: wasn't like him because if it's all a coincidence why
47:07
Speaker 1: does it feel so intentional but i will leave that
47:10
Speaker 1: question to you i'm very interested to see what you
47:13
Speaker 1: guys think about this case i know it was a
47:15
Speaker 1: long one but it's extremely interesting and i know a
47:18
Speaker 1: lot of you recommended this thank you for recommending it
47:21
Speaker 1: i'm happy to bring new light to this case i
47:23
Speaker 1: think it's really important let me know what other cases
47:25
Speaker 1: you want me to go into down below And until then.
47:28
Speaker 2: Stay safe and I will see a beautiful face in
47:30
Speaker 2: the next video.
47:31
Speaker 1: Okay.
47:32
Speaker 2: Bye.