Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Chris Jenkins Pt. Two

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Chris Jenkins Pt. Two · The Path Went Chilly

0:30
Welcome back to the Pathwind, Chile for part two of our series about the
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unexplained death of Chris Jenkins. Robin, do you want to catch everyone up
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on what we talked about in our previous episode. Well, this is a
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Halloween mystery and involves a twenty one year old student named Chris Jenkins who was
0:47
attending the University of Minnesota at that time. On Halloween in two thousand and
0:51
two, he decided to go out to a bar to celebrate with his girlfriend,
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Ashley Rice, and he was dressed in a Native American costume, but
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because it didn't have any pockets, he had to leave his cell phone,
1:02
his keys, and his wallet with Ashley, who put them inside her purse.
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And the circumstances are murky, but Chris wound up being kicked out of
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the bar that night, and he because he was separated from his friends and
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Ashley had all his items, he couldn't contact them and let them know what
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happened, and they would not let him back into the bar, so he
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presumably had no ride home and was trying to make his way back. It
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would later turn out that there was an off duty police officer named Mike Casey
1:27
at the bar who was supposedly trying to hit on Ashley. So it's been
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rumored that he arranged for the bouncers to throw Chris out in order to get
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him out of the picture so that he would have Ashley for himself. But
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unfortunately, Chris never returned home and he was missing for four months, and
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the Minneapolis PD did not want to perform an investigation because they knew it looked
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bad for Officer Casey because he acted very negligent. And then finally on February
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of two thousand and three, and they found Chris's body underneath the nearby bridge
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in the Mississippi River. But there were there's a lot of evidence to indicate
2:00
that it did not look like he had been in the river for the entire
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four months, but there were no noticeable signs of foul play, so they
2:07
were inclined to rule his death in accident. But four years later, they
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appointed a new police chief who did a new investigation and pretty much ruled that,
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hey, the evidence is pointing to foul play here, so he officially
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reclassified Chris's death as a homicide and issued a public apology to the Jenkins family.
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But even though the investigation was reopened, they've been unable to fight any
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conclusive evidence of what happened. There's a guy in prison now named Jeremy Alford
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who has committed another murder who has possibly been linked to this case, but
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they've never been able to fight any conclusive evidence to incriminate him. And unfortunately,
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after all these years, the investigation is pretty much out a standstill where
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the police chiefs who overturned the homicide ruling is now saying that he's now only
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fifty percent certain that it was a homicide. And there really isn't any one
2:57
theory about foul play or accidental which makes one hundred percent complete sense. So
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this remains a huge head scratcher. So I suppose it's now time to address
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a major elephant in the room in regards to this case. So let's talk
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about the smiley faced murder theory, which has been heavily discussed in true crime
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circles these past two decades. In case you're not familiar with it, this
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theory was originally dreamed up by two retired New York City detectives, Kevin Gannon
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and Anthony Duarte. They started to notice a disturbing pattern in the deaths of
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a number of young men who were found in bodies of water throughout New York
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and the midwestern United States during the late nineteen nineties and early two thousands.
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The two detectives looked into at least forty five of these deaths, which involved
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college staged males who would go out to a borrow or party, get intoxicated
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before they left, and would eventually turn up dead in a body of water.
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Even though the majority of these deaths would be classified as accidental drownings,
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Gannon and Duarte believed these young men may have been the victim of a serial
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killer or group of killers. The cases would be linked together because of graffiti
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of a smiley face that was apparently discovered in close proximity to where a number
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of these victims' bodies were found. This is how the Smiley Face murder theory
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was launched, and the alleged perpetrator or perpetrators have been classified as the Smiley
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Face Killer or the Smiley Face Gang. Now, since Chris Jenkins was a
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college aged male who was found dead in a body of water under suspicious circumstances
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after drinking at a bar, you will often see his name featured on lists
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of potential Smiley Faced victims at the time Chris disappeared. He was one of
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four separate college students from Minnesota and Wisconsin who went missing during an eleven day
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period after leaving a bar or party. One of these students was actually a
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female named Erica Dlquist, but her remains were found and her killer was eventually
5:00
charged with her murder. The other two students were males, one of them
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Michael Knowle, who was found in a lake in a probable accidental drowning,
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while the other, Joshua Giemond, has still never been found. In fact,
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Joshua Geemon's case was actually featured on the Unsolved Mysteries Netflix reboot last year,
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and the episode even made a brief mention of Chris's case. Of course,
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the Jenkins family expressed frustration that law enforcement devoted all their resources attempting to
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search for those other three missing students, while the Minneapolis p D did nothing
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to find Chris. Now, it's never been officially confirmed that any Smiley faced
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graffiti was found in relation to Chris's case. During an interview, jan Jenkins
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once said that when she asked police if they ever found Smiley faces, they
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never actually gave confirmation about this. She felt that their reaction seemed to indicate
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that the answer was yes, But that is purely her interpretation. So it's
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not the police that are necessarily saying that Chris is part of this smiley face
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murder theory, right, It's the community or perhaps people just trying to link
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these crimes to one another. I think so. I think it's mostly online
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sluice because, like we just mentioned, there's never been any confirmation that a
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smiley face was found in Chris's case, and if there is, they never
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released it publicly. But I think it's been classified because they've had all these
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other drowning deaths which took place during this small window of time over the course
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of eleven days in the Midwest, and I do think that smiley faces were
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found with the other victims. So I guess people are automatically assuming that Chris's
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case is connected, but we don't even know if the smiley faces have any
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significance, Like, just because you find a smiley face stick or nearby does
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not mean that a gang of killers is responsible for killing all these people.
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So if I said, I feel like this is horse crud I'm on the
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right path. I think, Yes, that's about what I'm gonna say next.
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Yeah, okay. I was like, I don't buy this. He
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says, you were telling you, and I went, what is happening here?
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Why? Why? Ashley was just tucking in her daughter when we took
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a break between our episodes one and two, and Robin and I were talking
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and be like, a smiley face is so ubiquitous. It's something that is
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literally everywhere. It would be in like the nineteen seventies, like seeing a
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peace sign somewhere or the like, you know, late sixties, early seventies,
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seeing a peace sign. It would be something that would be graffiti literally
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everywhere. So the chance of finding a body in a proximity of that type
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of graffiti is pretty high. When you're looking at like, you know,
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only this many bodies. It's not that many, right, but you think
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of how many people either die accidentally or are murdered, the chance of them
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being in the proximity of a smiley face or you know, at that time
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period of peace sign would be pretty high. So it just seems so ridiculous
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to me. Anyway, Well, the entire smiley face murder theory phenomenon has
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become popular online among true crime puffs. The entire thing has pretty much been
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discounted by most law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, who do not believe
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that any of these deaths are connected at all, and that most of them
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were just tragic accidents brought on by alcohol. They believe that the appearance of
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any smiley faced graffiti is nothing more than a coincidence and dispute the notion that
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all these men were victims of a serial killer or gang of killers, and
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quite frankly, I'm inclined to agree with them, As the smiley face murder
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theory is one true crime conspiracy I have never found that compelling. We could
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probably do an entire podcast about this topic, but I think we should switch
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the focus back to Chris's story. No, I do not believe that Chris's
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death is connected to any smiley faced murder conspiracy, and I know that at
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least one suspect has implied there is a connection, but we'll get back to
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that in a little while. And while there likely wasn't any foul play involved
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in most of these other so called smiley face deaths, something shady definitely did
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occur in Chris's case, and there is still a big mystery here, agreed.
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And that's all I get to say about that. Yeah, when you
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were described and I just went, what in the heck? Like there was
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nothing. There's not much evidence at all in this case, much less to
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link it to some serial killer groups where even the victims don't seem to be
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linked in anyway. So very very bizarre. So we'll have to start from
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the beginning and talk about the weird circumstances of how Chris went missing in the
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first place. All we know is that he exited the Loane Tree bar and
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left his girlfriend and friends behind. But while some of the employees tried to
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claim that Chris walked out on his own, the implication seems to be that
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he was tossed out by the security supervisor and that an off duty cop named
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Mike Casey was the one who set this in motion. Even though Casey was
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working security for the adjacent Hennepin Center for the Arts rather than the actual bar,
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the Loan Tree was apparently a prominent hangout for cops, and Casey was
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a regular there, so you can see why the employees might have listened to
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him. Since Chris's girlfriend, Ashley Rice, actually worked at the bar.
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She seemed to be well acquainted with Casey, particularly since he allowed her to
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borrow his uniform shirt as part of her sexy Halloween costume. We do know
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that Ashley introduced Chris to Casey as her boyfriend. Casey was apparently very flirtatious
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with her, and he ultimately wound up driving Ashley home after Chris disappeared.
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Now, I should make it clear that it's never been officially confirmed that Ashley
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and Casey were involved in some sort of affair, But even if they weren't,
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I can see how this whole situation would look bad for him. Casey
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was married and he had kids, and on the surface, it appears that
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he arranged to have a younger girl's boyfriend removed from a bar so he could
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have her to himself that night. And since this boyfriend went missing and turned
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up dead, you can't imagine the potential scandal. Yeah, and the fact
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that people say that Casey was incredibly flirtatious with her and he ends up driving
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her home is very upsetting. And we have this guy who has the ability
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to get Chris removed from the bar. He's the same person who's allowing someone
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to borrow his uniform since he's off duty, and it just seems very distasteful,
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unprofessional. If nothing else, these are young kids, and this is
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a police officer. You don't need to be partying with college kids at a
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bar and flirting with some college girl, especially if you're married. Did something
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happen, Maybe not, but your behavior is something that I guarantee if your
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wife was watching, she wouldn't be very proud of. What would she say
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if one of the officers was like, well, you know, there's this
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girl, Ashley who works at the bar. We know your husband does security
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for Hannah Pin and he hangs out at the Lone Tree, and clearly that
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you were acquainted. He lent her his uniform for her Halloween costume, and
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then later on he drove her home. How do you feel about that?
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I know if it were me and that was my husband, I would not
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be having any of that. I would be extremely angry, especially when you
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learn that there's all these other rumors surrounding him flirting with her and getting the
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boyfriend ejected. That could cause major strife in a marriage, But it is
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certainly not a reason not to question Casey, given the fact that Chris disappears
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and is later and later winds up to be deceased. All that being said,
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we're not trying to imply that Casey killed Chris or at any direct involvement
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with his death. Given how lax the Minneapolis PD was at investigating Chris's disappearance
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and how quickly they wrote off his death as an accident, it's easy to
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assume they were covering up some foul play in order to protect one of their
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own. Well. I do believe they were trying to protect Casey, but
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not because he was a killer. It seems obvious that the reasoning for removing
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Chris from the bar was completely unjustified. The story seems to be that a
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drink was spilled on Chris's lap, causing the staff to assume he was so
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drunk that he urinated himself, though in actuality it does not sound like Chris
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was all that intoxicated at the time. Whatever the reasoning was, one thing
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which cannot be debated is that it was pretty negligent to toss Chris out under
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the street on a freezing twenty degree night while he was dressed in nothing more
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than a thin Halloween costume. If they didn't want to let him back inside,
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at the very least, they should have grabbed his coat for him,
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given him the chance to retrieve his wallet. He's in cell phone from Ashley's
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purse. Hell, they wouldn't even let him speak to his friend who was
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still inside the bar, and drove him there that night, so Chris had
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no ride home, without any means to pay for a cab ride or call
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someone. The guy literally had no other options but to attempt to walk back
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to his place on a cold, dark night. It's incredibly disgusting to think
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of the negligence that they operated under. Chris is wearing, like you said,
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a thin Halloween costume. We all know what those feel like, that
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awful silky sea through material. And he had worn his jacket there right,
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He had covered up with other winter clothes because it was so cold outside.
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He had given Ashley all of his his belongings, including his keys and cell
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phone, and he was responsible and had somebody else drive him there. You
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don't kick him out on the street as a kid and say best of luck.
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You go find his party and tell them guess what your friends leaving the
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bar. That means you are to get out and have them leave with him.
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You make sure he's dressed appropriately, and if you're assuming he's so intoxicated,
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you get him a ride home. You don't send him out in the
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middle of nowhere as a kid intoxicated and hope for the best. It's just
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not the way you're supposed to do things. Yeah, and that's why I
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think they were probably acting under Casey's directive that even though he didn't work for
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the bar, he was a police officer, and they pretty much said get
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him out of here by any means necessary. And that's why they were so
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inflexible about letting him back inside to get his coat in his personal items.
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I just feel like somebody could have got a coat for him, Like,
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did nobody have the presence of mind to think that this could end in disaster
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if he was indeed intoxicated, or even if he wasn't. You're giving his
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kid no means to contact anybody to come and pick him up. He can't
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even get into his apartment because he doesn't have his keys, he doesn't have
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a vehicle, and he's got no coate in his twenty degrees outside. It
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is so irresponsible and so upsetting, and I can't imagine what his family felt
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when they found out that those were the circumstances for which Chris was ejected.
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It was just so negligent. And the point is, if Officer Casey was
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the one who gave the order for Chris to be removed from the bar when
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he was not an actual employee there, then you can imagine some potential liability
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issues. Even if Casey had no direct involvement in Chris's death, he paved
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the way in allowing it to happen. And if his motive for kicking Chris
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out of the bar was to make the moves on his girlfriend, and this
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would not only look bad for Casey, but the entire Minneapolis PD. Remember,
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they tried to justify their decision not to interview Casey by saying they did
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not want to potentially break up his family. So I think their lack of
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follow through on Chris's death was not so much an attempt to cover up a
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murder, but an attempt to cover up irresponsible behavior by one of their officers.
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This would also explain why the employees of the Lone Tree Bar became so
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defensive about sticking to their story about Chris leaving on his own and why their
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owner told them not to speak with anybody without an attorney present. For all
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we know, the police might have legitimately believed that Chris's death was nothing more
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than an accident and hope the case would just go away, but did not
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anticipate just how resilient the Jenkins family were at seeking answers. Remember, Tim
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Dolan was not the Minneapolis Police chief at the time that Chris died, so
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he may not have felt any loyalty towards Casey, which prompted his decision to
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have the investigation reopen. Oh, a new set of eyes, a new
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fresh body, and a police department can change everything. So when Chief Dolan
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takes the role of chief and he, like you said, has no loyalties
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towards Casey, doesn't need to protect anybody, and says, there's this kid's
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death three to four years ago that we really need to reinvestigate. I love
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that he sits there and he reopens it. I would like to know what
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causes him to change his mind later down the road. And he went to
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all that effort to say, instead of being undetermined, I'm going to rule
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it a homicide and go from there and then announced that there's actually progress and
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possibly making an arrest in the case, pressing charges, and then what twelve
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years later on a television show, He's like, I don't really know what
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happened. It's possible as an accident in our suicide. Well, then why
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did you change the ruling. Yeah, there's definitely a lot missing from that
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story, but we mentioned this on our last episode. But the Lone Tree
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Bar has since gone out of business, so at least karma ultimately got to
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them in the end. Now, even though police tried to push forward the
17:56
theory that Chris fell into the river while attempting to the problem is that canine
18:02
units use multiple bloodhounds to track Chris is sent to an underground parking garage across
18:06
the street, a location he would have had no reason to visit on his
18:10
own, even if you don't put much stock into the accuracy of tracking dogs.
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Fragments of a feather, which seemed to match the headband from Chris's Native
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American costume, were found in the garage, so I think that's a pretty
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good indication he was there. And there's also the fact that Chriss sent came
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to an end in a parking stall which was apparently used by one of the
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Lone Tree Bars bouncers. This is one of the most frustrating aspects of this
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case, as the specific details are pretty iffy. The only source I've seen
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for this claim about the parking stall is the book case Studies in Drowning Forensics,
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which is co authored by one of the Smiley Faced detectives, Kevin Gannon,
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as well as criminology professor d Lee Gilbertson, and they devote an entire
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chapter to Chris's case. All it says is that the stall had been occupied
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by one of the bouncers and one of the bloodhounds produced a mild hit for
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Chris's sen when they checked this person's vehicle, But it's never been made clear
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which bouncer they're referring to or if they were directly involved with Chris's removal from
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the bar. Chris was seen heading north when he walked away from the bar,
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and as far as I can tell, he was not being followed by
19:15
any of the bouncers, so I'm just not sure what circumstances would lead to
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him winding up at that particular stall across the street. The Bloodhounds also followed
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Chris's sent through the downtown area before it came to an end at the northbound
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ramp of Interstate ninety four. But if Chris wound up in a vehicle traveling
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in that direction, who was driving and where were they going? It's so
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disturbing. Remember that there was the anonymous source who came forward and said that
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they had actually been drugged by bouncers at this bar, and that they had
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been attempted to be apprehended and kidnapped by bouncers from this bar. Had their
19:53
friend unintervened. Well, then all these signs points to the fact that could
19:57
that really have been a practice that they were doing. It's really disturbing.
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Like you said, things don't really line up with this. There's really no
20:04
details that are present to explain who these bouncers were. There seemed to be
20:11
a pretty big bar, right that several people were working there. But how
20:15
are the bloodhounds hitting there? If he wasn't present in that stall in the
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parking garage, and if he wasn't somehow in that downtown area on the ramp
20:25
at the interstate makes me wonder that maybe after Chris was ejected there was this
20:30
bouncer from the bar who offered like a sympathetic hand and says, sorry,
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we can't let you back inside, but if you follow me to my car
20:37
in the parking garage, I'll give you a ride home. I mean,
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that's the only real explanation I can think of for why Chris would go into
20:42
that parking garage on his own. And if he willingly climbed in the car
20:47
with a bouncer and then was taken somewhere and harmed, that might explain why
20:51
there's no evidence of foul play. But then again, since there were blood
20:53
droplets in the garage, maybe he was attacked there. But if it was
20:59
his blood, wouldn't we likely have seen marks on his body for where that
21:02
blood came from, unless he got like a spontaneous nosebleed. Yeah, that
21:07
is true. They never conclusively determined if that blood belonged to him, so
21:10
for all we know, it might not have any relevance to the case.
21:14
Now, we previously mentioned that the Breaking Homicide episode shared two pieces of information
21:19
about the Lone Tree Bar which had never been released publicly before. Shortly before
21:25
he left, Chris apparently interjected in an altercation between two men, one of
21:30
whom was angry that some creepy guy who walked in off the street was hitting
21:33
on his girlfriend. All Chris did was play the role of peacekeeper and prevent
21:38
a fight from taking place. But if he left the bar, the creepy
21:41
guy may have been bitter that Chris interfered, so we could have followed him
21:45
down the street and eventually caused his death. I'm not sure if Chris's removal
21:51
from the bar was related to his involvement in the altercation, but since he
21:55
was left standing alone outside, this may have provided an opening for someone to
21:59
go after him. Him and our second piece of new information involves the anonymous
22:03
informant who came forward and agreed to be interviewed in the Breaking Homicide episode.
22:08
As you'll recall, he shared a story about having his drink laced with GHB
22:12
at the Lone Tree Bar two months before Chris's disappearance, which led him to
22:18
being taken outside by two of the bouncers and nearly abducted in a vehicle.
22:22
Since traces of GHB were found in Chris's body, you could easily assume that
22:27
someone laced his drink with a drug, and shortly after Chris left the bar,
22:32
he passed out, allowing someone to take advantage of the opportunity and abduct
22:34
him. One of the things that's really overwhelming in this case is how many
22:40
potential explanations could have happened. Right. This could have been someone we know
22:44
nothing about. It could have been the bouncers. It could have been that
22:48
individual who claimed who was supposedly a murderer he and his brother. It could
22:55
have been a gang abduction. It could have been these people who he broke
23:00
up the altercation. I mean, there's so many different incidents that happened to
23:03
this twenty one year old kid that night that could have played into what happened
23:08
to him, and yet there's almost nothing. We're sitting here saying, look
23:14
at all the potentials of what could have happened, and yet I'm not really
23:18
sure if any of them have more weight than the other. The GHB that
23:22
was found in Chris's body, one thing that's really difficult is is that something
23:26
that was produced by his body after death or was it something that was ingested
23:33
prior to his death. Because GHB could have made it where he wasn't able
23:36
to fight back, where he wouldn't have had defensive wounds on himself and could
23:40
have easily been suffocated with a bag or a pillow or a heavy blanket or
23:45
something like that, and he wouldn't have had any marks on his body.
23:49
So there is a potential there, JULSI, you would said, like,
23:52
if it was anything else, wouldn't you have seen injection marks or you know,
23:57
places where he was bound on his body. Maybe some kind of sedative
24:00
like a GHB that was put in his drink could explain why he didn't have
24:06
defensive wounds on him. So now I'm going to talk about the GHB angle
24:11
because a very famous name that we've talked about on the podcast before actually weighs
24:15
in on this topic. I don't know. I mean, this informant story
24:18
sounds like it falls into smiley faced murders conspiracy theory territory. I mean,
24:23
is he trying to imply that there's a gang of people who like to lace
24:26
young men's drinks with GHB and use this as an opportunity to abduct them from
24:30
crowded bars, and then they proceed to murder these victims, toss their bodies
24:34
into a body of water, and leave smiley faced Booker fee behind as their
24:37
calling guard. I mean, I know there are predators who visit bars in
24:41
attempt to take advantage of patrons by lacing their drinks with date rape drugs,
24:45
But an organized conspiracy in which multiple people attempt to abduct someone from a public
24:51
place and a van sounds a bit over the top, and I have my
24:55
doubts that's what happened to Chris. Besides, even though traces of GHB were
25:00
out in the system, the body can't generate this substance naturally after death.
25:03
On the Breaking Homicide episode, the actually consulted with renowned forensic pathologist doctor Cyril
25:10
Wecked In case you've never heard of him, Doctor Weckt is considered to be
25:14
one of the top figures in his field and has consulted on thousands of cases,
25:18
some of which we've discussed on this podcast. After reviewing the evidence,
25:22
weck concluded that the amount of GHB and Chris's system was consistent with having been
25:27
generated by his body, and he did not believe that Chris was drugged prior
25:30
to his death. Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. I mean,
25:34
it was, you know, the alcohol level in his body wasn't very
25:37
high. Alcohol can also be produced after one's death, right where the decomposition
25:44
and the breaking on the body creates that as well, and GHB those chemical
25:49
components can begin to crystallize in form inside the body after death as well.
25:53
So it's so difficult because of the months that his body had been decomposing and
26:00
set into that water. But what was fascinating is that because of the cold
26:04
weather, it was pretty well preserved. So it's one of those back and
26:08
forth like decomposition wouldn't have been super severe on his body, but just shorts
26:14
amounts of time can change the chemical makeup inside even if the external part of
26:18
the body is not decomposing. Now we have one additional lead from the Lone
26:23
Tree Bar, and that's the eyewitness who allegedly saw a group of ten or
26:29
more people attacking an unidentified person in front of the pizza joint across the street.
26:34
This pizza place was located right next to the parking garage, so if
26:38
the person being attacked was Chris, they could have taken him into the garage
26:42
against his will and subsequently driven him away in a vehicle which is parked.
26:47
Installs eighty nine or ninety droplets of blood residue were also apparently found near those
26:52
stalls, which would support the idea of someone being violently attacked. One theory
26:57
which has been pushed around is that the alleged attack could have been a gang
27:00
initiation, and that Chris was targeted at random and was simply in the wrong
27:04
place at the wrong time. While I can certainly believe that a gang might
27:10
attack a random, innocent victim in the street of some sort of initiation,
27:14
I'm not sure that they would go to the trouble of loading the victim into
27:17
a vehicle, driving away from the scene, and disposing of their body.
27:21
In situations like this, I'd assume that gangs would prefer to lea their beating
27:25
victims on display in public in order to send a message. But if this
27:29
beating actually took place, and the victim was Chris and the perpetrators were not
27:33
members of a gang, then this provides a logical explanation of how he wound
27:37
up in the parking garage and was ultimately abducted. Of course, this does
27:41
not explain why ten or more people would decide to gang up on Chris.
27:45
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's ever been specified which time this alleged attack
27:51
took place, and if it occurred shortly after Chris left the bar, if
27:55
it occurred while the bar was still open and the staff was working inside,
28:00
then I think this then I think this would discount the idea of people like
28:03
Officer Casey and the bouncers being involved. However, the biggest issue with believing
28:10
that Chris was the victim of this violent attack is that there were no noticeable
28:14
signs of foul play or bruising on his body. Remember, the Jenkins family
28:18
specifically cited the lack of bruising as evidence to support their theory that Chris was
28:23
still alive for days after he went missing, as he had recently sustained bruises
28:27
while playing lacrosse. If he was held captive for a while, then this
28:32
would have given the bruises time to heal. So, unless Chris was severely
28:36
beaten and subsequently kept alive somewhere while his injuries healed, I think there should
28:41
have been more evidence on his body if he was violently attacked by ten people.
28:45
Okay, let me ask you this. I agree, Jules. If
28:48
there were ten people beating him, I think he definitely would have been covered
28:52
in bruises. But let me just throw this out there. He could have
28:56
been killed and immediately put into frigid, cold waters. It was twenty degrees
29:02
outside, the water was icy. His body was basically frozen in the water
29:07
iced over snow for months. Bruising can radically slow or not develop as severely
29:18
if it's in ice or if you're cold. They always say, like,
29:21
you know, if you get an injury, put an ice pack on it
29:22
immediately and they can minimize the appearance of the bruise or things like that.
29:26
Is it possible that an immediate submersion in ice water stop some of that from
29:33
happening. I don't know. I've never really looked into that. I'm not
29:38
a medical expert, but it does take bruises sometimes a long time to develop,
29:42
and if you're dead, like does bruising couldn't emerge on your body after
29:48
you've already been killed. Liver mortis is like bruising, yea, yeah,
29:52
But if you're in ice. I'm wondering if that water just seems like it
29:56
would have almost like frozen his body. Would the blood have frozen and just
30:02
manifested differently in the presence of bruising. I think if the bruise hadn't developed
30:06
by the time he went into that ice and he had died, I don't
30:08
think the bruise would maybe continue to develop. Yeah, I'm wondering just because
30:12
of the cold. I mean it's possible, right because I don't think that
30:17
the blood won't continue to pool in those places after you die. So if
30:21
the bruise isn't already there, it won't continue to develop because it will go
30:23
to the lowest point on the body, right, because the heart isn't pumping
30:27
and gravity takes place. And then you also coupled with the cold temperatures,
30:33
but the severity of a bruise, like, yeah, you hit your leg
30:36
on something, you might not have a bruise developed right away, but if
30:40
you've been punched or like beat up, typically you can see the beginning stages
30:45
of a bruise, so much so that an experienced medical examiner would be able
30:48
to see that trauma in that skin. I would think, Well, I
30:52
also don't I definitely don't think that he was held for days and then put
30:56
back into this you know, Native American and generally had everything tucked in and
31:02
presentable. I just don't think that's the case. I wouldn't have kept his
31:06
moccasin covers and all of these different accessories to his costume intact to put back
31:11
on him after several days of holding him hostage. I just I don't see
31:15
that being a very plausible explanation. Just a good question for you, Robin.
31:21
So these bruises from lacrosse, are these known bruises that his family actually
31:26
saw or that other people saw. Are we just theorizing that he'd likely had
31:30
these bruises because he had this practice that day and he'd had a game recently.
31:36
Like, I get the idea that, yeah, he typically had bruises,
31:38
and it's weird that we found none. But it seems like the family
31:41
are very sure that he had specific bruises. Do you know if that's true
31:45
or not. I haven't heard any specifics, so I'm thinking this is just
31:49
an assumption because he was not living with his family at that time, so
31:53
they wouldn't have been able to see any bruises he had on his body.
31:56
And I think they're just saying, well, because he was a lacrosse goalie,
32:00
he often got bruises. But I don't think they ever confirmed that he
32:02
got any bruises during the practice and the games he played prior to his death,
32:07
so for all we know, he didn't have any and they were just
32:09
kind of using that as an absumption, saying, well, it was common
32:13
for him to have these bruises, so therefore, if they're not on his
32:15
body after his death, that means he was alive for an extended period of
32:19
time. But I don't think that we can say that with one hundred percent
32:22
certainty. But now we're going to discuss the part of this story which causes
32:28
the most confusion. When exactly did Chris's body enter the Mississippi River. It
32:32
sounds like many people are skeptical that he could have remained in the water undiscovered
32:37
for nearly four straight months. This is why his family suspects he was alive
32:42
and held captive for an extended period of time before he was killed. Since
32:45
Chris's lungs seemed to weigh a lot less than normal for a deceased individual with
32:50
healthy lungs, they have ascribed to the theory that he was slowly suffocated to
32:53
death, possibly with a plastic bag over his head. Whoever is responsible then
32:59
plays Chris's body in the Mississippi at an unknown location before it floated down to
33:02
the upper Saint Anthony Falls Damn and was finally discovered. I have to admit
33:07
that trying to figure out what actually happened here is pretty difficult. One thing
33:12
I'm pretty certain of is that, due to the lack of broken bones or
33:15
injuries, it's very unlikely that Chris wound up in the river after falling or
33:20
being tossed off one of the bridges in the area. This lends credence to
33:22
the idea that someone placed Chris in the water after he was already dead,
33:27
which would explain why he was found with his arms crossed in front of him.
33:30
I agree with the assessment from doctor Michael Baden that if Chris had gone
33:34
into the river while he was alive, he would not have been in that
33:37
position. His shirt probably wouldn't have still been tucked in, and he likely
33:40
would have lost his slip on moccasins, and it seems doubtful that a clump
33:45
of Chris's own hair would have been clenched in his fist, as grabbing one's
33:47
hair and pulling it out just does not seem like something a person would do
33:52
if they had fallen into some water and were struggling to swim ashore. However,
33:55
the analysis from the hydrologists at the University of Minnesota only adds more confusion
34:00
to the case, as they found it most likely that Chris's body had to
34:05
have entered the river sometime in early February of two thousand and three and floated
34:08
to the damn after the thaw on the twenty seventh. But if that's the
34:13
case, where was Chris during the preceding three months? Was he really being
34:16
kept alive somewhere all that time? No, I don't think so. I
34:22
just don't think so. I think that he was put into the water shortly
34:24
after he was killed that night. I think that when you look at the
34:29
fact that he has his hair clenched in his hands like that he had ripped
34:32
out his own hair. The only thing I can think is imagine someone wrapping
34:37
something around your head and pulling tight to suffocate you, or putting a pillow
34:43
over your face and pressing down on your face, and you gripping at the
34:45
corners of that pillow trying to push it off your head. And I could
34:50
see you grabbing a fist full of your own hair in the process while you're
34:52
trying to push your attacker off of you and get the item off of your
34:57
face. I think he was d that water. It's icy, it's snowy.
35:01
They say that the river had iced over, that it was twenty degrees.
35:08
Then he went missing and only got colder as we progressed from October to
35:12
February when he's found. And so I just think that there weren't a lot
35:15
of people down by the water. If there were people down by the water,
35:20
you wouldn't necessarily be able to determine a body against wood or a log
35:27
or some kind of rock structure that has ice clustered all around it. The
35:31
body could have easily been caught directly under the ice or kind of frozen to
35:37
another item, and you just wouldn't have known it was a body. I
35:43
do not think someone held him against his will for days, much less months.
35:46
I don't think so either. I just think the likelihood of that is
35:51
so low, especially because we don't see any marks on his body. His
35:54
costume is pristine, And what would be their objective? But did they ever
36:00
speak about any signs of sexual assault or anything on the body, Like if
36:05
there was something like that, we likely would have heard about it. Would
36:07
we not have Robin. I think so. Yeah, they've never given any
36:12
indication that there were signs of sexual assault on Chris's body, because if there
36:15
were, then you could completely rule out accidental debt. That's pretty much concrete
36:20
evidence that he was assaulted and likely murdered, So that if there's no sexual
36:24
assault, why is someone going to hold Chris captive for a long period of
36:28
time. Well, on the aforementioned breaking homicide, they came up with a
36:34
potential theory to explain where Chris's body could have been. Minneapolis had a parcel
36:38
of land known as Nicolette Island, which is located in the middle of the
36:43
Mississippi River, underneath the Hennepin Avenue Bridge and a short distance northwest from the
36:49
location where Chris's body was found. The island was searched multiple times during the
36:53
time period he was missing, and while bloodhounds did detect his scent, they
36:58
never found anything. Nicolette Island is easily accessible by road from the mainland,
37:04
and the northeast section of the island has a series of underground utility tunnels which
37:08
people have been known to hang out in, and one of them is known
37:12
as Satan's Cave. It earned the name because there are images of demons and
37:15
Satan carved into the walls. So I don't want you to think that we're
37:20
trying to imply that Chris was taken there and sacrificed in some sort of Satanic
37:23
ritual or something. However, it is a place one might be inclined to
37:28
hang out and party on Halloween night if they were feeling adventurous. What's interesting
37:34
is that these tunnels contain shafts filled with water which can flow into the Mississippi
37:37
River. If for whatever reason, Chris's body wound up in one of these
37:42
shafts, it could have remained under water and been relatively well preserved for around
37:46
three months or so until it eventually floated into the river. If this occurred
37:52
at the time when the Mississippi froze over, this would explain why the body
37:55
was in the river for weeks before it floated downstream and eventually arrived at the
38:00
upper Saint Anthony Falls down where it was discovered on February twenty seventh. This
38:06
is a very intriguing theory which would account for Chris's whereabouts during that four month
38:10
period and explain why search teams never found anything on Nicolette Island, and even
38:15
if Chris's body wasn't in the caves, it could have been submerged in the
38:20
water somewhere around the island for months without being discovered. But of course,
38:24
what this doesn't account for is how Chris would have wound up on Nicolette Island
38:29
to begin with, since he didn't have a ride home. Perhaps Chris got
38:32
into a vehicle with someone who convinced him that Satan's Cave would be a cool
38:37
place to hang out and party before driving him there. It's possible his death
38:42
may have been nothing more than an accident which was covered up. Of course,
38:45
if you're a conspiracy theorist, you could assume that Chris was attacked and
38:49
abducted by the Smiley Faced Gang after he left the Lone Tree Bar, and
38:53
they thought it would be cool to kill him inside a place called Satan's Cave.
38:58
Okay, so I'm not a conspiracy so I'm gonna go ahead and scratch
39:00
that last one. I honestly think weather and the temperature of the water had
39:07
more to do with this than anything more nefarious than that. I think he
39:10
was killed and dumped in the water on Halloween night, and his body was
39:16
simply frozen in the elements. It was difficult to search for We hear cases
39:22
all the time where investigators say, I knew we had three weeks to find
39:25
the body, or else we'd have to wait till spring to find it,
39:29
because there's just a it's complicated. When ice and snow and you know,
39:35
things freeze over. It changes the way everything looks, the terrain, the
39:39
way that that river flows, it all changes. And so the fact that
39:45
he went missing at such a critical time when the weather was changing and getting
39:47
colder. I think his body was in that water the night he died,
39:51
and I think that was Halloween night. So I think now it would be
39:55
an appropriate time to talk about Jeremy Alford as a potential suspect. As recall,
40:00
Alfred claimed he was part of a gang called the Dealers of Death,
40:04
which was responsible for the deaths around thirty to forty people, and his right
40:07
hand man was nicknamed Zamilee. That sounds pretty absurd, but believe it or
40:13
not, it turns out that Somiley is actually a real person who was questioned
40:16
by the New Brighton Police Department after Jeremy Alford was charged with the murder of
40:22
Douglas Miller. His real name has never been disclosed, but he was apparently
40:25
on antipsychotic medication at the time and living in a tent by the river.
40:30
We mentioned in our last episode that the Hanneben County District Attorney's office had declined
40:36
to file charges against a suspect for Chris's murder in two thousand seven, and
40:39
I have a feeling that the suspect was Alfered. All investigators would say about
40:45
the suspect was that he was in custody in another state on an unrelated charge.
40:49
But even though Alfred murdered Douglas Miller in Minnesota, he was actually arrested
40:53
for the crime in Iowa before he was extradited. I've also deduced that the
40:58
witness who claimed he saw in a quain throw Chris off the heanepin Avenue Bridge
41:02
was Zamiley, But in addition to all the credibility issues with his story which
41:07
I mentioned earlier, Somiley apparently said that the victim's name was Andrew, not
41:12
Chris. If the only evidence they had against Alfred was Somiley's eyewitness testimony,
41:17
that I can see why they declined to file charges against him. Yeah,
41:21
I don't think Zamiley would be the most amazing witness when you put them on
41:27
the stand. However, as a homicide expert, how the hell have I
41:32
never heard of somebody named Jeremy Alford who supposedly killed thirty to forty people.
41:38
Yeah, he's only been charged with one murder, which was the death of
41:42
Douglas Miller, but he has never been connected to the deaths of thirty to
41:45
forty people. So yeah, I do think that is an exaggeration and that
41:49
there's no gang called the Dealers of Death. Okay, So he's claiming he
41:53
killed me, Yes, exactly, you think you? Okay, I literally
42:00
said her, and I went, who when you're telling me? I'm like,
42:02
come on, Ashley, rack your brain. Who's this person? And
42:05
I went, surely I would have heard of this individual. Okay. So
42:07
he's full of it, and so is smiling exactly. Okay, fair enough.
42:13
So it's funny. I was picturing you thinking, is this the guy
42:15
that the Alfred plea is named after? Shush, it's not, thank you,
42:22
it's not. Another thing which has caused speculation that Alfred might be involved
42:29
in Chris's death are issues with his alibi on Halloween Knight in two thousand and
42:32
two, Alfred's sister claimed that he was supposed to go trick or treating with
42:37
her and never showed up, though Alfred's girlfriend at the time claimed that he
42:42
was with her that night. But there have been rumors that Alfred was at
42:45
the Lone Tree Bar and may have crossed paths with Chris. So what if
42:50
Alfred was a creepy guy who was involved in the altercation Chris allegedly averted This
42:54
could have prompted Alfred, along with I possible accomplices, to follow Chris outside
43:00
and attack him before taking him away from the scene, murdering him and disposing
43:05
of his body. While here's my issue with the theory about Alfred being the
43:08
perpetrator. Just read up on the details about the Douglas Miller murder. If
43:14
you were to look up the definition of the words subtle, this would pretty
43:16
much be the polar opposite. Jeremy and his brother Louis proceeded to bludgeon Miller
43:22
with such items as a hammer and a metal bar, and they stabbed him
43:27
twenty times with a knife and barbecue ford. They then proceeded to burn down
43:30
Miller's mobile home with his body still inside, and fled the scene and the
43:35
victim's stolen van before dumping it in the river. The crime was so brazen
43:39
that it should come as no surprise that the Alfred brothers were arrested the very
43:44
next day. Now, compare that with Chris Jenkins's death. He was found
43:49
with no signs of trauma or violence on his body, which is why it
43:52
was so easy to assume that he might have been the victim of an accidental
43:55
drowning. In fact, the entire genesis of the Smiley Face murder theory is
44:00
that the perpetrators go to the trouble of making their victims' deaths look like a
44:06
drowning by leaving no noticeable signs of foul play. So if you believe that
44:09
Jeremy Alfred was a member of the Smiley Face Gay then this would mean that
44:15
he spent years participating in these very meticulous and carefully planned murders, but then
44:20
wound up getting caught because he decided to kill a guy in the most brutal,
44:24
unsubtle fashion possible. One issue I've always had with these claims that Alfred
44:30
and his crew were regulars at the Lone Tree Bar is that Alfred would have
44:34
only been nineteen years old on Halloween night in two thousand and two, and
44:37
the legal drinking age in Minnesota is twenty one. Of course, that doesn't
44:40
completely discount the idea of Alfred being at a bar at the same time that
44:45
Chris went missing, and it's possible that he was a regular because they were
44:49
pretty loose about serving alcohol to underage people. But unskeptical now. Alfred did
44:54
apparently divulge some inside information about Chris's death, which was not public knowledge at
45:00
the time, so I won't completely rule out the possibility of him being responsible.
45:05
But while Alfred has never directly denied any involvement in Chris's death, he's
45:09
also a braggard serving a life sentence who now has nothing left to lose,
45:14
so I can see why he might be inclined to string people along for his
45:16
own amusement. You're right, his MO doesn't line up with anything that happened
45:22
to Chris. Chris has found in his body's pristine, his costumes pristine,
45:28
There's no sign of injury, so whoever did kill him was pretty sophisticated.
45:32
Alfred. I was picturing some like fifty five year old like rough looking man
45:37
who's killed thirty to forty people, and come to find out it's some insecure
45:43
nineteen year old kid who doesn't know how to tell the truth, you know,
45:46
as much as he knows how to do much anything else. So it's
45:51
interesting to me that, like you said, he'd be willing to claim he's
45:54
like this head ring master of a deadly gang and has killed thirty to forty
45:59
p people, but he wouldn't want the notoriety from killing Chris. I mean,
46:04
if you're serving a life sentence and you want people to think you're one
46:07
bad mammagi Emma, then why not just say yeah, I killed him too,
46:10
and here's how I can prove it. It's a weird contradiction because when
46:15
he was questioned about Chris's case, his exact words were, I do not
46:17
like to comment on cases on crimes I have never been charged with or convicted
46:22
of. Yet at the same time, he's bragging that he's part of a
46:23
gang that killed thirty to forty people, So make up your mind, fella.
46:29
I've also discounted the idea of Chris being a victim of the Smiley Face
46:31
Killer or the Smiley Face Gang, and I haven't hesitated to express my skepticism
46:37
about the entire theory. If Chris was not murdered by Jeremy Alford or a
46:40
gang of killers, then what did happen to him? And most of these
46:45
other so called smiley face murders, you can come up with a logical explanation
46:49
to explain the victim's death, and it usually boils down to nothing more than
46:52
an intoxicated young person accidentally falling into a body of water. But Chris's case
46:59
is nowhere near that simple, and it's clear that something very odd did happen
47:02
to him. I do think there's enough evidence to suggest foul play, but
47:07
trying to figure out when and where Chris was actually killed is a real head
47:10
scratcher. This is one unsolved case where we have a lot of different pieces,
47:15
but they just don't quite fit together. I think the full story is
47:19
some sort of strange anomaly. A number of people showed poor judgment by having
47:22
Chris kicked out of a bar, and everyone went the extra mouth to try
47:27
and cover their asses after he went missing and turned up dead, which looked
47:30
incredibly suspicious. However, the actual circumstances of Chris's death may have nothing to
47:36
do at all with the events which took place inside the bar, and it
47:38
was just a tragic coincidence where Chris wound up crossing paths with a person or
47:44
pershins who did him harm while he was trying to find his way home.
47:47
Whatever happened, the Minneapolis Police Department really did a piss poor job at handling
47:52
Chris's case, and it's a shame that it would be four years before there
47:55
was a proper investigation. Sadly, even though Chris's death was reclassified as a
48:00
homicide and the Jenkins family received a formal apology, it doesn't seem like there's
48:05
been much progress with uncovering the truth. This is one case where I really
48:09
can't come up with a concrete theory for what happened, But I am inclined
48:13
to think that Chris met with foul play shortly after leaving the bar, and
48:16
that his body was concealed somewhere for months before it was discovered in the Mississippi
48:21
River. When Chris originally vanished. The slogun on his missing poster was someone
48:27
Knows Something, which, as you might know, also happens to be the
48:30
title of a very popular Canadian true crime podcast. But I think that slogan
48:35
does ring true because regardless of whether Chris's death was murder or an accident,
48:39
there has to be someone who knows something about what actually happened to him.
48:43
So, if you happen to have any information on the unsolved death of Chris
48:46
Jenkins, please call the Minneapolis Homicide Unit at six three six ninety two.
48:52
Tips that six one three six nine two eight four seven seven Jules Ashley,
48:57
any final thoughts on this case? Well, you guys weren't kidding when you
49:00
said this is one of those cases where it's very difficult to know what the
49:06
heck happened and who the heck did it because there's so many different explanations in
49:10
this set. You know what six hour period, five hour period where this
49:15
poor kid goes on hallomy night to a bar to hang out with his girlfriend
49:20
and his friends. He's kicked out under these circumstances that don't seem to make
49:23
any sense. And what could have happened, Well off to the police officer
49:28
could have had something to do with it, He could have had the bouncers
49:30
of the bar that could have had something to do with it. He could
49:34
have been the people that he was trying to break up in a fight,
49:36
found him outside and attacked him. It could have been a group of gang
49:39
members who attacked him. It could have been a stranger. It could have
49:43
been devil worshippers. It could have been all kinds of different things that came
49:49
across Chris's path and resulted in his death. I do not think that Chris
49:54
died from a suicide at all. He had plans to go on several job
50:00
interviews. He was there with his girlfriend that night and his friends having fun,
50:05
and he was still in his Halloween costume. So I just don't think
50:08
that would have been the result. After he gets kicked out of a bar
50:13
that he automatically says, this is the time I'm going to take my own
50:15
life. That usually just doesn't happen like that. But what's so heartbreaking is
50:22
that this family is in the same spot we are. They have no answers,
50:25
they have no idea what happened, and they've kind of been put on
50:29
a ferris wheel of a journey with the police department and with anyone really helping
50:35
them. Yes, it was ruled undetermined to start, but four years later,
50:39
there's a massive move where the new police chief says, we're changing this
50:45
classification. I apologize to the family. It's time to rule this as a
50:49
homicide. And he changes that and says to the family, you were right.
50:54
I validate what you said. And then almost years later he says,
51:01
ah, I have no idea what happened. This could have been a suicide
51:05
and accident or a homicide. It's almost going back on what you said.
51:08
And that doesn't feel good to a family who's been advocating for almost two decades
51:15
that their loved one was murdered. So for me, it's one of these
51:19
things where there was going to be an interest and there wasn't. It was
51:22
homicide. Now was it a homicide? The rigormarole that the family is going
51:25
through has to highly compound the grief. And this case is only from two
51:30
thousand and two. Guys. It's not like we're talking about a nineteen sixties
51:34
murder or something that happened in the eighties. This was in two thousand and
51:37
two, So people who would have been around at the time are likely still
51:42
very young, very healthy, very cognizant, and sound of mind. Someone
51:46
knows what happened to Chris when he left that night and maybe we're at a
51:52
point twenty one years later that relationships have changed and that time might be on
51:57
the side of this case. It would be to give this family answers.
52:01
While that's the furthest thing that they've gotten at this point, my heart goes
52:07
out to the family. I can't imagine what they dealt with initially when dealing
52:10
with the police department, having them say things like, of course is out
52:15
there sowing his wild oats, which is so ridiculous, and then knowing the
52:19
way in which the lone tree bar treated him, throwing him out into the
52:22
freezing cold without any cell phone, without a coat, without his keys,
52:27
and without any way of contacting anybody who could help him is just so rossly
52:31
responsible. And then the attitude about not questioning Casey, which I'm not saying
52:37
I think he has anything to do with it, but he may have been
52:39
able to give them some kind of information as to how exactly and why he
52:44
was ejected that they didn't want to break up Casey's happy family, and so
52:49
it's more covering up his bad behavior. And then we see Dolan step on
52:54
the scene, and like Ash just mentioned, the ruling gets overturned from accidental
53:00
to homicide, and I'm more inclined to be like seventy five percent homicide twenty
53:05
five percent accident. I don't buy suicide for a second. I just think
53:08
that so many things line up, like the state of his lungs being like
53:13
half the weight of like healthy lungs, which is common with suffocation. They
53:17
weren't filled with water, which you would typically see in a drowning. The
53:22
tuft of hair in his hand, I think goes back to what Ashley had
53:25
said about a bag being over the head. You might grab your own hair
53:29
trying to grab that bag off. I don't think if you're flailing in the
53:32
water, you would be grabbing at your own hair. And there's no evidence
53:37
of flailing. He isn't found in a position that a drowning victim typically is,
53:40
which is face down and arms out. He's found with his arms crossed
53:45
across his chest. I think the probability to he was found in Nicolette Island,
53:50
I mean I can go fifty to fifty. That seems like a logical
53:53
explanation for where a body could have been stash and then floated out once you
53:59
know the thawing started to happen and that could explain why searchers never found the
54:02
body. As far as who did this, I honestly have no idea.
54:07
I'm completely dumbfounded by this. I think there's so many possibilities and potentials when
54:13
we have so little evidence. I'm just completely confounded by this case. Yeah,
54:17
when I first learned about it several years ago, it was all when
54:21
I was learning about the Smiley Pace murder theory and I saw his name listed
54:24
on a list of potential victims, And of course I not hesitate to express
54:30
my skepticism about the Smiley Pace murder theory, and looking through most of the
54:34
cases, it's pretty obvious that they're just accidental drowning deaths. But I got
54:38
involved into Chris's and thought it was something different, where it's like, well,
54:42
even if it was an accidental death, you can find a lot of
54:45
people liable because the circumstances of how he was kicked out of the bar are
54:49
just so irresponsible that it's just a major tragedy. And you can understand why
54:53
people were thinking that there was some sort of cover up going on and that
54:58
something suspicious happened. We talked about in this episode. We've done so many
55:01
cases where victims have died in accidental death or they're deaths ruled a suicide,
55:07
and even though their families are certain that they were the victims of foul played,
55:10
the police steadfastly refused to change their perspective. So here it was just
55:15
a major eye opener when the police chief held a press conference to say they're
55:20
reclassifying Chris's death as a homicide and admitted that they were wrong and issued apology
55:24
to the family, because that almost never happens. But at the same time,
55:29
he made this announcement seventeen years ago, and we're no further in the
55:31
investigation, it seems, And now Chief Dolan says, well, I'm kind
55:36
of fifty to fifty now it might be a homicide, but I'm not one
55:38
hundred percent sure. So it seems that whatever this new investigation uncovered, they
55:44
have just not found any conclusive answers about what happened, or have never been
55:47
able to prove that Chris was the victim of a homicide. I mean,
55:51
there is a promising thing with Jeremy Alfred because he is a killer who's in
55:55
prison, and obviously the police thought there was a decent chance he was responsible.
56:00
But like I said, his one murder he's been confirmed of, he
56:01
brutally stabs someone twenty times and set their mobile home on fire. Whereas Chris,
56:07
there are no noticeable signs of foul play, and it just not fit
56:09
the profile of someone like Alfred, who only would have been nineteen years old
56:14
at the time Chris was killed. So I don't see him being able to
56:17
commit this very subtle, perfect murder. But at the same time, I
56:21
can't figure out what happened to Chris, Like, was this a premeditated thing,
56:24
did he get his drink drugg did someone follow him or lure him into
56:28
the parking garage, or did just Chris happen to cross paths with the wrong
56:31
person while he was walking home. There's just nothing that makes one hundred percent
56:36
complete sense. I am inclined to think he was a victim of a homicide
56:38
and that whoever killed him placed his body in the Mississippi River where it was
56:43
undiscovered for four months. But you just have to wonder how did they do
56:46
it, and what was their motive? And did they suffocate him? Is
56:50
that why there were no noticeable signs of foul play. We just don't have
56:53
any evidence to work with, and that's why this case is so frustrating,
56:58
and it's just so sad that his family has been without answers for two decades
57:01
now. But that's why we keep cases like this in the spotlight. Maybe
57:06
there is someone out there who knows the truth about what happened to Chris,
57:08
and I hope they do eventually come forward and possibly provide his family with some answers.