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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.
And let me tell you, it did. I've been listening to it while I walk, and I am absolutely loving it.
I love all the I love Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen.
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I feel indulged. I just love it so much.
I really am obsessed with the strawberry flavor right now.
My mochi is only around 70 calories per piece, which like, hello, that's amazing.
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Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid.
It's an ash-centric morbid. Hello there.
We also have a windstorm happening. I didn't know if you were going to say anything about it, but as soon as I was like, this is morbid, the wind was like, what was it like? okay cool thank you i just want to make sure yeah i just happened to like gaze out the window as I said, like, hello.
And then I was like, oh. It's an actual windstorm outside.
Like there's trees like bending over. You know what's scary is right behind my head is like a very large tree.
And like whenever it's windy, I'm like, One of these days I'm probably just going to die in this seat while reporting about like something else.
And then I'll cover it. Thank you. It's not necessarily.
Well, that's the murderer. Yeah. So hello, it's an Ash centric episode and, uh, I think there was a little technical glitch in the Listener Tales episode this week, sorry about that.
I know like everybody and we included are always like, it's been a week, but like...
Oh boy, it's been a week. This week takes the cake.
It truly has. Nothing even like actually bad happened.
No, it was just a series of very stressful... Annoying events.
Weird... Like, fuck-ups and failures of just... Yeah.
And nothing huge, nothing that was like...
But you know when things, and I'm sure everybody, like you get me, right guys?
Like everything... When everything just like comes together in the most shitty way, just like everything you try to do during the week, you just fail at.
See, the new moon is like supposed to bring like new beginnings, but I feel like it had a little bit of like damage to clean up like it.
The first week after the new moon, I guess we just had to, like, get through all the shit of, like, the last moon.
We had to sweep, I guess. And I'm feeling... Yeah, it's like...
It's like you swept, but then you didn't vacuum.
Hopefully we're cleansed. I think we are.
After this week, because I mean, it even leaked into like...
You know, everything. It was like we tried to do Scream this week and it got all messed up.
We just like, everything was messing up.
I don't know what it was. Everything. But you know what?
It's a new week soon. So we're... Yeah, we're totally fine.
We're going to be good. Tonight, even tonight, I think tonight's the start. of something new there you go and uh i think the only other thing i wanted to kind of like mention before we start was The Tristan Bailey case.
Yes. Holy hell. Everybody, I'm sure you've all heard about it.
If you haven't, definitely look it up because it's insane and it's happening right now. horrible.
We are going to cover that case, but we want to see it through to the end.
So... We want to make sure we watch this whole trial.
We want to see... someone charged, you know, like, like officially we want everything to be kind of buttoned up a little more.
Because things in the beginning, when you start to read articles, like one article will say this and then another article will say this and then.
This other one over here said that this person said this.
And you're like, but what? Yeah. But what's the truth?
There's just not enough information out right now for us to feel comfortable reporting about it.
Yeah. But we do want to acknowledge like Wow.
And our hearts go out to her family. I can't imagine. and you know what it is it's really showing the double-edged sword that social media is Because social media can be this beautiful thing that can help solve cases.
It can... Do awesome stuff. Bring people together.
Bring people together. All this awesome stuff. and then it can be the worst fucking invention that ever came about in humanity and we see this when A picture is posted on a news website of Tristan, a 13-year-old girl. who was murdered brutally in some of the comments on there.
I can't. I can't. Are things that, honestly, you look at them and you're like, well, there you are, future murderer.
Yeah. Like, it's just there you are. We're all seeing it happen.
It's like you have to be a despicable person to say some of the things I was seeing.
Seriously. Like people sitting there saying she deserved it.
She shouldn't have worn that. It's like, what the fuck?
The whole, you shouldn't have worn that.
She's a baby. Literally, I can't. She's a child.
That is a uniform that she was wearing. She's also a child who was murdered.
I don't give a shit what she was wearing.
It has nothing to do with it. And then the other thing is like... And her family has to see that.
That's so fucked. All these like kids that are like making Instagrams about it saying... profiles and shit it's like where what is going on who raised you well i was just gonna where are your parents like my kids I'm going to monitor their fucking social media until they're like 18 years old.
Oh, yeah. My kids are like... Until forever.
Godspeed to them. But it's also just like...
How? How does that happen? How does your brain work that way?
Because never once as a child did I ever be like, it would be really fun to harass the family of a murdered child.
Like that never entered my mind as like, oh, you know what would be fun to do?
No. And it really blows my mind. It's sickening.
It really is. It really is. We've been following it very closely.
We just wanted to let everybody know because I know a lot of people were like, you know, like tagging us being like, we got to cover this.
And we definitely will. It will be covered because Tristan's story should be told.
But we want to just make sure it We wait for it to get a little more clear and tightened up.
A more fuller picture of what's going on.
So we will be covering that eventually. We just wanted to let you know.
And, you know, be nice online. guys do you know what i know no one listening here does that shit but like go go comment something nice on someone's picture yeah just go be nice Go make someone's day.
Pay for the person behind you in the drive-thru.
Yeah, because you know what? That's my favorite.
I hope I'm behind you. There you go, right?
I love doing that. I hope I'm behind you.
But I honestly, though, like you see like a nice even just something as simple as like because I think I tweeted about how our week is. been shit.
And the amount of people that were just like, yeah, me too.
Like I'm having a shitty week too. Like hopefully both of us get better.
High five. Like it was just like. Like, nice.
Well, and here's the thing. I think sometimes even I do this.
Like, I'll go to say something, like, nice.
And I'm like, oh, they might think that's weird if I say that.
Like, I'm just going to not say that. Yeah.
No. Fuck it. Who cares if they think you're weird?
Just spread positivity and niceness. Because you know what?
Nasty people never think twice about what they say.
Yeah. They just shoot off at their fucking mouth and they don't care that they're going to ruin someone's day.
And you never know. So you know what? Don't think twice about being too nice.
Because you never know if that person, like, your comment is really gonna help them.
Is gonna make the day better. Exactly. Because it does.
It works. It does. There's our little PSA about internet etiquette.
All of the above. But yeah, it was the tryst and stuff that just like really...
It gave me a really sour taste in my mouth.
People are horrific, unfortunately. We're going to see with this case that I'm covering too, actually.
Yeah, let's just segue right into the worst kind of people.
Yeah, the absolute worst kind of people.
And the people that we just don't I was going to say an unknown people.
This isn't even like an unsolved. It's kind of an unsolved case.
It's just very confusing. You know what we're here for because the episode title.
It's the smiley face killers. And I have done nothing but like watch smiley face killer documentaries for the past two weeks.
Like, read every possible article that I could.
Like, ask Drew if I could tell him all the terrifying things in this case.
And he was like, please don't. maybe call Elena.
But then I was like, no, because I can't tell her everything because then I can't surprise her.
And I was like, and also I already did. So there's that.
So we are covering the smiley face killers phenomena, I guess you could call it.
Phenomena. It's like, what is happening?
The mystery. It's crazy. Because since about 1997, in various parts of the US, There have been hundreds.
I think the number is up to over 300 now of all these cases that I think may be associated with this.
And it's young college men just ending up dead in water somewhere.
Hmm. And a lot of these cases have been ruled accidental drownings, but a lot of people do not think that's the case.
And I am one of those people. I kind of stand... Are you a little bit in the middle?
I'm a little in the middle. I can see both sides.
So I'm eager to see what... After this, you won't because I'm biased.
Might as well just get that out right now.
Yeah, I definitely think that this is a killer for sure.
I'm going to stay in my middle lane here and I'll see.
Yeah, see how you feel at the end. I also think that this is going to be part two.
This is going to be two parts. Yeah. But each victim shares some kind of similarity with the next in these cases.
It's usually like a pretty successful guy who's in college making honors or like a promising young athlete.
Like these kids have everything going for them. and their whole future is ahead of them.
But it's somehow after a night out with friends, they end up separated from their group of friends and they end up in a body of water, seemingly having to, like, fallen in the water after drinking too much.
But then you kind of look a little more into that and it doesn't really make sense.
So I mean, so far. Seems like it could be accidental.
It could be, but I haven't told you anything of importance yet.
Give me the deets. Sadly enough, in the US alone, there are 3,500 to 4,000 drowning deaths per year.
And men make up 80% of that number. Wow.
Isn't that crazy? That's interesting. I know.
So it's really not that uncommon. But what's weird about the victims that we'll focus on and those thought to be associated with this strange thing that's going on. is that when they're found in the water, things don't end up between where they were supposed to be how long they would have had to travel from point A to where they supposedly fell in the water.
And even like the level of decomposition of their bodies, the level of decomposition in these different cases that I'm going to present to you is bananas.
So let's get into it. That's what I'm really interested to hear.
Yeah, and I'll tell you. So in 1997, there was a guy, Patrick McNeil.
He was one of the promising men unfortunately found dead.
His body was in the East River in New York City.
He had been going to Fordham University.
It was his junior year and everything was going really well.
All of his professors absolutely loved him.
They thought that he did great work. He had a really good group of friends, and he was known to be someone who really wanted to put their best foot forward at all times.
His friends used to make fun of him and be like, okay, are you ready to go out yet?
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He also had dreams of working for the FBI someday, and he was definitely smart enough to make that happen.
Wow. Yeah. Crazy. I know. So on February 16th, 1997, Patrick and some friends decided to go out for the night.
The bar that the Fordham kids loved to go to around that time was called the Dapper Dog, and it was in Manhattan.
The Dapper Dog. The Dapper Doge. So that's where they decided to go out that night.
Pretty quickly though, Patrick was like not feeling great and he ended up having to run to the bathroom and get sick.
And he like ended up throwing up in the bathroom.
But it was weird because he hadn't really drank that much, especially for how sick he was getting and how dyslexic.
Now, once he finished throwing up in the bathroom, he found his friends and let them know that he was going to head back to campus.
It's really unclear to me why like no one was like, hey, I'll go with you.
Yeah, like you're obviously sick. Yeah, and I did read that he was waiting outside for one friend to come out, but they just, like, never came out.
So he was like, okay, I guess I'll just go on my way.
So plenty of people saw him after he left and believed that he was making his way to the subway.
He was still throwing up like on the street and was very unsteady on his feet.
He was falling into cars. He was like stumbling around.
I really don't understand why nobody helped him.
One witness saw him walking and noticed that a previously Huh.
Uh-huh. And at one point, Patrick actually fell to the ground and when he did this, the van came to a complete stop.
And then he got back up and got started going on his way.
And so did the van, which is super weird.
Now, is this one eyewitness saying this?
Yeah. Okay. I just wanted to know. Which is fair.
Yeah. Um... So when he got back up, he made his way to the end of the street to turn onto East 90th.
And when he turned, the van did too. And that was the last time anyone saw Patrick McNeil alive again.
I mean, sounds creepy. Sounds super creepy.
Very creepy. Now, allegedly witnesses one man and one woman in the van and actually were able to get part of their license plate.
Oh. So that's super exciting, right? Very.
Yeah, like you could probably do something with that.
I'm excited. if you wanted to spend the money on it.
But the head of the missing persons department didn't really want to do.
It's called a lawman search. And what that would have done is like basically complete the plate number by using all the possible combinations and matching it up to Like a van.
Like a, yeah. The kind of car. A make and model, exactly.
But it would have cost like $1,200 at the time and he didn't want to spend the money on it. so he just didn't just didn't yeah why do that why why solve a potential murder case That's not what people want.
No, but it's like... People don't want things solved.
No. No. It's so aggravating. We want the mystery.
Yeah, exactly. That's what we're here for.
That's terrible. It would be two months before Patrick McNeil's body was discovered. in the East River in New York City on April 7th, 1997. now they were able to recover his body near the owl's head water pollution control plant which was more than 12 miles away from his last known location.
Now the fact that he was found in that specific location didn't really make a lot of sense with the way that the currents were flowing.
But honestly, that was like the least sinister thing about the discovery of his body. here's what we'll get into i'm ready for the sinister yeah situation Usually drowning victims, as you know, are found in the water face down.
Like most of the time, like there obviously things happen where it's not always like that.
Absolutely. Now, this was one of those cases.
Patrick was recovered on his back. but there was no evidence of lividity in his back area in the autopsy photos.
So I guess you could say at the same time that the conditions in the water maybe like flipped him around in that position, which is fair, but wait a second because there's more.
Patrick seemed to be like really intoxicated while walking down the street like he was literally stumbling.
But then when they tested his blood alcohol concentration, it turned out to be 0.16. which, like, okay.
And because because the body naturally produces more alcohol in the process of decomposition, it was fair to assume that his actual blood alcohol content was 0.12%.
Okay. So like that's not super drunk at all.
That's about six drinks. which for me and you would be like super duper drunk.
But he was 195 pounds and six feet tall.
So he was like a big dude. Yeah. So obviously like it's definitely drunk, but not drunk enough to be in the state that he was in.
Like he was. I mean, six drinks to me sounds like a lot of drinks.
See, me too, but it's like... He's super duper tall and like then I think about going out with my guy friends and I'm like they'll throw back like three beers in a couple hours.
It's hard to judge because it's always based on like weight and, you know.
Right. So yeah, that is weird. It sounds like a lot, but I don't know.
Maybe some of our dudes or like taller women can weigh in here. where my dudes at where my dudes and tall women at yeah because I think about it and I'm like John's like six foot three or four and that I think that would probably not I've never seen him like that drunk.
No, like falling over, throwing up and everything.
I don't know. It just seems weird. So a lot of people were like, was he drugged?
Yeah. It seems like there was something a little like a kind of like a roofie situation there.
Yeah. Now it also seemed as though there was some kind of ligature tied around Patrick's neck at one point. because the medical examiner notes in the autopsy report, quote, circumferentially around the neck, there is a pattern which consists of numerous vertical lines evenly spaced about 1 16th of an inch apart around his neck in a pattern as if to suggest some type of binding.
That's interesting. So it's like, okay, then why was it rolled in excess?
That's very interesting. Super duper weird.
The autopsy also notes that there was severe blackening around the head and the upper torso.
And the medical examiner surmised that this was because of not only advanced decomp, but also an extended period of exposure to the elements. elements.
However, a team of retired detectives and one doctor disagree.
Okay. Now, Kevin Gannon, Anthony Tony Duarte, Mike Donovan, and Dr. Lee Doc.
Gilbertson make up the global death investigations team.
Badass. They're so badass. They all agree that after looking at the autopsy and having another set of super professional eyes look at it too, that the head to waist blackening on Patrick's body was due to burning, not exposure of the elements.
Really? because the areas where the skin was blackened were not what you would expect from an exposure to the elements, and especially not water.
Usually when bodies are found in water, as you well know, they're bloated.
Yeah. And the blackened skin... that was on Patrick had contracted Okay.
Which was, like, pretty weird, which is, like, usually due to flame.
More typical and heat. Yes, exactly. Now, Dr. Cyril Wecht agreed with the team's theory and he's like a super, super famous pathologist. that the blackening skin was in fact due to burning to the point of skin charring.
Yeah. And together they all agreed that it looked as though Patrick had been bound by his neck to a chair. while being burned and that he was alive when this occurred.
What the fuck? Insane. Now, there wasn't a lot of charring around the back area, so they believe that his back was pushed against the chair when this all happened.
And there was like lower red marbling around like, where his pants would have been, which is a sign of, like, it kind of stopped there because the pants... Like, the heat was just going right to that point.
Exactly. So like what? Like that's absolutely terrifying.
Holy shit. Now they noted something else of importance too.
If the top portion of Patrick's body was black because of environmental factors and decomposition, then why were his feet not equally decomposed?
That was going to be my question. It's like, But why wouldn't the lower part?
Why wouldn't the lower part be super decomposed?
I mean, that's the part that's… Because your feet are exposed.
Exposed and in the water. And over a period of like 50 days he's been in this water, like you're going to have slippage, right?
Yeah. No. No signs of slippage whatsoever, which is not only uncommon, just like essentially unheard of in cases. this where a body has been in the water for that long.
This one sounds like murder. So if that's the case, was Patrick on land for some of the time that he was missing?
Yes. Seems like it. That would certainly seem to be the case, especially because there were fly eggs found in the groin area of Patrick's body.
Now, four doctors, including the pretty famous forensic pathologist, like I said, Dr. Cyril and Dr. Richard Jantz, who is from The Body Farm.
Yep. They agreed that it's highly unlikely these eggs were laid while Patrick's body was in the water.
Yes. It would have been far too cold in New York in the middle of February and water like the water would have been even colder.
Oh, 100%. So it just, it wouldn't have happened.
And especially like from the body farm, they know.
Yeah, of course. You know, like they know, they test all the different conditions.
They've seen every single different condition.
So for them to say that, to be like, yeah, no, I don't think that's how that worked, you can trust that.
And they were two of four doctors that all agreed that, like, no.
No. Yeah, it just that doesn't that doesn't like jive with me.
Doesn't jive or vibe. It doesn't do any of it.
Now, Kevin Gannon actually was one of the original detectives on Patrick's case back in 97.
He is the one who set out on this mission to figure out what happened to Patrick because he promised his parents, Pat Sr. and Jackie McNeil, that he would find out who murdered their son and bring this person to justice.
Those poor people. and he has spent the past 24 years trying to keep that promise to find out not only what happened to Patrick, but these countless other young men that I've been talking about.
Yeah. Because they're all dying under pretty similar super suspicious circumstances.
Now, unfortunately, Patrick's death still remains listed as an accidental drowning to this day.
How? I have no idea. Like, the ligature thing really is like...
The Lickature thing makes absolutely no sense.
And for the medical examiner, the pathologist to say in the thing that it appears he has been bound by his neck.
Right. and then to list it an accidental drought like what the only thing that i can think of is it's like he was in the water is he thinking that like he got like caught up in something.
Because immediately when you first brought that up, The devil's advocate in me was like, well, if he's been in the water a long time, maybe he got caught up in something like a net. or something.
And it pressed into his neck and it made it look like that.
And then the currents took him out and But then you... Sorry, I just threw my computer.
But I'm like talking with my hands. But then you have that and then you have everything else.
When you put all... It's like when you put all the rest of the puzzle pieces together, it doesn't make sense.
Yeah, just the... you know, the darkening on the top half of the body and that it's like contracted instead of expanded.
But no slippage on the bottom? No slippage in the water for that long.
I mean, for these experts to be saying, like, this is burns, not water. just plain old decomp.
Right. That's interesting. Right. And that's very interesting. that the body wasn't bloated because i feel like we you and i have talked about like a couple like bodies that have been found in water yeah i mean I mean, think about Hallie Ellingsworth, was it?
Yeah. She became soap, she was in there for so long.
And it's like, of course, temperature can mess around with things, especially like... decomposition really is dependent on temperature and again you know this was in the middle of like the freezing part of the of the time of year.
Right. But I don't know. But just with the other factors, it's just like And the fly, the eggs.
The eggs. That was the part that like sent me.
That's very interesting. And in part two, we're going to get to another kind of insect.
We're going to look a little more into that.
And you're going to be... I already told you some of it, but I didn't tell you all of it.
And you're going to be like, OK, I'm convinced.
OK, what? Did, was there any mention, and maybe there wasn't because I know like they don't release everything.
Was there like any mention of like hair?
And like, was it charred? I didn't see any mention of his hair and like what I looked through because I couldn't find the autopsy report for him.
I know. I'm dying to read it. Exactly. Now I want to know.
But I can I can answer that in part two if I find the answer.
We'll try to find it because I'm interested to see if like. the hair gave any kind of indication of fire as well it's funny that well fire for sure like obviously that would happen But it's funny that you mentioned hair because that comes into play in one of the next victims.
Oh, that's funny. Yeah, that was weird. That was like a really good segue.
Look at me just segueing for you. Yeah, thank you so much.
Now, just one year after Patrick's body was found, another young man was discovered dead having drowned after a night out with his friends.
And the creepiest part is that he was found in almost the exact same location where Patrick was found a year earlier.
This man was Lawrence. He went by Larry Andrews.
He was 22 years old and he was from Brewster, New York.
Now, like most of the victims we'll talk about, he was a young college guy with a bright future ahead of him.
He had taken the train into New York City, excuse me, he had taken the train into the city on New Year's Eve in 1997. to go out and celebrate with his friends in Times Square.
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The sale ends 831. Don't miss it. The town of Agde in France is famous for sun, sand, sea and sex.
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At some point, they all watched the ball drop, but after that he got separated from them.
And people did see him in a bar near Grand Central Station and said that he appeared to be drunk but not incoherent.
So it's strange that just like in Patrick's case, Larry's body was found about 12 miles from where he was last seen.
Same location where they were found, but like different locations before they were.
That's really interesting. But like just about 12 miles.
Like same dump site. Yeah, it's super weird.
Now, Kevin Gannon and Susan Andrews, Larry's mother, agree that Larry's death was no accident and definitely not a suicide.
It was far too similar to Patrick's case and Larry was like not known to be suicidal at all.
His sister was just about to get married and So he was looking forward to that.
And he also had upcoming plans to go on a skiing trip.
Hmm. Now the more and more Kevin started looking into these cases, he was realizing that there were more than just similarities between the victims. but also the areas in which they were found.
In many cases, smiley faces were being graffitied nearby where the bodies were discovered.
You can argue, again, devil's advocate, that smiley faces are super, super common.
I mean, I could go outside right now and probably find five.
But it definitely felt like more than a coincidence to Detective Gannon, at least.
It's interesting, to say the least. It is.
And you know what? It's not at all of these sites.
So it is important to know. I'm going to be totally transparent with you here because the smiley face is like a little bit much in my opinion.
Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah. It's something to take note of.
Yeah, I'm going to take note of it every time it's there, but... It adds an element of, like, theater to this whole thing, for sure.
And I think that's why people grab onto it.
Clench onto it. Which I get. I know we all want to see that. oh, there's a smiley face at all the crime scenes.
But who knows? Yeah, you never know. Yeah.
Now, we're going to talk about how reliable this team is, because obviously you want to know that the people investigating this are in it for the right reasons.
So Kevin Gannon and all the members of his team are very reliable sources.
Kevin worked on the NYPD for 20 years. And during his time on the force, he received over 100 medals, including two medals of valor for heroism in the line of duty.
So he's a badass motherfucker. He also was in charge of the Bronx Homicide Task Force for three years.
Damn. Tony Duarte, another part of this team, was in law enforcement for a total of 21 years.
He also received many medals for things such as excellence in police duty.
Very, very reliable person. Mike Donovan worked with Kevin and Tony for 20 years as well.
He has also worked on hundreds of homicide cases.
He actually worked on the elite special anti-crack unit of the Organized Crime Control Bureau.
And fun fact, not like fun fact, but he was a first responder in 9-11.
Wow. Yeah. So, again, very reliable source.
And the final member of this team is Dr. Lee Gilbertson, who goes by Doc, which I love.
He has a PhD in sociology with a focus in gangs and substance abuse.
He is a certified gang specialist and also a three-time recipient of the Frederick Milton Thrasher Award.
He won it in 2002, 2005 and 2008. And he is also an executive editor for the Journal of Gang Research.
All right. So there are their qualifications just right up front. now damn yeah they're a bunch of badasses you gotta watch the documentary that I'm going to talk about in a second oh yeah Because in 2008, this team decided to go public with their theory for the first time about the smiley face killers.
By that point, they had about 40 cases across the US that they believed to have been connected.
Although, like I said, now there are hundreds.
They believed that there was a gang of serial killers working together across about 25 major cities. which, scarily enough, are mainly on the East Coast.
Not Austin. Awesome for us. Not awesome.
And of course, they believe that they're targeting young, smart, athletic, and typically white college men.
It seemed that the M.O. was to somehow pick one of these men while they're out drinking with friends and secretly drug them.
Once they're separated from the group, they would be kidnapped.
And at this point, they believe likely held for a period of days and probably tortured to some degree. obviously, based on what we spoke about with Patrick, and then disposed in a body of water.
The gang would then spray paint sometimes a smiley face nearby, presumably to like tag the area being like, hey, like other gang members, like I did this one here, I guess, kind of thing.
Yeah. And in 2018, like I was just saying, a docuseries premiered on Oxygen called Smiley Face Killers, The Hunt for Justice. holy shit, stop whatever you're doing.
I bought the whole thing on Amazon. It was like $11.
Like I'll Venmo you $11 to watch it. I'm just kidding.
Like I won't. But this. The series followed the team around to different cities where each of the victims' families was interviewed.
And then the evidence was gone through again with a fine tooth comb, usually showing that the cause of death did not line up with what the body and other evidence told the investigators.
And one of Kevin Gannon's major point and points in this whole thing is that quote, Yeah.
It's a huge part of this. That's the big, like... question mark here.
It's a huge part of this. And after watching the series, I was on their side and I went further down the rabbit hole and now I'm Honestly, just, like, moderately terrified.
Well, my thing here that I'm going to, like, hang on to is...
The only questions that will like linger in my brain about this is like, where are they bringing them and holding them?
Because there needs to be a place. Absolutely.
And then why? Okay, see, why is the biggest question?
And I think why is the biggest question that nobody's really answered?
Yeah. I saw like different theories on like Reddit and like just like little like crime posts and stuff.
Yeah, of course. That are interesting, but I don't want to get into because we have no idea.
I have no basis to share that. You know what I mean?
Like, everybody can speculate what they want.
Yeah. So, honestly, I mean, it is interesting to go through and kind of check out the MOs.
For sure. If you want to do the... Or, excuse me, the... motivation if you want to look at that on your own but but i think it's like the because if they are doing this if this is like a big ring why of people, it's like, whoa, first of all.
And then second of all, it's like, where is this happening?
Like, where is this torture happening? Where are they holding these men?
You know, like, I need... I need somebody to give me a place or like a probable place that this is happening.
Because it has to be somewhere. But here's the thing.
It's across 25 major cities. It could be fucking anywhere.
And there's multiple. That's the other thing, because it's like if you're holding a grown-ass man for like several days to weeks, torturing them... like you've got to have a pretty good place to do that.
Absolutely. That's like away from a lot. of people that's like very well and i think it's that's another scary part of this is that they're targeting men and a lot of these men were very athletic, like they're tall, tall.
Like, I mean, I just said that One of them was six foot tall and 195 pounds.
I mean, he could take you for sure. Yeah.
And a lot of them are built in like. You're like, why?
How? I don't understand. Yeah, and obviously it's not a typical... you know, victim profile for most serial killers.
Usually serial killers do go after women, you know?
And so it's interesting to see like this giant possible ring.
It really is. That is only targeting these like... you know, pretty like, you know, middle class white dudes.
It's just so weird. It really doesn't make any sense.
It's very strange. I think that's another part of why people like to kind of hold on to, like, the smiley face killer theory is that, like, it freaks you out.
Yeah, it's weird. there aren't like answers really.
So you can just continue to go further and further down a rabbit hole.
Like the first one. Like, to me, that seems like murder.
It seems like murder with all the... Obviously, eyewitnesses are pretty unreliable.
It's a little hard. So, like, depending depending on the amount of people that said that that van was following them.
And the fact that they had a partial license plate, that tells me someone saw something.
Exactly. So that's something enough to like write down a license plate.
Exactly. How many fucking license plates do you write down?
Yeah. So it's like that is interesting. It is to me.
Well, I think the second one is pretty interesting, too.
Excuse me, third now. So if we're going chronologically, which I'm going to try to do, then Brian Wilson is who we should talk about next.
Brian was a 21 year old college student in Chicago.
His mother, Stephanie, says that Brian was the best thing she ever did.
Oh, my God. Which ruined me. It's destroyed my heart.
He was a super bright kid like all the others.
He was making honors in his classes and he was on the Dean's list.
He was a finance major, and he was really good at all things money related.
His mom said that he liked to spend her money instead, though, when I did.
It was just like a cute little comment. Who doesn't?
Now, a major red flag here. Brian wasn't really a drinker.
Like, he didn't really drink a lot. So, when his body was discovered washed up on a beach in Gary, Indiana...
30 miles away from where he was believed to have entered the water on Lake Michigan. and law enforcement claimed that this was an accident fueled by drinking, everyone was like, No, it wasn't like that.
Does it make any sense now? Brian, just like Larry Andrews had gone out with friends for new years.
So we have two New Year's cases here, which is a little creepy, except this one was in 1999.
And New Year's tends to be the time when people get wild and they get drunk and accidents happen.
I'm just saying. No, that's absolutely fair.
That's absolutely fair. No, it's true. You're right.
And I think it's good to have like me being so like.
Like, hell yeah, I know this is happening.
And I'm literally in the middle. I'm going to wait and see.
Because I can see. I can see. I can see both sides.
I think each person listening is probably like Team Elena or Team Ash in this one.
Or just team neither of us, I guess, since you're in the middle.
They're like, it's not real. It's not real.
I disagree with you. So Brian's best friend, Nick, was out with him that night, and he said Brian only had a couple of drinks now.
I will be devil's advocate so I don't have to listen to you do it.
They were drinking Long Island iced teas and we all know that those will fuck you up.
Because those are different every time you come.
Yeah, you never know what you're going to get.
You could get straight up iced tea or you could get, you know, lava from a volcano.
Literally. You have no idea. I've like gone, I've like died and gone to heaven and like come all the way back multiple times when drinking Long Island's.
Oh, I've seen the netherworld. Yeah, I've seen some shit.
But again, he's a taller dude. It metabolizes things a little differently than you and me.
For sure. everyone in their group of friends also pretty much had the same amount to drink.
So at least we can look at that as well.
Okay. And hopefully we can just assume that they all had the same bartender before you even say it.
So one step ahead of you. You can just like sense it in my eyes.
I'm like. I can't. I'm going to stop looking at you.
Now, the only difference between Brian and everybody else was that Brian got extremely extremely ill, like Patrick McNeil ill, like very ill, ill, very ill.
To the point of falling over. Same thing.
He left the bar with his friends. Thank God that they left with him.
And they headed back. They were actually staying at a hotel that night.
So while they were driving back, Brian got sick in the car.
And when they got back to the hotel, his friends went up to get like some cleaning supplies to obviously clean up.
But the doorman would not let Brian back in the hotel because he believed he was so drunk, obviously.
Yeah. It was then somehow it's really unclear how this all happened, but somehow Brian got separated from his friends in that moment.
And multiple people. What happened there?
I think they went up to like get the cleaning supplies.
And maybe he wandered away. And I think he just wandered off.
Exactly. Or like maybe got sick or was like kneeling over to get sick and somebody grabbed him.
Who knows? I don't know. That's the whole point of this.
Nobody knows. Is that we have no fucking clue.
Exactly. Multiple people witnessed him throwing up and stumbling down the street.
I'm again confused why nobody stopped to help this boy, but again.
After that night, it would be a full 77 days before anyone saw Brian again.
That's a lot of days. It's about three. That's like two and a half months, almost three.
It's a lot. It's a lot of days. Now, Nick, who was out with Brian the night before, called his mom Stephanie the next day to see if Brian was there because he hadn't returned back to the dorms.
And Stephanie right away knew something was off.
And later, when she was notified that Brian was missing, She, this lady is a badass.
She started searching right away. She was going into the city to hand out flyers of Brian and just looking for any lead she could.
That kills me. At first, the police wouldn't take Brian's disappearance seriously, probably because it happened on New Year's and he's in college.
Yeah. They just don't take things seriously, I guess.
No big deal. She gathered a ton of people from her church to show up at the station, like, demanding that something be done about this.
And this is horrible. Brian's father had passed away the year before in his sleep.
So I can't imagine. This poor woman. And then to deal with your son being missing for two and a half months.
Like. I can't imagine. He was too. I'm looking up these men.
They're all super handsome. He is super handsome.
They all are. Yeah. So like I said, though, I can't imagine what she was going through.
She just lost her husband. And now she's lost her son, but she has no idea where he is. that kind of grief where you're like, you don't even know what you're grieving about.
Yeah, you don't even know what to put it.
Some people, I'm like, why do some people just get, hammered with that kind of stuff I know you hear about like families that just like never never catch a break exactly But I am happy because she had like our church around her and she had a network like helping her through it all.
So I'm happy that she had that. Now, when Ryan's body did wash up on that beach, like I said, in Gary, Indiana 77 days later, there were a lot of questions to be asked.
For one thing, why did it take so long for his body to get there?
Mm hmm. Why was he only moderately decomposed after being in the water for 77 days?
And how did he end up in the water in the first place?
Now, if Brian took the route that the original investigators believed that he did to get to this point in the water. he would have had to cross 10 lanes of traffic And each like one, four of them were going one way and then like a bunch of them were going another way.
Or he would have had to navigate an underground tunnel.
And looking at the state he was in, I don't think either two of those things would have happened.
Yeah, it just seems like when people wander away drunk, they don't wander like 65 miles away.
No. Exactly. And can get themselves in trouble if there's like a body of water nearby.
Right, of course. But that seems like a lot.
It's super weird. And it's worth mentioning that Brian wasn't really familiar with the Chicago area.
It does make sense that he could get lost, but, like, to get this lost?
Whoa. yeah and even if he did excuse me even if they did do this and he fell in the water Why did he wash up 30 miles away after such a long period of time?
Yeah, that's interesting. Now, the police sergeant, Sergeant Fazekas, was on the case originally and he appeared on that Oxygen series that I talked about.
And he was talking to the team reinvestigating everything.
And he said that in his 29 years on the force, It was the first time that a body had washed up on the shore.
Really? Yes. And he said that Brian looked like he had been missing for a week.
Now, this is like a police sergeant who's been on the force for 29 years.
And he looked like he had been missing for a week.
A week. Yes. Now, of course, it is possible that over the course of those days, Brian's body could have floated the 30 miles over to Indiana from Chicago.
Of course. But realistically and actually statistically, it should have happened a lot sooner.
Now on the series that I've been talking about, they were able to go over all of the previous bodies found in like this area.
And they were able to see that in that 30 mile stretch of water, all those bodies that were there the longest it took a body to get even near the proximity of where Brian's body was found was 36 hours.
I thought even if you had said 36 days, I was going to be like, that's a lot of days.
36 hours was the longest and he was 77 and he was 77 days like this is essentially impossible That's unprecedented.
It absolutely is. It truly is. Now, again, let's look at the blood alcohol concentration.
Let's look at it. So Brian's was reported at 0.084. which for reference is almost sober enough to operate a vehicle.
I was just going to say that's low. Now, obviously, and this is where it gets a little bit confusing because he had thrown up.
So a lot, a lot, like a lot, a lot, a lot.
And we can assume, like I said, a pretty good amount because of whatever he drank, like came back up.
However, we don't know how soon after he started.
We don't know how soon he started throwing up after he had drank.
So we don't know how much of that already metabolized.
Exactly. Thank you. You're welcome. Now, if the concentration was that low, but he was so clearly ill, it's not an out of this world assumption that he had been drugged for sure clearly somebody slipped something in his drink yeah But unfortunately, during the autopsy, they didn't test to see for those particular kind of drugs.
You have to test for those. Yeah, it's like a total... a specific order.
And they didn't because they thought this was an accident, unfortunately.
So let's get into Elena's territory a little bit here.
Let's do it. Because I'm going to need you.
I'm excited. I tried my best to like look into all of this, but I was like, you know what?
I know that I have her. So somebody use her.
Now, Brian's back showed fixed lividity, meaning that he was laying on his back for a good portion of the time after he died and Probably when he died?
Yeah, probably. Okay. He was at least...
Maybe when he died, it's more that he was spending the most time laying on his back after death.
Okay. Because it's usually it's after death that it starts.
Libidity starts to set in. Because everything settles where the lowest point of gravity is.
Okay. Thank you. Now, from what I've read, it is very unlikely that a victim of drowning would show fixed lividity in general, but especially on the back area.
Yeah. Okay. Now Dr. Lee Gilbertson further confirmed that when he said, quote, Mm-hmm.
Because that would indicate that he literally did not move.
Like he was just on his back. During the lividity process, he was on his back the entire time and never even like... or anything around.
Which, in the water? Which, in the water, I just...
I don't know. And again, this is the winter time and it's Lake Michigan.
Yeah. It's not like it's like glass. No, I mean, he washed up on a beach like we all see the tide going in and out.
Exactly. He would have moved even just in that moment.
Yeah, I would imagine you would see it more than on their back, but... I would think so, and so would Dr. Lee.
Well, there you go. Doc. Now, there was also no fluid found in Ryan's lungs at all.
Yeah, that's interesting. All of his organs were well intact.
Which being in the water for 77 days, I would assume that your organs maybe get like bloated or something.
I don't really know a lot about what the organs, what the insides do in water, but The no water in the lungs is very interesting.
Super weird. And there was no sand found in the esophagus or the stomach.
Now, when Dr. Cyril Lect, my dude, went over that- particular bit of information, he said that it was, he believed it was highly unlikely that Brian entered that water alive and drowned.
He agreed with the team that Brian was likely murdered somewhere else before he ever entered that water.
And Dr. Gilbertson believes that when Brian's body was found, he had only been dead for about 36 hours.
Wow. Yeah. Because, yeah, it's like if the especially the lividity thing, it's like it seems to me like he was lying on his back on a flat surface.
Yeah. After he was killed, the lividity fixed, and then they threw him in the water.
Exactly. After that was already done. So the only reason that I said that the hair stuff was going to come back is because a small patch of his hair was missing.
Clearly, it had been like, Like mechanically removed or something?
Yeah, like just gone. Wow. Which is weird.
That is weird. But they didn't get like super into that and I couldn't find like a ton on it.
So I didn't know if that would happen after 36 hours in the water.
I don't know why that would happen. I don't either.
Unless there was scalp slippage, but... Yeah, but it doesn't sound like there was.
Yeah, that's strange. Now, the good thing about this particular case is that Sergeant Fazekas agreed to re opened brian's case oh good so they reopened it back in 2018 i haven't seen anything that's come of it like yet but I mean at least it's open I'm glad they're reopening and they're looking into new possibilities huh Now the next case that I want to talk about and probably who we're going to end on I think is Luke Holman.
Okay. Luke was a 21 year old college student going to school in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Whoa. I don't know if you heard that, the door just slammed because of the wind.
His case is like really eerie to me because he and his parents had actually talked about all of the drownings that had been going on in that area. when Luke was deciding where to go to school.
I hate when that happens in a case. When a victim is talking about the other victims before they become a victim, it's like, And that happens not once but twice in this case.
Eek! That was the first example. And just definitely worth noting, lacrosse actually has the most cases associated with the Smiley case killers.
Huh. Smiley face killers, excuse me. Smiley case killers.
Auto-correct. With over 20 mysterious quote-unquote drownings.
Hmm. So there's over 20 there that they believe are smiley face.
We have some in Boston, right? Oh yeah, and we'll get into those.
Yeah, we have a bunch in Boston. We have about 12 in Boston.
I was going to say, I thought it was more like a dozen.
Yeah. Now, but Luke decided to go anyways.
He didn't like water anyway. So he said, I'm not even going to be around the water.
Like I'm not going to slip and fall in. And once he was actually talking to his friends and he said, quote, you'd have to be a dummy to drown in the river because when you see the river, you know you're going the wrong way.
Which is true that you were going the wrong way, not that you'd have to be a dummy.
Not that you'd have to be a dummy, because...
Obviously, if I was talking to him, I'd be like, yes, but the whole story of these men is that They are very disoriented and not with it when they enter the water.
But at this point, I don't even think that like the smiley face killer thing was like that bad.
Like, the details were all up. Like, nobody was really talking about it that much.
It's only really in recent years. It's crazy because it's been happening since 1997, but...
It's only really in recent years that we've heard a lot about it.
It's been happening almost the entire time you've been alive.
Wow. Yeah. Wow. Super crazy. That's nuts.
Now, it is true that the Mississippi River is in the complete opposite direction of all the bars and the way that you would go if you were going back to campus or like heading back in for the night. but that only makes things like super stranger.
Because if everyone going to school there or in the area knows that, then they probably would avoid that area.
That's true. Meaning like these aren't accidental drownings.
Allegedly. Allegedly, in my opinion. Now Luke avoided that particular area himself because, like I said, he didn't like water.
But after he went missing in September of 2006, that is where his body was found, just like the countless other men that had That is so spooky.
That is so spooky. So creepy. Not only one, but two instances where he was talking about it.
Ugh. And his parents were literally worried for him to go there.
Oh, that stresses me out. They were like, just be smart.
And like, oh my God, I freaking love his parents.
They were on the documentary. and just all the parents on the documentary i just want to envelop them in a group hug and never let them go heartbreaking these are such like young guys they're such young guys and these parents just seem like it's like how we talked about in the heather bish case or the molly bish case when we were talking to heather it's like You feel connected to these families because they're your everyday family.
They could be your family. They feel like your family.
And a lot of these parents in the cases, it feels that way.
Yeah. Now Luke was a star basketball player at the time and he was going out.
That was just like I was saying that he was.
And he was going out to celebrate Oktoberfest with his friends.
Those two things don't correlate. Well, I wanted to point out that he was really good at basketball.
He was also a good basketball player. Yes. because it's worth mentioning to another athlete.
A tall guy, an athletic guy? Yes. Now, at one point or another, he got separated from the group.
No one is really exactly sure how one of his friends who appeared in the documentary said that, like, A group of them were leaving the bar that they were at, and he was staying there with one other guy.
Okay. Who he was, like, acquaintances with.
Okay. Because I'm always like, how are they getting separated from all their friends? you think about it and like that's been the first part of like so many cases I know it really has and I and every single time I'm always like how though how does that happen right but like but also I love you but you're not really a party animal no which like is not an insult I was just like But like I could see like, you know what I mean?
Like, yeah, I could see me getting separated from my friends.
And I think, like, it's... I would never let any of my friends get... Yeah.
Get away from me. So, like... But you know what?
Actually, now that I think about it, I've put myself in the position multiple times where I was like.
Yeah, you have. I've separated. personally separated myself from my friends and gone to do something different yeah which What's up with that?
It's not smart because I host a true crime podcast.
That's very true. Those days are gone anyways.
They are. They're behind you. But back to this.
Now... They found Luke's body in the Mississippi River and promptly ruled it an accidental drowning. um excuse me i skipped over something uh he got separated from the group and it was three days later that his body was found okay so his was found pretty quickly The body showed defensive and offensive wounds, and there was some kind of abrasion to his forehead and small scratches. that the initial investigators called travel abrasions. markings on Luke's forehead weren't exactly consistent with being travel abrasions, though, because what they meant by this was that basically while he was traveling, for lack of a better term, down the river. his face came into contact with small rocks on the bottom of the river or other objects that would have left him with scratches.
Yeah. But the problem in Luke's case is that the abrasions to his face were going in different directions.
And when you're flowing down a river, you're typically going one way.
That's true. So that's just like a little thing.
But your body could bob a little. Yeah, for sure.
You know. Now, the other thing is that the defensive and offensive wounds were explained away because there was a rumor of an altercation near the last bar there. that Luke was seen that night.
This altercation was to have gone down next to the bar in an alleyway.
And unfortunately, though, this is like another thing.
No one knows exactly what happened because, again, he got separated from his friend group. and the original investigators just kind of were like, yeah, we don't know.
Something happened. Yeah. Now, the abrasion on Luke's head was actually brought by the new investigators, but... to a man named William Moore.
Now William Moore is a forensic tool mark analyst and Dr. Gilbertson explained that What they were hoping to do was identify what made the mark on Luke's forehead.
Now remember, there's a mark and there's scratches.
So right now we're talking about the mark.
So get this. William Moore's professional opinion is that the abrasion on Luke's head is of a boot print.
And what we're seeing is that someone most likely pinned down Luke and held him there with like the toe of his boot.
And when you see them place the imprint of what the shoe would look like over the thing or the abrasion on his head, You're like, how did I not see that to begin with?
Like, that absolutely is a boot. See if you can maybe find a picture of it.
It's crazy. Yeah. Now, when Kevin and his team were reinvestigating, they also found out that the band members playing at the bar that night had actually been interviewed by police in the original investigation.
And one of the guys in the band got into an altercation with another guy, who I guess we could assume may have been Luke. for like peeing near his band equipment while he was packing up his van. members were actually asked to bring their van in so that the police could like kind of check it out and get to know them. and a cadaver dog responded to a scent near the rear passenger compartment.
Ooh, you want to know what was done about that?
They just let the van go. Are you kidding me?
And they like lost all the information. They just, they were just like, well, just let it go.
Yeah. Just let it go. It's not. We don't think it's right.
Yeah, just let that go. It was an accident.
What? They just like let the van go. How does that happen?
Why would you just not even look into it a little A little bit more.
The dog responded to it. Just take a peek.
Right. Like, you might as well. You were there.
Exactly. Wow. Now, one of the things that the new investigative team wanted to do was test Luke's clothing for any kind of, like, DNA or anything else that could lead to answers that maybe was missed the first time around.
Unfortunately, they didn't find any DNA, but... but they did find tons of fluorescent orange specks on Luke's clothing. originally only to have been found on the sweatshirt.
But upon performing the test again, the specs were also on his jeans.
Jeans. Now, what's creepy about this is that the smiley face painted nearby that's associated with Luke's murder. was painted in fluorescent orange paint.
Now, that's kind of the only smiley face that I'm like, oh, that had something to do with it.
That's very interesting. In my personal opinion.
And when they tested to see what the specs were, they were able to and they determined them to be from nail polish. which sometimes is like sold in spray form and used for graffiti.
Oh. So, boom, roasted. Interesting. And you know what?
This print, really, you could see that it could look like a boot print.
It looks just like a fucking boot print.
I mean, it could maybe be. I don't know what else it would be because that's not my job.
But yeah, I mean, it's a very intense boot print.
Yeah but like I mean it was probably an intense moment where he was holding him down.
Yeah. That's and maybe it doesn't really look like it moved at all, but maybe he like it was like deep in there or something.
Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Now, there's a couple other strange things about Luke's clothing.
For one thing, I mean, he traveled down the Mississippi River for three days, so you would assume he'd like covered in mud you would think so like absolutely covered in mud, like super duper dirty.
But what's weird is that his clothes actually weren't that dirty.
And it was much more consistent with only him only having have been in the water for about three to 12 hours.
So that's like a maximum of one day. So where was he for the rest of the time that he spent missing?
And the other thing that they realized was that two of his back belt loops were broken and looked like they'd been like forcefully yanked off.
It was like, They were still attached to the top part, but had been broken from the bottom.
But the bottom had somebody pulled up on them.
They were yanked. Could whoever was pinning him down have been working with other people who, like, picked him up to drag him somewhere else and that's how they got torn off?
It seems like it could happen. I think that seems like it could happen.
Yeah, that's interesting. And like it could have happened in the water, but these were the back belt loops and he was traveling face first.
Which like, I don't know, you could argue like the same thing from the beginning that he got caught on something, but it would have had to be pretty forceful.
Yeah. So that's super duper weird. And it is consistent with somebody like using the belt loops to like pull them up or something.
That's what I think. Yeah. Yeah. Now, Kevin went with Patty Holman to share what they had found in their reinvestigation in the hopes to have Luke's manner of death changed to homicide so that they could reopen the case.
I haven't seen any update past 2019 on whether or not they've been able to reopen this case.
I'm dying. I know. This is so frustrating.
It really is. I was just like moving when I said that.
So sorry if I was like, it really, it really.
Yes, from another planet. It's crazy. No, this is because there's... plenty of places where you can be like, well, this could have happened.
But then there's plenty of places that you're like, what exactly like every time i was watching and i was like okay well like you could explain that and then i was like oh wait you can't explain that Yeah, and then there's some that you can explain both ways.
Right, but I think the one that really, really fucks with me is Brian because he was in the water for 77 days and looked like he had only been in the water for a week.
Yeah, that one's throwing me off. Yeah, like, what?
This is just a lot. It's a lot of information, so I'm gonna let you process all of that information.
Before we move on to part two. Before we move on to part two, where we're going to talk about three, four, actually four more cases.
And then I guess I'll find out whether or not you're convinced.
I'm very interested. I'm glad. I am too.
I just I like don't want this to be over.
Like I could research this for years to come.
I know. I was going to say, I want to just keep going and cover all of them.
It's so interesting. Maybe we'll do a spoiler.
Later we'll just do a couple more and we'll be like, we're going to hit a few more.
Hey, maybe we could do that for Patreon, actually.
Yeah, there you go. We'll hit up, like, all the cases that we can find.
I love that. Wow. Well, guys, in part two, we're going to see whether or not you agree with me.
And we're going to talk about four more of these victims. and we'll see you then.
So take some time. Chew on it. Take some time.
Chew on it. We hope you keep listening to the other episodes and we hope you keep it weird but that's over there you don't look a little bit more into this while i'm waiting for part two Thank you.
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