Posted by
reasonmclucus on Thursday, May 29, 2008 3:11:51 PM
You've seen the following plot dozens of times on television. The
police decide a death is an accident or suicide and someone like
Jim
Rockford,
Harry
Orwell or maybe
Jessica
Fletcher has to convince the
police the death was a murder.
Today two real live Harry Orwells, retired
NYPD
detectives
Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte, are attempting to convince law
enforcement officers in many jurisdictions that a series of
drownings are murders rather than accidents or
suicides. Like the cops on PI shows the police in most of
these cases have taken the easy way out and written the cases off
so they don't have to risk investigating crimes that
might be very difficult to solve. The Federal Bureau
Investigation isn't interested if local police don't think
there is a problem.
The investigation began with the death of college
student
Patrick
McNeill, who
drowned in New York City in 1997. Gannon made a promise to McNeill's
parents that he would never give up on his case. They have already
convinced Minnesota authorities that the death of University of
Missesota student
Christopher
Jenkins was a homicide instead of an
accident.
They believe
40 or more
college men have been murdered many by drowning
them
in rivers, even in winter. In the best tradition of "
CSI"
they have examined data on river currents to determine
where each body likely entered the water. Subsequent examinations
of the area around the points of entry has revealed various different
smiley faced graffiti.
I saw an 60's or 70's era movie about urban terrorism years ago. The
only thing I remember about the movie is the quote: "Once is an
accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is enemy
action."
The number of drowning deaths of men with similar characteristics with
the associated smiley face indicates the work of a serial killer
or killers. The fact that nine were students at the
University of Wisconsin at La
Crosse is particularly suspicious.
The idea of murdering people by drowning them isn't new.
Characters in old gangster movies often talked about this method
of eliminating someone, although the victim was often first
fitted with "cement overshoes" so the body wouldn't be
found. In murder mysteries victims might be drowned in bathtubs, swimming pools, rivers or the ocean.
Drowning provides certain advantages to murderers. There is
no murder weapon for the police to find and link the murderer to
the crime. The water may wash off any DNA or fiber evidence.
Getting the victim into the water can present a problem when the victim
isn't cooperative, especially if the victim starts yelling. The possibility of being seen also increases
the risk of being caught. The first problem can be reduced if the
victim is drunk which is one of the similarities of the victims in the
smiley face murders. Putting the victim in the water at night,
expecially during cold weather would also reduce risk. Night
fishing isn't as common in cold weather as it is in warm weather so
there would be less chance of someone seeing the crime.
The fact that people sometimes drown accidentally or commit suicide by
drowning benefits murderers, particularly if law enforcement
officers don't want to bother with cases that are difficult to
solve. A drowning death might reasonably be classified as an
accident if the person was known to be swimming at the time, was at a
party along a river bank or perhaps drowned near his or her residence
particularly if impaired by
alcohol or medication.
However, a drowning should be considered suspicious if the police
cannot place the person in the vicinity of the place where he or she
entered the water or there is anything suspicious about the condition
of the body, such as the placement of the arms in some cases studied by
Gannon and Duarte. If the person had been drinking before
the death, the police need to determine if the person was physically
able to get to the point where the body entered the water particularly
if the drowning didn't occur near the route the person would take to
get home.
If the victims were predominately black instead of predominately white,
the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson would be
screaming for an investigation. If the victims were female, the
news media would be speculating about another
Ted Bundy.
So, why is the FBI refusing to investigate the case? Don't the
feds think white males can be the victims of crimes?
What if the 40 deaths had involved some symptoms that might
indicate
a disease? For example, what if all of those who had
died had reported
muscle aches followed by a rash and then an extremely high fever.
The
Center of Disease Control and the World Health Organization would both
be investigating to determine if there was a common cause for the
deaths. The CDC would want to know if those who died had had physical
contact
or perhaps contact with the same individual or individuals. Perhaps
they all could have consumed the same food product before
becoming
sick. Health officials would rather investigate something that
doesn't turn out to be a crisis than risk having an epidemic develop
because they didn't take the situation seriously enough. AIDS was
discovered because doctors became suspicious after noticing the increasing appearance of previously rare disorders.
Shouldn't the FBI be just as diligent in investigating a possible
criminal epidemic? The FBI is supposed to be the nation's
premier law enforcement agency. Local law enforcement
agencies are often underfunded and understaffed. They may not have the
type of facilities and personnel seen on CSI. They may be prone
to concentrate on obvious crimes instead of attempting to deal
with situations that might or might not involve
crimes. Local departments are unlikely to
recognize serial crimes that occur in many different
jurisdictions.
Gannon and Duarte believe more than one killer might be involved
because in some cases deaths occurred in more than one
state on the same day. Who could be the killer or
killers? The fact the victims were men could indicate female
killers, perhaps women wanting to emulate
Aileen Wuornos
who admitted to killing 7 men. A woman could lure a man by
promising sex or pretending to need help with her car. A satanic cult is an obvious
possibility. The fact the victims tended to be successful
in sports, academics and/or popular could indicate the killers are
young males with similar attitudes of the Columbine
High School killers. Members of an informal group might link to each other on
the Internet and help each other plan the attacks.
Perhaps I'm expecting too much from the FBI. After
all today's FBI isn't the FBI of Ephrem Zimbalist's
Inspector
Lewis
Erskine.
Today's FBI is the organization whose leaders didn't think the
number of Saudis learning to fly airliners in 2001
was worth investigating. Today's FBI couldn't figure out that a
man who wanted to learn how to fly airliners, but not land them,
might be planning to hijack an airliner and crash it into
something. The FBI initially believed the DC sniper was a lone white
male instead of the two black males they eventually caught.
If the FBI refuses to investigate and the Smiley Face deaths turn out to be murders rather than a bizarre
coincidence, Congress needs to consider replacing the FBI with a real law
enforcement agency that is capable of protecting us from criminals and
terrorists.