Thursday, July 9, 2015
Dr. Harold Fredrick Shipman
Pedro Alonso López - number 1
Pedro Alonso López is a Colombian serial killer, accused of raping and killing more than 300 girls across South America was believed to have preyed on young and vulnerable girls in Peru. He lured them to secluded areas or inside unoccupied buildings where he raped each of them before killing them by a range of brutal methods, primarily strangulation. López was arrested when an attempted abduction failed and he was trapped by market traders. He confessed to over 300 murders. The police only believed him when a flash flood uncovered a mass grave containing many of his victims. Eventually 53 bodies were discovered. Imprisoned in 1980 he served just 18 years before being released from a Ecuadorian prison and was deported to Columbia where he was rearrested and in 2002 was sentenced to life.
Beast: Mikhail Popkov killed 22 women but may have murdered many more
Beast: Mikhail Popkov killed 22 women but may have murdered
many more
A serial killer nicknamed
‘The Werewolf’ who murdered 22 women in a chilling campaign of terror could be
responsible for DOZENS more brutal deaths, it has been revealed.
Mikhail
Popkov sliced the head of one of his victims and carved the heart out
of another during a twisted series of murders in Russia.
The 50-year-old beast was jailed for life earlier this year
for the killings, but up to 39 additional murder cases are being investigated -
including 11 on which he already faces charges, according to reports in
Siberia.
The married father of one, a former policeman, is said to be
co-operating with police amid new disclosures that his reign of terror was
sparked by his suspicions that his wife had cheated on him in his own home.
"If he is eventually convicted of such a number, his
murder spree would exceed his idol, Soviet-era Andrei Chikatilo, aka the
Butcher of Rostov, who was convicted of 53 murders, and the more recent Moscow
maniac Alexander Pichushkin, known as the Chessboard Killer, who killed
49," reported The Siberian Times.
Butcher: Popkov with his wife Elena, who previously told how
she still loves the beast
One Russian newspaper claimed: "Almost every day a new
crime is added to his 'track record’."
Another cited police sources indicating that his total death
toll could be 61.
Cruel Popkov gave lifts in his police cars to many of his
victims, who he then murdered with axes, knives or screwdrivers.
He brutally raped most of the women he killed, while
claiming he wanted to "cleanse" the streets of his city of Angarsk of
prostitutes, his earlier court hearing was told.
Until now, it was thought he stopped killing around the year
2000, a dozen years before his arrest, after he claimed to have lost his sexual
potency.
Now police fear he did not halt his murderous spree.
Victims: Popkov was sentenced to life in prison for raping
and murdering 22 women
He told police he suspected his wife of infidelity, which
she denied, claiming instead a neighbour had used their home for a sexual
liaison.
He found two used condoms in the rubbish at home, and this
led to his drive to take revenge on women, it is claimed.
"I just had some reasons to suspect her," he said
of his fear that his wife had slept with another man.
"I'm not looking for excuses, but this was the impetus
for my future.”
"If I had seen the treason with my own eyes, I would
maybe have done everything differently.
"Everyone goes through such things differently: some
take it easy and forget, others take it painfully.
"What happened with me? The worst-case scenario.”
Wife Elena, 48, admitted he found the condoms, and said:
"Maybe the police suppose it was kind of impetus to him, I do not know.”
Life:
Mikhail Popkov will never leave jail
Initially, when he was sentenced, she stood by him, as did
their teacher daughter Ekaterina, now 27.
Elena said at the time: "We have been married for 28
years.
"If I suspected something wrong, of course, I would
divorce with him.
"I support him, I believe him.
"If he were to be released right now, I would not say a
word and we would continue to live together.”
But now both women have moved to another city to begin new
lives.
They no longer visit him.Popkov was arrested in 2012 after
detectives took DNA samples from 3,500 current and former police officers.
While not commenting on the claims that he killed more than
the 22 victims for which he was convicted, he expressed "repentance"
over the misery he caused.
He admitted to having a negative view of women who went out
at night to drink without their husbands or boyfriends.
Now he says: "I had no right to evaluate people, their
behaviour...this is my repentance."
Manson's fiance runs away with his best mate ....lol
The notorious killer's 26-year-old fiancé was seen out with
Craig Carlisle Hammond, 65 - known under the mysterious name of 'Grey Wolf'
The 26-year-old fiancé of serial killer Charles Manson has
been seen getting to close to one of his best friends - known as 'Grey Wolf'.
Afton 'Star' Burton was pictured with 65-year-old Craig
Carlisle Hammond, who has a remarkable resemblance to the notorious killer.
Manson, 80, who is being held indefinitely at Corcoran
California State Prison for the murders of eight people in the 1960s, is planning
to wed Burton in the coming months.
But the Mail
Online reports the bride-to-be skipped visiting hours to spend time
with Hammond at the Paso Robles 2015 Rock and Gem Show.
The pair were seen laughing and joking as they looked at
precious stones for around three hours.
A source inside the showcase is reported to have said:
"They appeared very close, leaning in together to look at certain rocks
and minerals and sharing jokes. They were both completely engrossed in what was
on display and stood examining stones for up to twenty minutes each."
Hammond – who got his Grey Wolf nickname from Manson - is
said to have grappled with a cameraman from US newspaper National Enquirer when
he spotted the pair were being filmed.
Manson and Burton pair became close after Star began writing
to him in prison as a 19-year-old.
The mass murderer's plans to wed were cancelled in February
after the marriage license he and Burton applied for failed to be used.
But a message posted on Manson's ATWA website - which is run
by Burton - that month read: "Charlie and Star were not able to complete
their wedding ceremony due to an unexpected interruption in logistics.
Trio: Burton pictured with Craig Carlisle Hammond (left) and
Charles Manson
"They plan on renewing the license, and things will
move forward in the coming months."
Even if Burton and Manson do marry, they will not be allowed
conjugal visits under California law, as Manson is a life prisoner with no
parole date.
He will next be eligible for parole in 2027 when he is
92-years-old.
Who lives in these houses now - Serial killer Dens revisited
The Sunday People revealed last month how a house-hunter offered the £300,000 asking price for serial killer Dennis Nilsen’s attic flat now we've found some more houses of horror
These unassuming homes would barely merit a second glance but each hides a blood-curdling secret reports the Sunday People.
We revealed last month how a house-hunter offered the £300,000 asking price for serial killer Dennis Nilsen’s attic flat.
The buyer seemed unperturbed that the monster had hacked up three young men in the North London flat 30 years ago and clogged the drains with body parts. Identical homes in the Muswell Hill street are valued at £400,000.
Today we go through the keyhole of other houses of horror which, unlike the homes of evil Fred and Rose West and Ian Huntley, have NOT been torn down.
Student Azarias Fontaine had no qualms about moving into the Bradford flat where the deranged Crossbow Cannibal murdered and dismembered three women.
Azarias, standing in the kitchen where Stephen Griffiths had cooked and eaten flesh from his first two victims, said: “I can see it would freak out a lot of people but not me. Just because some crazy murders took place here, does not make it a bad place.”
He moved into the redecorated flat 11 months ago because the rent was £360 a month. The landlord told him about the crimes and said the kitchen, bathroom and carpets had been replaced. Genetics student Azarias said: “I wouldn’t have taken it if the kitchen and bath had been the same. I couldn’t be getting in the same bath as the dead bodies or using the same kitchen where he cooked human flesh.”
He said the flat “spooked” his mum, who “felt a spirit touching her shoulder” but his mates thought visiting was great.
But Azarias is reluctant to mention the flat’s grim history to girlfriends.
Griffiths, who told a court he was “the crossbow cannibal” was jailed for life in December 2010 after admitting murdering Suzanne Blamires, 36, Shelley Armitage, 31, and Susan Rushworth, 43.
Other places have longer grisly pasts, such as the terraced home near Liverpool FC’s Anfield stadium where Julia Wallace was beaten to death in 1931. The murder has never been solved.
Julia’s husband William was convicted of the killing but then cleared. He died two years after the murder and no one else was ever arrested.
John Taylor, 36, lives there and believes the unsolved murder will ensure the house remains grimly fascinating.
He said: “I bought it for a normal price. The history doesn’t really bother me as I’m not superstitious.”
The seaside house in Margate, Kent, where Peter Tobin buried Vicky Hamilton, 15, and Dinah McNicol, 18, in the garden is now home to a young family.
When mum Abigail Dengate moved there in 2010 she said: “People have had a lot to say about this house and its history but to us it is just a home. It wasn’t a case of thinking about who once lived here and what he did.” Tobin, now 66, lived there in the early 90s and, when spotted digging, told a neighbour he was making a sandpit. He is now serving life for the murders.
Several tenants are living at the flats where the Camden Ripper Anthony Hardy, now 64, killed at least three people including Elizabeth Valad, 29.
He disposed of body parts at his home in a communal bin area but was discovered when a tramp looking for food found a pair of legs. Hardy was jailed for life in 2003.
Aaron Kosminski- is he the real Jack the Ripper
JACK THE RIPPER, one of the most notorious serial killers in history, has been identified through DNA traces found on a shawl, claims a sleuth in a book out today.
The true identity of Jack the Ripper, whose grisly murders terrorized the murky slums of Whitechapel in east London in 1888, has been a mystery ever since, with dozens of suspects that include royalty and prime ministers down to bootmakers.
But after extracting DNA from a shawl recovered from the scene of one of the killings, which matched relatives of both the victim and one of the suspects, Jack the Ripper sleuth Russell Edwards claims the identity of the murderer is now beyond doubt.
He says the infamous killer is Aaron Kosminski, a Jewish emigre from Poland, who worked as a barber.
Edwards, a businessman interested in the Ripper story, bought a bloodstained Victorian shawl at auction in 2007.
The story goes that it came from the murder scene of the Ripper’s fourth victim, Catherine Eddowes, on September 30, 1888.
Police acting sergeant Amos Simpson, who had been at the scene, got permission from his superiors to take it for his dressmaker wife – who was subsequently aghast at the thought of using a bloodstained shawl.
It had hitherto been passed down through the policeman’s direct descendants, who had stored it unwashed in a box. It briefly spent a few years on loan to Scotland Yard’s crime museum.
A knife allegedly used by Jack the Ripper during his East End London murders.Source: Tim Ireland/PA Archive/Press Association Images
Victim disembowelled
Edwards sought to find out if DNA technology could conclusively link the shawl to the murder scene.
Working on the blood stains, Doctor Jari Louhelainen, senior lecturer in molecular at Liverpool John Moores University, isolated seven small segments of mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down through the female line.
They were matched with the DNA of Karen Miller, a direct descendant of Eddowes, confirming her blood was on the shawl.
Meanwhile stains exposed under ultra-violet light suggested the presence of seminal fluid.
Doctor David Miller, reader in molecular andrology at the University of Leeds, managed to find cells from which DNA was isolated.
With the help of genealogists, Edwards found a descendant of Kosminski through the female line, who offered samples of her DNA.
Louhelainen was then able to match DNA from the semen stains to Kosminski’s descendant.
For Edwards, this places Kosminski at the scene of Eddowes’ gruesome murder.
Eddowes, 46, was killed on the same night as the Ripper’s third victim. An orphan with a daughter and two sons, she worked as a casual prostitute.
She was found brutally murdered at 1:45am. Her throat was cut and she was disembowelled. Her face was also mutilated.
The belief is that the shawl was left at the crime scene by the killer, not Eddowes.
Source: Sidgwick & Jackson/PA Wire/Press Association Images
Calls for peer review
Kosminski was born in Klodawa in central Poland on September 11, 1865. His family fled the imperial Russian anti-Jewish pogroms and emigrated to east London in the early 1880s. He lived close to the murder scenes.
Some reports say he was taken in by the police to be identified by a witness who had seen him with one of the victims, and though a positive identification was made, the witness refused to give incriminating evidence, meaning the police had little option but to release him.
He entered a workhouse in 1889, where he was described on admission as “destitute”. He was discharged later that year but soon ended up in an insane asylum.
He died from gangrene in an asylum on March 24, 1919 and was buried three days later at East Ham Cemetery in east London.
Some have cast doubt on Edwards’ findings.
The research has not been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, meaning the claims cannot be independently verified or the methodology scrutinized.
Professor Alec Jeffreys, who invented the DNA fingerprinting technique 30 years ago this week, called for further verification.
“An interesting but remarkable claim that needs to be subjected to peer review, with detailed analysis of the provenance of the shawl and the nature of the claimed DNA match with the perpetrator’s descendants and its power of discrimination; no actual evidence has yet been provided,” Jeffreys told The Independent newspaper.
My views
Well it is important to observe that Jack The Ripper, was precise when it came to female anatomy and this has been documented through history. What is important to understand is that the dna of the barber can come on the shawl from any where perhaps during one of the rendezvous with the victim in one of the allies. More over the techniques used for preservation of the Dna is also questionable.
Serial killer Peter Tobin
Serial killer Peter Tobin is said to be recovering in hospital after being attacked in prison.
Tobin, who is serving three life sentences for murder, is understood to have been attacked at HMP Edinburgh yesterday.
The Scottish Prison Service confirmed an incident had been reported to police.
Tobin lived in Station Road, Portslade, and in Marine Parade, Brighton, in the late 1980s
The 68-year-old is serving a life sentence for raping and murdering Polish student Angelika Kluk, 23, and hiding her body under the floor of a Glasgow church in 2006.
He was also convicted of murdering 15-year-old schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton, of Redding, near Falkirk, in 1991, and 18-year-old Dinah McNicol in the same year.
Their bodies were found 17 years later, buried in the garden of his former home in Margate, Kent.
The operation, codenamed Anagram, was launched in 2006 and wound down in 2011.Police examined hundreds of other unsolved murder cases to see if they could be linked to Tobin.
Will the Gavit sisters, serial killers of children, be the first women to be hanged?
In 2001, the Kolhapur sessions court awarded the death penalty to the Gavit sisters – Seema Gavit and Renuka Shinde – for abducting and killing a dozen-odd children aged between one and four years. In the next 14 years, their appeals against the sentence were turned down by all subsequent authorities including the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court. In April 2014 came the final blow for the sisters, when their mercy petition was rejected by the President of India.
Despite all of this, the sisters are still hopeful that they will escape the sentence. To stretch the legal discourse further, the duo in August 2014 filed a fresh petition before the Bombay High Court citing "delay in execution" as the latest reason for getting off death row. Since then there is a stay on their execution and the case, as expected, is moving at a snail's pace. With its last hearing held in April 2015, the case will now come up in October 2015.
The sisters are not alone. In the past three years, President Pranab Mukherjee has rejected 24 mercy pleas (till May 2015) of which only two convicts- Mohd Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru- have been hanged till date. The remaining convicts have managed to procure a stay on their hanging by moving fresh petitions before the respective High Courts, primarily on the grounds of prolonged procedural delays in execution. Maharashtra has 30 convicts on death row, including 1993 blast convict Yakub Memon and the three Shakti Mills rapists. All convicts facing death sentences in Maharashtra are moved to Yerwada in Pune or the Nagpur jail, because these are the only two prisons in the state that have gallows.
In January 2014, a three-judge panel headed by Chief Justice of India Palanisamy Sathasivam commuted sentences of 15 death row convicts, ruling that the "inordinate and inexplicable delay is a ground for commuting death penalty to life sentence".
The Gavit sisters, too, have sought relief on the grounds of "delay" on the state government's part in executing them. But the state government has blamed the delays on the procedural lapses done by the jail superintendent as well as on the fire in Mantralaya. The government, in its affidavit filed before the Bombay High Court, said it could not furnish complete documents before the President at the earliest due to the fire, and had to procure relevant documents from the jail superintendent.
Sources in the home department also claim that the sisters, too, have deliberately delayed the proceedings under legal guidance. "They knew the delay will go in their favour. So, initially, one of the sisters sat on the consent to file mercy petition for over a year," said a senior officer.
While awarding the death sentence to the sisters in 2001, Judge GL Yedke in Kolhapur had described the nine kids' murders as 'the most heinous', and observed that the two sisters seemed to have enjoyed killing the children.
What is the case against the Gavit sisters?
Renuka and Seema, along with their mother Anjanabai Gavit, used to kidnap children and push them into begging. They killed some of the children after they stopped being productive. The sisters are currently lodged at the Yerwada jail in Pune. Anjanabai passed away during the trial, and the sisters' father Kiran Shinde turned approver and was acquitted.
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Some from the past century
| 1895 |  | Theo Durrant | Known as “The Demon of the Belfry” Theo Durrant raped, murdered and mutilated Blanche Lamont in the Emanuel Baptist Church on April 3, 1895. Nine days later he did the same to Minnie Wallace. Durrant was captured and executed before he could kill more. |
| 1888 |  | H. H. Holmes | Herman Webster Mudgett, better known as H. H. Holmes, may have murdered many as 230 people between 1888 and 1894. While only convicted of one murder, Holmes confessed to killing 27 and police believed he burned, asphyxiated and tortured many times that. |
| 1887 |  | Kelly Family | Like the Bender Family before them (see below) the Kellys operated in rural Kansas, preying upon travelers who stopped for a meal, dropping them through a trap door to the basement where they were robbed and murdered. They killed an estimated 11 people between September and December 1887 |
| 1885 |  | Minnie Wallace Walkup | While never convicted, it is believed that Minnie Wallace Walkup poisoned her first husband James Reeves Walkup, her second husband John Berdan Ketcham, and her companion Delancy Horton Louderback. |
| 1881 |  | Sarah Jane Robinson | Sarah Jane Robinson, “The Massachusetts Borgia” poisoned her husband, her children, her sister, her brother-in-law, her nephew, and her landlord between 1881 and 1886. |
| 1881 |  | Dr. Thomas Neil Cream | Cream was convicted of one murder in Chicago and was suspected of poisoning several more in the U.S. before moving to London. There he was known as “The Lambeth Poisoner” after he poisoned at least two prostitutes with strychnine. Some have speculated that Cream was Jack the Ripper. |
| 1879 |  | Bender Family | The “Bloody Benders” murdered at least 10 people in Kansas between 1870 and 1873. Visitors were lured to their farmhouse where they operated a small restaurant. While guests dined, the male Benders would hit them from behind with hammers, rob them and bury their bodies in the yard. |
| 1875 |  | Thomas W. Piper | After being convicted of murdering 5-year-old Mabel Young in the belfry of the Warren Street Baptist Church in Boston, Thomas Piper confessed to murdering Bridget Landregan and Mary Tynam and attacking Minnie Sullivan. |
| 1875 |  | Joseph Lapage | 17-year-old Josie Langmaid was raped, murdered and decapitated on her way to school in Pembroke, New Hampshire, by Joseph Lapage. Before his execution, Lapage confessed to a similar murder in St. Albans, Vermont. His sister-in-law testified that Lapage, wearing mask, had threatened her with a club and raped her. |
| 1874 |  | Jesse Pomeroy | When only 14 years old, Jesse Pomeroy stabbed and mutilated 10-year-old Katie Curran. Four days later he murdered 4-year-old Horace Millen. Prior to the murders, Pomeroy had bound and tortured 7 children. Pomeroy was convicted of murder and spent the next 53 years in prison. |
| 1864 |  | Lydia Sherman | Between 1864 and 1871, Lydia Sherman poisoned 3 husbands and 7 of her children. She was convicted of 2nd degree murder and died in prison. |
| 1798 |  | Harpe Brothers | In 1798 the Harpe Brothers “declared war on all mankind” and murdered between 25 and 40 men, women, and children in Tennessee and Kentucky. Though they operated in the 18th century, they are included here because the Harpe Brothers are probably the earliest recorded serial killers in America. No doubt, earlier serial killers will be found. |
Detectives Chase 'Smiley Face' Murder Mystery
Chris Jenkins was a popular student at the University of Minnesota who disappeared one night in 2003.
Four months later, he was found dead in the Mississippi River. At first police thought Jenkins was just a drunk college kid who accidentally fell into the river and drowned after a night on the town.
But for two retired New York City Police detectives, Jenkins' death became the link that connected the drowning deaths of 40 young men — usually high-achieving college students — in 25 cities in 11 different states.
Chilling Discovery
Detectives Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte have been tracking the suspicious drowning deaths of young men across the country ever since they investigated 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.
When the detectives took a look at Jenkins' death, they discovered that the position of his body and other physical evidence proved that the college student didn't drown accidentally. The cause of death on Jenkins' death certificate was changed to "homicide."
While most local investigations focus on where a body was recovered, Gannon and Duarte wanted to know where the body went into the water. If they could figure out that location, the detectives believed they'd be able to gather evidence from the actual crime scene.
In city after city, the detectives found a smiley face painted somewhere at the crime scene. The color of paint used and the size of the faces varies, but the detectives are convinced it is a sick signature claiming responsibility for the homicide.
The detectives found the smiley faces in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa.
Gannon and Duarte also came to the surprising conclusion that more than one person is involved in the murders.
"Because there's such a wide range of states the killings are through," Gannon said today in an exclusive interview on "Good Morning America." "Besides the fact that we have multiple victims on the same night."
At the crime scene of a drowning in Michigan, Gannon and Duarte discovered grafitti that they believed was written by the killers, but were puzzled by a word they hadn't seen before.
"We found 'sinsiniwa,' which was very suspicious at the time," said Gannon.
Then the detectives found the strange word in Iowa, where they were investigating the drowning death of 24-year-old Matt Kruziki.
Bloodhounds tracked Kruziki's scent to an intersection near the Mississippi River. The detectives believe that is the location where the killers slid Kruziki's body in the water — it was at Sinsiniwa Avenue.
"We believe they were specifically leaving a clue for us or anyone who was paying attention to these drownings, that the cases were ultimately linked," Gannon said.
Paul McCabe of the FBI office in Minneapolis said the bureau investigated some of the deaths late last year and concluded that they were accidental drownings. He said an FBI behavioral analysis, requested by a Wisconsin police chief, concluded that there was probably not a serial killer at work.
McCabe said his office is not actively investigating any of the deaths but would be interested in seeing any new information that Gannon and Duarte had discovered.
Gannon said they were publicizing their conclusions now because they are looking for help.
"Right now really we're out of finances and really can't do any more on the cases. In fact, we looked at 89 cases in totality. We knocked out 30 right away and there was 19 cases that we haven't even done yet and out of those 19, they look like at least 10, 15 of those could be connected," Gannon said.
Chris Jenkins' mother, Jan, like the McNeills and other families, want answers about how their son died.
"The people that murdered Chris have murdered before him and they've also murdered people after him and those people are still at large," Jan Jenkins said.
Smiley face Killer - is it an urban legend
The Smiley face murder theory (variations include Smiley face murders, Smiley face killings, Smiley face gang, and others) is a theory advanced by two retired New York City detectives, Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte, that a number of young men found dead in bodies of water across several Midwestern American states over the last decade did not accidentally drown, as concluded by law enforcement agencies, but were victims of a serial killer or killers. The term smiley face became connected to the alleged murders when it was made public that the police had discovered graffiti depicting a smiley face near locations where they think the killer dumped the bodies in at least a dozen of the cases. The response of law enforcement investigators and other experts to Gannon and Duarte's theory has been largely skeptical.
Gannon and Duarte's investigation
As recently as 2008, Gannon and Duarte were examining evidence going back to the late 1990s that they believe connects the deaths of 45 college-age males, whose dead bodies were found in water in 11 states, often after leaving parties or bars where they were drinking. The men, according to the former detectives, often fit a profile of being popular, athletic, and good students, and most were white.
Gannon and Duarte have theorized that the young men were all murdered, either by an individual or by an organized group of killers.The term smiley face became connected to the alleged murders when it was made public that Gannon and Duarte had discovered graffitidepicting a smiley face near locations where they think the killer dumped the bodies in at least a dozen of the cases.
Reception of the theory
Other police forces that have investigated the deaths dispute the conclusion that the cases are linked. The La Crosse, Wisconsin police department, which was in charge of eight of the investigations, released an official statement reiterating their original conclusions that the deaths were accidental drownings of inebriated men and stating that no smiley face symbols were found in connection with any of these cases. The Center for Homicide Research in Minneapolis, Minnesota has recently published a research brief that also attempts to scientifically refute the theory. In March 2009, Lee Gilbertson, a criminal justice faculty member at St. Cloud State University, voiced his support for the theory on an episode of Larry King Live which discussed the alleged murders.
Criminal profiler Pat Brown calls the serial killer theory "ludicrous", arguing that the evidence does not fit what is known about serial killers. Brown also believes that the smiley face images found in some of the cases are likely nothing more than coincidences based upon making a guess at where the body entered the water and searching a wide area until an example of smiley face graffiti can be found. "It's not an unusual symbol," she told Matt Smith of the Minneapolis-based newspaper City Pages. "If you look in an area five miles square, I bet you could find a smiley face."
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued the following statement:
"...The FBI has reviewed the information about the victims provided by two retired police detectives, who have dubbed these incidents the “Smiley Face Murders,” and interviewed an individual who provided information to the detectives. To date, we have not developed any evidence to support links between these tragic deaths or any evidence substantiating the theory that these deaths are the work of a serial killer or killers. The vast majority of these instances appear to be alcohol-related drownings. The FBI will continue to work with the local police in the affected areas to provide support as requested.
Ruben Rosario of the Pioneer Press questions the motives of Kevin Gannon. He states that Gannon has failed to provide any factual evidence that a group of killers exists, and that others, like reporter Kristi Piehl (the original reporter of Gannon and Duarte's theory), and some of the parents of the young men, who were at first encouraged by Gannon, now wonder if he isn't actually hurting the families who are trying to get over the loss of a child. One of the parents, Bill Szostak, and Rosario even speculate that Gannon is out for either money or the notoriety and press attention. Another parent, Kathy Geib, is working with Piehl and others, but their main goal now is just to get police to take a compulsory second look at cases of alcohol-related drownings.
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