Serial Killers or Urban Legend
The hottest crime story in Minnesota and on the Internet involves the death of Chris Jenkins, a University of Minnesota college student whose body was found in the Mississippi River in February of 2003. Originally ruled “undetermined” or “drowning” by the Minneapolis Police Department, the cause of death was recently changed to “homicide” because of the dogged efforts of Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte, two retired NYPD detectives.
Gannon and Duarte have investigated more than 40 similar deaths around the country over the last decade in which seemingly healthy, well-adjusted college students suddenly are discovered drowned, weeks or months after they left a local bar or college party and disappeared. Kristi Piehl, a reporter for KSTP, a local Twin Cities television station, who first broke the story, reported that in Minnesota and Wisconsin alone, 18 young men with similar profiles have disappeared since 1997.
The two detectives believe that a nationwide network of murderers killed Jenkins and dozens of other young men. The gang’s signature trademark is supposedly a smiley face found at crime scenes in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Iowa.
Though the detectives insist they have evidence that supports their conclusions, only Chris Jenkins’ death has been officially ruled a homicide, though no smiley face was found at the crime scene. The FBI has reviewed a number of the investigations and determined that there is no Serial Killer Club.
Whether Gannon and Duarte have actually discovered a murder club or merely created the latest urban legend remains to be seen. But whatever the outcome, writers everywhere see a crime novel or screenplay in the making.
Gannon and Duarte have investigated more than 40 similar deaths around the country over the last decade in which seemingly healthy, well-adjusted college students suddenly are discovered drowned, weeks or months after they left a local bar or college party and disappeared. Kristi Piehl, a reporter for KSTP, a local Twin Cities television station, who first broke the story, reported that in Minnesota and Wisconsin alone, 18 young men with similar profiles have disappeared since 1997.
The two detectives believe that a nationwide network of murderers killed Jenkins and dozens of other young men. The gang’s signature trademark is supposedly a smiley face found at crime scenes in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Iowa.
Though the detectives insist they have evidence that supports their conclusions, only Chris Jenkins’ death has been officially ruled a homicide, though no smiley face was found at the crime scene. The FBI has reviewed a number of the investigations and determined that there is no Serial Killer Club.
Whether Gannon and Duarte have actually discovered a murder club or merely created the latest urban legend remains to be seen. But whatever the outcome, writers everywhere see a crime novel or screenplay in the making.
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Comment
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Comment by Karyn J. Powers on May 11, 2008 at 2:06pm
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I went to the University of WI at LaCrosse, where three of these drownings have ocurred. There is a loyal band of believers that back the murder club theory. I think it has something to do with 135 liquor licenses in a 5 sqr block radius and an open, under developed river bank. I think the murderer is gravity.
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