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Originally Posted by Kriste Piel, ABC News
Chris Jenkins was a popular student at the University of Minnesota who disappeared one night in 2003.
Reporter and detectives connect "smiley face" tag to deaths of young men.
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.
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."
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While this is not very well-known - heck I didn't even know about it until two days ago - these murders seem to have reached northeastern New York. In February, a student at my college, as well as a student at a nearby college, went missing. The student from my school was found drowned in a river recently, fitting the M.O. of the "Smiley Face Murders." No smiley has been found as of yet. Another missing person, from a nearby Vermont school, is more recent, and has not been found.
The editor of my newspaper told us of a security video he saw of a smiley victim, who was seen going to the bathroom, walked out some time later, walked past his friends and continued out the door down the street. Very creepy.
Because this national spate of disturbing murders has reached my area, I was wondering if anyone had any additional information on this, as it seems to be happening everywhere.