Smiley Face Gang

Is this face your run-of-the-mill defacement of property or is it a murderer's calling card?

From FOX News:

At least 40 young men who drowned may have died by far more sinister means — serial killings at the hands of a national gang that revels in murdering young men and leaving smiley-face markings at the scene, a team of retired New York City police detectives and criminal justice investigators said Monday.

They believe the victims, including University of Minnesota student Chris Jenkins and Fordham University student Patrick McNeill, didn't accidentally drown but were actually killed by members of the so-called "Smiley Face Gang," KSTP News in St. Paul reported.

A smiley-face symbol was found painted at some of the drowning locations — in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa, they told the station.

"They're telling you here that they're into evil, they're very happy as most serial killers are," retired NYPD Det. Kevin Gannon said to KSTP. "They're content with their work and what they're doing and the fact that they're thwarting the police."

Click here to read more on this story from the KSTP.com.

...The team investigated 89 separate cases dating back a decade and said it had connected 40 of them through a variety of evidence — including matching sets of gang graffiti.

It was Jenkins' death, however, that tipped off police. His body was found encased in ice in the Mississippi, his hands folded across his chest in an odd pose that was inconsistent with a chance drowning.

Gannon and another NYPD detective, Anthony Duarte — along with the other investigators — believe a gang of killers has been trolling interstates from New York to Wisconsin, staging the drownings.

The FBI and local authorities don't agree with the theory that all the drownings are linked and the work of a gang.

If I were a family member of one of the drowning victims, I think I would be haunted by the possibility that the death was not accidental.

I would want answers.

Have the detectives really found answers? I have my doubts, at least when it comes to the smiley faces.

It's weird that the smiley faces were found over such a wide geographical area.

That's odd, but it can easily be explained.

It wouldn't be difficult for some creeps communicating online to orchestrate the smiley face markings. The gang graffiti might suggest a group just wanting to create the impression of a connection in the crimes.

It reminds me of all those "mysterious" patterns cut into corn fields by all those "aliens." It could be a similar game, albeit far more disturbing especially for the families of the victims.

When were the smiley faces found? Was it years later?

Also, were the markings left where the bodies were discovered? Given the current of a river, the murderer/murderers wouldn't have a clue where the bodies would finally be located. The spot would have to be marked well after the murder took place.

It sounds to me like the smiley faces are the sick work of some group of weirdos obsessed with the drownings and looking to stage a panic.

What fun!