Background on the Smiley Face Gang Investigators

So how did all these people investigating and/or researching drowning deaths come to work together?

Decorated former NYC police sargeant, Kevin Gannon, has been trying to resolve what caused the death of at least one college student since 1997. In fact, he made a promise to Patrick McNeill's mother that he would not allow her son's death to go unsolved. He "joined forces" with NYPD Detective Anthony Duarte in a concerted effort to solve the case.

In 2003, they traveled to Minnesota where college student Chris Jenkins was found dead in the Mississippi - thought to be a drunken accident. "It screamed homicide," said Gannon. Jenkins was found floating on his back with his arms crossed on his chest - an unusual pose for a drowned person. Jenkins' death was reclassified as a homicide, and the retired NYPD cops found the spot where Jenkins might have been thrown into the water. It was there that they discovered the first smiley face.

Since that time, Gannon has dedicated his life, his work, even his own monetary means to finding the true circumstances surrounding the deaths of McNeill, Chad Sharon, Christopher Jenkins and dozens more young men across the Midwest.

In the early months of 2003, St. Cloud State University's criminal justice professor, Dr. Lee Gilbertson, invited his students to take a closer look at drowning death patterns of male college students in the region. Five young men had all turned up drowned in a three month period starting October, 2002.

During their investigative work, the Chad Sharon case (South Bend, IN // December, 2002) was one of more than a dozen the criminal justice students reviewed, according to other students in the program.

It has not been confirmed publicly, but it appears the culmination of the Gannon/Duarte investigation with that of the St. Cloud State students lead law enforcement to change the cause of death (CoD) for Chris Jenkins from "undetermined" to "homocide". Additional information gathered from study of more than 100 drowning deaths of young males during the same time period (1997 - 2002) provided a link between at least 40 cases.

Gannon explained, "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, it looks like at least 10 or 15 of those could be connected."

In mid-2006, Dr. Gilbertson and St. Cloud criminal justice graduate student, Adam Carlson, are officially working with Gannon and Duarte. Here is some data on the investigators as known thus far:

Kevin Gannon
- Retired NYPD Sargeant
- 20 years service
- Highly decorated

Anthony Duarte
- Retired NYPD Detective
- BA in Criminal Justice
- 20 years of service
- Several commendations

Dr. Lee Gilbertson
- Associate Professor; St. Cloud State University
- Criminal Justice Department
- MS in Criminal Justice
- PhD in Sociology
- 16 years military service
- Certified Gang Specialist

Adam Carlson
- Criminal Justice graduate student at St. Cloud State University
- Former student of Professor Gilbertson
- Certified Gang Specialist

The investigators, who have been working unpaid on the cases for two years, met four weeks ago with Minneapolis police to present their evidence, but approached the national media after local authorities didn't act, Steve Jenkins (Christopher's father) said.

It was bloggers and the media who dubbed the reported serial killer(s) as the Smiley Face Gang or Smiley Face Murder Club.

Sources: Minnesota Daily and Nationwide Investigations

Smiley Face Gang - Serial Killers?

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 fellow New Yorker (and college student) Patrick McNeill, who drowned in 1997. Gannon made a promise to McNeill's parents that he would never give up on his case.

The Sope-Bocks has already uncovered a couple more names that may or may not be on detectives Gannon and Duarte's list: Robert Barrington Leigh (University of Toronto) and Scott Javins (University of Indiana). Both young men drowned under what some might consider suspicious circumstances -- their deaths attributed to drunken student accidents.

In fact, most of the cause of death reports have been officially ruled "undetermined" or "drowning". A few similarities may link all 40 deaths:

• Male
• Late teens or early 20's in age
• College student
• Good grades
• Ventured out alone
• Almost all are white
• Most were athletic
• Alcohol served to victim or at location where last seen
• And last, but not least, all were close to a body of water

One more apparent link is a strange "smiley face" painted or markered at or very near the sight where several victims died. The detectives found the smiley faces in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa.

I have also learned that Gannon & Duarte suspect the serial killers are either a gang or trying to manipulate evidence in order to look like a gang. Nicknames of gang members and at least once street name (Sinsiniwa) have also been found at multiple "drowning" sites.

While some folks are already writing the story off as mere speculation, I'm not prepared to do so just yet. There is one thing (thus far) that leads me to wonder whether any connection between the deaths exists -- serial killers are not gangs. If the cases are linked, there is at least one instance of two young men meeting their doom on the same night, in different cities. That would require at least two people -- maybe a minimum of four.

We're investigating and will continue to report as we learn more.