Joshua Szostak's Family Meeting With 'Smiley-Face Killer' Detectives

News of the possible lead in the Nicholas Garza case hits a familiar chord with Joshua Szostak's family. It's preparing to meet the two detectives spear-heading the 'smiley face killer' investigation this week in Albany. The two ex-NYPD detectives believe the former Plattsburgh State student's death connects to the other deaths around the country.

Bill Szostak told Fox44 News he's spoken on the phone with the detectives, Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte, several times. Unbeknowing to Szostak, the investigators were already in Albany investigating his son's death two weekends ago, when he was buried. "I'm not saying I'm 100% positive at this point that my son is one of the smiley face victims," Szostak said, "but having two highly decorated detectives from New York City, maybe they'll be able to uncover some clues as to what brought about my son's death."

Read the rest of this story here.

Evil Happy Smiley Face Man

Photo enhancement by The Sope-Bocks

Truthfully, it sounds (to me) like a bad translation from an Asian language to English. "Evil Happy Smiley Face Man" appears to have been spray painted on a concrete barrier near where one of the "Smiley Face murders" took place.

"It's not just a smiley face. He’s evil, happy and he drew horns which are synonymous with the devil. He’s telling you he knows murder is evil," Nationwide Investigations' Kevin Gannon says, "I believe we're looking at an organized group that has a hierarchy and is involved in murder and other criminal activity ... If this was a random thing, we’d have a wider range of victims,” he said.

As the team of investigators offers additional information to the media, we learn more and more about what could be called the Smiley Face Murder Club. For instance, the original image of the red smiley face on a non-descript blue background was not the complete image. Above, you can see the (mostly) complete image -- one of TWELVE found at crime scenes in five states.

The scrawl on the right hand side says, "Evil Happy Smiley Face Man". There is also a lower case letter "r" and something below the letter (cut off in the photos I've been able to dig up). It's interesting to note that the writing looks like that of a female -- and the lowercase letters "e" (in Smiley and Face) are both written backwards. The smiley face has a cross or X on the forehead and horns on top of the head. Creepy!

Gannon and Duarte have been investigating river drownings for more than a decade. They say while not every scene had the evil smiley face, all the deaths are the work of serial killers. That includes seven deaths in La Crosse and three in Eau Claire. It’s an "organized killer which hunts his victims and takes real pride in what he does," Gannon says.

The detectives say the men are all young, athletic and smart. Two victims' names offered by the Gannon/Duarte team are:

• Lucas Homan - 21 years old when he died after drowning in the Mississippi River in La Crosse.

• Josh Snell -22-year-old from Hastings, Minnesota, disappeared in Eau Claire in June of 2005. His brother says he was in town for a wedding and later went to the bars. Snell was found four days later, pulled from the Chippewa River. Jon Snell says he doesn't believe his brother wandered into the water. He says he's glad someone else looked into his brother's death. “I can't thank Kevin and Tony enough,” Jon Snell says. “They’ve been amazing." But, he says he knows his search for answers isn't over. He wants an outcome.

And that’s exactly what Gannon and Duarte hope to give Snell and dozens of other devastated families. "Arrests would be ideal conclusion to this investigation, yes,” NI's Anthony Duarte says. La Crosse Police Chief Ed Kondracki issued a statement Monday saying in part:

"I would like to take this opportunity to once again remind and assure our community that the eight river drownings which occurred between 1997 and 2006 have been thoroughly investigated... The La Crosse area river drownings are tragic and unfortunate accidents."

In the statement, Chief Kondracki also says there is no evidence at this time to connect La Crosse area drownings with any other deaths around the country.

Across the border in Minnesota, Minneapolis police spokesman Jesse Garcia said the case of at least one suspicious drowning death is currently active, and police are open to new hard evidence. "They [Gannon/Duarte/Gilbertson/Carlson] didn't come up with any new evidence that wasn't already there," Garcia said. "They basically came up with a new theory. We can't go forward with theories as evidence."

Steve Jenkins (father of homocide victim, Christopher Jenkins) said the graffiti represents concrete physical evidence and that the investigators also corroborated the accounts of alleged witnesses from other disappearances. Additionally, Jenkins said the investigators have identified suspects, although they've declined to release names. "There's a lot more evidence that they did not share (with police)," Steve Jenkins said. "They showed just enough to get the (authorities') interest in collaboration." [I told you yesterday there was a major holdback!]

Sources: WEAU, Red-Alerts.com, NY Daily News

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

UPDATED: 3:13pm EDT

The Smiley Face Gang seems to have hit the news pretty big two days ago -- and dropped yesterday. Personally, I wonder why more isn't being said about the fact that more than 100 young men have died in supposed drowning accidents -- almost all in similar circumstances -- and the FBI, state agencies and attorneys general are not raising red flags about the situation.

I hate to say it, but if 100 young college girls went missing or supposedly drowned under similar circumstances, everyone in the media and half the federal law enforcement agencies would be crawling every inch of the banks of the Mississippi River -- and several lakes. If these guys were all gay, GLAAD, the NEA, HRC and every other liberal group with an agenda would be all over the story. Instead, these are mostly middle-class white guys -- so who cares?!?

Nonetheless, I'm still trying to find everything I can in order to assist LE and the blogosphere in solving the case. One thing -- I'm currently looking for a list of the 40 names that former detectives Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte have associated to the Smiley Face Gang. I have the list of 19 names from Wisconsin and Minnesota. Add to that number, Patrick McNeill (NY) and Chad Sharon (IN). I need information (hopefully name & location of disappearance) on the other 19 young men.

I also know that victims died in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, New York, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. Gannon and Duarte claim to have linked cases in eleven states. What other three states are involved? [I have read about a case in Tennessee (Jessiah Jameson), but am not sure if it is "officially" connected or not.]

If YOU have any additional information, please post a comment here. I would appreciate names, locations, dates and links to news or law enforcement documentation of the story.

Investigation - Smiley Face Serial Killers

Photo from KSTP.com
I hate to tease you with a great story and then not deliver. Let's just say -- time permitting -- The Sope-Bocks is on the case of the smiley face serial killers. KSTP Eyewitness 5 News publicly broke the story earlier today. I plan to take in all the documentation and blog my investigation, as well as report to you about the evidence in a case that links 40 (or more) suspicious drownings in 25 cities across 11 states -- from as long ago as 1997.

The real work has been done by two retired police detectives and one of the victims' parents. Sgt. Kevin Gannon and Detective Anthony Duarte, along with victim Chris Jenkins parents, have spent thousands of hours and tens of thousands of dollars trying to find out what caused the deaths of 41 or more young male college students.

As with previous cases that became high profile news stories (Maria Lauterbach, Jesse Dirkhising, among others), The Sope-Bocks is prepared to offer insight and assistance to law enforcement, amateur sleuths and the blogosphere.

My profile of Ceasar Laurean assisted other bloggers (and maybe police) in tracking down Laurean's movements in the Lauterbach murder case. The Sope-Bocks was also instrumental in exposing the mass media cover-up of Jesse Dirkhising's torture and murder a few years ago.

I hope this investigation will help lead to a fitting end for the smiley face serial killers -- and closure for the many families who are tonight in pain due to the loss of their sons.