What's the creepiest/scariest most unsolved mystery? The Smiley Face Killers.

For the past 20 years, hundreds of college-aged men have disappeared, silently, soundlessly, vanishing without trace, only to be found some time later, dead in the water, but with no water in their lungs. Some are still missing. They usually have no wounds, no trauma, so how did they die?

a very sinister and highly disturbing group of killers. Organised, deadly, and always successful, they prey on the young men, selecting them, hunting them, abducting them, and killing them. They are never caught. They are silent, invisible predators who always get away.

How are they doing this? Who are they? Why are they doing this?

It isn’t stopping; it appears to be escalating... the Smile Face Killers continue.... Young college men are vanishing without a trace, only to be found dead; weeks or months later, in remote rivers or creeks, in areas that searched multiple times before; their bodies later discovered there, as though deliberately placed to be found there. Taunting. Deliberate. Sinister and Sadistic.

“Nobody will speculate on the disappearances because they don't understand the sinister nature of the world they are living in. This is dark alchemy indeed.” The Smiley Face Killers.

Chris Jenkins missing, found in water.

Chris Jenkins mother: “The evil is rampant and deep and widespread. He was tortured, taken to the river and killed. Then his body was taken to a different part of the river and positioned.”

Zachary Marr disappeared while out with his cousins at a Bar in Boston. He was not allowed back into the Bar after going outside for a cigarette. The Bar dispute this. Again at the time of writing, the police released a statement saying that they believe the surveillance cameras show him as he enters the ice cold Charles River. It was a cold night in Boston, in February. Why would a young man go down to the River and get into the water? He had only gone outside the Bar to have a quick cigarette.

In that same stretch of water, two weeks before Zachary disappeared, Matthew Genovese also disappeared after leaving a bar. His co-workers, who were in the bar with him, said that he did not appear to be intoxicated. On January 23rd, 2016, Matthew was found dead in the Hudson River. Strangely, his billfold was found on the pier beside the water.

24 days before this, on December 31st, the body of Northeastern University Dennis Njoroge was found in the river. He had disappeared on November 29th. His body was found in Boston's Charles River on December 31st. Following autopsy and toxicology tests, the city coroner concluded that it was impossible to determine if the young man had drowned by accident or suicide, or if he had “somehow died elsewhere,” and was then placed in the water already dead.

The cause and also the manner of the young man’s death was therefore listed as “unknown” and the Boston police stated that they were not going to be investigating it. It was determined by them not to be suspicious; despite the fact that from the Coroner’s report, he could quite easily have been killed and then placed in the water.

Again in Boston, on February 8, 2014, graduate Eric Munsell was out celebrating his birthday. Eric was in a bar with friends when he was thrown out by a bouncer because, according to his Mother, he had tripped on his way to the bathroom. His body was discovered in the river two months later, at the same spot he was believed to have entered the water, according to cell phone records. A passer-by had seen his “non-viable” body floating in the water. Why had his body not been seen before? Had he been in the water for 2 months, or not?

On Christmas day 2015, the body of Lehman College student Anthony Urena was found dead in the same stretch of water. It was believed his body had drifted from the Harlem River, into the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, where he was recovered. He had last been seen leaving a nightclub in New York City around 5 a.m. He had been missing for six weeks. At this point in time, it is not known if he had been in the water the entire time; or “elsewhere” for some of the time he had been missing.

Henry McCabe was found partially submerged in a remote body of water on November 2nd, 2015. He had disappeared on Labor Day, September 7th, 2015, in Minnesota. On the night he disappeared, he left what can only be described as the most haunting, most chilling, and most harrowing voicemail, after he went missing. He is screaming, pleading and growling in raw, animalistic agony. Disturbingly, in the background, is something that sounds mechanical. Even more horrific, a voice then interrupts his screams and calmly tells him, in a cold, emotionless, detached voice, “Stop it.”

He was found in the water seven miles from where he was last known to have been on the night he disappeared. His body bore no signs of trauma; and yet it had sounded as though he was being tortured. How does that make any sense? What could have been happening to him on that terrible night?

His Mother says, “This is what they did to my son. Someone killed my son. Before Henry died, he was pleading to someone who dropped him in the dark… Henry paid for you to learn the lesson… When he got off from that car in that morning, he had no idea that he was going to die…”

She seems to be suggesting here that Henry was ‘delivered’ to his terrible fate; as though he was offered up in some form of sacrifice, in some form of pre-planned killing. Rather bizarrely however, the police, despite his harrowing blood-curdling voicemail, say that they do not think there was any foul play involved. He had been missing for 5 days. Was he a victim of ‘The Smiley Face Killers,’ too?

Many of them also made very disturbing phone calls just before they died or were taken, and were then found dead, days or weeks later, in bodies of water. What is perplexing, and very worrying, is that none of these cases are being investigated as suspicious.

We have the terrible case of Walton Ward. His sister says her brother also died in inexplicable, mysterious and terrible circumstances.

“Walton was last seen alive at Landsharks Bar, Indianapolis, with a 'bouncer' at approximately 1:20-1:30 a.m. on October 12, 2012. His last attempt to save his own life was at 1:30 a.m. when he dialled 911 from his Phone for help. His killers interrupted his 911 call and murdered him...He knew he was going to be killed. His desperate call lasted for 1 second, which was just enough to register to the nearest cell phone tower...but it wasn’t not long enough to save his life.”

“That was the last time we know him to be alive, until construction workers discovered his body on October 22, floating in the River a few blocks from the bar 10 days after his desperate call to 911 on that night. His phone was found on the bank of the River behind a Restaurant. The police said he must have been 'drunk', 'fallen in' or 'gone swimming' in the dead of winter.”

Other victims, who have ended up dead, the same way, have left comments on their facebook or twitter accounts, that also clearly cry out for investigation. Whether overtly or cryptically, some of these victims are in need of help even before they have disappeared. Something very strange, very alarming, and very sinister is going on.

In 2011, Mike Shaw wrote of the grief, the anger and the sense of helplessness he felt because he could not save his best friend.

01/17/10: Sylvester McCurry Jr., 18, Superior, WI

“Sly McCurry did not walk out onto the ice of Lake Superior (Wisconsin) that cold January (2010) winter night and fall through and drown. He was murdered. No one can ever convince me it was anything but murder. He was more than a friend to me. His smile would light up a room. He was always full of life, always happy. He would never have went from the Nightclub to that secluded area alone in 20 degrees below weather, with no coat, and drown. He had no car and after being thrown out of the club via the back door, on the alleged grounds that he was drunk, he was left in the alleyway. Four months later, his body was found in the lake. I was a trained fighter for many years and felt protective over my friends. I have never received closure. His death was ruled “accidental due to cold water immersion.” His scent stopped at the back door of the hotel. Like clockwork, I see this killers strike all over the North-East.”

The name ‘The Smiley Face Killers,’ comes from Grafitti found sometimes at or near the scene.

College boys are going missing; later to be found drowned. Not all have drowned in the water; some have drowned elsewhere. According to Ret’d NYPD Kevin Gannon, “They have been abducted, held sometimes for an extended amount of time, mentally tortured, killed, and then placed in the water.”

It all began over two decades ago when decorated retired NYPD Detectives Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte discovered that at least 40 drowning deaths of young college-aged men were connected. Detective Gannon and Professor Lee Gilbertson of St Cloud University, a specialist in Gang Stalking and Domestic Terrorism, took several of these cases, and investigated them. What they found differed exponentially from the original police and coroner reports. They presented their cases in the excellent book:

“Case Studies in Drowning Forensics.”

At the same time, Emmy Award winning Journalist Kristie Piehl had also discovered this pattern.

The Smiley Face Killers were now being noticed.

Todd Geibb, one of the first cases noticed by Kristi Piehl, and retired detectives Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte, as having the strange set of circumstances where a young man goes missing, makes a final phone call, and is then found dead in water at a later time period. Todd had left a bonfire party in rural Casnovia, Michigan in June 2005, to go home. At 12.51 a.m he called a friend. He said to them, “I’m in a field,” then his phone cut off.

His friend called back but heard either breathing or the wind, but no voice. Further attempts to reach his friend failed. Todd was found three weeks later in a remote bed of water that had been previously searched three times by more than 1500 people. A couple out walking saw his body, sticking half out of the water in an unnatural position, his head and shoulders above the water. It appeared as though he had been placed for a specific reason; as though placed there to be found.

An independent pathologist disagrees with the official autopsy; as did two hundred other pathologists. All of these pathologists determined that he did not die in the water and his body had not been in the water for the three weeks he had been missing. He had been dead only from 2-5 days. The original ex-detectives firmly believe they found evidence of very similar cases taking place in other parts of the country, on the same day.

What they discovered, by thorough re-examination of the cases, including the use of independent pathologists, presented the most chilling of circumstances; and it has not stopped since then; only grown.

Why have they not fought back or struggled? Very often, they have no injuries whatsoever; indicating that they have not struggled, even though they were drowning. The very sinister implication here then is that they were either unconscious or dead when they entered the water. Some even have no water at all in their lungs; yet they have apparently “drowned” in the water.

On October 7, 2010, officials confirmed that they had recovered the body of missing Western University Student Dwight Clark, who had vanished 12 days earlier after leaving a party at around 2 a.m. He was discovered about 1 km from the party, in a log lagoon, which was gated and locked. His friends said he did not appear drunk when he left.

The official story from law enforcement is always that they have ‘accidentally drowned,’ yet somehow and inexplicably they have often done this in very shallow water. They are, according to the official versions, supposed to have walked miles or many blocks, in the wrong direction, until they reach a remote body of water, and then drowned.

Curiously, some of them have been in towns they have never visited until that night, only to be found in remote ponds that they could never have known even existed, nor the route to take to get to them. Alternately, they appear to have scaled fences or other difficult obstacles to get into remote ponds and then drowned in water that is no deeper than a couple of feet.

David Paulides of Missing 411 has written on some of these cases, although they appeared first in my series of Books 'In the woods'

Are there any clues which could help explain what has happened to these young men, and why?

Why are many of them found missing one shoe?

Why are their cell phones often found beside the river’s edge, again as though purposely placed there?

Why have some of their bodies been ‘placed’ into positions which are wholly inconsistent with that of a drowning victim?

Why are they later found in places searched multiple times before?

Why do many of them make desperate phone calls just moments before something happens to them?

Why are some of them in such a state of terror or horror when they phone their parents or friends?

Why would their cell phones suddenly go dead after they have said something very disturbing?

What are they seeing, in the final moments before their phone is cut off?

And where are the missing ones who are never found?

I’ve been on a personal hunt for clues and answers for several years now, as an author and researcher…. and some of the answers are more horrifying than any person could reasonably contemplate….

“If people knew the depth of this, they would be terrified to be outside at night, whether out in the country or in the city.”

“We take what we need and leave. Understand this: This is necessary. Life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on death feeds on life……”

The Smiley Face Killers Steph Young