Over the last decade approximately 80 young men attending college in relatively rural communities along I-94 -- the northernmost east-west interstate highway -- have mysteriously disappeared after leaving a party or bar alone, and many of them subsequently have been discovered as drowning victims in nearby rivers, ponds and lakes. Their deaths routinely have been classified as accidental drownings but former Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter Kristi Piehl, with the help of a team of experts including a forensic pathologist, a former federal agent, and a former New York District Attorney, believes that at least some of the deaths are homicide.
The cases -- previously dubbed the "Smiley Face Killers" because of the presence of graffiti images of the ubiquitous "smiley face" at the scene where some of the early victims were discovered which appears to have been merely a coincidence -- are individually detailed at a website set up by Piehl in the hopes that federal authorities will open an investigation to re-examine the boys' deaths some of which she believes possibly could be attributable to a serial killer on the loose. It's too early to determine conclusively whether a serial killer is responsible for some of the eighty deaths. However, Piehl and her team have marshalled compelling evidence that at least some of the boys -- all similar victims who died under similar circumstances -- may have been murdered.
For example, in the case of Todd Geib, the Michigan young man was last seen leaving a remote outdoor party alone on June 12, 2005, and his body was discovered on July 2, 2005 in a pond near the party. Although Michigan investigators determined that he accidentally drowned, an independent forensic pathologist and other experts concluded that Geib had been dead at most for only three to five days. There has been no investigation to explain the mysterious disappearance of Geib during the intervening several days between his departure from the party and the time of his death, and law enforcement authorities refuse to re-open the case.
And in the 2002 case involving Chris Jenkins -- an honors student from the University of Minnesota -- Minneapolis police previously classified his death as an accidental drowning in the Mississippi River, and then in 2006 re-opened the investigation as a homicide after presented with evidence that he had been abducted into a cargo van and tortured for several hours as he was driven around the city. The boy's mother, Jan Jenkins, has written the book Footprints of Courage and dedicated a website on his still unsolved case.
