That's right, folks. After piecing together suspicious student drownings that go back nearly a decade, police are finally thinking that maybe these are all related for a few different reasons, not the least of which is the smiley faces found in, on or around each victim. So far, over 40 young men have been murdered, virtually all of them very successful students. A group of retired detectives has spent eleven years linking these together. Seriously. Eleven years.
Now, as a male college student, I'm pissed about this. 40 young men are found suspiciously drowned with freaky smiley faces strewn about over the course of eleven years and no one found this suspicious.
POP QUIZ:
1) Were these 40 victims female students, instead of male, would the public be more outraged over these events instead of simply interested in them?
2) Were these 40 victims female students, instead of male, would police have ever even allowed the number to come close to 40?
3) Were these 40 victims female students, instead of male, how much sooner would the media have picked up on this? 5 bodies? 10? 30?
This is an outrage. For eleven years detectives sat back and watched 40 young men die while they "linked the incidents together". But they were young men.
Screw 'em.
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9 comments:
This has just happened at my school, Ithaca College. Thought you'd be interested.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=13850412097
You are absolutely right. If the victims had been female, every one would be outraged. I will go one step further, if the victims had been minority, every one in the "liberal" media would have been outraged a long time ago. But young "white" men disappearing...that has to be accidental. The white men better wake up!
Anonymous from April 30 -
I live in Owego, NY and my sister attends Ithaca College. I currently am attenting school in Maryland, however last night my boyfriend's roommate asked me if I had heard about these "serial killers" .. after he said that this kid had been drowned, the first thing I thought of was the Ithaca incident. This shit is fucked up and REAL. In the words of Radiohead, "We're not scaremongering... This is really happening."
Growing up in Upstate New York for 18 years... I know something doesn't fit when I see it. And this doesn't fit.
I am from the Albany area were the body of yet another Male student was found after he vanished in Dec. I know the bar he was at I know the park were the smiley face was found. They claim he was so drunk he fell into the river and drowned. That is ofcourse after he walk well over ten city blocks climed a fence and "fell into the river" Before leaving hes sell phone in a stolen van not even close to teh bar park or river.
Right hey if you buy this I got some prime nabraska ocean front for sale too.
I graduated from Middlebury College in 1994. It was the safest place I have ever lived, or at least the safest feeling. In February (08) a freshman, Nicholas Garza, disappeared after leaving a party in the wee hours. They have not found his body, though there has been an aerial photo taken of what could be a body in Otter Creek. Repeated searches in and around this river have come up empty. However, a shed not far from the river has a smiley face on its door.
Like the previous poster says of the "accidental" drowning ten blocks from the bar and over a fence--Otter Creek is just not that close to any of the places a partied-out kid is going to walk past while making his way to a dorm that is in the opposite direction and totally uphill from town and the creek. Not likely either that a kid from Albuquerque would dally in the bitter cold of Vermont in February and say take a scenic indirect stroll. No he'd have been going straight to his cozy dorm room--even if he were pretty sauced the cold would have put a pep in his step. If he'd been too drunk to notice the cold he'd have been too drunk to walk out of that party, much less waltz over to the river and fall in.
Here's another thought: these young men were probably easy targets. Being men may have given them a sense of security that we now see was false. Though I did often walk alone on campus at night, as a woman Ialways carried myself defensively and had a heightened awareness of my surroundings. Recall that I wasin school in the early 90s before everyone had a cell phone--technology which may have added another layer of false security to these victims' mindsets as they made their ways home at night and alone. Not to mention college campuses, which espcially if rural feel so homey and safe.
I can't really adequately express the profound compassion I feel towards these victims, who were so carefree and invulnerable-feeling. Their very confidence and comfort with being out alone at night made them targets of these sickos. And the same stereotypes that may have urged them to be carefree to the point of carelessness, also served to obfuscate for years in most cases the fact that they were victims not of their own (alleged) drunken mistakes but of a murderous gang.
i say we all deserve to feel safe male or female day and night drunk or sober alone or in a crowd. And if something awful happens to any one of us, we deserve to have that taken seriously and not chalked up to our own idiocy. That is just another way to blame the victim.
First off, this isn't the work of any organised gang of "serial killers." Secound the Smiley face that appears at the sceene is not a mysterious calling card. This is simply a case of two retired detectives grossly exergerating the facts and making connections that just aren't there.
Let's first look at this supposed gang of "Serial Killers." This just doesn't happen. Serial Killers don't join gangs and they don't murder in groups. And the suppsoed internet connection is just two old cops using technology to scare people. Is there some killercafe.com on the net that has open forums for people looking to murder? NO. The reason the FBI has no intrest in the case is becuase for these killings to all be linked togther, it would refute all known information and behavior patterns pertaining to serial killers, and gangs in general.
Secound the Smiley Face that appears "NEAR" where the victims are found is far fectched. The victums are found in rivers, that means there has to be some sort of current, regardless if its frozen or not. IF it were lakes these bodies were found int it would be diffrent but moving bodies of water thats just insane to think that he killer would drown the vicitim in the river and then follow the bodie down stream to tag it. And becuase it's a moving bodie of water, if they find a Smiley Face tag it would bear no relivance to the actual sceene of the murder.
Ok lets move on to the inconsistancy of the Smiley Face. Gang symbols are percise and universal as a way of marking their territory. Each sect may varry the tag slightly, but over all the general look is constant. The pictures that have surfaced so face are to varried and abstract to be the work of an organised gang, Or any individual.
Last point, there have been 40 or so death that these two flatfoots are artibuting to this conspiracy. But lets do some math, thats 40 deaths over 5 states in 10 years iin college towns near bars. Thats less than one death per state a year. Thats below the average drowing death rate per year, so its no wonder the locals couldn't connect the dots. It's too inconsistant over too large an area. I can conceede maby 10 of these deaths are homicide, maby the rest are just drunken accidents.
Good technical analysis...too bad it doesn't prove anything. This could very well be a gang of serial killers...even if it was the first of it's kind. You can't rule it out just because it doesn't fit with your education.
It is ridiculous to say "if these had been women, this would have been handled differently..." parapharsing. How many women did the Green River Killer kill before they even had dots, let alone connect them?
Someone needs to do a study: how many smiley face grafiti marks are found at purse snatchings and rapes? For that matter, how many found around joggers that aren't victims of a crime? May be they are just everywhere there is grafiti !
Finally, could this be a suicide cult-- and a symbol the victim himself leaves behind. Is someone blogging to do this?
Thanks, media, though-- if there was not a Smiley Face Gang before, there sure is going to be one now.
Sweet potato pie! The rational approach posed by Anon is spot on the money. There is no roving gang of male college killers!
What would be their motivation? It is a known fact that college age men - I was one, once. Engage in risky and foolish behavior. Drinking and rivers - especially cold ones do not mix.
Were some of these deaths homicides? Perhaps - but how many resulted from sheer stupidity and, possibly, stupid horseplay.
I do think a series of female drownings would have attracted a LOT of attention - certainly in the locale of the loss.
Let's face it, males are expendable.
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