Eight drunken men have drowned in the Mississippi river in the La Crosse area since 1997. The rumors of a serial drowner on the loose in La Crosse are resurfacing again after the body of 21-year-old Western Technical College student Craig J. Meyers was found in the river the day before yesterday.

Meyers went missing after attending a wedding reception at a La Crosse bowling alley, and visiting two bars on Saturday night. He was found Tuesday in 25 feet of water, about 20 feet from shore. Many people blame alcohol for his and all other deaths, but some people think there has to be more to the story. Even though all the conspiracy theories about college age men that drown in La Crosse have gained national attention, the police doesn’t buy it – they’re treating all the cases as accidents. Other eight victims are: Richard Hlavaty, 19; Charles Blatz, 28; Anthony Skifton, 19; Nathan Kapfer, 20; Jeffrey Geesey, 20; Patrick Runingen, 23; Jared Dion, 21; and Luke Homan, 21.

The FBI has conducted a separate investigation looking for clues that link the deaths, but they say the drownings were a result of too much alcohol. An autopsy on Craig Meyers’ body is scheduled for Thursday morning and preliminary results are expected by Thursday afternoon. There are a lot of theories regarding those nine cases of deaths by drowning, but no conclusive evidence to prove any of these claims. If you want to read more speculations about every one of these cases, I suggest you to visit Missing drowning student mystery page.

And here is a two part video about news investigation into La Crosse deaths:

-article by Hart Van Denburg rewritten and adapted by admin-

Two retired NYC detectives, Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte, have been trying to solve “Smiley Face” murder mystery for the past 11 years, connecting the drowning deaths of 40 young man across the country. In a number of cases, the detectives have reportedly found “a smiley face” caricature near the crime scenes thereby giving it the Smily Face Killer theory. It has been suggested that the smiley face “Signatures are ritualistic crime scene behaviors that are done for psycho sexual gratification.”

At least 50 men in 11 states have been found dead in the last 10 years, though no police department has said that the cases are connected. Their causes of death have been blamed on drunken accidents, as these young men were attacked while they were leaving parties or bars where they were drinking. All cases, except one – Chris Jenkins, a University of Minnesota student, was found dead in 2003 and was the only one whose cause of death was changed to homicide. When the detectives took a look at Jenkins’ death, they discovered that the position of his body and other physical evidence proved that the college student didn’t drown accidentally.

Paul McCabe of the FBI office in Minneapolis said the bureau investigated some of the deaths late last year and concluded that they were accidental drownings.

However, in city after city, the two detectives claim they found a smiley face painted somewhere at the crime scene, what they believe to be a sick signature claiming responsibility. And it looks to be the work of more than one person because there have been strikingly similar deaths and smiley faces in numerous cities and states, some in a relatively short time span, they assert. The detectives found the smiley faces in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa. Gannon and Duarte also came to the surprising conclusion that more than one person is involved in the murders:

“Because there’s such a wide range of states the killings are through,” Gannon said today in an exclusive interview on “Good Morning America.” “Besides the fact that we have multiple victims on the same night.” “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, they look like at least 10, 15 of those could be connected,” Gannon said.

So far, all theories are acceptable, since there is a pretty good reason to believe these drownings are connected, however without any more evidence no one can be sure this is a work of a serial killer, or even serial killers. As Duarte said though, “It is almost a perfect crime”…

-article by Kristi Piehl from ABC news, rewritten and adapted by admin-