Morbid - The Smiley Face Deaths/Murder Mystery

Episode Date: May 23, 2021

Since 1997 young men have been disappearing for periods of time and then turning up in bodies of water. Upon first glance it’s easy to brush these off as accidents, young men drinking too much and slipping or falling to their deaths: sad but not unheard of. It was in 2008 that Kevin Gannon, Anthony Duarte, Mike Donovan and Dr. Lee Gilbertson presented a theory to the world: What if these cases aren’t accidents at all? What if there is some kind of gang spread across the nation, picking these guys off 1 by 1. Insert the name of the case, The Smiley Face Killers.   Article: Article is offering out listeners fifty dollars off your first purchase of 100 dollars or more. Go to Article.com/morbid and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout HuntAKiller: Right now, you can go to HuntAKiller.com/MORBID and use MORBID, for 20% off your first box. Again, make sure to use CODE MORBID for a 20% discount! ModernFertility: Right now, Modern Fertility is offering our listeners $20 off the test when you go to ModernFertility.com/morbid. BestFiends: Download the 5 star-rated puzzle game, Best Fiends FREE today on the App Store or Google Play.  That’s FRIENDS without the R – Best Fiends! Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, weirdos. I'm Elena. And I'm Ash. And you know what this is? Is it creepy? It's morbid. Oh, right. Yep. It's morbid. Yep, got it. Three years in, I still don't know the name. Just kidding. Sorry that part two is like a little more delayed than we usually like them to be. Listen, I'm just going to be up for now. This video, a bitch had to get a colonoscopy. Okay, there it is. There it is. You know what? Good on you, man. For like three weeks, I've been referring to it as a procedure. And then, like, I had to drink the magnesium citrate. And if you follow me on Twitter, you know all about that. And I just, I lost all will to live. That and, like, just like, privacy. Like, I'm just like, fuck it.

I mean, why not? Just let's just be out there and open. I appreciate that. I'm impressed by that. Thank you. I'm amazed by you. And for anyone wondering, I have IBS. It's fully confirmed.

In case anybody's wondering. But yeah, that's not a fun procedure. And, you know, it takes a couple days. So, anyway. We decided to let this one go to the end of the week so that Ash could, you know, get herself back on track. And here I am. And you know what?

Here she is. Like, oh, all my. Being you. Because I'd like to think. That's a lot. Like, you know, like anybody who said, what I'm sure that's not fun, I can imagine. You want to know a secret. I blowdried my hair before.

She sure did. In the middle of like my misery, I was like, well, I'm not going to go in there looking shitty. I wore a matching pajama set and like fuzzy slippers in. And I was like, hi, I'm here to be colonoscoped. None of us would expect any less. I know that. I'm sure everybody agrees with me when I say that. And we wouldn't want anything less.

No, neither would I. We wouldn't want that. But I'm just, you know, good for you for pushing through it. Thanks, honey. But that's, I'm sure, you know, that's why this part two came a lot. little later than we normally would like it to, but obviously there was... We'll make up for it. There was a big reason.

Yeah, I had shit to do. None of us are upset, so I hope you're not upset. I don't think you are. And it's worth it. Ash did a really good job with this case, so... Honey. Part two is worth it. Who are you today?

I know, I'm just feeling so sweet. Just feeling so good. No, she's always kind to me. I'm having some Pepsi. I'm feeling sweet. Oh, look at you. That's not what I'm having. No.

I'm having a nice, um, what is it? raspberry lime seltzer. There you go. I like to pretend that it's alcohol. Easy on the tummy. Yes. You know, that's what we're here for. But yeah, we are in part two, because I don't really think we have any business other than explaining to you why this is late. No. But we are in part two of the smiley face killers segment, if you will. Is it just mayhem, basically? Because does this ever stop? No. No. I'm sure we can just continue this for another few years. Yeah, honestly, this could be its own podcast. Actually, I wonder if it is already. I know, probably, I wonder if it is. I'm going to go ahead and look that up after this. And I'll let you know tomorrow when we do another episode. Who knows? Maybe, you know, in a year from now, we can just do two more. Yeah. And just, I mean, I hope not. Like, here I am being like, who knows? No. Great. No. I hope not. Hello. We all hope not. Well, I mean, two more on like what already happened is how I took that. Exactly. Because there's hundreds. And you know what that's what I meant. obviously. It's obviously what I meant.

This is morbid late night in case you couldn't tell. It is. Morbid late night is very different from morbid mornings. Yeah, it's like how like the Today show is different than like the Jimmy Kimmel show. Yeah, we're risque at night. Does Jimmy Kimmel have a show? Yeah, okay. I get the two Jimmy's confused. Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon. Yeah, he has a show. All right. There's a lot of Jimmy's. There's some James is, I'm pretty sure, at night. Yeah, there's a lot of J's at night. Yeah. But this isn't about that. It's not about the Smiley-A-Kisholars.

So in part, one, we talked a lot about, you know, the theory of what's going on. Like, these young men are getting abducted. They somehow get separated from their friends. They don't really seem to have drank that much. Yeah, that's the interesting. They seem like inebriated, so it's confusing. We had a lot of people confirm, like, that drink thing. Because I was like, is that a lot of drinks for, like, that size of a person?

Did they say no? A lot of people said no. They were like, some people said, like, I'm that size and that would do basically nothing to me. Or like my husband, my boyfriend, my father. They were saying like, that is very normal. And then I was thinking about it and I was like, John's a really tall guy. And I remember when we were like younger and actually like going to bars and stuff, like, he could have way more drinks than I could ever imagine even looking at or smelling without dying. And he could easily do it and be fine.

Right. So I think I was going too much. off my own like weighing tolerance. Like when you say six like we were saying earlier for like me or you, that would be a lot. But it's like you have to go by size. So thank you to everyone who is like pointing out that they can tell us no. Yeah. It was not. Yeah. From everything I read it didn't seem like it was. But I agreed with you. I definitely had to do some research into that because I was like, wait a second. That's why this case is so crazy because it's like things like that. Some people are like, no, that's not a lot of drinks. And then some people automatically are like, that's a lot of drinks.

he was probably just drunk. Right. This case has so much of that that... You got to just dig into it. And you have to look at it from such a different angle. Instead of looking at it from your own lens, you have to look at it like as a very generalized thing. Well, not only that, you have to look at it from like a scientific, like, death standpoint.

For sure. You know? Yeah. And this specific case, or excuse me, a victim that we will talk about first in the part two, you're just going to lose your mind based on everything that is in this. Like, he was absolutely murdered. Like, this was not an accidental drowning. I'm ready for my mind to just launch across this room.

So I'm ready to see that. So let's get into it. So by the time that I started reading about Todd Gib's case, I could not believe that law enforcement called this one an accident. Like, I was fully just shocked. Now I'm ready. I'm like stressed. I'm stressed out here.

Okay. So that's the thing. Like, if you're not fully convinced that Todd Gibb was murdered, like, literally we have to talk because I just need to. talk to you to understand why you think that. Oh no, what if I don't think? All right. Well, then we'll have a chat. But I talk to you about this a little bit already, so I think you'll be fine. But Todd was 22 years old, and he was living in Michigan. And the night that he went missing was June 11, 2005. He had plans to go to an orchard party with some friends,

which is like, that sounds right up our spooky alley. An orchard party? An orchard party. What? One. Why have I never been to? to an orchard party? Why have I never been to an orchard party? This is on all of you. Why have you not invited me to an orchard party? If I ever get invited to one, I'll ask if I can have a plus one. Three, can I have an orchard party? First, we have to find an orchard. We're going to find one. This was like a family orchard, like a family farm orchard kind of thing. Fall plans, 2021. Fuck me up. So only the beginning part, though. Just the orchard. Yeah, just that. But so before he went to the party. He stopped at a local bar called the Kaz Bar for a drink. I couldn't find out

whether he was with somebody or if he just stopped for a drink by himself. But it also really doesn't matter. The only reason that I want, like I tried to look into that was to see how many drinks he'd had at the bar or if maybe anybody remembered anything weird at the bar, but yeah, nobody remembered anything. Good instinct. Thanks. You know, I'm becoming a detective slowly. You are. Imagine me as a fucking detective. Imagine. No. But so he went to the bar and then he went to the party.

He hung out with his friends and he left her on midnight, which it's pretty decent time. I was going to say, yeah. That's pretty straightforward night for a 22-year-old. Absolutely. Now, over the course of the entire night, like we were saying, most of these people, these victims, aren't drinking a lot, like at all. He only had a couple drinks. And Todd's mother, Kathy, said that her son was a great kid.

And the only thing that she's really worried about with all of this. going on is that people will lose track of who he was. Oh, see, that hurts my heart. Yeah. In this case specifically, like, I feel so bad for his mother because things are still happening, like, yeah, that we'll get into and it's disturbing. That's the other part of this case is these victims' families have to relive this over and over when another victim happens. It's like they just keep having to see this pile on top of each other. And every mother that were, like I've mentioned all the mothers, they all agree that their children were murdered. Wow.

They all agree that like this smiley face killers thing has something to it at least. And no one wants to believe their child was murdered. That's not what you want your first, you know, that wouldn't be your first thought as like, oh, yep, that's definitely what happens. So it's like for them all to think that, there has to be a reason here. Yeah, I mean, if anything, that's like the last thing that you want. Absolutely. You'd rather it be an accident.

Yeah. If it has to happen, you don't want to think of it at the hands of someone else. No. And just, I just can't even put myself there. I can't even imagine. But she went on to say that he was a fun loving family guy and she doesn't believe the authorities when they say what happened to her son. Now, Todd was missing for a total of 21 days, which is three weeks. A lot of days. Three full weeks. That's literally almost a month. Yeah. His body was discovered in the water by Jim Wilde and his wife who were getting ready to go canoeing. And this was a private lake that they lived. Okay. Now, when they discovered him, he was discovered in a very strange position for somebody who had, quote, unquote, drowned, just like a lot of these victims. His head was above the water, resting on one of his arms, kind of like his forearm, and he was floating vertically. Huh.

Not horizontally like you would expect. That's interesting. Very strange. Very strange. Now, one weird thing about the discovery was that Jim's brother, the man who lived in. on the lake and who discovered the body, his brother had actually been out on the lake fishing for like hours the day before Todd's body was found. Really? Like from daylight into nighttime. Now, the lake is not really that big and you can see most of it standing in one place. Jim's brother never saw even a glimpse of Todd's body that night. That's strange. And he was,

actually, his, the Jim's wife thought that it was a beaver in the distance. So like, it was very, his body was very noticeable. Wow. And like where it was. Yeah. You would have seen him. Absolutely. So it's really strange that his brother didn't see him.

Now even stranger is that in the previous days when Jim had gone out to use his canoe, he found that it was missing. And when it turned back up again, it was filled with empty beer cans. Now this lake was like not off of exactly where they were partying. Like this was not off of the orchard. Huh. Right. And it was like it's a private lake, like I said.

That's really weird. Yeah, I was going to say this isn't a public area. No. That's weird. So strange. And Kathy said that when Todd was discovered, she was able to see him and she was surprised at the condition that he was in. And she went online and actually did some research and investigating herself into what a body would look like had it been in the water that long. And she said right then and there, she knew that Todd had not been in the water all that time. No, of course not. And wait until we get into this. This specific one is just like, I can't. So Todd's obviously. autopsy listed only moderate decomposition. Now again. 21 days. 21 days, three weeks, almost a month, in the middle of June, by the way, in like a warm area. Yeah, that doesn't check out to me.

Like it's May right now here, and it was 90 degrees today. And I could barely stand outside. Yeah. And you're telling me that it's only going to cause moderate decomposition in that time, that amount of time and that specific like calendar time. Yeah, no. It doesn't make any sense. That doesn't check out to me. The autopsy also made no note of any insects on the body, which is essentially just impossible in those conditions.

No. It also listed high levels of decipramine and amatryptylene, which are two antidepressant drugs that Todd was not prescribed. And they spoke with a pharmacist in the documentary that I mentioned in part one. and the pharmacist said like these aren't party drugs like you wouldn't use these to get high like yeah like you're trying to rule these out as like did he take them to yeah to go to his orchard party or whatever which it's like no you wouldn't have taken those because you probably would have like fallen asleep and well at the levels that were in todd's body they actually could have killed him

or at the very least caused a seizure or cardiac arrest like not party drugs so this is and it's like one these weren't party drugs and two the amount just wouldn't have even if they were party drugs, it would have been lethal. Exactly. Lethal or at least like close to lethal. Definitely like incapacitated. Absolutely. Like you would have had to go to the hospital to get your stomach pumped probably.

Very interesting. But, you know, if they had been crushed up and slipped into Todd's drink, then he obviously would have been incapacitated really quickly, which seems to be what kind of happens here. Like I was saying in the beginning, these guys aren't drinking a lot. No. And then you don't really look for drugs in somebody. system, like, they don't necessarily look for GHB all the time.

No, of course not. I don't really know why they found these ones in his system, like, and they didn't look for GHB and other autopsies. I don't know how that works exactly. Maybe it was, it must have been, it can be like what is ordered, you know, like what kind of tests are ordered. So maybe at this point, they just did it recover. I don't know.

Well, I would assume, I mean, you would really look into this one based on the level of decomposition in the amount of time supposedly in the water. So maybe that's why they kind of looked a little bit further. I'm not exactly sure. But back to the insects, no one is buying the lack thereof on Todd's body, and especially not the people who were reinvestigating this case. So the team met up with a man named Eric Benbow, who was a forensic biologist from Michigan State University.

And he confirmed that in his experience, insect evidence is always listed on an autopsy. Yeah. which I would assume. Because insects show up real quick. Well, yeah. They show up even when your body's not found in the water. Exactly. They show up.

Low flies. As soon as a body dies, an amazing layering effect of insects will show. And it's like different ones show up at different times. They show up for different kinds of decomp. They do different things. There's like you can tell such a timetable from the insects on a dead body. Yeah, I would assume so. And like that's the kind of stuff they do at the body farm.

Right. And it's like they'll watch and see like who shows up first, who shows up second, who's going to come, who's going to come way at the end and pick the stuff off the bones at the end. You know, like there's like such a like routine to it almost. It's so crazy. And the thing, so if you follow me on Twitter again, you saw that you'll understand that what I was tweeting about when I say kind of what we get into in a second. Yeah. But I just find it so interesting. Like it's so disturbing that like obviously insects eat our bodies when we die. It's fascinating. It's fucked up. But it's so interesting. It is. And that they're so rigid with how they do it, basically. Yeah. It's a system. It's a routine. They give us evidence with what they do. Right.

Because they allow us to tell a timetable. They allow us to pinpoint closer, at least to a time of death. Like, yeah. It's just really cool that they are evidence. You know, like evidence of, it's just so crazy. Well, and then especially even in the water, like there's different aquatic insects. Exactly. And that's what they were talking about here. They were like, oh, like this insect.

and this kind of insect would have been like right there. Yeah. Now further, there should have been like at least some note made of presumably a large amount of green algae that if Todd had been in the water that long. Like in this specific lake, there's a lot of algae. Yeah. And even if there's not a lot of algae and you're in the water for 21 days, you're going to have some kind of film on your clothing.

Absolutely. There wasn't a lot of film on his clothing. And his mom actually said that was one of the things that struck her as odd. Yeah. Anybody who's had a fish tank? Exactly. You would, you know. Exactly. So they did an experiment that you probably saw me tweet about. Now, pig skin is apparently, and I did not know this, is apparently very similar to human skin, which creeps me the fuck out. So they took five pig carcasses and they put them into the water for three weeks, the exact time that Todd was missing for, and presumably in the water. And they periodically went back to check in to see what was going on. They also dressed one of the pigs to see how much algae would accumulate over, like a certain amount of time. Now, decomposition literally started on day one. Yeah. The carcass became like really bloated and there was a lot of bugs lurking. And they were they were taking note of the

different insects. I think they were even like kind of taking them into like tubes and everything. Of course. Because you're starting to let out gases almost like right away. Especially in the water, which is attracting those insects. So the fact that there was no insects on him is just like it's unheard of. It truly is. It's just not the truth. It's, it's, like, dare I say impossible. No, it is. Because even if he had been in the, I'm like, no, it is. No, it is.

It's absolutely impossible, says me hairstylist. Like, hey, you did your research. I did. But it's just, it doesn't make any sense. Yeah. And it's like, even if you were in the water for one day, there would be some kind of insect on it. Something.

Yeah. Now, so that was one day. Three days later, there were insect eggs laid on the body. Of course. And by day 21, the body was literally just like fizzling out dissolving into the water. Had he been in the water that long, unfortunately. He would have putrefied. There wouldn't have been anything left of him except skeletal remains.

Absolutely. Which is very sad. But I just feel like that whole experiment proves that he was not in the water for that long. Yeah, I don't know how they can look at that. And at least not question it. It's like, come on, you got to start looking at this a little. Dude, it was one of the gnarliest things I've ever seen. my life. It is. It's wild. But like, I need to say this, but so fucking cool.

Well, that's why, like, that's why the body farm has always fascinated me and, like, enthralled me because it's so important. That kind of test is so important to do. It's how we figure these things out. And I used to make fun of you all the time and be like, that's terrifying. Like, you're a fucking creep. I'm like, now, like, sorry. I'm like, take me with you. Because you see the merit in it. It's, it's very interesting. And exactly. Like, said like it can solve things it's like so important so not only that but again i said they they dressed one of the pigs in clothing now the level of algae on these clothes they they were algae at the point they were they took them out they became one with algae they did like it was a it was like somebody

got slimed on nicololio yeah like that makes sense there's no fucking way that he was in the water for 21 no this one is seems pretty cut and dry so something happened here then where was he and who did this to him what I want to know. Now, this is, this is what I was talking about when, like, things are still happening that are involving his mother and his family. A smiley face was not only left on Todd's grave. They put a smiley face on his grave. It looked like a sticker. There was also one found on a tree near where his body was found. Hmm. Now, you could absolutely argue it could be like some fucked up teenagers playing some kind of sick ass prank. Yeah, which teenage kids have been known to do. And by sick-ass, I don't mean like cool dope. I mean disgusting, disturbed teenagers. Like, fuck you guys

if you did that. But can you imagine if you literally meant cool or dope? Which is a dope-ass prank. These sick-ass teenagers. No. Not at all. Not at all. Yeah, it's one of those, the smiley face thing is the thing where I like, it starts to teeter off. I get it. I do. That's where my like skepticism kind of. I absolutely creeps in. But the rest of this one, I'm like, do I know it's like a smiley face killer that did it? No. Do I know that it's somebody who did it? Yes.

For sure. Now, as of February 22nd, 2019, that I believe you say, the Muskegon, Muskegon County prosecutor is strongly considering reclassifying Todd's death as a homicide. But it's like, can we kind of get over to the hump of where you're just like, hey, I saw that pig video too. And like, he was definitely murdered. Like, let's go ahead and rule that a homicide. side. Can we stop just like strongly thinking about it and maybe do something about it? Put one foot in

front of the other and maybe just do it. Like get off your booty. I love that as like a, strongly. I'm really thinking about it. Nobody showed him the pig video. I know it. Strongly thinking. That's it. If you saw the pig video, you wouldn't strongly consider it. You'd be like, we are opening this. I saw the pig video. I tweeted about it. I texted Elaine about it. I asked Drew if I could show him. Drew actually let me show him. Wow. That's impressive. I know. It was wild.

It's just, it's one of those things I say it a lot that it's like, why not just go above and beyond? And if you're wrong and you find out that, yeah, it was an accident, all right, you're wrong, but you did your due diligence. So it's like you can't really feel bad about it. Losing money and resources or not, I think it's for a good cause. And it's like, what's the worst it can happen? You find out that you're right and that it was an accident.

It is weird to me, I will say, that all of these, I shouldn't say all, most of these, cases, all this evidence is coming out during the reinvestigation where like there's like ligature marks around somebody's neck or there's like Todd Give, like he was not in the water for 21 days. There's all these things that you're like, why do you guys not want to open this up? Yeah. And I guess, I mean, again, if you're skeptical of this, you could argue like, you know, it's not real and it will cause mass panic. Like, I get that. Yeah. But also we owe these victims family, families closure. There's at least a couple here. Yeah. That are very questionable. Personally, I feel like every single one that we've talked about so far is a murder. I feel like I don't feel that. No. I felt like there was a couple

that I could definitely see being an accident. Okay. I can see the thing is I can see why you think that. Yeah. I just strongly disagree. Yeah, which is totally fine. Because I'm not going to sit here and claim I know. You know, like I know that it's an accident. Like, I feel like some of them might be accidents. But there's a couple that are, like, pretty, like. Oh, yeah. Like, Todd Guy. I'm like, guys, that looks a little suspicious.

Like, I just, I don't get it. And it also makes me wonder with him being vertical in the water like that, I wonder if somebody tied something to his feet to throw him in. He stayed that way for a little while, then whatever it was slipped off his feet. Oh. And he had already decomposed to the point where gases had escaped. So he stayed that way. Interesting.

Instead of like decomposing in a way where if he was in the water for 21 days, you know, and he was already in a position, maybe he stayed that way because gases didn't escape in a way that would like put his body back onto the surface. That makes sense. I could see that. Who knows? I wonder. Which would again lead to that's murder.

But then you think he was dressed and there wasn't that level of algae found on the clothing. That's the thing. So it's like was he murdered and then like, held and then to get rid of dispose of his body they put him in the water with something attached to his feet oh like closer to maybe it wasn't attached very well and it's and it slipped off pretty quickly yeah and then he just rose to the surface that way and that's why he'd only been in the water for was moderate yeah yeah because maybe he had decomposed a little out of the water sure after he was held for a little bit yeah that's a that's a really solid theory that's just that's just me

I mean this is your line of work I don't know I have no idea. I could absolutely see that. That's, I would have never thought of that on my own. I don't know. I was just, the whole time I've been sitting here thinking the vertical thing and I'm like, I know it happens rarely, but like, it's very, why? Because that's, I think they said that like on the documentary too. They were like, this does happen. For sure. But it's like very, very rare. But it's definitely not like the norm. But then you think about like when we talked about Brian Welzian and it's like he washed up after 77 days. That's wild. Like, it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, those ones are wild. Like barely, like he looked like he'd been missing a week. Those are the ones that I'm. like, all right, fellas, it's time to crack open those old case books. Luckily, Brian Wellesian,

they did open up. Yeah. So let's talk about somebody that you definitely know about. We are going to talk about William Hurley. Yes. If you grew up in or you're from Boston, you know this name. I know this name. Now, William was a 24-year-old Navy veteran living in Boston with his girlfriend of two years named Claire. I saw in some sources that they were engaged and then I've seen in other sources that they were just boyfriend, girlfriend. Either way, they were in love. They were in love, and Claire is a beautiful human being. You can just see her soul is like so pure.

Oh, Claire. I feel so bad for her. My heart goes out to you, Claire. And his parents, obviously. Yeah. So on October 8th, 2009, the night he went missing, he had been invited by some co-workers to go to a Bruins game. William didn't really know that much about hockey, and he wasn't super into the sport,

but he did agree to go anyway. his girlfriend Claire was actually going to be at class that night anyway, so it was like he might as well. Yeah. Now, while he was at the game, he was texting Claire about one of the guys that was there with him. He didn't know the other guy really that well other than from that night. And the guy was apparently just being like a jackass and really getting on Williams nerves. And he texted Claire saying the kid was a tool. And then later he was like, I'm going to kill this kid.

Like obviously he didn't mean like that like. Like he's annoying the shit out of me. He's like, Jesus Christ, I'm going to fucking kill this kid. Now, eventually, about halfway through the game, William decided he was like, I don't like hockey, I don't like this kid. I'm good. And Claire was actually going to be leaving her class pretty soon so she could scoop him on the way. Perfect timing. So he gave her a call and he was like, can you pick me up?

She said, yep. And she was on the phone with William while she was trying to figure out exactly where he was. Now, if you're from Boston, the garden where the Bruins games take place. The Gadden. The Gadden can be, even if you're from here, super hard to now. navigate. Oh, it's a hellscape. It's a, it's a legit hellscape. And especially when you're picking somebody up, because there's about 82 places that they could have exited from, I can feel the anxiety. Oh my, just thinking about it. Even just leaving the garden yourself, like as a,

as a patron, you're like, what way do I go? Where are we? Are we at the right entrance? What street do we park on? Yeah, it's always backwards. You always come out the wrong door and you're like, where the hell am I now? And then you have to find yourself back where you, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's horrific. Boston, am I right? Boston. You are right. So when she got to where William said that he was going to be, she texted him, I'm out front. He wrote back, okay, I'm here, I'm coming. Now, the other thing about the garden, and really just Boston in general, is that you can't sit parked out front. Sure can. You got to just keep going or everybody's going to yell at you and flip you the bird. You have to keep going. So she had to loop around again. And she was just staying like, William, stay in one spot and I'll find you.

Stop moving. Right, especially. And she was confused about, she had said this in the documentary, she was like, I didn't understand why he kept moving. Like, I told him just stay in one spot. Yeah. Now, especially at that point, she was like nervous too because she knew that his phone was dying.

Oh. Which, like, obviously at that moment is like, oh, crap, your phone's going to die. But now you're like, oh, my God. Yeah. So eventually somebody told Will, like, she heard somebody in the background yell that he was at 99 Nashua Street. And Claire was relieved because she was only 150 feet. away from that point, according to her GPS, 150 feet.

My God. But when she got to that point and pulled up there, Will wasn't there. It had been less than a minute probably. I was going to say. Two minutes, maybe, if she's driving slow. So she got out of the car and she yelled his name, nothing. He literally just like vanished into thin air. That's wild about this case.

This one specifically is insane in just even the more you get into it. She was 150 feet away. And she says it. On the phone with him. She said, like, I looked at my GPS. Here's someone. I was 150 feet away and I was relieved. Like, oh, finally I found him. Nope.

So in the following days, Claire did everything she could think of. She called Will's mom who came to Boston from, I believe, North Carolina. There were missing posters all along the water that Claire had hung up and people searching the city, but nothing. It would be six days before William's body was found in the Charles. Now that's a river if you're not from here. There were blunt impact injuries to his head, a bruise on his nose going under the right eye, which was now completely shut. And there were 18 micrograms of GHB present in his body.

So he had absolutely been drugged. For sure. Like obviously. Now, William's cell phone was found right near where Claire would have picked him up. It was like he dropped his cell phone and just like vanished into another world. Because someone abducted him. Mm-hmm. Now, the cell phone looked like it had been run over.

and I guess the battery was missing. Okay. So, hi. It was given back to Williams' mother Lynn after the original investigation. So Kevin and his team asked if they could see the phone and maybe kind of get it up and working again. Now, they were hoping they could even like look at some of his text messages. And that's actually how they were able to get the text that I was talking about and the call logs calling Claire. So they brought the phone to a digital forensic analyst, which I was like,

What? Hell. Yeah. That's a thing. Like, that's so, like, all that just like the different forensics is my favorite. There's so many avenues you can go down if you want to get into forensics. There's something for everything. And it's like these people are so laser focused on their one specialty. It's like, oh. And they're just like so well-educated and well-spoken. Like listening to them talk, you're just like, don't ever stop. Just keep on talking. No, one of those people was Derek Ellington. the digital forensic analysis, or analyst, wow. Analysis. It's even a new specialty in an analysis.

Yeah, it's great. Now, in his opinion, the phone had been more than run over. It seemed like somebody had snapped it, taken the battery, and then ran it over. So, like, clearly somebody wanted this phone, dunzo. Perhaps the person who he was saying is really annoying and I want to kill him and I want to leave. That's kind of what I was thinking to. I don't know. And again, these were, he didn't know.

this guy very well. These weren't like co-workers. I don't think that it never said anywhere that these were like his buddies. Yeah. Like I feel like when it says you're going out with co-workers, it's like they're kind of your friends. They're just like people you see at work. Right. Exactly. Like you don't know. Like you're my co-worker. Yeah. I never see you outside of work. Yeah. We have such an interesting job. We do. We're literally together every single day. Yep. But in addition to the phone weirdness, they also wanted to look more into the injuries that William had suffered that night. And I actually talked to you a little bit about this and I forgot what you said. So we'll get into it.

I think I like debunked one thing in my own mind. I think you did. But I think I may have re-bunked it in my research. I rebunked it. So while talking to Dr. Elizabeth Leposta, she explained to the team that the injuries to William's face weren't entirely consistent with falling into the water because most of them were in the recess areas of his face. This is what I was talking to you about.

Yeah. Now, she went on to explain that typically when a person falls into a body of water, they hit the more prominent parts of their face, like your chin, your nose, maybe even your forehead if you're me. Yeah, things that are like protruding instead of like convex or cheek bones. Yeah, not like underneath your eye, like him or like kind of the part of your nose that's in between your eyebrows kind of goes like in a bit. So you're not really going to hit that usually when you go into the water. Now I lost my place. The only way to explain Will's injuries was basically a that he fell into something when he fell into the water that would have been able to hit the recess area of his face. Yeah. But, and I will say, to be fair, it is not unlikely that that happened if you

know how nasty the Charles River is. If you've been in the Charles. There's a lot of stuff just lurking in there. Well, my, my thing was like, what if he hit something that was protruding? Right. Like, even while he was like floating. Exactly. Or moving in the, in the, in the Charles at some point. What if something was sticking out and happened to be able to. to reach. Yeah, I almost think of like, there's probably like old fucking pipelines and shit in there. Dude, there's like old mobsters in there. There's definitely old.

There's all sorts of things in there. Yeah. But the bruising around his face means that he must have been alive at the time he got the injury and at least for several minutes after for bruising to occur. That's a very good point. So that's where I rebuunk your theory a little bit. You didn't have bruised if it was post-mortem, right? Unless, because I fully believe he was murdered.

do too. For sure. There's, you can't convince me otherwise. I don't even try. No, there's nothing that says to me at all that this was an accident. Not one thing. Even just once you get to GHB, I'm like, oh yeah, they were murdered. And like finding the phone where he last was talking to her and then like, he was talking to her. He was planning on getting in that car with her. Right. Where the hell did it? He wouldn't have just wandered off again. Like it doesn't make sense. It's so crazy because you would assume that she would have seen him like crossed the street or something. But that's why I think like, someone really, I think they had to have like tossed him in a van or something. Yeah, or like led him away quickly. So it was like really unnoticeable. But not. I mean, she was on the phone with him. But like after a Bruins game. No, this was midway through. Or excuse me, midway through a brun's game. But still. Some people do leave. During those games, there's like a lot of shit going on around the garden. And I mean, nighttime at Boston. Nighttime and Boston. There's just a lot going on. Yeah. So it could be like a very crowded area, which would allow someone to quickly lead him away. Yeah.

But I just, I think it's with, with this one with the, like, I think he could have been clinically alive when he hit the water. You think so? Which I think he could have been. I'm not saying he was. Okay. Because I have no evidence to say he was except the bruising. Right.

If he did happen to hit something in the water and he was clinically alive. Sure. Then it would have bruised. But to be honest, it sounds more like a beating. That's what I think. especially those specific areas, like the bridge of your nose right here and underneath your eye. And the other thing that bothers me is to the point where the eye swelled shut. Exactly.

Like that's not something hitting you in the water. It's not a bump. Yeah, that's a forcible injury. So it's, yeah, to me it sounds like a beating. I think so too. And it's like, I don't really think he entered that water alive, especially based on everything we know so far about the alleged smiley face killers and just these victims in general.

I don't think so. Yeah. Now, before Will was found, actually, Claire spoke with a police detective that told her the diving team had not found Will while they were searching in that area of the river. And he literally said to her that she could, quote, put that to rest. Because that was like one of the things that she was really worried about. Like maybe he fell in the water or like she was really worried about water. It's almost like she had this feeling. Yeah.

It seems like obviously they were very connected. So I don't put it past her for having just a gut feeling. Damn. Right. Now a week later, Will's body was found in the Charles, like I said. So he had told her she could put that to bed and then a week later he was found there. Now, I do find that interesting that they search that specific area. Yeah. Because it's like, because that's happened before in these cases. And then these bodies turn up. And it's like, it's just interesting to me. Like it does fit kind of the M.O. and like, you know, it all does kind of link up that it does. they're not there, then all of a sudden they're there. Right. It just, it doesn't make sense. And the location where his body was found is pretty compelling stuff because where he was found would mean that his body was traveling against the current.

That usually doesn't happen, especially with unfortunately lifeless body. Yeah, current tends to go one way, you know, carry things with it. It does. As opposed to against it. I mean, especially in Boston, too. can get crazy winds here. That's weird. And this is my favorite fucking part of this entire thing. So I've talked about Dr. Lee Gilbertson. He was the doctor on Kevin's team. He volunteered to recreate the scenario and straight up hopped into the fuck. Like for him to hop into the Charles

River, this man is dedicated. That's real dedication to the cause. So they found a day that matched the weather conditions on like, or like a week that matched the weather conditions on that particular time when Will would have been in the water. And their findings were that it would have been impossible for the wind to push a body against the current. I love that they went this hard with it. I love it. You have to, I'll rewatch it with you. Yeah, because I got to see this. So good. So that led them to believe that Will was dumped in the trials either the morning that he was found, like right there, or that he was dumped in the Charles from a different point than they had surmised in the original investigation. Okay. Because they never had.

an exact pinpoint. They were just like, it was probably around here because he was talking to her, like 150 feet, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. Exactly. Now, one man was interviewed, and this is again, we're going to get into like the smiley face stuff. So it's, you know, brace yourself. So one man interviewed said that he saw three stars next to a smiley face spray painted on an electrical box near the harbor. Now, in Boston, like I think I said in part one, there's been about 12 cases presumably linked to the smiley face killings. Three of them were near Boston Harbor. So it is interesting that we have a combination of smiley face and stars, like three stars. For sure, and three stars. But also smiley faces and stars, like I said, are pretty common graffees. But interesting. Right. Something to entertain.

Exactly. Now, there were also another three, including where William went missing near 91, or excuse me, 99 Nashua Street. Three smiley faces there. There were three near Brighton. where three bodies were found and three near Boston University where three bodies were found. So for Boston, there's smiley faces near all the bodies that were found, all 12. Interesting. Now, the guy who was interviewed said about this, you have 12 arsons in the neighborhood, you got an arsonist. Basically saying like, all these kids are turning up dead, you got a serial killer. Where there's smoke, there's fire.

Exactly. That's exactly what you're saying. Also, I wonder if, and I don't know if they said this or not, if those, did they paint over those smiley faces or are they still all there? I don't know about that particular one, because the other thing, too, is that the documentary came out in 2018, so I'm assuming it took probably like a year or two to film, so I don't know. Yeah, I wonder. But I know that in some of the cases they've been painted over. Yeah. And actually, it's really weird that you ask that right now because I'm getting into our next victim and his smiley face was painted over. Oh, really? Oh, that's

funny. But I don't even think I have it in here, so I'll just say it now. There was a smiley face found near his body where it was recovered and it was painted over like I said and then they went into the bar where he went missing from and there was smiley faces on the foundation in the bar put there so it is interesting interesting again the smiley face part of this does not really interest me that much yeah it's because it's not like you know they're the I'm trying to think of like a really intricate I know like like the the Celtic knot killers, you know what I mean? Where it's like something you don't see all the time.

You know what I mean? Where you were like, weird that all these Celtic knots are just showing up in all these places. That would be like, huh, that's weird. But like smiley faces, that's the only reason it's like so hard to just. Do you know how to just hinge yourself on that? We should try to get into contact with Kevin Gannon. We should.

And like maybe even just like kind of hear what he, because I don't, I want to hear a little more what he has to say about the smiley faces. I do too. This is his theory. I'm very interested to hear that. Because I agree with him. These people are absolutely murdered.

So I'm going to figure out how to reach out to his team. We're going to try to make it happen. We're going to try. Here we are declaring it out loud. Don't hold on to my every last word. Nothing may come of this, but we are declaring it. Listen, there's been people in the past that I've tried to get on and we got them on. We started this podcast and I was like, wow, I wonder if we'll ever have somebody

like cool on there. And then we got like Billy Jensen. and I was like, excuse me. Frigid M and Christine, I died at that. It immediately, yeah. Camas Pizzito, Heather Bish. So, you know, let's, we're going to put it out there. I think Kevin Gannon and the team are going to come on the pod.

We're going to manifest this, right? I'm going to email them tonight. Yeah, we're going to do. That's beside the point. Let's get into this. So our next victim is Tommy Booth. Tommy was, this one especially, is just like, you can't convince me otherwise. Oh, give it to me.

Tommy was a 24-year-old union worker from Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania and his mother, Barbara, who she just could be any of like my friend's moms. Like she has that vibe about her that I just felt super connected to her. She has a Boston vibe. She's a mom. She's a mom. But she described him as a sensitive, sincere, self-proclaimed mama's boy and said that he was the glue that held their family together. Oh, shut the fuck.

So just like, take my heart and step on it a million times. She was actually on an episode. I just found this randomly on YouTube when I was like looking into this case. She was on an episode of Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry. Really? I love Tyler Henry so much. I know not everybody's into the medium thing, but I am. And I just thought this was worth mentioning.

Tyler did say, quote, there's so much of an emphasis on the investigative side of this that this person is not even having me talk about the passing itself. They're having me talk about the investigation after. And there's a reason. When it came to an investigation around this death, The thing is that there's this feeling of just like error, just like a lot of error, human error, to be honest. That's his number one message here, even beyond his cause of passing.

Interestingly, it's like, look at the details of the investigation. It doesn't add up. So he was saying basically that he connected with Tommy. He didn't say that himself, he was like, I don't have Tommy. Like he was just like this person that I've connected with is saying this. Is it at least saying that this investigation was botched? And it was. So Tommy went missing on January 19th, 2008, while he was out celebrating a friend's 21st birthday.

Now, something that struck me as really odd about this particular case was that his friend group researched the bar that they were going to. Oh, yeah. They looked into it. And it also just seemed like an odd place to go. Like the bar just seemed to be in like a strip mall and it just seemed like a regular bar. Yeah. But like, I don't know.

Maybe they had a cool dance floor or something. Yeah, who knows? there was a designated driver for the night though and when it came time for them to go like to leave everybody was looking for Tommy and they couldn't find him no in one source I saw that it was time to leave and that they were looking for Tommy and couldn't find him and then in another source I read that they got kicked out and they couldn't find Tommy oh okay so either way they just they had to I think in more sources and I believe actually Barbara the mother said that they were kicked out I think they were like smoking pot or something. Oh, okay. And it makes a little more sense because it's like,

oh, crap, like we have to go. Like we can't stick around and look for him. That makes sense. But like I said, in other cases, he just seemed to banish. So it took 14 days to find Tommy's body. And his body was actually found behind the bar laying face down in a creek. There was like a small creek behind this bar. Now the creek is literally 30 feet from the back door of the bar, which now is shut down. There were drag marks in front of Tommy. And a boot print next to him, which was really odd because they probably wouldn't have lasted a two-week period. No, definitely not. Now, Tommy's nose and chin were full of dirt, clay, and small rocks, like he had been drug at least some length to that specific spot. So it does make sense.

Now, the original investigator tried to say that that wasn't a drag mark. This specific mark was like from the tide or something, like from the water going in and out. But it's a drag mark. So I'm going to go on records. But it's a drag mark. So original investigator. You shut your face. Yeah. Shut up.

No, but even everybody like reinvestigating this was like, yeah. That's pretty much a good drag mark. Now, when his body was discovered, again, he was missing for two full weeks. That's 14 days. Yeah. He was found in full rigor. Oh, this is the one. This is the one.

This is the one. Now, rigor mortis definitely doesn't last two weeks, like, ever. From what I've looked into, like, it, that's. That's not a thing. No. I mean, environmental factors can, like, fuck with it. I saw that, but it, nothing said, like, it would fuck with it for that amount of time.

That seems like a long time. And again, he was only mildly decomposed. Yeah, that's where, like, all of these things are the. But again, I will play devil's advocate here so that you don't have to. It was wintertime. I was literally just going to say that. It was really cold. So that can slow down the process of decomposition.

That's the thing. And it can really fuck with all those things. And temperature can fuck with rigor in a big way. And it can hold rigor in a certain stage for longer. So that is a thing that can happen. So it's a possibility, but it's a rare possibility. I would say that like two weeks seems like a lot. But I know that it can stretch for quite a bit if the temperature, the conditions are correct.

Okay. But again, it does seem like, eh. Yeah. It's usually very unlikely, but it is possible. Yeah. So, but again, he was laying face down in a creek for two weeks and only mildly decomposed. And like we were just saying, weather messes with it. But that was actually one of the theories that the original investigators had.

Like, they went with the whole weather thing. They believed that Tommy's body had actually gotten stuck under the frozen part of the creek. And then for lack of a better term was like spit out when the water melted. And then he ended up in that spot. Okay. So, I don't know, because here's the thing. Tommy's stepfather's friend walked up and down the banks of that creek like a couple days or a day before Tommy was discovered and he never saw him there. What? And he also said that the portion of the creek that he was, that Tommy was found in was not frozen at all.

And he had been standing right above the spot where Tommy's body had been discovered. Okay, that's weird. That's super weird. Yeah, that's weird. Now, another weird thing here is that there was fixed lividity on Tommy's back, but he was found lying face first. Right. And again, in the water when you're drowning, it would be really strange to have fixed lividity in the back, right? Yeah.

Yeah, that's a strange one. It's not a drowning. That's very strange. Yeah. It's not common in drowning victims. And I think I've said that in a couple of the other ones who did have, again, fixed lividity in their back. And we've said, I was going to say, because there was another one. I think, I believe it was Brian Wellesian.

Now, it's not really crazy to think that somebody could have wanted to harm Tommy. In the weeks leading up to his death, actually, he was saying some pretty strange things. He actually confided in an uncle the day that he died, that he was running with a tough crowd who were removing drugs and guns, and he felt like he was in over his head. And he actually mentioned just moving to Florida and starting fresh. Like he was, he was, he was, he was. feeling again like he was in over his head. I can't think of another way to say that. Yeah. He was stressed out about it. Okay. And then about a week before he went missing, his mom heard him on

the phone with someone and he seemed to be like really stressed out and just repeating over and over again. No, I would never do that man. No, no. All right. Yeah. And his mom was like, what? And then he made a separate comment to her. And I don't even know how it came out, but he said he probably wouldn't be around that much longer. And she was like, shut up. Like, don't say that. What the fuck? But again, I mean, you don't think of anything. Of course, you're not thinking this.

Something like this. Yeah. Now, behind the bar on the wall facing the creek, there was a smiley face spray painted. Which in this one, it does creep me out a little bit because it's a very close proximity. Yeah. I mean, all of these smiley faces definitely freak me out. Yeah, the idea is a little of, like, creepy. It's pretty terrifying.

And that is a, that is weird. That one is weird. And they painted over it and like I said, another one showed up. Yeah. So I haven't seen anything about whether or not they were going to reclassify his death. I think the original investigator wants to see more evidence based on what I saw in the documentary because he is fully convinced that this was just an accidental drowning. They actually had somebody recreate the crime scene and like recreate what would have happened

and everything and the guy still wasn't fully convinced. Yeah. There's something strange with this one. Yeah. It's just, it's really weird. And honestly, it's really heartbreaking because his mother believes that he was murdered. Yeah. Like, it seems like.

And it's like, just look into it further, man. I know. I feel like some of these are like a pride thing where the original investigators are like, nope, like we did a good job and it was good enough. Sure. And that really bothers me. Like, yeah. Put your pride aside and think of if this happened to your son and like what your wife would

think and what you would think. That's the thing. It's like that's, I really do think that this is at least partially a pride thing. There's no way. Because it's, I mean, it's also human nature to have like that. Like, no, I did a good job. Yeah, of course. I don't like to be criticized.

But like you got to let it down. You got to let it go. For the greater good. And you got to sit there and go, maybe I was wrong about this. It's philosophy one. Yeah, it's just you got to look at it from a different angle. You do. You do.

Shift your perspective. So the last victim that we're going to talk about tonight is Dakota James. Now, just like all the other ones, this is a particularly weird one. But this one is really weird, because it's almost like whoever did this to Dakota had tried to previously. Huh. Okay. Do tell. This one will fuck you up. So on December 15th, 2016, Dakota's friend Shelley got a call from Dakota, and he said, I don't know where I am. I'm so cold. Please help me. I'm lost. What the fuck? Yeah. Now he was out walking in what he thought was North Pittsburgh and had no idea how he ended up there.

Like he just like came to while he was walking around on the streets and called his friend and was like, I don't know where the fuck I am. Like you got to help me. Sounds like he was drugged. Yep. So luckily he was sharing his location with this particular friend, Shelley, and she was able to see that he wasn't even in North Pittsburgh. He was in South Pittsburgh. So he was very disoriented. And something was incredibly wrong.

I'm getting like goosebumps now because I know what we're getting to. This is fucking crazy. So when Shelley got to Dakota, he was coming out of a hotel, walking toward a black SUV that was parked facing the wrong way in the wrong lane. No, she yelled his name as he made his way to the car. Or excuse me, she yelled his name and as he made his way to her car, like once he kind of like snapped out of his trance, the SUV sped off. Okay. Like, weird.

Come on. Weird. Now he told her that he had gone out to the bars around seven o'clock with his co-workers, which I don't know. His co-workers are fucking weird. You got to stop hanging out with co-workers, everyone. It's trouble. Don't do it. That's why I never hang out with Elena. Yeah. Now, and he said that he went out and like that was all he remembered, just the beginning of the night getting like drinks with them. His words now were like totally clear and he was walking in a straight line but couldn't figure out where he had been for the past four hours. Just amnesia. But he was like, really shook up about it and just like really didn't want to talk about it. So they didn't really talk about it after that. What the fuck? Now fast forward to five weeks later on January 25th, 2017,

23 year old Dakota is out with these same coworkers. And he gets kicked out of a bar for being quote unquote too drunk. So he started making his way back home. Also, if one of your fucking friends gets kicked out of a bar because somebody thinks they're too drunk, one of you has to go with them. Yeah, just somebody, like, you never let your, like, friend leave a bar. Well, you know what? I have to say, like, bar should let that happen. I know, it is, it should be on them to, like, at least have somebody go with you. Or, like, I know it's not, like, their thing, but, like, I know.

Call you an Uber. Like, can we be a little more human here? I know. I feel like it could avoid a lot of. Just make sure that you do the best you can. Just do your due diligence. Like, do what you would want somebody to do to your kid or your sister. Exactly.

Or your brother or your mom or whoever you like. love or someone you love. I don't care. Just like treat people nicely. Yeah, walk my drunk dog home, okay? Come on. Come on. You just wanted to have a good time. Yeah. So he started making his way back home. Dakota had just gotten a raise at work. He had plans with his family that weekend. He was a grad student. He was excited about finishing school. He had everything going for him. Yeah, that sounds like it. But according to the police, he tripped and fell while trying to use the bathroom in the water near the Roberto Clemente Bridge, and he drowned. Now, interestingly enough, there are 11 smiley faces graffitied on that bridge.

11. 11. Okay. Now, Dakota, who by the way, was the motherfucking swim team captain, oh, okay. D drowned. Yeah, I don't know. The swim team captain drowned.

Okay. I don't think so. Interesting. Now, he was missing for a total of 40 days before he was discovered in the Ohio River. They're missing for a long time. 40 days. Now Robinson Townships volunteer swift water rescue group. Say that five times fast.

Swift Water Rescue. That's hard to say. You've got to say the Robinson Townships volunteer swift water rescue view the whole thing. Damn. I can't do it. I can't say it. I feel like I'm reading it and I can't say it. I know right.

But they recovered Dakota's body two miles beyond Emsworth back channel dam. Now obviously after 40 days in the water and probably having gone underneath a dam, you would be pretty beat up and very badly decomposed at that point. I mean, I would say so. Probably. Yeah. But Dakota's body, like the others, was in fairly good shape. The rescuers actually recognized him from the news.

Really? Yeah, from the news. They said that they had rescued and recovered nearly a dozen bodies from that same water, and out of all of them, Dakota's was in the best shape. Yeah, that doesn't make sense. Nope. And autopsy revealed that there was just a lot of them. that there was GHB in his system.

Wow, I'm shocked. So weird that all of these guys have the same drug in their system. Yeah, it's super, super weird. Other than Todd Guy, those two. What an accident. Drug combinations. I'm like, who the fuck had that? That seems like it was like a last ditch effort kind of thing.

Well, and who knows, maybe they tried to put GHB in a system and they just didn't test for that. And they saw the other two drugs like first. Maybe. Maybe the GHB didn't work or something. Yeah. But anyways, there was GHB in Dakota system. But other than that, they thought it was an accident. Other than that drug that was placed in the system.

I said it before, but like every time I see that somebody has like GHB in their system, I'm like, oh, okay, like somebody was going to murder you or at least take advantage of you. Somebody was going to do something nefarious with you. You don't usually drug people that you're just hanging out with. I'm not usually. I never drug people that I just want to hang out with. Me neither, but I can't speak for everybody else. So I just figured my blanket statement.

Good call. Good call. Now, Dakota's family knew that this was not an accident. But they were actually being brushed off by the police and not at all taken seriously. That's a real fucking bummer. Which is fucked. So they were like, cool, fuck you. And they hired a PI.

Good. Now they got the autopsy photos and the recovery photos. Fuck yeah. And then Kevin's team became involved and they just fucking got shit done. Oh, Kevin, our next guest. I'm so proud of them. I know, me too. I just like, I'm going to ask him about this.

But Kevin and his team brought the autopsy and recovery photos to our boy Cyril Wecht who saw a very apparent ligature mark around Dakota's neck. Oh, okay. Like so apparent that when they showed it in the documentary, I was like, oh, yeah, ligature mark. You're like, in my professional opinion, that is a ligature mark. Like, I've seen one. Now, this was really interesting.

I've never heard of this before. There were also, it was, there was also blood pooling in the nail beds on the third and fourth fingers, which he said was indicative of somebody trying to relieve pressure from a ligature. Like if you take your third and your middle finger and your ring finger and you do around your neck, like you're trying to get something off the thing out. Like crazy. So there was pooling there. Isn't that so amazing that like forensic pathologist can tell you that? Can see that and be like, oh, that's what that's from.

I want to be that smart. It's unreal. I'm not even kidding you. This case made me want to like go take a couple classes in like forensics. Yeah, just to learn. I don't have the time to do that at all. But I want to. But I want to.

But it's so interesting. And as for the ligature mark, he said it was, quote, strongly suggestive and entirely consistent with a ligature having been applied around the neck. I do not hesitate for one moment to be highly critical of the neck evaluation. Wow. And again, I think we said it in part one. But for another person like in the business to be critical of another person's work is a very big deal. Oh yeah.

That does not happen a lot. Like for, yeah, it's not like forensic pathologists are running around being like, well, that guy's a fucking hack. Yeah. There's a lot of respect within. the field. Yeah, it's like you want to, because you're all in it, you're all supposed to be in it for the right reasons and the same reason, you know what I mean, for the, to speak for that dead person. Exactly. That's what you're supposed to be in for. And it's like, so you want to believe everybody's

in for it for that. So you're not going to go questioning people. You think they did their job. No, but then you look at it. And then when you look at this and you're like, so if one of them is, if like Cyril Wecht is being like, I'm questioning this evaluation on this one part, It's a huge deal. He's questioning it. And he's questioning it out loud, which means there's something wrong with it. Right.

Now, the DA was like, no, no, no, no, no. You're highly mistaken, very, like, honored guest, so well, they tried to say that the ligature mark around Dakota's neck was blood from his mouth and nose. So Numero Uno.

Wow. His mom was like, that's super weird, though, because he was in the water for 40 days. Like, I feel like that would have washed off. That's a, that's a, old one. And numero dose, most of the ligature mark that was like super duper apparent was on the back of his neck. So it's like how exactly did that happen? Did it like drip down and like pool around like in the water? And take like a hard right angle and like were they out for a Sunday drive?

Did it defy gravity and go somewhere? No. That made me want to like belt out in show tune. But that doesn't really happen to me a lot. No. And it's like I feel you on that. But like this is one of those moments that I won't do it. Yeah, no. But I get what you wanted to do there. Wave lengths. I'm here with you. Defying gravity. There you go. But Cyril Wecht said that he strongly suggests the reopening of this case. And he definitely thinks that at least the very, at least the very, I meant to say at the very least, the manner of the death should be changed to homicide. Yeah. Like, we're talking ligature marks. We're talking blood pooling. We're talking missing for 40 days. Like, how much more do you need to say this is a homicide? Yeah. I don't

understand. Now, unfortunately for that to happen, the medical examiner would have to be willing to review the case. And he didn't want to until the family went to the media, which I thought was like really. I'm just going to go ahead and say it like, that's fucking shitty. I was just going to say that's shady. Shady as hell. That's real shady. Like, it's shady sounding. Here I am. That's shady. It's like, I guess you could say it's like one of those pride things again, but like put your fucking pride aside. Their child died. Well, that's the thing. It's like at least since, there and go, okay, I think I did the job that I, I feel proud of. Sure, I'll look at it again. Well, and if you had full confidence in what you originally found, I think that you would go into it

and say, sure, I'll do it again because I did a great job the first time. I would 100% think that. Because I don't want to do something again. I did my job the first time. I wouldn't be like, so I'm not doing it again. I'd be like, okay, family who is grieving, who I am supposed to be giving answer. That's my whole job. It's literally my job title. Is to speak for your love. one who can't speak anymore. Yep. And it's like, of course, I would go back and be like, sure, I'll take a whole other look at him.

Obviously. And I'll give you the same findings if I did my job correctly. And if I didn't, then boom, we have something else. Yeah. Right. Yeah, that to me is like pride or not. So after they went to the media, he was like, oh, I'll meet with you. Oh, nice.

But as of 2019, I haven't seen any update that he did review this case. I tried to find any updates and there's none. All right, Kevin. that's something we're going to have to talk about. Have, come on. Now, obviously, I firmly believe that somebody murdered Dakota James, granted all the evidence in the photos alone, but I have one more tidbit for you. There was a transaction made on Dakota's credit card two days after he disappeared.

When he was discovered, his credit card was found with his body. So who used that credit card? That's weird. Very weird. Now, again, playing devil's advocate, I will say I believe it was like some kind of like PayPal transaction. So I know that those can be scheduled kind of like right? Yeah, I think they can. Or sometimes like having an automatic payment come out of your bank a little bit later.

Yeah. Like maybe you spent the money on Tuesday but it didn't really come out. Right. So I guess it could be like a case like that. But that's still weird to look at. I will say that piece of evidence isn't as compelling to me as everything else. Yeah. But it's there. It was just a fun little tidbit. It's there though. And it's there and it's here's on top of everything else. That's the thing. You have to like even the small things when you put them in with the big things, they become more compelling.

Yeah. That's when you start to get the whole picture. It's true. So it's worth mentioning. And there's some other things that I left out with each and every victim because I really want you guys to go watch the documentary. Like there's just a couple of things and I didn't want to take all the work that they did obviously. Yeah. So definitely go watch that. The smile face killers documentary. on oxygen. Yeah. Now, there are arguments against the smiley face theory, and I think we kind of talked about him basically throughout this whole thing. Smiley faces are very common graffiti. Drowning is a very common way to die, unfortunately. And the biggest thing of all is that what is the motive?

That's the thing that I struggle with is I do too. Why? I know not everybody has a reason. Some people just like to do bad things. things. But it's like, this is a very big operation. That seemingly would involve a lot of people. Well, it's like a cross country. Like this is a ring. It absolutely is. So what is the purpose of the ring? Is it just a ring that likes to do this? I don't know. I don't get it. But it's so weird because you usually don't think of serial killers as working together because they're egotistical.

They don't want to work together. Yeah. Like in most of the time in the grand scheme of things. No. But I'll leave you with this. That's like the scariest part when there's no motive. All right, Billy Loomis. I was just going to say, Billy Loomis. I had to end it on. Scream. Billy Loomis.

Wow. Go watch that documentary. Me and Elena are going to go watch it together right now. Holy shit. And also just says like, because we talked a lot about like dead bodies and forensic pathology and all that fun stuff. Go read Stiff by Mary Roach. It's a really good book.

I have the book. I'll let you let, I will let you borrow it. And it's a really good book. And you can all borrow my book. My copy. I actually want to read that. We'll just pass it around. We'll just pass it around.

Everybody write your notes in the margins. I want that. Like Jess Mariano from Gilmore Girls. Yes. And but yeah, it's a really good book. It goes into a lot of like the after death stuff. And it's fascinating. It is fascinating.

Because I mean, I only touched like the tip of the iceberg reading what I read and I would love to find out. Oh, yeah. I have so many books now that you'll be like, oh. And I think it will be helpful like going forward with four pieces, you know. Yeah, it always is. So thanks for listening, guys. Wow, that was amazing.

And I am still stumped. Oh, you fucker. I'm still stumped. So annoyed. I'm still stumped. There's a few, for sure, murder. Yeah. 100% don't even, like, I don't even have to bat an eyelash at it.

There's a couple that I'm like, I don't know. See all of them. Could have been an accident. Moira. I can definitely see some accidents, but there's some murder in there. There's murder all over the place. I don't know if they're very similar, so I don't know. It could be the same people, but that I'm like, it could just be different people.

Yeah? I don't know. I don't know, Kevin. You tell me, Kevin. Keff, Kev. Kevin. But in every single case that we talked about, there was only moderate decomposition and all of these bodies were found in the water. Like that doesn't really happen.

But then obviously, like weather and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So tell us what you think. Yeah, guys, you got to tell us what you think. Had to WWWW. I'm kidding. Did that seem like it was like, tell us what you think. Tell us what you think.

If you'd like to be considered. All right, guys, we love you. And thank you so much for listening, as always. And we hope you keep it weird. But it's weird that you're Elena and you're still on the fence. God darn it. I'm sorry.