Smiling Faces

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Story 1.

The Smiley Face Killers

For the last quarter of a century, the bodies of fit and healthy young men have been recovered from the waterways which criss-cross the US.

Whilst their deaths were ruled accidental by the authorities, a small group of retired detectives believed that they were instead the victims of an organized group of murderers.

Who are the smiley face killers?

For Kevin Gannon, it began on the morning of the 7th of April 1997, with the discovery of a body floating in the New York Bay, not far from the 65th Street Pier.

As the duty sergeant of the NYPD Special Investigation Division, he had been called to assist with the recovery of the deceased by the city's harbour patrol unit.

It had not taken long at all to identify the victim as 21-year-old university student Patrick McNeill,

but the circumstances surrounding the death would set in motion a chain of events which would stay with Gannon forever.

As he flipped through the pages of McNeil's missing person report, the career detective noted that the youth had gone missing almost two months prior, last seen stumbling out of a bar in Manhattan's Upper East Side.

But the body laid out on the mortuary slab in front of him had not decomposed enough to have been floating in the water for the last week, let alone eight or nine weeks.

As the autopsy proceeded, Gannon found himself noting down further troubling inaccuracies.

In addition to the abnormally low level of decay, fly larvae were found in the body, which should not have been possible given the cold temperatures at the time McNeil had gone missing.

There were also minor burn marks and lesions, indicative of the victim having been restrained.

A year later, as Gannon continued to puzzle over the tragic death of Patrick McNeil, he received word that another body had been found in the same stretch of water.

22-year-old Larry Andrews had been celebrating New Year's Eve with friends in Times Square when he disappeared.

His remains had been located just yards from where McNeil's body had been found, and the circumstances surrounding the case were just as troubling.

Gannon had never been comfortable with the idea of Patrick McNeil drunkenly staggering 16 miles across one of the most populated cities on the planet without either collapsing or being rendered assistance by someone he had encountered.

Now, Larry Andrews had made an equally improbable journey on one of the busiest nights of the year.

The bodies of both men indicated to Gannon that they had been out of the water for the months they had been missing, deposited shortly before their discovery.

Someone had restrained them, held them in captivity and killed them, before leaving their remains to be carried out into the New York Bay.

And if all his years as an investigator had taught him anything, it was that there would be more victims, either already missed by the authorities, or waiting to be discovered.

Upon his retirement from the MYPD, Gannon enlisted the help of two other veteran detectives, Anthony Duarte and Mike Donovan, to further investigate the burgeoning number of cases he had uncovered.

The team were subsequently joined by Lee Gilbertson, a professor of criminal justice, and together they tried to build a working hypothesis to explain the trend they had identified.

What they discovered makes for grim reading.

During a 30-year period, the bodies of over 50 young men have been found lying in water across an area covering 11 states.

All were of college age and either successful or promising students.

The overwhelming majority of the victims were white males, and all had either been out socializing with friends or were on their way home after doing so.

Each case had been investigated and classified as either accidental or unexplained in nature.

But in every instance, Gannon easily identified commonalities or characteristics which contradicted the official narrative.

Many of the victims possessed injuries inconsistent with a trip or fall, a significant number had traces of drugs or medication in their bloodstream, and in some cases, their bodies appeared to have been staged prior to their recovery.

Whilst investigating the first few cases, The retired detectives began to discover eerily similar graffiti, painted at or near to the sites where the bodies bodies had been found.

These were all variations of a crudely rendered smiley face.

The size and style of these logos varied widely, as did the manner in which they had been painted, but all depicted a circular face with a pair of eyes and a wide curving smile.

As he interviewed the families of the victims, Gannon promised he would do his utmost to persuade the authorities to revisit their cases and initiate a criminal investigation, but he quickly discovered that the various police departments he approached treated him with open suspicion.

Often, they refused to accept his findings, declining to release autopsy reports and essential crime scene photographs, which might assist him.

After 20 years of investigation, Gannon and his team believe that there is a well-organized network of murderers and serial killers operating within the United States.

They identify and stalk their targets, striking when the victim is intoxicated and at their most vulnerable.

The subject is imprisoned for a lengthy time before being drowned and then deposited back within the areas where police had already searched.

A smiley face is then crudely rendered nearby, where it can easily be found.

The case of 23-year-old Dakota James has many of the hallmarks of the MO put forward by Kevin Gannon.

On the evening of January 25th, 2017, Dakota left a bar in downtown Pittsburgh and headed towards the nearby 7th Street Bridge, making his way over the Ohio River to his home address.

Somehow, in the short distance between the bar and the riverside, he disappeared.

40 days later, his remains were recovered, 10 miles downriver.

Following an autopsy, the police stated that they believe Dakota had stopped at the side of the Roberto Clement Bridge to relieve himself and accidentally fell into the water where he became incapacitated and drowned.

The body then slowly made its way down the Ohio River, impeded by floating and submerged debris, before freeing itself and coming to rest where it was discovered.

Almost immediately, Gannon took issue with the police findings.

Once again, the photographs of the recovered remains showed a level of decomposition entirely inconsistent with a body that had been submerged in water for a month and a half.

There was also a complete lack of visible injuries, despite the fact that the corpse would certainly have passed through a steel and concrete dam, located nine miles downriver.

Lee Gilbertson was quick to point out that upon reaching the dam, Dakota's body would most likely have been impeded, and would have sustained significant external injuries as it rotated against the concrete whilst caught in the current.

Even if its progress had not been halted, the chances of it passing under the dam and not impacting off the sides of the steel gates as it did so were minimal.

When Gannon was able to obtain copies of the autopsy photos, there was visible bruising around the rear of Dakota's neck, consistent with a ligature.

Corresponding bruises were found under the fingernail beds, suggesting that an attempt had been made to try and relieve the pressure of this ligature.

Suspicions were further raised when it was found that there had been activity on Dakota's PayPal account, two days after his apparent death.

The discovery of a blue smiley face logo, spray-painted on a bridge upstream from where the body was recovered, indicated to the team that Dakota had been abducted after he left the bar and was held against his will for the subsequent 40 days.

He had then been driven downriver, where he was killed and slipped into the water at a point beyond the dam.

The circumstances in which 25-year-old William Hurley died were equally troubling to Gannon.

The Navy veteran had been at the TD Garden Stadium on the evening of October the 8th, 2009, watching a Boston Bruins hockey game with friends.

Later that evening, he texted his girlfriend, complaining that he was feeling tired and needed her to come and pick him up.

Claire Mahoney duly got into her car and drove across Boston to meet him, texting to ask where he wanted to be picked up from.

As she approached the stadium, she received a garbled phone call from William, stating that his battery was running low and that he was standing near to 99 Nashua Street, before the line suddenly went dead.

Moments later, when Claire arrived at the location, there was no sign of William.

For the next hour, she drove repeatedly up and down the road, calling out his name and stopping to ask passers-by if they had seen him, but to no avail.

A search of the street the following morning uncovered William's phone, discarded and apparently having been run over by a car, but of the handset's owner, there was no trace.

Six days later, in the early hours of Wednesday morning, the Boston Harbour Police were called to a report of an object floating in the Charles River.

The body of William Hurley was found approximately 25 feet from shore, his keys and wallets still in his pocket.

After a short investigation, The authorities decided that William had become disorientated whilst trying to make his way through Nashua Park, and had fallen into the river, striking his head as he did so.

Once again, Kevin Gannon took issue with the official version of events.

CCTV cameras outside the stadium had caught William staggering out of the building in a confused state, as if severely intoxicated.

The friends who had been out with him at the time stated that he hadn't drank too much.

on account of feeling ill, and a toxicology report revealed traces of GHB in his bloodstream.

With nobody able to explain how the drug had come to be in William's system, Gannon began to suspect foul play.

Injuries sustained to the victim's nose and right eye socket indicated deliberate and direct trauma, rather than the generalised bruising that a fall into the water might have caused.

The fact that William's dead body had somehow made its way upriver during the six days it had been missing, moving against the prevailing current, was was even more damning.

William was one of three men whose bodies were recovered from the same location within Boston Harbour.

Shortly after he arrived in the city, Gannon's team were directed to a silver smiley face logo, which had been spray-painted on an electrical box outside the harbour police base.

Above it had been painted three stars.

with Gannon believing that each star represented a different victim, and was openly mocking of the police.

24-year-old Tommy Booth hailed from Ridley Township in Delaware, Pennsylvania.

On the 19th of January 2008, along with eight of his friends, he travelled to the neighbouring town of Woodlin, drinking at a local bar named Bootleggers.

Towards the end of the evening, Two of the group were ejected from the premises for smoking marijuana, and whilst the rest were gathering to leave, they found that Tommy was now missing.

As this was totally out of character, the group immediately carried out a search of the bar and the surrounding area, including a creek which passed roughly 30 yards to the rear of the building.

When they were unable to find Tommy, they reported him missing to the police.

It would not be until two weeks later that his body was discovered.

lying face down in the same creek, 200 yards further downstream.

There were no cameras at the rear of the bar, and CCTV footage from cameras at the front showed that Tommy had not left through the main entrance.

The police reports stated that the victim had likely exited via the rear doors whilst drunk, became confused and then fell into the water.

This is an explanation which the Booth family have never been able to accept.

and one that Kevin Gannon is equally sceptical of.

Once again, the state of Tommy's remains was inconsistent with someone who had been immersed in water for 14 days.

There was no skin slippage, discolouration or swelling.

More worrying still, the officers who recovered the body noted it was still in a state of rigor mortis, a stiffening of the muscles which only occurs within the first 24 hours after death.

Fixed lividity in the rear of Tommy's head and buttocks indicated that when he had died, he had been lying on his back, and yet the crime scene photos show that he was located lying face down in the creek.

But the most damning evidence of all to be found at the crime scene was a single boot print pressed into the wet mud near the body, which did not match Tommy's footwear and with what appeared to be drag marks behind it.

Gannon's findings were rejected out of hand by the local police department, who stated that the creek had been frozen over during the the time Tommy was missing, which would have preserved and trapped his body before later releasing it.

Despite this, Gannon maintains that the death is suspicious.

Friends and family who searched for Tommy during the period that he was missing are adamant that the area he was found in was searched, and that the body was not there at that time.

He had apparently been receiving threatening phone calls in the weeks leading up to the incident, to the extent he had considered moving to live with extended family in Florida.

Two haunting smiley-face logos were later found, painted, on the rear of the bar.

It is impossible to fault the determination and tenacity with which Gannon and his colleagues have approached the cases they have investigated.

Their findings have underlined serious flaws and inadequacies in the police investigations that were carried out, exposing numerous incidents which are almost certainly homicides.

And yet, the theory they advocate remains largely implausible.

A large percentage of the Smiley Face incidents are clearly the results of murder, but the prospect that they are organised killings, all somehow linked to the same secretive organisation, simply does not stand up to scrutiny.

During the 30 years they have been occurring, at least some evidence of their alleged existence would have come to light, be this through witness or survivor testimony, or their activities being caught on camera.

Gannon has been accused of being selective in the evidence he presents, disregarding any material that undermines his theories, and cherry-picking facts in an attempt to keep his hypothesis firmly within the public domain.

There is also the very real question about just how beneficial his actions have been to the grieving families of the victims, and the level of emotional harm his assertions may cause them.

In reality, the likelihood is that the modus operandi that Kevin Gannon created has indeed become cemented in the public consciousness and has taken on a life of its own.

The reason that there is such a great degree of variance in the Smiley Face logos is because they are painted by different individuals, perhaps even deliberately near bodies of water, in anticipation that at some point in the future a death will occur and further propagate the narrative.

On the other hand, perhaps a smiley face is just the most common form of graffiti, innocently drawn since time immemorial by people the world over, and the fact that they are found near to where bodies are discovered is mere coincidence.

Regardless of what degree of truth exists behind the smiley face killer's theory, there is no denying that Gannon is right to continue probing inadequate police investigations.

In doing so, he is drawing attention to clear miscarriages of justice and increasing the chances that the murderers will be caught.

He and his team should be commended for this fact alone.

Our thoughts are with the families who have lost loved ones in this manner.

We hope that one day they will receive answers to any questions left hanging over such a tragic loss.

Story 2

Death in Gorda Springs

During the autumn of 2003, staff at a holiday resort in California contacted the police to report having discovered the bodies of two of their guests.

Uncomfortable questions still remain over the exact circumstances surrounding this tragic incident.

Join us as we investigate death in Gorda Springs.

As he made his way along the gravel path that wound its way through the centre of the resort, Leonardo Flores could feel himself becoming anxious.

The guests he was on his way to see had proven somewhat problematic ever since they had checked in at the start of the week, and he was unsure exactly how they were now going to react to being asked to leave the site.

The two women had arrived on the Monday morning, paying for a week's stay and asking if the room next door to theirs could be left vacant for the duration of their visit.

When it had been explained that the staff could not facilitate this request due to pre-existing bookings, the pair had become upset and then requested that they be left alone whilst they were staying at the resort.

The women had even gone as far as to insist that there be no maid service until after they had departed.

The venue had agreed on condition that they sign a waiver against using this arrangement to write an unfavourable review later on.

Despite this request, Flores had still managed to sneak into the room whilst they had been in the nearby diner ordering a meal and had found nothing out of the ordinary.

The morning after they had checked in, the guests staying in the room next door had informed Flores of an incident that had happened on the previous evening.

He and his family had been disturbed by a persistent and irritating pounding noise coming through the adjoining wall.

It took him 15 minutes of knocking on the door to the cottage until one of the women had answered in a confused state, before she then closed it again without speaking.

Now, on the day they were due to check out, the pair had failed to do so, and whilst it was not uncommon for a guest to be running a little late for their departure, there was something about the couple which troubled the hotel employee.

Something that he could not quite put his finger on.

As he arrived at the door to the cottage, Blores attempted to shrug off these thoughts before politely knocking.

When there was no reply, he knocked again, more forcefully this time, but was still unable to elicit a response.

With the curtains closed and being unable to see into the room, Flores had no choice but to open the door with the master key and to go inside.

Moments later, the horrified clerk was running as fast as he could back to the main desk to call for the police, with the cottage door left swinging wide open behind him.

The police officers who were called to the Gorda Springs Resort on the morning of the 7th of October 2003 found the bodies of Abigail Tapia and Jacqueline Tovez lying next to each other on the double bed of their holiday cottage.

Black plastic bin liners had been securely taped over both of their faces, and their hands and legs had been bound using a number of identical lengths of white rope.

Investigators reported that there were no obvious signs of injury or trauma anywhere on the bodies of either woman, both of which were dressed in t-shirts and their underwear.

There was no evidence of a weapon or any other mechanism that might have ended their lives, and no obvious suicide note was located.

But by far the most unusual aspect of the scene was the presence of two very different types of face covering.

Secured on top of the plastic bag which covered the face of Jacqueline Tovez was a grinning Japanese-style kabuki mask, decorated with black, red and green patterns.

Lying on a table beside the bed was an eye mask covered in feathers, much like those seen at masquerade balls.

These two items were very much out of place considering the rest of the scene, with no other Halloween paraphernalia anywhere to be found.

The room was relatively tidy, with the door locked and secured, and no signs of a break-in.

Personal effects and valuables belonging to the two women were clearly on display, and it did not appear that any form of robbery or burglary had taken place.

With the scene photographed, the bodies were duly removed by the undertaker and sent for post-mortem, under the assumption that the cause of death would help steer the investigation as it moved forwards.

Days later, The local medical examiner had little of use to offer the detectives in charge of the case.

The couple had died as a result of asphyxiation, most likely from the bags which had been taped over their heads.

There was evidence of alcohol and recreational drug use in both of their bloodstreams, but not in sufficient quantities to incapacitate or overdose either of the women.

Inquiries with staff at the resort, other guests who had been staying there, and the friends and families of the victims also produced little in the way of usable evidence.

They had dined alone, taking their meals back to their room rather than eating in the hotel restaurant.

Nobody had reported seeing them angry or upset, and they had not ventured outside of the complex to visit any of the neighbouring attractions.

When investigators attended the rented apartment in Long Beach where the couple had lived, they found a third mask hanging outside on the front door of the premises.

This was similar to the one that had been found on Tovez, only with the mouth this time turned upside down into a haunting grimace.

The manager of the complex was located and spoken to, describing the pair as good tenants, who were quiet and always paid on time.

Inquiries with neighbours revealed that Tapia's sister had attended the location during the week, asking if anyone knew where they had gone, and it became apparent that nobody close to the women had known about their trip to Big Sur.

Inside the apartment, the officers found photos of a recent holiday to Las Vegas to celebrate Tapia's birthday.

But beyond this, there was little of evidential value to be found.

The case that was later presented at the inquest into the deaths proposed that the women had died as a result of a suicide pact.

The investigating detectives highlighted the fact that whilst the ropes that had been used to secure Tovez were tightly secured, a certain degree of looseness had been found on Tapia's.

They hypothesised that Tapia had secured the bag to Tavez, asphyxiating her, before then incapacitating herself in the same way.

Several letters, a mixture of typed and handwritten messages, had been left on one side in a manila envelope, addressed to the families of the two women.

The contents of these were not disclosed during the inquest.

other than to state that they were of a personal nature and explain that both women were clearly in a state of emotional turmoil.

It is however believed the content of these letters could not be interpreted or construed as a suicide note.

Evidence was also presented to the court that Tapia had been in a significant amount of debt at the time of the trip to Gorda Springs, believed to be in the region of $60,000.

At the conclusion of the inquest, the coroner found himself in agreement with the evidence that had been presented to him, and the case was closed off as suicide.

Taking events at face value, it is hard to disagree with the court's ruling.

There was no evidence of foul play found at the scene, or that a third party had been involved in the incident.

It was clear that there were significant issues at play in the personal lives of both women.

And without knowing exactly what was written in the letters recovered from the envelope, there are no other obvious or alternative explanations which can be argued.

And yet, there seems to be something missing from this case.

A frustrating factual void which only serves to invite speculation and argument to bridge the evidential gaps.

And key amongst the unsolved issues with the Gorda Springs deaths is the proposed version of events put forward by the police, which some commentators still believe to be an unlikely explanation.

The accepted account is that Abigail Tapia killed Jacqueline Tovez by by tying a bin liner around her head, with sufficient restraint to prevent her from breathing.

Tovez had her hands and legs tied and would have been unable to prevent this from taking place even if she had wanted to.

But it is what happens next that prompts debate.

The police contend that having carried out the murder, Tapia then tied her own hands and legs together before taping the bag that would end her own life over her head.

She then lay down perfectly still and died alongside her partner.

Whilst possible, this does however seem unlikely.

It is human instinct to reflexively fight against the restriction of a body's airflow, which is why it is impossible for a human to strangle or voluntarily drown themselves.

There were no signs, such as friction burns or bruising, that either woman had struggled or tried to break free of their bonds.

The peaceful, almost serene nature of how the women were found, as if they had each just lay down to take a nap, raises red flags for many people.

And whilst it can be argued that the alcohol and drugs in their bloodstreams may have affected their ability to resist their own deaths, the autopsy results do not seem to support this.

It is a case that bears strong similarities to another mysterious death that would take place seven years later in central London.

London.

In August of 2010, staff at Britain's GCHQ headquarters alerted their superiors to the absence of a work colleague, 32-year-old Gareth Williams.

The intelligence worker had not been seen or heard from for several days, and so officers were sent to his flat in Pimlico to see if they could locate him.

On forcing entry into the address, the police found the decomposing remains of the missing analyst in a large sports bag sitting in the tub of the flat's bathroom.

The bag had been secured from the outside with a padlock, and Williams was lying naked inside it.

Again, no evidence of a third party could be located, or of a criminal offence having taken place.

Whilst it was argued that it would have been virtually impossible for the victim to have secured himself in the bag voluntarily, experts conceded that there was a small possibility he could have achieved such a feat, and evidence of an interest in bondage found on Williams' computer seemed to support such a theory.

Just as there is a belief that a third party was involved in the death of Gareth Williams, some believe that the same is true in the Gorda Springs case.

Big Sur is notorious for the importation of drugs by Latin American cartels.

due to its isolated nature.

Is it possible that the couple had somehow been persuaded to become involved in a legal activity to clear their debts, or were perhaps the unfortunate victims of a reckless criminal endeavour?

As compelling a theory as this is, it remains unlikely.

There is no evidence of this found in the testimony of the other guests at the resort, or back in the apartment belonging to the women.

And whilst the presence of the masks at the scene of the deaths seem to point to something more sinister, the proximity of the incident to Halloween does somewhat explain this.

Finally, it should also be noted that, not unlike Gareth Williams, Jacqueline Tavez was also attached in some way to the military-industrial complex.

All that aside, Big Sur does seem to be the setting of a significant number of suicides when compared to similar regions.

Some have put this down to the feelings of loneliness and helplessness that such a vast and foreboding area can instill, but there are others who point to mysterious forces which are believed to have made the region their home.

For centuries, shadowy spectral figures known as the Dark Watchers have been reported stalking groups of hikers and visitors to the area.

Others have reported suddenly feeling overcome by a sensation of utter helplessness and despair.

that virtually incapacitates them.

This sensation has become known locally as the terror, to which nobody is able to offer a viable explanation.

There are also stories of a strange entity which has confronted people at the nearby Thernwood campground, a humanoid figure wearing a mask made of woven corn, which materialises from the trees during the hours of darkness.

This apparition is believed to be related to the indigenous Essence tribe.

still harbouring feelings of anger and vengeance towards the settlers who caused the demise of its people.

Of course, there is no evidence whatsoever to connect the unfortunate deaths of these two young women with these alleged sightings or supposed phenomena, but it is something which is talked about, nonetheless.

In the years since this incident, few further details have come to light.

Francis Tovez, the father of 26-year-old Jacqueline, has revealed that his daughter had struggled in the past with depression and had previously taken an overdose two years before her death.

Other than this, all that remains are arguments over the feasibility of the murder-suicide hypothesis.

As time has passed, other deaths have since been reported in Big Sur.

These include a cluster of apparent suicides at the Carmel Middle School, located a little further up the coast.

There are also numerous cases of visitors who have lost their lives on the Bixby Creek Bridge, or along the roads and coastal footpaths nearby in tragic and mysterious circumstances.

Sadly, it seems that even in an area that is filled with such great warmth and beauty, there is a dark and sinister undertone.

Something intangible, capable of driving people to make decisions that leave little other than sorrow and unanswered questions in their wake.

Bedtime is glorious.