rant · moment 5 of 21

Breaking Down the Smiley Face Killer Pattern

from The Smiley Face Killers · #132

Audio-only archive episode — no video to seek.

3 min

Tim details the pattern of drownings — athletic college men vanishing after nights out, found later in rivers with inconsistent time-of-death evidence — and compares it to his own drug-fueled but drowning-free youth on Long Island.

In this bit8 moments
  • 10:20Young men fitting a pattern: out drinking, separated from friends, found weeks later in nearby rivers.
  • 10:31Tim's initial thought: drunk people fall in rivers, but the specifics get strange.
  • 10:46The victims leave bars with friends, walk two miles in wrong direction, end up in water—coroners say they'd only been dead days despite missing weeks.
  • 11:13Tim grew up on Long Island surrounded by water where nobody drowned, despite heavy drug and alcohol use among his peers.
  • 11:50The victims share a type: attractive, athletic college kids who disappeared after nights out.
  • 12:14Tim starts emailing detectives, book authors, and dark web contacts trying to solve it himself.
  • 12:25He contrasts his obsessive investigation style with normal people who have wives, kids, and jobs that prevent going crazy.
  • 12:42Tim applies DaVinci Code energy to the theory, considering MKUltra and government abductions of the victims.
Mentioned here

missing person cases in riversLong IslandMK UltraNew YorkBostonWisconsin

All 21 moments in this episode →