In late March of 2007, 19-year-old Iowa State University (ISU) sophomore Abel Bolanos went missing after attending several off-campus parties. The lead investigator in another case associated with the Smiley Face Killers theory has also never been contacted by the team.
While working on her feature, McNeill attempted to interview team members, but the interview “wasn’t very productive.” Bill Kruziki also stated that the team never attempted to speak with him about Matt’s death either, even though Kruziki is an experienced member of the law enforcement community and reached out to them on multiple occasions. “On one hand, they devote all this time and energy to these cases and seem to care about victims and families, but continue to be frustratingly fuzzy on details,” she says.
One problem McNeill keeps coming back to, though, is the team remains vague about the information they’ve obtained. “The police did eventually reclassify the Jenkins case,” says McBride “I wouldn’t say it gave more credibility, but it made a lot more interesting.” Like the McNeill family, Bill Kruziki found too many oddities about the circumstances surrounding his son’s death to buy the accidental drowning explanation and wanted foul play definitively ruled in or out. “I was curious if he believed these theories,” McBride tells A&E True Crime. She says she was drawn to the case because Matt’s father, Bill Kruziki, is a well-known retired sheriff’s marshal. In 2008, journalist Jessica McBride researched and wrote about the Smiley Face Killers (SFK) theory for Milwaukee Magazine after hearing it associated with the Jenkins case and later the Matt Kruziki case in Illinois, which was also determined to be an accidental drowning. As for the dozens of other cases that remain closed and labeled accidental drownings, the team claims police don’t want to admit they got it wrong. In 2008, the team publicly announced their theory during multiple national media interviews.Īs the team’s theory gained attention, Minneapolis police did eventually reclassify one of the accidental drowning cases as a homicide, that of Chris Jenkins in 2020, after statements surfaced made by a convicted felon indicating foul play, though no arrests have yet been made. Even though the paint color, size and style of the faces varied, they remained convinced it was a killer’s signature, claiming responsibility. The term “smiley face” became connected to their theory when the team revealed they’d discovered graffiti depicting a smiley face near at least a dozen locations where they speculated killers dumped bodies in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa. Lee Gilbertson, and the team started digging deeper into closed cases, eventually forming the “Smiley Face Killers” theory. He promised McNeill’s parents, who also doubted official findings, that he would prove their son’s death was a homicide.Įventually, Gannon and Duarte were joined by retired NYPD detective Mike Donovan and St. At the time, McNeill’s death was ruled accidental due to alcohol intoxication, but Gannon disagreed after his own examination of McNeill’s autopsy, crime scene and evidence photos. Victims-typically white, athletic, college students-had appeared in multiple cities and states along the I-94 corridor, which passes from Michigan to Montana.ĭetectives Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte say it started with the death of college student Patrick McNeill, who drowned in New York City in 1997. Nearly 20 ago, two retired New York Police Department detectives started tracking the suspicious drowning deaths of young men across the country. Article Details: Are the Smiley Face Killers Real?
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