Smiley Face Conspiracy Theory Essay

The conspiracy theory of the “Smiliy Face murders” is a claim that an organized group of serial killers or a singular killer would drug unsuspecting victims at a bar or party which they would abduct, hold, and torture the victims before finally killing and dumping the bodies in the water. The term “smiley face” became entwined with this theory due to the discovery of graffiti depicting a smiley face near at least a dozen locations where speculated killers dumped bodies in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Iowa. There are 45 victims all in the same demographics of male college students. Three main reasons supporting this murderous theory and keeping it alive are, smiley face graffiti near the location of victims creates speculation

The 45 victims expressed in this case were all found in bodies of water and they did all have some minor injuries, some severe when conducted autopsies. And in all cases, they were all coming from parties/ bars or drinking somewhere and were intoxicated. Those are all factual pieces of evidence. But the similarities have some statistical evidence that can contradict these claims such as homicidal drownings are extremely rare and drownings don't fit a serial killer motive. And secondly, only 2 cases had severe injuries to support the claims of drugging the victim, abducting the victim, torturing them, and then slipping the body into the water. And due to the number of drownings approximately 4,000 a year meaning during the time of these drownings from 1997-2017, there would be 80,000 drownings making it more likely for the cases to be similar to each other. Yes, the victims did have a lot of similarities pertaining to their deaths but in overall judgment, it would be really unlikely due to the analytical evidence

Considering the victims all share the same demographics it became a real eye opening for many. Yes, all 45 victims from 1997-2017 were all men, college students, and predominantly white there was suspicion of a motive for the deaths. But going back to the similarity of cases it was ruled that all victims were in fact intoxicated and statistically showing the correlation between men and alcohol is fairly surprising. Almost 58% of adult men report drinking alcohol in the past 30 days compared with 49% of adult women. Men are more likely to binge drink than women. Explains why a pattern of male victims. In fact, some suggest that men are as much as four times more likely to be troubled with alcoholism than women. This is shown by an NIAAA report, which states that “ of the 88,000 people who die every year from alcohol-related death, an astounding 62,000 are men and only 26,000 are women.” In all actuality, the victims having the same demographics is quite interesting but there is a rational explanation since analytical research has shown men are prone to have alcohol problems, and due to their age range and putting in perspective they were all college students it doesn't sound too far off. And in the end, the killings were in a span of 20 years and in 5 different