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Smiley Face Patterns CLICK TO ENLARGE The above map pattern was discovered by Mike Flaherty and shows the image that appears when you connect the dots between the towns where suspected Smiley Face murder victims have died or went missing. The yellow dots are the suspected victim locations. The red is the basic shape of the mouth complete with a uvula. The white areas appear to be fangs and the towns of Moorhead and Beverly appear to be dimples. The evil look of the face matches a clue that was left at a death location in Ames, Iowa which said, "Evil Happy Smiley Face Man". This clue used backwards letters which was something often done by the Zodiac killer. Because we believe that killings are still happening, the map pattern may change as more data is gathered. The areas including the towns of Terre Haute, Cincinnati, and Bellevue may represent additional facial features. Smiley Face Found in Ames, Iowa in 2007 It is believed that the Smiley Face Killers may have gotten the idea to make a smiley face map pattern from serial bomber Luke Helder. He was arrested in May 2002 after planting a series of bombs around the Midwest in the shape of a smiley face. The first spray painted smiley face clue was found by detectives from Nationwide Investigations. It was located at the October 2002 death location of Chris Jenkins in Minneapolis. The killers most likely just incorporated the previous deaths into this new pattern. This sort of thing would be attractive to a person who is copying the Zodiac killer because Zodiac threatened to plant bombs several times. On November 18, 2002 the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported the following about several missing victims: "Minneapolis - They're smiling from fence posts, walls, campus message boards and bus shelters. They're smiling on buttons pinned to those who love them - smiles frozen by the click of a shutter for graduation photos or snapshots taken during a carefree moment." This newspaper article would become the prophetic image of who is now known as the Smiley Face Killers. This is the likely reason for the killers leaving a spray painted smiley face at death locations. Private investigator Mike Flaherty discovered several micro-patterns that appear within the Smiley Face killer map pattern. One of these appears in the lower lip of the face. Four of the victims in this lip pattern had a father who was a police officer. This lower lip pattern also spells COP backwards. Columbus, OH - Anthony Luzio Jr, 25 (father was cop) 2005 Oakwood, IL - Ryan Katcher, 19 (father died before son) 1999 Peoria, IL - Keith Ryan, 22 (father was cop) 2005 East Dubuque, IL - Matt Kruziki, 24 (father was cop) 2005 Prairie du Chien, WI - Brian Dietrich, 30 (father was cop) 1993 The following is a list of towns represented on the map as suspected Smiley Face victim locations. Many of these towns have had multiple similar deaths that fit the victim profile. Cook County, MN Duluth, MN Hinckley, MN Marshall/Taunton, MN Minneapolis Metro Area, MN Moorhead, MN New London, MN St. Cloud/Collegeville, MN Eau Claire, WI Green Bay, WI La Crosse, WI Madison, WI Milwaukee, WI Prairie du Chien, WI Sheboygan, WI Ames, IA Clinton, IA Carbondale, IL Chicago, IL East Dubuque, IL Oakwood, IL Peoria, IL South Bend, IN Terre Haute, IN East Lansing, MI Iron Mountain, MI Ravenna, MI Athens, OH Cincinnati, OH Columbus, OH Kent, OH Toledo, OH Bellevue, KY Ridley Township, PA Scranton, PA Albany, NY Canton, NY Cortland, NY Ithaca, NY Kingston, NY New York, NY Port Jervis, NY Potsdam, NY Middlebury, VT Beverly, MA Boston, MA Word Patterns One thing that accidents don't do is spell out words. The following is a list of words spelled out by the Smiley Face killers. The words are spelled by using the first letters in the names of the towns where the victim died or vanished and go in order by date. These word patterns were discovered by Mike Flaherty in 2008. ARM: ALBANY, NY - Josh Szostak, 21 (12-23-2007) RIDLEY TOWNSHIP, PA - Thomas J. Booth, 24 (01-20-2008) MIDDLEBURY, VT - Nicholas Garza, 19 (02-05-2008) A smiley face was found in all three of these cases. Notice that the first letter in the names of the towns spell out the word ARM. Suspected Smiley Face victim, Brian Shaffer, had a Pearl Jam tattoo on his arm. Shaffer vanished from Columbus, Ohio in April 2006. Strangely, the ARM word begins in the exact town (Albany) that was cryptically linked by street names (Pearl, (Jam)es, Columbia) to the Pearl Jam tattoo on Shaffer's arm. The famous Pearl Jam group has mentioned the Shaffer case during concerts in both 2006 and 2010. Albany Street Clues Match Shaffer Case in Columbus COLD: CHICAGO, IL - Brian Welzien, 21 (12-31-1999) OAKWOOD, IL - Ryan Katcher, 19 (11-05-2000) LACROSSE, WI - Patrick Runningen, 23 (03-01-2001) DULUTH, MN - Ken Jason Christiansen, 19 (04-13-2001) One repeated pattern of the Smiley Face killers is that the killer takes various details from newspaper articles about his victims and incorporates it into other deaths and cryptic clues. On 04-11-1999 Jeffrey Geesey (age 21) died in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Then on 04-14-1999 Nathan Andrew Edberg (age 21) vanished from White Bear Lake, Minnesota and is still missing. On 07-16-1999 the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported on Edberg's disappearance. The following is the first line of the story: "A bartender at Decoy's Bar and Grill remembers the cold, drizzly night Nathan Edberg vanished." The very next suspected smiley face death in December of 1999 happened in Chicago and is the beginning of the COLD word. PIRE: PEORIA, IL - Keith Ryan, 22 (04-12-2005) ITHACA, NY - Dan Pirfo, 19 (04-24-2005) RAVENNA, MI - Todd Geib, 22 (06-12-2005) EAU CLAIRE, WI - Josh Snell, 22 (06-12-2005) PIRE stands for Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (www.pire.org). They specialize in research on underage and college drinking. It is believed that the killer used PIRE as a cryptic clue due to the fact that the victims are often college aged drinkers. There is only about a dozen PIRE offices around the United States. I don't believe it is a coincident that Brian Shaffer vanished from North High Street in Columbus, Ohio. There happens to be a PIRE office on the same street. Notice that the Pirfo name is close to PIRE. This was likely planned by the killer. Todd Geib was from Ravenna where he once attended high school, but his body was found in a rural lake northeast of town, close to a party he attended. Todd's last known contact was at 12:50 AM when he made a call to say "I'm in a field", then the call abruptly ended. This is similar to the case of missing Marshall, Minnesota student Brandon Swanson, who has not been heard from since his call also abruptly ended in May 2008. Another Minnesota college student, Dan Zamlen was found dead in the Mississippi River after his call also abruptly ended on April 5, 2009. William Hurley was found dead in Boston's Charles River after his phone went dead on October 8, 2009. It is possible that the killers are using cell phone jammers to keep a victim from making or completing a call. Strangely, each phone related incident happened in states that begin with the letter "M". (MI, MN, MA) Ad for a $219 Cell Phone Jammer Willie Jacobson drown in Ithaca, NY on April 27, 2008. It was reported that Jacobson was from Minnesota. Two days after Jacobson's death, the New York Daily News reported, "A spray-painted smiley face with a taunting grin could be the disturbing signature of a nationwide network of killers who target promising college students" and "They're laughing at the police". The very next suspected Smiley Face case was a college student from Marshall, Minnesota named Brandon Swanson. Strangely, his car was found abandoned near the town of Taunton, even though he told his parents that he was in a different county at the time his call abruptly ended. Notice the cryptic connection between the "taunting grin" and "laughing at the police" quotes from the newspaper. Taunt the police (Taunton-Marshall). Josh Snell was last heard from on the same day as Geib, but about an hour later. Snell called a friend on the evening that he drown to say that he thought that unknown people were following him and that he might be in trouble with the police. Local police confirmed that they had no contact with Snell, so this may have been someone impersonating an officer. CAMP: COLUMBUS, OH - Anthony Luzio Jr, 25 (07-04-2005) AMES, IA - Jacob B. Hobson, 27 (07-19-2005) MOORHEAD, MN - Patrick Kycia, 19 (09-23-2005) POTSDAM, NY - Albert Campbell, 22 (10-07-2005) The very last victim in the CAMP word has the name Campbell. The Smiley Face killer has left repeated similar partial names in his clues. This is more evidence that the killer sometimes stalks his victims and even knows their names. NEMEC: NEW LONDON, MN - Daniel Lee Newville, 18 (08-01-2002) EAU CLAIRE, WI - Craig Burrows, 23 (09-29-2002) MINNEAPOLIS, MN - Chris Jenkins, 21 (10-31-2002) EAU CLAIRE, WI - Michael Noll, 22 (11-06-2002) COLLEGEVILLE, MN - Joshua Cheney Guimond, 21 (11-09-2002) The most famous person with this name is actor Corin Nemec. In 1989, he played the roll of Steven Stayner in the movie I Know My First Name Is Steven. The movie was based on the true story of an abducted child. In real life Steven's brother (Cary Stayner) became a serial killer. Corin Nemec talks about Cary Stayner in the book The Yosemite Murders. Nemec is also mentioned in the book I Know My First Name Is Steven, which talks about the abduction as well as about Cary Stayner's murders. The NEMEC word was being formed at the exact same time that Stayner was on trial for murder and making big headlines in the newspapers. Nemec's character fits the basic profile of a Smiley Face victim. (young, white, male, abducted, drank alcohol) Here are just a few of the many Cary Stayner newspaper headlines from around the time of the NEMEC word deaths: Death Penalty Recommendation New York Times October 10, 2002 Jury Finds Killer Is Sane New York Times September 17, 2002 YOSEMITE KILLER SANE, JURY SAYS St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN) September 17, 2002 Guilty In Yosemite Murders New York Times August 27, 2002 MOTEL WORKER CONVICTED IN THREE DEATHS/YOSEMITE VERDICTS MAY BRING DEATH PENALTY St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN) August 27, 2002 Mental impairment key to jury verdict on Stayner-Deliberations may begin this week in triple-murder case. San Francisco Chronicle August 21, 2002 Trial opens in slaying of Yosemite sightseers-Defense says Stayner killed them after mental breakdown San Francisco Chronicle July 16, 2002 Another strange thing about the NEMEC word victims is that a bloodhound was tracking the same scent in both the Chris Jenkins case as well as the Josh Guimond case, which seems to indicate that the same person's scent was found at both locations, even though these were in different cities and a number of miles apart. The Jenkins death was ruled a homicide. The San Francisco Connection Clues that point to San Francisco seem to be a frequent pattern in the Smiley Face case. These include: -A Gary Snyder poem about the deaths of young white males was left at the creek in Duluth where two young white male college students died. This poem was originally published in August 1968 in San Francisco. This is just a few months before the Zodiac Killer would go on a murder rampage around San Francisco. -Multiple Smiley Face death locations had graffiti that was similar to the Zodiac Killers drawings that he sent to various people in San Francisco. -Three murder victims of Cary Stayner had rented their car in San Francisco and were supposed to fly back to San Francisco, but were murdered instead. This is related to the NEMEC clue as explained above in the Word Patterns section. April Fools Day Death Pattern Green Bay Death Predicted In late 2008, Mike Flaherty noticed that three cases over the past three years, all happened close to April 1st, which happens to be April Fools Day. In February 2009, Flaherty mapped out these cases and noticed that the three cases form part of a Zodiac killer style cross. The cases going in order by the years 2006, 2007, and 2008 also formed the exact opposite of a Catholic cross formation. A normal Catholic cross formation goes; up, down, left, right. The death pattern in this case goes exactly backwards: right, left, down, up. In order for this pattern to be completed, there would have to be a victim in Green Bay, Wisconsin close to April 1, 2009. In early March 2009, Flaherty notified multiple law enforcement agencies and other investigators including police in Green Bay about this pattern. On April 4, 2009, Jesse James Archer (age 33) was reported missing after leaving a bar in Green Bay. He was found dead three weeks later in the Fox River in Green Bay. The body was found close to a Pearl street, which is a clue that often comes up in these cases including in the Brian Shaffer case which was also part of this same pattern. The medical examiner ruled Archer's cause of death to be a "probable drowning", but ruled the manner of death as "undetermined" because there was not enough evidence to absolutely call it an accident or homicide. No drugs were found in his system. Archer's death completed the pattern: Jesse James Archer, 33 GREEN BAY, WI 04-04-2009 Huaijun Meng, 31 CARBONDALE, IL 04-01-2008 Abel M. Bolanos, 19 AMES, IA 03-31-2007 Brian Shaffer, 27 COLUMBUS, OH 04-01-2006 Another interesting thing about this pattern is the Green-Carbon word game used as a cryptic clue. Carbondale or CARBON is another word for pollution and Green Bay or GREEN is a word that means the opposite of CARBON. They are also opposites on the map pattern. Archer's body was found near a coal pile owned by the Koch Carbon Company. Carbondale college student Huaijun Meng's death was very suspicious. He drown in only three feet of water and he had no drugs or alcohol in his system. The medical examiner said he had no explanation for how Meng ended up in the creek. "I have no idea,"..."That's something that has all of us puzzled." Suspicious in Seattle On June 3, 1995, Blair Grandstrom (age 20) vanished after leaving a party in Bellingham, WA. On September 26, 2010, Dwight Clark (age 18) vanished after leaving a party in Bellingham, WA. Both Grandstrom and Clark were on Indian Street before they vanished. Both were students at Western Washington University. Both were later found dead in the Georgia-Pacific paper mill pond, which was located in a secure fenced area. On December 5, 2010, a human foot and shoe belonging to an unknown young male washed ashore near Tacoma, WA. Since August of 2007, ten similar human feet with shoes have been found in the waters between the state of Washington and British Columbia, Canada. On Christmas Eve, December 24, 2010, Jeremy Peck (age 24) vanished after leaving a bar in Seattle, WA. His body was found on January 19th on the shores of Manitou Beach, which is across the water, west of Seattle. One week after Peck vanished, Maurice Charles McCall (age 21) went missing on New Year's Day, January 1, 2011, from Sumner, WA after leaving a party. His body was found five days later in a swamp near the Union Pacific Railroad tracks. The town of Sumner is located very close to Tacoma, WA where the human foot was found several weeks before McCall had died in Sumner. Tacoma is located just 20 miles south of Seattle. Another suspicious case was that of Tony Pella (age 22) who vanished after leaving a Seattle, WA bar on May 5, 2007. Ten days later, he was found dead in Elliot Bay near the Magnolia Bridge. The Shining Red Rum Other Patterns In April 2009, there was another regional cluster of five similar deaths in the Minnesota and Wisconsin area. One of these was the case of Jelani D. Brinson (age 24) who was found dead in a shallow golf pond after vanishing from Anoka, Minnesota on April 17, 2009. The newspaper reports indicated that police were searching by the Rum River. Then on April 27th, Jeremy C. Christensen (age 23) was found dead in his submerged SUV near the border of Red Wing, Minnesota and Wisconsin. It is believed that he died on the late evening of April 25-26th. The two place names related to these cases and the newspaper articles, RUM RIVER and RED WING, may be an important clue indicating foul play. In Stephen King's famous movie The Shining, Red Rum is MURDER spelled backwards. Red Wing and Rum River may be a cryptic clue left by the killers that indicates these are not accidents, but murders. The Anoka Sheriff's Department called Brinson's death "suspicious" and police believe his body was moved to the pond. THE ERIC VOLP CASE Eric M. Volp (age 28) vanished after leaving a bar in Iron Mountain, Michigan just hours before Columbus Day on October 11, 2008. His body was found in 2009 in a creek in Dunbar, Wisconsin. Columbus is a clue that frequently comes up in both the Smiley Face cases and with the Zodiac Killer. Volp had a smiley face tattoo on his neck, which was used to help identify his remains. The fact that Eric was found in Dunbar, may be another word game. This could be the killer's way of cryptically saying that Volp is now DONE going to the BAR. Law enforcement have called Volp's death "unnatural" and "suspicious". This death also fits the smiley face pattern on the map. This death would represent the western eye in the pattern. Leave An Anonymous Tip Anonymous Tips