BREAKING NEWS: Paul Kochu Found Drowned

Paul Kochu has been found drowned, roughly three months after the 22-year-old nurse vanished during a night out with his roommates that left him mysteriously injured. 

Pittsburgh police say they were contacted about a body floating in the Ohio River and that it was positively identified as the missing man through dental records.

An autopsy was performed but the results have not yet been publicly released, and the cause and manner of death are still unknown.

The family of Paul Kochu had conducted numerous searches for him in the Pittsburgh area and even offered a missing person reward for help in solving his case.

They've released the following statement:

"It is with heavy hearts and unspeakable sadness that we learned today of the death of our beloved son and brother, Paul. These are circumstances no family ever dream of coping with. Though we are left with many questions, what we know for sure is Paul was the light of our lives, and we will not be the same without him.

"Paul loved Pittsburgh. Having traveled here repeatedly over the past four months as we held out hope in the search for Paul, it is clear to us why the community was so dear to him, In addition to family and friends, countless strangers embraced us and offered their love and support in helping us during this difficult time. There are no adequate words to express the gratitude we feel towards the Pittsburgh community."

Eponymous Rox

Smiley Face Killers update

Read a 2015 Smiley Face Killers update on Crime Magazine containing special mention of still-missing Pennsylvania resident Paul Kochu, as well as the Shane Montgomery disappearance and drowning in that same state and time-frame.

Portrait on the article's accompanying illustration (shown above) is that of Michael Jansson, a youth who similarly vanished without a trace from an Illinois dance club on the evening of March 9, 2001.

In classic Smiley Face Killers tradition, he was never seen or heard from again, until the car he'd hurriedly fled in that night was found twelve years later, upside down at the bottom of the Chicago River. 

A subsequent DNA test on the skeletal remains strewn throughout the vehicle confirmed they were in fact "Mikey" Jansson's bones ... full story @ Crime Magazine.

Missing in Michigan - Ken Gruno

Ken Gruno went mysteriously missing in Michigan on the evening of December 27th 2014, after stepping outside a pub for a breath of fresh air. The 27-year-old left behind his coat and credit card, and a group of bewildered mates.

Since Gruno's unexplained disappearance, family, friends and police have conducted numerous searches of the neighborhood and even the nearby riverbanks.

Now, however, bad weather and subzero temperatures are seriously hampering their efforts to find the missing man, and the major search which was to be launched today has had to be postponed for fear that participants may be harmed in the process.

Ken Gruno was celebrating the holidays with friends at the Otisville Hotel bar in the 100 block of West Main Street in northern Genesee County, where he appears to have somehow completely dematerialized -- he has not been seen or heard from since that night.

"It's completely out of his character," say those who know him best. "He's always in contact with someone, or on his computer." 

Gruno is approximately 6-feet tall and 175 pounds. He was wearing blue jeans, a gray flannel shirt with a vest and bowtie, and slip-on work boots. Anyone with information regarding his bizarre disappearance is asked to call the Michigan State Police Flint post at 810-732-1111.

Eponymous Rox

Shane Montgomery Accidentally Drowned - In Winter

Shane Montgomery accidentally drowned in a river, claims the medical examiner who just performed an autopsy on the previously-missing youth's corpse. Now the question that will forever remain unanswered is: Why in the world would he have gone swimming in the middle of winter?

With that weird official finding, however, Montgomery now joins a growing list of similar young men who, since the late 1990s, fatefully and fatally decided to do the same foolish thing.

Some were "intoxicated" or "on drugs" or "troubled" authorities have routinely ruled. But some were not, and yet they too disappeared and drowned anyway, including those who "misdialed" 911 in the minutes before they vanished without a trace.

Like many of the victims before him, Shane Montgomery mysteriously went missing after an altercation in a bar he had attended with friends this holiday season. It was a minor incident, the bar's owner and management now admit, but, whatever, it got him promptly thrown out into the cold that night, and thereafter he was never seen alive again.

More than a week into the community-search for him, police insisted they'd discovered surveillance video of Montgomery subsequently "stumbling" near the towpath of a nearby canal; vital evidence which, for some unknown reason, wasn't released to the public.

But this apparently rare piece of secret film footage helped to *connect all the dots* it seems. And therefore it made perfect sense to them to then assume they'd find Montgomery's corpse in the river or canal. With no signs of foul play on it, naturally.

So, who knows, perhaps young men these days are just more sensitive than they were 20, 50, 100, 200 years ago, and thus now become truly despondent whenever they're forcibly separated from their buddies, and a river, lake, pond or stream is close by... 

Eponymous Rox

Maimed and Missing: Paul Kochu

Paul Kochu went to Smokey Joe's in Pittsburgh PA with his roommates on the evening of December 16, 2014. He has not been seen or heard from since.

An image of the 22-year-old intensive care nurse was captured that same night showing him on foot and apparently alone. Wherever Kochu was headed though, he never got there.

Family members who viewed that surveillance tape said the young man's hand appeared to be wrapped in a towel and his gait was strange. They worry Kochu may also have sustained a head injury during a night out that has now become a total mystery.

His roommates contend that Kochu left the packed bar without them around midnight, but later called there to report he'd sliced his hand on broken glass. The two then allegedly returned to the apartment they share so to assist their friend with a cut they describe as "not bad enough to require him to go to the hospital for stitches."

Thereafter they went out once more, they say -- this time leaving Kochu behind -- to see if they could get some food, but he was "gone" by the time they got back. The missing man had taken his keys, cell phone and wallet with him, but not his vehicle.

Kochu recently graduated from the nursing program at Duquesne University and works in the intensive care unit at Allegheny General Hospital,. He did not show up for his scheduled morning shift on December 18th, something which his father, Jack Kochu, insists is highly unusual and troubling.

"It is 199-percent uncharacteristic of Paul not to be where he was supposed to be," he said. "He's wanted to be a nurse the last six years. There is absolutely, positively, no way he would miss work."

"He is not impetuous, he's not a reckless person," Kochu's mother, Ellen added. "And there's no rhyme or reason to how or why he disappeared that night."

Paul Kochu, 22, is approximately 6-feet tall and 180 pounds with brown hair and blue eyes. Anyone with information is asked to call the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police Missing Persons Unit at (412) 323-7141. A $20,000 reward is additionally being offered for help in solving his case. 

Eponymous Rox