"Stop! Prevent your death. Go no farther."

The recreational drownings of two experienced cave divers on October 16th demonstrate that accidents do happen sometimes, even to water specialists.

Unlike the victims in The Case of the Drowning Men, 53-year-old Patrick Peacock and his 38-year-old dive partner Chris Rittenmeyer met a watery end on purpose when the pair scoffed at the Grim Reaper's posted warning below to "Stop! Prevent your death. Go no farther," and dove into Florida's perilous cave system, Eagle's Nest.

Several hours later, lost in a mile-long labyrinth of underwater passageways which extend more than 300 feet in depth, they ran out of air together and drowned.

A third less-daring companion, whom Peacock and Rittenmeyer had stationed at the entrance of the cave to wait for them, reported the two men missing after they both failed to resurface as planned.

Would-be rescuers then arrived en masse at the infamous Weeki Wachee site where so many other adventurers have similarly perished and searched its deep-sea chasms and tunnels in vain until nightfall.

Another dive team finally located the lifeless bodies of Patrick Peacock and Chris Rittenmeyer on the following morning in a "very dangerous and complex area" of Eagle's Nest.

They had died "in close proximity to one another in about 260 feet of water," most likely after they each "whited out" from a pressure-induced condition known as Nitrogen Narcosis and their air tanks drained.

Eponymous Rox

Message from Eponymous Rox

Smiley Face Killers blogger, Eponymous Rox, isn't missing, hiding, dead or drowned:

Thanks for the emails and private messages. As many visitors to Killing Killers have recently learned, a great deal of my SFK content, published here and elsewhere over the past six years, was illegally republished by a notorious Kindle self-publisher based in London, and I am still pursuing the matter.

Of course, I'm not the only one who serial plagiarist 'Tessy Rawlins' (alias 'Stephen Young' and 'Steph Young') has robbed over the years -- she's also pinched content from Websleuths, Reddit, Wikipedia, the Humanoid Database and the popular 'Missing 411' series, just to name a few -- but I do intend to be the last. Which is why I've reported her long-running cut-and-paste scam to both US and UK authorities.

Because the Rawlins/Young scheme is still semi-active on Amazon and depends on fresh or freshened uploads to remain profitable, I am rethinking how my Smiley Face Murders work will be offered online now, if at all. In the meantime, below is a screen-grab of the first death threat that 'Stephen Young' emailed after I initially complained about her cyber crime spree in June; and beneath her email, you'll find the facts of this case as it stands today.

(click image above to enlarge, print and share)

TO CATCH A THIEF [OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY]: Whether by cutting-and-pasting blog posts, eBook chapters and news articles into Word docs and fraudulently self-publishing these via Amazon, Smashwords and fake sites, or through pirating complete digital editions so they can be illegally downloaded by the thousands for free, such flagrant thefts of intellectual property have become an epidemic in recent years. Indeed, law enforcement agencies now warn that piracy has become the most frequent and fastest growing white-collar crime in the universe, and that they're literally swamped with complaints about it. Like the ones I filed against Amazon Kindle self-publisher 'Steph Young' this year.

'Steph Young' opened her own copy-paste operation on Amazon's self-publishing platform as 'Tessy Rawlins' in 2013. Through "cut and paste" thievery and sockpuppetry, ripping off countless readers, writers and websites for a full year, until folks began flagging her "blatant" scheme and her sales petered out.

In 2014, she altogether abandoned self-publishing under her infamous Rawlins moniker, reincarnating herself instead as 'Stephen Young' and upping her con job a notch:  Now she was not only falsely claiming to have "written" all of the content she was heisting, splicing and dicing, but approaching fringe talk shows for interviews as a guest "expert."

From 2014 through 2015, an American crime phenomena that shyster Steph Young often feigned to have expertise about in these interviews was The Case of the Drowning Men: Investigating the Smiley Face Serial Murder Theory. In reality, though, she'd never penned a single article or even once blogged about Smiley or Smiley's victims before. In fact, to this very day, neither 'Steph Young' nor 'Stephen Young' nor 'Tessy Rawlins' has any writing credentials or bibliographies other than *their* self-published Kindle catalog of plagiarized works, for the simple reason that none of *them* can write:

"Writing is terrible. Another self-published book with no much-needed editing. The writer lacks the most basic grammar, punctuation, and spelling skills. I wish Amazon had a minimum quality requirement or at least a separate "Amateur" category to weed out books like this from professional offerings, so buyers could at least know what to expect when they spend their money." - June 23, 2016, Format: Kindle Edition

"Is this a high school paper, or what? ... badly written: Sentences have subjects and verbs. They are not a series of dependent clauses joined by semi-colons. Long rambling sentences are not a sign of scholastic achievement. They are distracting. Adjectives are not verbs. Words do not bleed, you can cut them ... Well, the author did follow one prime rule of writing. 'Write crappy first drafts'..." - November 30, 2014, Format: Kindle Edition

"Why so many 5 star reviews? This book is laughably bad. I got about 25% done and gave up. There appears to be no research. All the stories are anecdotal. The narrative bounces around from topic to topic. Worst of all..the book is just dull. Many paragraphs and thoughts are repeated. And repeated. The cases are interesting, but the writing and content is very poor."  - August 31, 2016 Format: Paperback

"Poorly written, and full of grammatical errors ... it needs some very heavy editing. The book is rife with typographical and grammatical errors, awkward and confusing word choices, and immense logical leaps. It's an intriguing enough a premise, but the execution is a failure" - July 29, 2015 Format: Kindle Edition

As to her claims that she's a Smiley Face Killers expert, poor blundering Young doesn't even know where Boston Massachusetts is, a major SFK kill zone, let alone the difference between a 'Harvard Man' and a man from Harvard:

“False, misinformed fact checking. I am 14% through on my kindle and have seen so many factual errors that really bother me. I was surprised at how up to date this was published, including the disappearance of Zachary Marr (who has since been found, also in the water). The problem is Young kept referring to him as a Harvard University student when he was in fact from the TOWN of Harvard - a very different place, far from the university. He was a student at Mount Wachusett Community College near his town. Young also refers to UMass Dartmouth as being 4 hours from Boston - UMass Dartmouth is 1 hour south of Boston, perhaps Young is confusing Dartmouth College in New Hampshire (which is still only 2 hours from Boston). I'm not sure if I will continue reading this book, at this point I'm just not sure what facts will be true and what will be sloppy, false information? I do think the premise of this book is great. I'm quite interested in why these young men are vanishing and do definitely agree there is some strange connection. I'd like to read more into these but I'm afraid this isn't the book for me.” (9 people found this helpful.) - March 19, 2016, Format: Kindle Edition

Even worse, Britain's self-appointed *expert* on America's unsolved Smiley-Face disappearances and murders exhibits no better understanding of crime cases that occur on her native soils and shores either:

"Young refers to three people who, she claims, went missing in Clapham Wood, Sussex, in southern England, between 1972 and 1981 ... This is a case that I’ve personally researched, and I’m not aware of any convincing evidence that the people in question were in the wood when they went missing. All three bodies were eventually discovered, none being found in the wood itself."  NOT TO MENTION THAT: "there are numerous typos and grammatical errors. Even the semicolon in the title seems wrong – shouldn't it be a colon that separates the main title from the subtitle? The book lacks an index, and there’s no bibliography. There are relatively few specific references for the cases cited. In places, there are unexplained acronyms/abbreviations. And some of what Young quotes from other people strikes me as being more or less incomprehensible. In places, material is repeated. There are no maps or photographs." AND REGARDING THE MANCHESTER UK DROWNINGS: "Young refers to a psychologist who has taken an interest in the case. She names him as “Professor Gary Jackson” of the “University of Birmingham” (p. 91). In fact, though, his first name appears to be Craig, not Gary, and he’s based at Birmingham City University, not the University of Birmingham!" - July 14, 2016, Format: Paperback

So, perhaps Rawlins/Young should study up more before "hastily" self-publishing the content she's "copied and thrown together, with many editing errors." - March 7, 2015, Format: Kindle Edition

But the inability to compose coherent and structurally-complete sentences of her own, or to even conjugate verb tenses and punctuate properly, isn't the reason that Steph Young launched her plagiarizing career. In fact, this illiterate young Brit really doesn't have any interest in writing books at all, which, on the average, takes an experienced writer about a year to finish just one. No, Young is only interested in selling books as an "Amazon business," she confessed in one of her recent menacing emails. Accordingly, she's hastily cobbled together about ten such copy-and-paste Kindle editions annually, for a grand total of 30 so far, in only three years.

Toward the close of 2015, however, with absolutely no published Drowning Men work nor books of her own to speak of, Young realized that, to continue her talk-show hoax regarding the complex and ever-evolving Smiley Face Murders, she'd have to finally *produce* something on the subject. And that's when she asked me if she could "use" my extensively published SFK content.

Prior to receiving that email request, I was unacquainted with this imposter -- obviously, she was NOT granted any right to use any of my work in any form whatsoever.

NEW, Expanded and Revised

INVESTIGATING THE THEFT OF THE CASE OF THE DROWNING MEN - AND ALL OF MY SMILEY FACE KILLER WORK & MISSING/DROWNED DATABASE: Frequent visitors to this site probably recognize my nonfiction title (left), The Case of the Drowning Men: Investigating the Smiley Face Serial Murder Theory as having been released in both print and digital first-editions in 2012.

You can now also recognize my Drowning Men work -- plus all my facts, phrasing, forensics, findings, victim interviews and missing found-drowned caseload -- in two of Young's 2016 plagiarized versions of it, which she deceptively titled "The Case of the Smiley Face Killers..." and "Dead in the Water ... Investigating the Smiley Face Killers" (the latter incorporating my 2013 Crime Magazine piece 'Dead in the Water', one of many SFK feature articles I wrote for CM since 2011.)

In June 2016, upon discovery of the illegal use, reuse and misuse of my work, 'Stephen Young' was sent a takedown/reimburse demand, to which she replied contritely, stating, "i would also like to take this opportunity to offer my sincere apologies with regards to this matter, and would like to think that this could be settled amicably."

In good faith I undertook to do just that, but on Wednesday, June 15, 2016 at 6:11 AM, I received a starkly different message from her via a 'James Howarth' of howespercival.com in Milton Keynes UK in which he baldly asserts, among many things, that his client "Stephen Young" had "amended 'Dead In The Water' so to remove" from this one illegal republication "all" the work stolen from Killing Killers and other publications which, if not thus expunged, clearly identified me as the true creator of most of the book's content.

To wit, “our client has (without prejudice to our client’s position) amended ‘Dead In The Water’ so to remove all quotations from the Interviews and all references to the Blog or the (presumably) nom de plume 'Eponymous Rox' … rest assured, of her own volition, our client has no intention of ever quoting from, referencing or even recommending your work or mentioning your name in future. I trust that this will represent an end of the matter.”

I politely wrote back to ask attorney Howarth if drag-n-drop diva Tessy Rawlins, who claims in her Amazon bio she's also Stephen Young, was his "client" too ... and never heard from him again. 

NO END TO THE 'STEPHEN YOUNG' & 'TESSY RAWLINS' AMAZON SCAM, UNLESS 'STEPH YOUNG' IS STOPPED:  Do you blog? Did you finally publish that manuscript you slaved over for years? Have you ever posted on sites like Websleuths or Reddit or Killing Killers, or shared your heartfelt opinions via Twitter or Facebook? Well, long before Steph Young self-published her illegal knockoffs of my Smiley Face Killers work for exclusive sale via Amazon's $10 'unlimited free download' subscription plan, her ignominious aliases 'Tessy Rawlins' and 'Stephen Young' had been busily robbing other content creators just like me and you, and making out like a bandit.

It's terrific that, from the very start, conscientious customers were flagging Rawlins/Young as a fraud on Amazon so to warn off others from unwittingly enriching her. But simply posting scathingly-honest reviews won't ensure that Amazon execs take swift action to stop such scammers. That's what all the various 'report abuse' buttons on each of Amazon's webpages are for. And it only takes a minute or less to click these and send Amazon the kind of valuable feedback consistently expressed by real reviewers of scammer Young's phony books:

"Abridging of story significantly changes meaning -- integrity of author in doubt.  I did not finish the book because I had good reason to doubt it's completeness and accuracy. Upon reading the story of  Lloyd Glenn and his son Brian, I recalled that I had read this story before, several years ago, but it seemed like part of it was missing. I found the file I had saved on my computer, and sure enough, the story had been heavily abridged. Although it might simply have been edited for length, it seemed very suspicious because the edits significantly changed the story that was told and the meaning of the experience. I do not mean that the parts that were included were altered, for the most part, but it appears that Tessy Rawlins has edited out several parts of sentences, sentences, and whole paragraphs in order to change the message of the story to one that she is presumably more comfortable with. It makes me wonder, also, if she  actually got permission from the authors of these stories to republish  them, or if she simply copied and pasted from the Internet, and then  edited them to her preferences. (10 people found this helpful.)" - July 27, 2015, Format: Kindle Edition

"Acknowledgement is needed. Author needs to give credit where credit is due.....he uses a lot of material from Albert Rosales' Humanoid Database, without giving credit or mentioning the database." - October 5, 2015, Format Kindle Edition

"Another take on the killings detailed by Eponymous Rex." - June 7, 2016, Format: Kindle Edition 

"Nothing new here. Derivative. Just repeats previously published material from other authors." - April 30, 2015, Format: Kindle Edition

"The Banal Meets Boring. Just..awful. For the reviews to be legit, I have to assume that people doing the reviews have never read another book before on this subject. Or..perhaps never read any other book before..on anything..Or, the reviewers are family and friends of the author..When you remove the  truism`s/cliches.. and the quotes from other books..there is nothing here." - January 1, 2015, Format: Kindle Edition  

"She ripped off Missing 411- How about you quit ripping people off and tell them you stole the idea from David? Pretty spineless." - August 2016, Format: Kindle Edition

"Plagiarism at its finest! This work, and I have a hard time calling it 'work', is a complete ripoff of the very successful Missing 411 series by David Paulides" - August 2016, Format: Kindle Edition 

"Somebody in the cyber-woods wants your money. Predators in the Woods is an eclectic collection of short eye witness accounts about encounters with paranormal creatures. Exactly half of the e-book consists of excerpts from other e-books...There is no attempt at a synthesis or explanation." - January 2, 2016 Format: Kindle Edition

"Summaries. rather than telling a unique story, this short booklet is a compilation of other people's stories." - August 11, 2013, Format: Kindle Edition

"Cut and paste? No sense of direction and explanations. Disappointed. Cut and paste. Shouldn't Amazon have a minimal standard for kindle books? Can anybody cut and paste and call it a book and have a milking cow?" - November 24, 2014, Format: Kindle Edition

"Book of lists. This really wasn't so much a book as a group of bits and pieces of information stuck together. No introduction or explanation to the chapters at all so you really don't what you are supposed to be reading. I see why it was a free download." - March 6, 2015, Format: Kindle Edition

"The stories are great, but I feel like they're copied and pasted from other sources. Was an editor involved in this at all?" - March 1, 2015 Format: Kindle Edition

"This book seemed to be hastily written-stories copied and thrown together - with many editing errors..." - March 7, 2015 Format: Kindle Edition

"A lot of repeated stories found in the other book by him." - September 12, 2015 Format:  Kindle Edition

"I think all of the stories could be found via a Google search..." - July 17, 2015 Format: Kindle Edition

"Choppy. This book is a waste of time and effort. There are copious numbers of missing or duplicated pages, not to mention tons of typos. The missing pages would cut short stories or pick them up halfway through. Very, very frustrating. Please fix or pull this work!!!!!" - May 9, 2015 Format: Kindle Edition

"Terrible Book! This is one of the worst, most ridiculous books I have ever read. It's now quite obvious that all of these five-star reviews were written by the same person — the author himself." - March 25,2016 Format: Kindle Edition

"Seems a bit cut and pasty. This book was a mish mash of news stories everyone has read..." - April 26, 2015 Format: Kindle Edition

"Poorly written, and full of grammatical errors … The book is rife with typographical and grammatical errors, awkward and confusing word choices, and immense logical leaps…the execution is a failure" - July 29, 2015 Format: Kindle Edition

"Where to begin? This book has so many problems that I just can't even begin to list them all! If you can get past the poor writing, bad grammar, poor spelling and improper word usage, the punctuation will put you over the top. This guy has no business writing books!" - Format: Kindle Edition

"Glad I only 'borrowed' it" By Thomas Byrne on "…This entire book seems as though it was lifted from anecdotes on the web." - August 7, 2014 Format: Kindle Edition

"Scammy. This 'book' is short chapters that read and sound like a second-rate wikipedia entry. One could easily read all of this on your own, for free if you hang out on WebSleuths or similar forums." - July 17, 2016, Format: KindleEdition

"Interesting subject matter, writing is terrible. Another self-published book with no much-needed editing. The writer lacks the most basic grammar, punctuation, and spelling skills. I wish Amazon had a minimum quality requirement or at least a separate "Amateur" category to weed out books like this from professional offerings, so buyers could at least know what to expect when they spend their money." - June 23, 2016, Format: Kindle Edition

"Cheep ripoff of missing 411. This whole book has a corny uncredited feel to it..." - March 9, 2016, Format: Kindle Edition

"Blatant rip off of David Paulides' work" - August 2016, Format: Kindle Edition 

"Give it a pass. Do not be fooled with the 'well researched' comments in some of the other reviews. This is nothing more than a chaotic and poorly organized collection of folk story's and conspiracy theories. Not very informative and written (poorly I may add) along the same lines as "what ifs." - March 19, 2015, Format: Kindle Edition

"Not Nearly the Deep Investigative Journalism Suggested ~ not even close. I only downloaded a sample, but what I read was disappointing. For each case, the information was appoximately a page in length. The information was so sparse, I did not understand what the mystery was so I went on the web and looked up the individual's name to get more on the disappearance. Once I looked it up, I saw that important pieces of info were left out of the incredibly short articles I read and, in fact, there really was no mystery." - November 27, 2015, Format: Kindle Edition

"Is this a high school paper, or what? Badly written: Sentences have subjects and verbs. They are not a series of dependent clauses joined by semi-colons. Long rambling sentences are not a sign of scholastic achievement. They are distracting. Adjectives are not verbs. Words do not bleed, you can cut them. The reader wants to be shown, not told. Well, the author did follow one prime rule of writing. 'Write crappy first drafts....'" - November 30, 2014, Format: Kindle Edition

"Do NOT waste your money! This book is a total rip-off...." - August 20, 2014, Format: Kindle Edition

(per Amazon biography: "Tessy Rawlins ...Also writes as under pen name Stephen Young")

SCAMAZON AND THE DIGITAL DOLDRUMS: Parasites like Rawlins/Young have plagued Amazon's Kindle self-publishing platform [KDP] ever since its inception roughly a decade ago, and Amazon's only gotten more lax about policing these rogues in the past few years because of the steady decline in eBook sales.

In recent times, we've all heard about just how bad a 'corporate citizen' this behemoth web-retailer really is anyway, especially with respect to its employees. But Amazon's failure to modernize its outmoded KDP platform by at least utilizing plagiarism-detection apps, as most other responsible online publishing sources are finally doing, is a deliberate invitation for fraudsters like Steph Young to come and hawk their illicit wares.

And, now, because Rawlins/Young herself has been operating with impunity on Amazon's under-policed site for three (known) years, she and her ilk has been allowed to spread like a cancer there, which, at this late stage, would be quite painful to excise. Yet excise them Amazon must do, because it's false advertising for  the "most customer-centric company in the world" to make a claim like that while knowing for a fact that its KDP customers and content creators are being "ripped off."

Pursuant to American penal code, it's also called 'aiding and abetting.'

  

to be continued...

COMING SOON: 'A breed of serial criminal you have never met before!'

COMING SOON TO KILLING KILLERS: Profiling "a breed of serial criminal you have never met before!"

Missing Adrian Lynch Found Drowned 9 Months Later

The body of long missing UK man Adrian Lynch has finally been found this month in a body of water previously scoured by divers using sonar.

The 20-year-old electrician disappeared from the island of Jersey in early December of 2015, after leaving a Christmas work party by taxi, shortly after midnight.

Lynch was later captured by surveillance cameras (and witnessed) heading on foot for his home located about a mile away from where the cab driver dropped him off.

An exhaustive months-long search for the missing youth officially ended in February 2016. It only produced his wallet and a coiled belt.

Then, this August, a passerby spotted semi-submerged human remains in a reservoir close to where Adrian Lynch was last seen alive and contacted authorities who retrieved the corpse.

Lynch's passport was reportedly found in a pocket of the victim's jacket.

The reservoir where he is thought to have drowned was well inside the "high priority" search area that police established during their multi-agency investigation of his missing-persons case.

His body wasn't there when those waters were searched last winter -- and, had it been, it would have surfaced by springtime when warming temperatures triggered decomposition and refloat.

A postmortem exam revealed that young Lynch suffered "no traumatic" injuries when he died such as might imply "third party" involvement or foul play.

Nevertheless, the coroner was unable to pinpoint his actual cause and manner of death.

The unexplained disappearance of Adrian Lynch is presented in the new and expanded edition of The Case of the Drowning Men, complete with photographs. Jersey officials have indicated their investigation into the matter is still active.

Eponymous Rox

message from the admins

Updated from May 25, 2016: Admins are temporarily manning the Killing Killers crime site until your regular blogger returns. We lost contact with Eponymous Rox last week. Roxy is (still believed to be) in the Boston area investigating a series of river deaths for the next issue of Hunting Smiley. Articles submitted before last week will be published in the order received. (ty)

Investigating the Smiley Face Murders

An expanded and revised paperback edition of The Case of the Drowning Men (above) has been issued this spring to address significant developments and breakthroughs in the ‘Smiley Face Murders’ and includes more photos, forensics and victim profiles. It now also provides survival tips on how to avoid becoming a Smiley statistic, as well as a guide for what to do if your own young man goes missing and is later “found drowned.” 

Much has been happening in the decades-long drowning spree since the author’s original investigation was first published, and this enhanced volume will bring both newcomers and longtime case followers up to date.

This expanded and revised print edition also contains additional images, such as autopsy and water recovery photos, which some sensitive readers may find gory and disturbing. These are included out of scientific necessity, not for shock value.

As with the first edition, you’ll still find the only in-depth overview and analysis available of an unsolved serial case that has confounded waterfront communities, coroners and cops ever since 1997, and which in recent years has spread from the original killing fields of North America internationally.

With hundreds of victims documented in the United States, Canada and abroad now, no other serial murderers in the history of serial murdering have come anywhere near the body count of the ‘Smiley Face Killers.’ And that death toll continues to climb.

Learn everything there is to know about this elusive criminal gang, their widening victimology, and what progress is being made in the ongoing effort to capture them in The Case of the Drowning Men, by true crime writer Eponymous Rox.

Yes, there is a full-color limited edition of this new release here.

Abduction and Murder of Joey LaBute 'Not a Hate Crime'

Weeks after the abduction and murder of Joey LaBute -- and his staged river drowning -- Ohio police are still processing "a huge amount of information," but haven't IDd a single suspect.

And they're still convinced that 26-year-old Joseph 'Joey' Labute, rumored now to have been homosexual, wasn't the victim of a hate crime.

As the trail to his killer steadily grows cold, investigators announced this week they've "come across" new video from inside the restaurant where LaBute was last seen alive by family and friends before abruptly disappearing.

The footage shows him "on the dance floor" of the Union Cafe in Columbus center around midnight of March 5, 2016, and then, just "seven minutes" prior to vanishing from the establishment forever, exiting one of the restrooms.

It's not clear where that vital evidence has been all this time or how police finally obtained it. However, it doesn't seem to provide any clues as to why, and with whom, Joey LaBute went outdoors and subsequently died.

A coroner found no evidence whatsoever he had truly drowned and, in fact, ruled there was "a high probability" LaBute was "already dead" when he went into the Scioto River sometime last month.

A group of lawmen checking the riverbank for his body on March 31st coincidentally spotted it semi-submerged in a shallow section not far offshore.

Divers retrieved the corpse in "pretty good condition," suggesting that, whoever slew LaBute, and whatever their motive in doing so, they didn't dump him until well after an active search had all but ended.

Investigators hope the latest images from LaBute's last known location, once enlarged and forensically analyzed, will shed more light on who he was interacting with when he suddenly vanished without a trace.

Obviously the still unknown perpetrator/s themselves likewise had to be captured on security cameras that night, since America is by now a a full-fledged police state and the city of Columbus is no exception to such widespread privacy invasions.

Yet, despite all its traffic cams, license-plate readers, aerial drones, and numerous other clandestine methods of tracking the minute-to-minute movements of innocent citizens without probable cause or court-issued warrants, no images of LaBute's kidnapper and killer have ever surfaced...

Those following these so called Smiley Face Murders of course know that Joey Labute isn't the only young male to suspiciously go missing from a public place and later be found dead in a river, lake, pond, stream or reservoir. And he probably won't be the last. 

But his bogus cold-water death this season stands out as one of only a few in the decades-long Case of the Drowning Men which wasn't whitewashed by officials as a drunken "accident."

Anybody who can help solve the LaBute abduction, homicide and attempted cover-up during March of 2016 is urged to contact the Columbus Police Department at (614) 645-4545.

EPONYMOUS ROX

Missing NYC Librarian Javier Horta Found Drowned in Bronx River

Police say the body of missing NYC librarian Javier Horta (below) was pulled from the Bronx River yesterday near East 177th Street.

The 34-year-old single dad disappeared three weeks ago under questionable circumstances which are now being investigated.

After an all-out community search was launched for Horta, it was a passerby who spotted his corpse floating in the water around 1:00 in the afternoon on Wednesday -- less than half a mile from where he vanished.

Cops at the scene stated there was "no trauma" on the dead man and "no signs of foul play" either, indicating that NYC's latest cold-weather *drowning* will be ruled yet another "accident."

However, an autopsy will be conducted this week to determine Horta's actual cause and manner of death.

Javier Horta was last seen alive by two friends he had spent an evening with on March 25, 2016.

Allegedly around midnight he was preparing to take a taxi back to his own residence with one of those men.

Instead Horta told him to go on without him because he'd forgotten his "wallet and phone upstairs."

He then apparently “went back to get his things," confirmed the missing man's brother Hector. "That’s the last anyone saw him.”

Nobody knows what happened to Javier Horta after that, but the popular NYC librarian was never seen or heard from again. Until yesterday.

According to relatives, the NYPD demonstrated some reluctance in pursuing Horta's missing persons case, insisting they "really can't do much" since he had "no history of mental illness" and was "over twenty-one."

“A detective told me April 2nd the case is still open," Hector Horta told reporters earlier this month. "But he also said ‘I hope you find your brother.'"

EPONYMOUS ROX

Missing Ohio Man Joey Labute Found Drowned in Scioto River

A coroner has confirmed that Joey Labute (below) -- missing from Columbus Ohio since early March -- was the victim found drowned in the Scioto River on Tuesday.

Evidently, some degloving of the 26-year-old's hands and feet, and other stages of decomposition, hampered immediate attempts to identify LaBute's remains this week through fingerprinting.

Dental charts and a forensic dentist had to be consulted instead, although detectives previously indicated that, otherwise, the body they retrieved a few feet offshore this week was "in pretty good condition."

The circumstances of how Joseph 'Joey' Labute suddenly vanished from a downtown Columbus restaurant where he was socializing with family and friends on March 4th still remains a mystery, however.

Police have again said that foul play hasn't been ruled out, and, because of the nature of Labute's death and where his fully-clad corpse was discovered, his missing persons case and alleged drowning are both now being treated as "suspicious."

Joey LaBute worked for Morgan Stanley and was a 2011 graduate of Ohio State University. It's not clear yet if he actually died in the water or was placed there already dead.

EPONYMOUS ROX

BREAKING - Body Found in UK Stream Sparks Murder Arrest and Probe

BREAKING NEWS: UK police have arrested a suspect after a  body was found in a woodland stream today, and a homicide investigation into the unnamed man's death was launched.

The Press Association reporting for the Guardian News said a 21-year-old male is currently in police custody on suspicion of murder, but neither his identity nor that of his alleged victim's has been released yet.

Early Monday, someone walking near the Goodwyns estate in Dorking Surrey spotted the apparent drowned corpse of an unknown male and contacted the police.

The dead man was retrieved from the water and is now awaiting autopsy and formal identification at the county Medical Examiner's Office.

In the meantime, his suspected killer is being questioned by detectives and additional charges may be pending, according to a spokesman for the Surrey UK police.

He told press gathered at the scene that “the team and I are focused on a number of inquiries to try and establish the circumstances surrounding this incident and will be carrying out various searches in the area as well as making house-to-house inquiries.”

Arrests and murder investigations are exceptionally uncommon in the Case of the Drowning Men, particularly in the U.S. where, regardless of the circumstances surrounding a missing young man's drowning, such cases are typically ruled "accidents."

This breaking news story is developing -- please check the comments section for any additional updates, and feel free to add your own there or any other observations.

EPONYMOUS  ROX

Smiley Face Murders (1997 - 2016)

SMILEY FACE MURDERS: 1997 to 2016

a glance at 'Victim Zero' Patrick McNeill

Missing in NYC February 1997 - Found Drowned April 1997

NEW YORK, NY - April 17, 1997: “The Fordham University student whose body was found floating near a Brooklyn pier last week died from drowning, New York City's chief Medical Examiner ruled yesterday. He said that the level of alcohol in the body of Patrick McNeill Jr. was ‘more than a little and less than a lot.’ What remains unclear then is how Mr. McNeill, an athletic 21-year-old, wound up in the river and drowned. The manner of death was listed as undetermined in the autopsy report...”

 

"Stalked, abducted, held for an extended period of time, murdered and disposed."

 

The body of the first Smiley Face Murders victim, 21yo Patrick McNeill, "was 

already dead before it was placed in the water. I would call it a homicide, yes."

"There is a pattern ... around his neck, as if to suggest some kind of binding."

 

"We have a young man found with a blood alcohol level of 0.16 ... a relatively low level ...

no way in the world that this man then accidentally is going to fall into a body of water."

THE CASE OF THE DROWNING MEN

EPONYMOUS ROX

Missing 22yo Zachary Marr Found Drowned in Charles River

Boston officials are confirming that 22yo Zach Marr -- missing since mid February -- has been found drowned tonight in the Charles River.

A BPD spokesman told reporters this evening that passersby spied a body in the water near where divers had repeatedly searched for Zachary Marr when he vanished from a popular tavern last month.

Investigators have been convinced throughout the ensuing weeks that Zach Marr "fell into the river" after bouncers denied him reentry to the bar where the out-of-towner had been celebrating his birthday with  cousins.

Following his missing persons report, both representatives for the Bell In Hand and Boston Police Department claimed to have viewed surveillance video showing Marr wandering away at "closing time," although he had no coat and just texted his relatives still inside the premises.

The waterfront location searchers focused on once video allegedly emerged last month showing the missing youth "falling into the water" is almost a mile from the Bell In Hand, and, coincidentally, exactly where his corpse was found today.

None of that footage was ever released to the public, but the circumstances of Boston's latest disappeared and drowned young man is not considered suspicious. Read Killing Killers' original alert for Zach Marr here.

EPONYMOUS ROX

Corpse of Missing College Student Praveen Galla Found in Ocean

The body of missing Cal State student Praveen Galla (below) was found floating about a 1000 feet from a Newport Beach pier this week.

The 23-year-old disappeared ten days ago, allegedly after taking an Uber taxi from Fullerton to his college campus.

Galla's university officially classified him a missing persons the next day when his roommates reported that they couldn't locate him.

"It is not like Galla to not return home," the group also informed the Fullerton Police Department.

Investigators, however, stated the missing college student "was depressed lately."

They also said Praveen Galla sent a friend a cellphone message around the same time claiming he had "checked into" a hotel in the Newport Beach area.

On Tuesday morning, lifeguards in Huntington Beach spotted Galla dead in the water, but the condition of his remains or the cause and manner of death hasn't been disclosed yet.

An admin for the Orange County Coroner's Office posted on their website only that “the decedent was found in the ocean.”

The young man's autopsy results were still pending at the time of Tuesday's confirmation that his corpse had been recovered and formally identified.

The reason Praveen Galla went to the shore instead of to school is also unknown. 

Eponymous Rox

Missing Somerset Man Scott McCafferty Found Drowned in River Tone

Police had been searching Somerset waterways for Scott McCafferty ever since the 33-year-old went missing a month ago ... this week divers found his body:

"Mr McCafferty was reported missing on January 4th from the Taunton area. The body of a man was recovered from the River Tone near Ruishton at approximately 12:00 p.m."

Scott McCafferty was actually last seen alive on the afternoon of January 2, 2016, leaving Tesco in Castle Street on foot toward French Weir.

The slim Caucasian Englishman stood about 5-foot-8, had a full beard with short-cropped hair, and was wearing a brown jacket, dark jeans and dark shoes when he vanished.

No one seems to know what happened during McCafferty's short trek last month, but his disappearance and alleged drowning appears to be part of a troubling new trend in Great Britain, especially in the city of Manchester.

However, UK investigators say his missing persons case and death "is not being treated as suspicious and we are now carrying out enquiries on behalf of the coroner."

Anyone who knows differently is urged to alert the Avon and Somerset Police Department, force number 101, case reference number 5216002322.

EPONYMOUS ROX

Body of College Soccer Star Luke Gabbert Found in Creek (and more)

Police are probing the apparent drowning of Luke Gabbert, one of a handful of young men found dead in outdoor bodies of water this weekend...

The 19-year-old Wesleyan University soccer player's immersed corpse was discovered in Ohio's Delaware Run Creek on Saturday morning.

Investigators still don't know how the 5-foot-9, 155-pound athlete ended up dead in the water and said that, at this time, a cause of death for Luke Gabbert also remains unknown.

Meanwhile, police in the UK confirmed that a body found floating near Spurn Point of Humberside late yesterday afternoon is that of 21-year-old Liam Pullen.

Pullen went missing Friday evening, following an argument with one of his mates at a Cleesthorpes address.

According to that individual, Pullen allegedly left his house during their disagreement wearing sweats and a navy coat with a hoodie underneath, and, perhaps, "no shoes."

Investigators have told reporters that the youth's subsequent drowning death "did not appear suspicious" to them.

That's roughly the same view held by authorities in Queens New York where a dead man washed ashore of the East River on Saturday afternoon.

That victim's identity and other particulars haven't been released, pending notification of family, but his death also doesn't seem suspicious, cops there are saying.

Boston has likewise been afflicted with yet another Charles River water fatality this winter, although the identity of the deceased young male retrieved on Thursday continues to remain a riddle today, due to extensive decomposition.

“The water can kind of obscure and bloat the face," a law professor at Boston University vaguely explained to the press yesterday; additionally noting that, if the hands and feet were degloved too, it would prevent IDing the victim via his prints. 

She also suggested a police composite sketch was underway this week, in hopes that a member of the public might recognize John Doe and finally give him a name.

A jogger noticed the unidentified young man's corpse floating under the Longfellow Bridge, and a marine unit of the Massachusetts State Police came and recovered it soon after.

Foul play hasn't been ruled out at this stage in the inquiry because a cause and manner of death hasn't been determined.

Because the public was understandably alarmed by the latest discovery, Massachusetts police and the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office released a written statement about the incident.

In it they confirmed they're jointly "investigating this matter," but "no additional information is available at this time,” they added.

Missing young men "accidentally" drowning in lakes, rivers, creeks and ponds -- fully clothed and in cold weather -- is a relatively recent crime trend.

However, only in the past few years have some of these dubious mishaps been fully investigated, and a few even reclassified as *possible* murders.

EPONYMOUS ROX

Announcing Smiley Face Killer Interview #1 with Gannon and Gilbertson

KILLING KILLERS is pleased to announce our upcoming Smiley Face Killer interview with none other than former NYPD homicide detective Kevin Gannon and internationally renown criminologist D. Lee Gilbertson.

It was Detective Gannon who, in 1997, first identified Victim Zero -- 21yo Patrick McNeill -- in what would become a decades-long *drowning* spree by an elusive "group" dubbed the Smiley Face Serial Killers.

Nearly 20 years ago, Gannon promised McNeill's grieving parents he'd never stop hunting their son's murderer, and to this day he has kept that vow, at great cost and consequence.

In that epic pursuit, Gannon joined forces with St. Cloud University's acclaimed sociologist and criminal-justice professor, D. Lee Gilbertson, and together this duo became one of Smiley's most relentless and formidable foes.

Since the late 1990s, Gannon and Gilbertson have been throwing a wide net for Smiley; forensically and statistically proving beyond a reasonable doubt, that the missing young men being victimized weren't drowning in cold weather by "accident" or committing "suicide."

In 2014 though, frustrated with local authorities stomping on Smiley Face crime scenes and with coroners rubber-stamping suspicious water fatalities as "accidental," they published the definitive, 462-page death-by-drowning analysis.

Gannon and Gilbertson's Case Studies in Drowning Forensics painstakingly dissects over a dozen  high-profile 'Smiley Face' disappearances and murders in the last 19+ years -- with autopsy results, photos, phone records, GPS data, and other never-before-seen evidence, permanently debunking the official "accidental drowning" myth.

So, if you're independently hunting Smiley too, then don't take another step until you've read this major treatise. Because, yes, your hunch that the Smiley Face cases are actual homicides is correct, and Gannon and Gilbertson can show you why.

And don't miss our exclusive Smiley Face Killer interview with Kevin Gannon and Dr. Gilbertson this week!

MORE ABOUT KEVIN GANNON: Kevin Gannon retired as a Detective-Sergeant for the NYC Police Department after 20 years of service, 14 of which were in supervisory positions. In addition to policing, he has extensive training and experience in personal and physical security, investigation and surveillance, and disaster response, including biochemical warfare training with the Department of Defense. Gannon has held leadership positions in the personal protection of numerous international dignitaries and celebrities, and was an NYPD representative on ex NYC mayor Giuliani’s 1997 "Operation ICE" (Interagency Chemical Exercise) task force, which planned and coordinated emergency responses to any major chemical disaster in lower Manhattan. 

As a detective and sergeant, Gannon routinely supervised plainclothes personnel in anti-crime, narcotics and robbery units, and was second in charge of the NYPD's Missing Persons Squad. He also headed the Bronx Homicide Task Force 'Nightwatch' from 1999 until his retirement. During his distinguished career in law enforcement, Gannon has made over 1000 felony arrests for offenses involving narcotics, burglaries, robberies and homicides, and was awarded almost 100 medals for heroism in the line of duty. As such, he remains one of the most decorated members of the Special Investigation Division of the NYPD's Detective Bureau, receiving the Medal of Valor twice before retiring. In 2008, Gannon also received the Frederic Milton Thrasher award for his continued investigative work on gang crime, a field in which he's also considered an expert.

ABOUT D. LEE GILBERTSON: A three-time recipient of the Frederic Milton Thrasher award, Dr. Gilbertson holds a doctorate in sociology with a concentration in gang criminology and substance abuse, as well as a Master of Science in Criminal Justice focusing on criminology and victimology. His background includes 16 years of exemplary military service (signals intelligence and infantry) from 1976 to 1992. He also trained in and served as the unit Alcohol and Drug Coordination officer (responsible for substance-abuse prevention training and overseeing urinalysis collections), and as the unit Nuclear and Biochemical Warfare Defense officer.

Dr. Gilbertson currently teaches at Saint Cloud State University and regularly works as a law enforcement consultant, providing training in the areas of forensic victimology, crime analysis, and gangs. He has in fact studied gangs, militias, and extremist groups since 1995 and is a certified gang specialist as well as the executive editor of the Journal of Gang Research. He's also presented and taught at numerous national and international conferences and academic institutions, and is a staff member of the National Gang Crime Research Center, participating in all phases of its 'International Gang Specialist Training' conferences.

EPONYMOUS ROX

Hunting the Smiley Face Serial Killers

The Smiley Face killers have been busy these past couple of years, especially in America's northeastern kill zone, where the disappearances and drownings first began almost two decades ago.

But Killing Killers is constantly watching and hunting Smiley, and it seems that things haven't been going his way lately.

Smiley's made a few mistakes...

FEATURED IN THIS DOUBLE ISSUE OF HUNTING SMILEY

Bones in the River: The cold cold-case disappearance of Michael Jansson [partially] solved;

What Goes Down Must Come Up: Refloat times for submerged cadavers & autopsy photos;

Missing - Found Drowned 2014: sampling includes the Shane Montgomery case in Philly;

Manslaughter in Milwaukee: Looking back on the Nick Wilcox disappearance & drowning;

FBI to Join the Hunt for Smiley:  How independent investigators achieved the impossible;

Diatoms and Drowning: Examining why single-cell organisms can solve major crimes;

Missing - Found Drowned 2015: sampling includes the baffling case of Paul Kochu in PA;

Smiley Breakthrough:  Two arrested in murder and drowning cover-up of Donta Williams;

‘Still Missing’ in 2016:  Open and unsolved, including the 2008 Brandon Swanson cold case;

No Foul Play:  Elements of authentic recreational drowning deaths with examples & pics;

Featured Autopsy:  Dawn Brancheau, SeaWorld trainer attacked & drowned by killer orca;

The Case of the Drowning Men:  What we know now; profiling and victimology at a glance;

Across the Pond:  Manchester England’s serial ‘Pusher’ drowns his 29th victim since 2008;

Why People Don’t Drown Outdoors, Even in Summer: Some cold facts and hard stats...

AND MORE

ACROSS THE POND: Manchester's Serial 'Pusher' Drowns 29th Victim

Fears across the pond about a serial killer dubbed 'The Pusher' have heightened again, now that another drowned man has surfaced in a Manchester UK canal.

The body of "a white middle-aged male" was found floating in a Greater Manchester spillway over the weekend, making his "unexplained" drowning one of dozens that have occurred in the past several years.

Manchester cops and coroners have ruled the cold-weather drowning deaths of at least 29 of these "mostly young male victims" as due to "undetermined" causes, in many cases also labeling their missing persons cases "suspicious."

In fact, in 2015 local officials acknowledged in a YouTube public-service presentation intended to allay serial murder fears that "some" of their drowned men had indeed been "deliberately pushed" by an unknown assailant.

Manchester UK's elusive serial Pusher allegedly has been active since 2008, but a couple of high profile disappearances and drownings of male college students in 2011 and 2012 brought national attention to the case:

On New Year's day 2012, young design student Souvik Pal vanished without a trace, after bar bouncers physically removed him from the Warehouse Project Club in Trafford Park.

Minutes after, surveillance cameras captured images of the teen being escorted on foot by an *unidentified* man, after which Pal was never seen alive again. 

The body of the 18-year-old "excellent swimmer" was pulled from the Bridgewater Canal system almost a month later; and a medical examiner then left his case open and unsolved when she couldn't determine how he'd entered the water.

Pal joins the ranks of numerous other young men who also "got separated" from their friends and subsequently met a chilly end in Manchester waterways.

For instance, 21-year-old athlete and sports trainer Nathan Tomlinson likewise vanished while visiting a city pub after dark during the winter holidays.

His  body was fished out of the River Irwell in February 2011, two months after he went missing.

In all, some seven-dozen victims like Tomlinson and Pal have been pulled from the area's icy canals and rivers in as many years.

Although the majority of these were ruled "accidental," far too many others disappeared and drowned under circumstances which were clearly so questionable that even crime experts are now subscribing to the serial Pusher theory.

Birmingham City University professor and criminologist Craig Jackson is just one of many who have been expressing similar beliefs that "it's unlikely" all of Manchester's water fatalities could be "accidents or suicides."

And in a recent United Kingdom news documentary titled Manchester's Serial Killer? a senior police detective also outlined the body of evidence which supports a contention that the multiple drownings are intentional homicides.

The Case of The Drowning Men first came to light in the United States during the late 1990s.

Since then, hundreds of young males of every race, creed and nationality have suddenly gone missing, only to be found drowned days, weeks or months later in rivers, lakes, ponds, streams ... and canals.

America calls its pushers 'The Smiley Face Killers' but, by whatever moniker they're called, the standard operating procedure appears to be the same.

EPONYMOUS ROX

Missing College Student Anthony Urena Found Drowned in NYC

Missing college student Anthony Urena disappeared from a NYC bar in mid November ... his body was fished out of the Hudson River on Christmas day.

It took awhile for the coroner's office to confirm that the drowned corpse of a young Hispanic male, found near Hoboken NJ several days ago, was in fact that of the "clean cut" and "straight-laced" 23-year-old Urena.

Urena was reported missing from Lehman College in New York City, after he got separated from his friends at the Cliff Lounge near Tenth Avenue and 202nd Street on the evening of November 14th.

The young man's family has been searching for him nonstop for almost seven weeks in a row, and initially suspected he was the victim of foul play, because he had never before vanished without a trace.

This week, however, the mother of Anthony Urena disclosed that police told her his disappearance and drowning death was "not suspicious" and that he "accidentally" died when he drunkenly slipped "and fell into the water."

It's not clear what her son was doing at the river's edge in the first place, but “I’m glad that at least he’s found," his mom said. "I didn’t want him to be found this way,” though, she sadly added.

Eponymous Rox

The Disappearance and Drowning of Henry McCabe

Long missing Minnesota tax auditor Henry McCabe (below) has been found drowned this week, two months after leaving a desperate voice-mail with relatives containing screams and growls.

 On Monday, a kayaker discovered Mr. McCabe’s body in Rush Lake, some distance from where the 32-year-old had been dropped off -- and promptly vanished -- after a night out with his friends.

Searchers have acknowledged they previously scoured that same area and found nothing. However, a law enforcement official said yesterday that the victim appeared to have been in the water “for quite some time.”

Henry McCabe was a salaried employee of Minnesota’s Department of Revenue and is survived by a wife and two young children.

Despite Mr. McCabe's bizarre missing persons case -- and his frightened two-minute message begging for help -- police are now suggesting there's “nothing suspicious” about his disappearance and non-recreational drowning…

Read my original missing persons report for Crime Magazine below:

The Henry McCabe missing persons case has taken a scary turn in Minnesota this week:

The 31-year-old Department of Revenue auditor mysteriously vanished almost a month ago during a night out with a friend.

He hasn’t been seen or heard from since then, but, this week, a voicemail recording from that evening has surfaced … and it’s a total fright:

The troubling call, which was placed from McCabe’s cell phone at 2:30 in the morning of September 7th, contains about 2-minutes of screams, growls and moans, then is punctuated with a few seconds of silence before someone says “stop it.”

The growls turn into high pitch moans, like he's moaning in pain,” an individual familiar with the Henry McCabe investigation and his last known voicemail message stated yesterday.

A police spokesman also told reporters that the FBI is now analyzing the recording.

Investigators believe this final call originated from the vicinity of Rice Creek Park which borders on the Mounds View and New Brighton communities, although a wide-scale search there produced no evidence.

Because that district isn’t where McCabe’s acquaintance reportedly dropped him off, loved ones of the missing man have expressed some doubts about the accuracy -- or truthfulness -- of this person’s account.

McCabe allegedly left a Spring Lake Park nightclub with his unnamed friend, who subsequently left him at a convenience store in Fridley.

The still-missing man is married with children and lives in Mounds View with his family. The Mounds View Police Department is therefore heading up the investigation into his disappearance and urges anyone with info about it to contact them at 763-717-4070.

The Fridley Police Department has also joined forces with the MVPD in an effort to solve Mr. McCabe’s missing persons case -- FPD detectives can be reached at 763-572-3629.

Eponymous Rox