SMILEY RAGES ON: The Jeffrey Woodruff Killing

Missing Found Drowned: Jeffrey Woodruff

Sometime around midnight of April 27th 2013, police in Saugatuck Michigan responded to a report of an unidentified male passed out in a lot near Wally's Bar and Grill.

When officers arrived to investigate the incident, however, the man "was gone," they claim. 

The following day the family of Jeffrey Woodruff, 25, realized he'd inexplicably gone missing overnight from the exact same town, so they began organizing a posse straightaway in order to effectively hunt for him.

They also called the local police department, of course, urging them to join in the search effort, but, to their puzzlement and dismay, the cops declined that invitation.

Officials also refused to list the uncharacteristically absent Woodruff as a missing person, despite learning his abandoned cellphone was recovered in a spot close to where the reportedly unconscious man had been sighted, the same night that Woodruff disappeared.

About Jeffrey Woodruff

The athletic Michigan native had only recently relocated to the riverside community of Saugatuck and was last seen on the night of April 27th socializing at Wally's popular pub.

Although new to the area, Woodruff was at ease going to a boisterous place like Wally's by himself because the bar owner is great pals with his boss over at the antique shop just down the road.

Amsterdam Antiques is in fact slightly more than a mile from Wally's watering hole, but the evening was fairly mild so, after closing up shop for his vacationing employer, Woodruff walked to the bar alone.

 
A number of other patrons who recalled chatting with him during the night found the newcomer friendly and outgoing, they said, adding that, while they'd observed him down a few beers, he was by no means slurring his speech or staggering.

Yet the nimble Woodruff still ended up dead in the Kalamazoo River hours later -- to be retrieved from those chilly waters by divers on April 30th, the supposed casualty of too much alcohol and an "accidental drowning."

Exactly how he went so quickly from a barstool to the bottom of a river, we may never know, since Wally's owner claims to have had a bit of a slip up too: He says he mistakenly erased all the film from his surveillance cameras.

The dead man was sporting a fresh gash across his knuckles, and an injured ear.

The Case of the Drowning Men

"They drink, they fall down, they drown," police and medical examiners always simplistically explain.

Not just a few though, not just a dozen, but hundreds and hundreds of young males between 17 and 30 -- from all walks of life, every race, every creed, every religion -- are drowning fully clothed in cold weather, for the past 16 years.

But before they all die in that bizarre manner, these victims first mysteriously disappear.

Sometimes they're gone for days, like Woodruff in Michigan. Sometimes for weeks, like Ward in Indiana. Sometimes for months, like Wilcox in Wisconsin. Sometimes for a decade, like Jansson in Illinois.

And sometimes, like Gillis in New York, they're never seen again...

Killing Killers will be featuring an exclusive interview with Becky Woodruff, in hopes of unraveling the tangled story of her own son's similar disappearance and untimely death in late April 2013.  Look for it soon in the VOICES FOR THE DEAD section. And read more about this case on CRIME MAGAZINE today.

Eponymous Rox