Posted on 12/11/2006 12:13:22 PM PST by FLOutdoorsman
ST. CLOUD, Minn. — Vanishing students. Dead bodies. Fears something sinister is lurking in the shadows.
A string of college student drownings across the Midwest has all the makings of great mystery. Or does it?
Rumors have persisted for years that a serial killer is prowling Interstate 94, hunting young men in college bars and plunging them underwater. Investigators, though, say there's no evidence of foul play. They say the victims were so drunk they fell in the river and died.
Not so fast, says criminologist Douglas Gilbertson.
An assistant criminology professor at St. Cloud State University, Gilbertson has spent most of the past year researching the drownings. He completed a study this spring he believes shows patterns that indicate some of the cases could be murders — and could be linked.
"We definitely do have some cases that are just not accidents. When you fill in the patterns that are coming out, that's the next logical step," Gilbertson said.
St. Cloud police Chief Dennis Ballantine, whose department investigated the drowning death of a St. Cloud State student this spring and concluded it was an accident, called Gilbertson's study a collection of coincidences.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
It's the ghost of Paul Wellstone.
ping
"Rumors have persisted for years that a serial killer is prowling Interstate 94, hunting young men in college bars and plunging them underwater."
LOL! Somebody needs to study serial killers.
Never drink, walk, or run drunk alone.
Parents: Make sure your "kids" away from home make friends before they mix martinis.
Most of these guys went out with friends, got separated from them at bar time and disappeared.
The only thing that indicates any foul play is that all the drowning victims fit the same profile.
"Rumors have persisted for years that a serial killer is prowling Interstate 94, hunting young men in college bars and plunging them underwater."
I happen to know deaths like this have occurred in Lacrosse, Wisconsin as well. Interstate 90 runs through it.
It is not funny!
The deaths aren't funny. This ridiculous notion of a serial killer being responsible, even after investigators called some of the deaths accidental, is so sad that it IS funny. A drowning serial killer who can and chooses to overpower college males and hold them underwater until they die isn't only funny, it's stupid. Let's not even go into what it might take to get a college aged male from a bar where his buddies and the girls are to a location where he can be overpowered and drowned.
Idle minds.
Lax is my old home town, and I still work there. The problem is the deaths of a number of male, college students who are getting stinking drunk at downtown bars just a few blocks form the Mississippi, getting disoriented, staggering down to Riverside Park, and falling into the river. Once in the river, especially this time of year, it's difficult to get out alive. There is NO!! serial killer.
At least several drownings involved somewhat lengthy walks to the river and drowning in shallow(er) waters - 3ft deep or so. Friends who are familiar with the area and the bar scene there believe there would be a tremendous amount of effort exerted for a drunk kid to drown in the way reported - as accidents.
Something's not right.
Thank you! I will be vindicated, even though I've been called a nut over this before. There's no way that these many young men are just falling down drunk in the river.
'Bout time someone looked into this!
I agree. I've been called a nut over this, but I think there's something to it. It would be very easy to cruise up and down the Interstate in that part of our state(s), your crimes going unnoticed for years on end.
No one ever puts all the pieces together until there's a big old stack of bodies. It certainly doesn't hurt to look into it. Ted Bundy was considered a "really nice guy" too, wasn't he? ;) Maybe it's a woman knocking them all off? A drunk college boy would follow a woman down to the river...
The fact that they all took place along I-94 is what tips me off. Duluth, Mankato, and Winona all have major universities and major rivers and other bodies of water nearby, and plenty of bars, but you never hear about this happening in any of those towns.
I think you might be on to something there. Female killers tend to use poisoning, drowning and other such "non-messy" and less gruesome ways of offing people.
My son's girlfriend is currently studying at Winona. She's not a drinker and she doesn't fit the MO of course, but I'll ask her what she's heard on campus when I see her again at Christmas.
I just can't stop thinking of "The Green River Killer" though I know that was a man killing women. *SHIVER*
I live in a College Town with a large river running through the town. Some of the most popular places college students drink is about 8 blocks or less from the river. Yet I have never read of some college student getting drunk and "falling in the river" and drowning.
1. I would think that some signs of struggle (cuts, bruises, etc.) would be present if these men were being drowned.
2. "The victims fit a profile: white or Asian men in their early 20s, generally around 5-foot-8 and 165 pounds and athletic, with good grades" - gee, sounds like college students of average height and weight. Now if they had found all these people were 43 year old freshmen they might have a point.
3. The victims went to college within 50 miles of I-94 and 94% of the drownings took place within 100 miles of I-94, what a shocking coincidence?
4. "three-quarters of the disappearance occurred when the moon was less than half-full." when the lack of light is more likely to lead to tripping/slipping/stumbling into the water?
5. "No victims were women." - because women a)don't tend to drink as heavily as men and b)don't tend to leave bars alone, especially if they are really drunk (then either their friends or some guy they will regret knowing later takes them home)
We humans are so good at looking for patterns that we often see them where they don't really exist.
Have other alcohol-related incidents seen similar jumps above "normal" rates? I'd think that if the rate of drunken accidental drownings has experienced a sustained spike, which it has, then other alcohol-related incidents should be spiking as well. Violence, DUI, anthing?
Drinkers and accidental drownings do happen, but this seems way too often.
For example, in Milwaukee, the river is just off Water street, complete with a popular set of bars. Aside from an NML rep who drowned earlier this year accidentally, I can't think of another in-river incident. And the river is in closer proximity with an inviting riverwalk. And the volume of patrons is arguably much higher, and of similar demographic makeup.
"Nearly 82 percent of the drownings occurred during the first two weeks of the month, and three-quarters of the disappearance occurred when the moon was less than half-full."
Bingo. The two occassions are not causally related however encompass 75% of the deaths. The odds of this occuring randomly over 20 deaths are very small. Factor in the frequency of deaths vs. similar conditions elsewhere and their proximity to I-94 and there is a very strong indicator of criminal activity. Imo the associate pofessor's investigation is legitmate and justified. There is a killer afoot.
My wife is from Norwich, England. They have a university there and a number of young college men who have fallen into the Wensome River in the heart of Norwich and drowned. The total almost equals the number of young men who have fallen into the Mississippi and drowned. In La Crosse the police have in the past year stopped one young, thoroughly soused, college male from going down to the river after a night in the bars. They told him his dorm was the opposite way, but he vehemently insisted he was walking in the right direction. Right towards the river. Last year another drunken, young male fell into the river but was lucky enough to haul himself out. He sheepishly acknowledged that he fell in himself. No serial killer pushed him in. I repeat, there is NO! serial killer.
whether a serial killer is involved is a math puzzle; a probability question. relevant facts such as the drownees similar physical stature & the volumem of these drownings compared to the rate in other locales should reveal whther this grat a number of "accidents" break the laws of probability. I don't know all the relevant facts but from whay i do know it seems something more than chance is at play here. i used to live in Buffalo, plenty of bars, plenty of drunken young men, a river and lake nearby --unfrozen 9 months per year--adn i can't recall a single such incident
There have near nine or ten young college men who have died from drowning in the past ten years in La Crosse. The last one was on the UW-La Crosse basketball team. He was six-three, and weighed two hundred and twenty pounds. All of the other dead men were in good shape and strong, young men. Don't you think that if a serial killer was trying to kill young men, he would pick ones that weren't likely to offer opposition? Don't you think that at least one victim would have been able to fight off an attacker and report it to the police?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.