The Chilling Story Behind the 1999 Smiley Face Murders
The controversy surrounding smiley face graffiti found near several drowning victims.
Following the drowning deaths of a number of young men in the Midwest and Northeast of the United States, a theory that attributed the deaths to the work of a serial murderer came into being. The theory popped up in 1999 after a group of journalists reported the drowning cases; these deaths were found to follow a pattern, and not long after the reports, people began to propose that they were all the work of a serial killer, or a group of killers, who were purposefully targeting young men. Smiley face graffiti was often discovered near these crime scenes, which is what gave rise to the name for the theory: the ‘Smiley Face Murder Theory.’
Unpacking the Smiley Face Murder Theory
Investigators identified approximately 22 smiley faces graffitied proximal to the crime scene; these ‘doodles’ quickly became central to the claim regarding serial homicide offending, which linked victims to a common killer (or group of killers). The smiley faces would occasionally be accompanied by the word ‘Sinsiniwa.’
The theory of the Smiley Face Murders involved the offenders drugging their victims with GHB, abducting their victims…
