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Today we’re stepping back to a cold January night in 2017 when 23-year-old Dakota James vanished after a night out with friends, last seen on a surveillance camera walking down an alley near the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh. Forty days later, his body surfaced ten miles downstream & was ruled an accidental drowning. But for his parents, Pam and Jeff James, that explanation never sat right. Was it a tragic slip into icy waters, or something far darker—like the Smiley Face Killers, a shadowy theory of organized murder? Today, we’ll be exploring Dakota’s story—a young life cut short, a family’s fight for truth, and a question that lingers: accident, or evil lurking in the shadows?
During Pam James’ last conversation with Dakota, she noted that he sounded upbeat as they discussed the upcoming weekend plans when Dakota planned to head to their vacation home in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland. They also talked about his new, upcoming college classes & the fact that he’d recently gotten a raise at work. Sadly, Dakota never even made it to that weekend.
Dakota James was born on June 21, 1993 to parents Pam & Jeff James & he had an older brother, Shayne. According to his obituary, after graduating from Brunswick High School in 2011, he went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in economics & logistics from West Virginia University in 2015 & by 2017, he was a graduate student at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. On top of carrying a full-time job, he was working toward getting his MBA with the goal of attending law school after graduation.
Pam described her son as smart, outgoing, friendly & someone who had a large circle of close friends. He had two earrings, a Harry Potter tattoo & a chinstrap beard & was known as an old soul because he was always kind & relatable to older generations. He was dry, witty & known for his sarcasm. Dakota was also very athletic & in addition to playing soccer he had been captain of the swim team. After his disappearance, Jeff James tearfully spoke with detectives about his son’s potential & the heart breaking fact that he never got to live a single day using his desire & education for what he really wanted to do.
Dakota was last seen on the night of Wednesday, January 25, 2017 when he was out enjoying a mid-week happy hour with co-workers from a Pittsburgh trucking company where he worked in logistics. The group went to Bar Louie in Station Square & at 7:30 pm, Dakota & a new female co-worker took the train downtown & went to the Diamond Market Bar & Grill in Market Square. They paid for their bill at 9:27 pm & from there, they headed to Liberty Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh. They went to 941 Saloon & then headed a few doors over to Images Bar, both of which were gay bars.
According to Pam & Jeff, their son was openly gay after he came out at age 18. They had no issues with his sexuality & only worried for his safety. Dakota was a very non-confrontational person & they frequently worried that someone could potentially harm him simply because of his sexual orientation.
Dakota & his co-worker were seen on surveillance at about 11:30 pm walking toward the Wood Street T station where his co-worker caught an Uber home. The last image of Dakota was taken from a surveillance camera at 11:49 pm in the Cultural District that depicted him looking down at this phone, walking through Katz Plaza & down an alley, the most direct route to the Roberto Clemente Bridge that would have brought him across the river to his North Side apartment. Unfortunately, the camera at this location wasn’t working at the time & would have shed light as to what direction Dakota headed once he exited the alley. The main surveillance camera on the bridge was filled with water & inoperable so it cannot be confirmed that Dakota was on the bridge that night.
The following day, Thursday, Dakota didn’t show up for his shift at work & when he failed to come in on Friday, his employer called his apartment manager who went on to contact Pam at 9:15 am. When she was notified that her son was missing, she immediately knew that something was terribly wrong. She & Jeff were living in Frederick, Maryland, three hours from Pittsburgh & they immediately jumped into their car to meet investigators.
After he vanished, police theorized that before crossing the Roberto Clemente Bridge, Dakota headed down the stairs to urinate along the Allegheny River which eventually turns into the Ohio River. It’s possible that he fell into the icy waters that were so cold that in only a matter of minutes, would cause a body to go into shock.
Pam, however, did not believe what investigators were theorizing, that her son simply fell into the river. She believed that something must have happened that caused him to fall in. The bridge was across a concrete barrier & a major roadway which would have taken a lot of effort for Dakota to reach & had he needed to urinate, he would have likely just done it in the deserted alley.
According to Pam, not only was Dakota a strong swimmer, but he wasn’t an experienced drinker & his family don’t believe he would have been inebriated to the point that he accidentally fell into the river. It’s her firm belief that when he came out of the alley & out of the range of surveillance video, he came across someone that did something terrible to him.
Pam & Jeff temporarily relocated to the area in order to be closer to the search & have the ability to plead with authorities & the public for assistance. They attended vigils, posted missing person posters & Dakota’s boyish face became very well known to local residents who came forward to assist with searches, provide the family with food, lodging & moral support. However, searches by land, water & air found no sign of Dakota.
During the initial days of the search, Pam & Jeff spoke with Dakota’s friends & learned that something concerning had recently happened to him. Six weeks before he vanished, Dakota had been out on December 15, 2016 when he contacted his friend Shelly after a night out with co-workers. She suspects that he had been drugged that night as when she spoke with him, he was very drunk, confused & upset. When she finally tracked him down, she wondered if he was at risk for being abducted as she found him walking toward an SUV that was facing the wrong way on the street. Shelly immediately stepped in & made sure that Dakota made it home safely.
Retired New York City Police detective Kevin Gannon believes the same thing happened to Dakota on the night he vanished. Gannon is the leader of a group of investigators who are looking into a series of mysterious deaths involving college age men. It is their belief that there is a group of serial killers responsible, who they have dubbed, The Smiley Face Killers. At each location a victim is recovered, a creepy smiley face graffiti has been left behind on a visible nearby landmark.
Detective Gannon & his team of investigators came forward in 2008 with their theory regarding their belief that there is a group of serial killers across the United States who are murdering college-age men. The story of the Smiley Face Killers began in February 1997 when 21-year-old Fordham University student Patrick McNeill was out with friends in New York City’s Upper East Side. He became intoxicated & after he threw up in the bathroom of the Dapper Dog, he went outside to wait for a ride home with a friend. When his friend didn’t show up, Patrick headed toward the subway station & was seen walking followed by a van that had been double-parked on the street outside.
On April 7, nearly two months later, Patrick’s body was recovered from the East River over twelve miles from where he was last seen & the medical examiner initially classified his death as an accidental drowning, but later changed it to undetermined. There were questions raised in regards to the details of the case as reports suggested that Patrick’s state of decomposition wasn’t in line with the amount of time he’d been in the water & his family & private investigators believe he was abducted & murdered.
His blood alcohol concentration was 0.16 & since human bodies naturally produce alcohol after death, it’s likely that at the time of his death, it was 0.12 which would be equivalent to about 6 drinks for a 6 foot, 195# man. Patrick was last seen in a very confused, intoxicated state that was not consistent with this BAC.
When his body was recovered, Patrick was found on his back which is extremely unusual for drowning cases as most victims are found floating face down. The coroner also noted markings on his neck that were suggestive of some type of binding. There was also insect activity on his body that suggested he had been on dry land for a period of time before he was ultimately placed into the water.
Gannon came together with fellow detective Anthony Duarte & criminal investigator Lee Gilbertson, as he made a promise to Patrick’s parents that he would continue the investigation. Since then, the trio have worked together, compiling evidence to support the fact that they believe that Patrick McNeill was the first victim of the Smiley Face Killers.
Since 1997, about 45 men across 11 states & 25 cities have mysteriously vanished after a night out, only to be later recovered in a body of water. Gannon’s team found similarities in the victims; nearly every victim was a young man attending college, generally all maintained good grades & had professional aspirations. Many were also top athletes & very popular within their communities, each went missing during a night out drinking with friends, only to be later found dead in a body of water. Some of the more recent victims have been openly gay. It’s believed that each of these men were drugged, killed on land & eventually moved to a body of water.
Gannon, Duarte & Gilbertson believe that the men’s deaths might be connected despite the fact that all of their deaths were ruled accidental or undetermined. However, the FBI & other experts have dismissed their beliefs as nothing more than a conspiracy theory.
The nonprofit Center for Homicide Research has pointed out the fact that because the victims were consuming alcohol at the time they vanished, it would explain why they may have become confused, fallen into a body of water & drowned. Because young men in particular are statistically shown to be more likely to partake in risky behavior, further fueled by the fact that alcohol was involved, they are over-represented in drowning deaths.
A chilling idea about the Smiley Face Killers, is that unlike other serial murderers, the theory is that it’s not a single killer, but a large, organized group of people. According to Gannon, it’s possible that more than a thousand people could be involved, broken up into cells over a span of 12-15 different cities which would explain why some victims went missing on the same day in different cities.
According to Gannon, the group has only gotten more active in recent years & because law enforcement is failing to make a connection, many of the deaths are being ruled accidental or undetermined, thus allowing the group’s confidence to only grow.
In an undetermined drowning, it’s known that the victim drowned, but it’s unknown why & lacks clear evidence to support foul play. Unlike in a homicide, with an accidental or undetermined death, there would be no further investigation.
At 8:40 am on March 6, 2017, forty days after Dakota vanished, a woman was out walking her dog along the Ohio River when she noticed a body floating in the water near the Interstate 79 bridge over Neville Island ten miles downriver from where it’s suspected Dakota entered the river. He was completely clothed & had his ID on him.
Pam & Jeff indicated that when they went down to the medical examiner’s office after their son’s body was recovered from the river, they were not allowed to see his remains & identified his body from a photo of a tattoo on his ankle. Looking back, Pam wishes she had been more persistent about seeing her son’s body & realizes that because she was so numb with grief, she hadn’t been more demanding & now regrets the fact that she wasn’t able to see him one last time. She later learned that as a parent, she had the legal right to view her son’s body.
Karl Williams, the county medical examiner determined that Dakota’s death was accidental as a result of drowning & because of this, homicide detectives were never involved in his case which was closed after the autopsy was complete. According to Williams, there was no evidence to suggest a homicide or suicide as Dakota’s body showed no evidence of recent physical violence or trauma. Had someone pushed Dakota into the river, there would be no forensic evidence to prove it.
Dakota’s parents were stunned & couldn’t understand why he would have gone down to the riverbank & fallen in. If he’d been so drunk that he managed to fall into the river, how did he safely navigate the stairs that brought him down to the river? Pam & Jeff were upset that investigators refused to explore the possibility of foul play in their son’s case as Pam 100% believes that someone did something to their son on the night he vanished.
Police cannot say for sure that Dakota entered the river & admit that he could have easily climbed into a car on Fort Duquesne Boulevard but there is no evidence to support this theory.
Detective Gannon & his team began looking into Dakota’s case in May 2018 as they believe he fit the profile of a victim of the Smiley Face Killers. The group was fully aware that they were facing an uphill battle since like the other Smiley Face victims, Dakota’s death wasn’t investigated since it was determined to be an accidental death. It is their goal to get justice for the families of the victims as well as for the victims themselves as they do not believe that these young men accidentally fell into the bodies of water & there was likely something much more sinister going on.
Dakota’s case was covered in season 1, episode 1 of Smiley Face Killers: The Hunt for Justice. During the episode, a photo of Dakota’s autopsy report indicated that his blood alcohol level was 0.214% (more than 2.5 times higher than the legal limit) while his urine was 0.322% (4 times higher than the legal limit). There was also 22 mcg/mL of gamma hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) in his urine.
GHB is produced naturally in the human body in very small amounts with the typical cutoff of natural GHB levels of 10 micrograms per milliliter. Therefore, a level of 22 mcg/mL would be indicative of GHB administration. When taken as a recreational drug or unknowingly, especially in combination with alcohol, it can be extremely dangerous. GHB is a central nervous system depressant that has the street names G, liquid ecstasy, liquid x, amongst other names.
In the 1990s GHB became known to the general public as a date-rape drug as it is colorless & tasteless & those under the influence may have no memory of events, making victims vulnerable to sexual assault. In 2002, it was approved by the FDA for use in the treatment of narcolepsy. Despite the fact that it’s illegal except under strict medical uses, it’s still commonly used as a recreational drug & bodybuilders are also known to use the drug to aid in fat reduction & muscle building.
GHB has been found in about 30 of the drowning victims linked to the Smiley Face Killers, but Gannon & Duarte believe this number is much higher & likely present in 99.9% of the cases because GHB isn’t usually included in the toxicology reports.
Gannon & his team initially had only access to Dakota’s autopsy report & not photos from the recovery of his body or from the autopsy. According to the autopsy report, his body showed signs of moderate decomposition & they wondered if his body had been in the river during the entirety of the forty days he’d been missing as they would expect to see extensive decomposition after this length of time.
However, Dakota went missing in January when both the air & water temperature were extremely cold which would have slowed decomposition, preserving the body. They also shared the autopsy report with forensic pathologist, Dr. Cyril Wecht, who agreed it was possible that because of the frigid conditions, his body would have been only moderately decomposed when it was found.
Gannon’s team were stumped by the lack of injuries to Dakota’s body despite the length of time he’d been in the river & the distance his body traveled. Dakota’s body was found ten miles downriver, his body would have traveled through the Emsworth Dam on the back channel of the river, yet there were no scratch marks or injuries found on his face or hands. According to Gannon, of the hundreds of cases he’s seen, this made no sense as it wouldn’t be possible that his body would be found in what was described as pristine condition. With the path that Dakota’s body traveled, going through the metal & concrete dam, he would expect to find extensive postmortem injuries.
With this, they theorized if maybe Dakota’s body could have been placed into the river beyond the more treacherous waters on the other side of the Emsworth Dam since the autopsy noted no evidence of recent physical violence or trauma.
Dakota’s body had been recovered two miles beyond the Emsworth Back Channel Dam by Robinson Township’s Volunteer Swift Water Rescue Group forty days after he vanished. Rescuers estimate that it would have taken his body thirty minutes to reach the area where his body was recovered after going over or through the dam. The current was moving at a rapid rate. Because the river hadn’t been dredged in many decades if at all, meaning the removal of sediment & debris from the bottom of the river, which would have increased the chances of Dakota’s body being damaged as it traveled downriver.
Gannon’s team spoke with the rescue team who removed Dakota’s body from the river; they indicated he was floating face up & his body was in a condition that was indicative of not traveling very far, especially over a dam. These rescuers had recovered about a dozen bodies during their career & all the previous victims’ bodies had much more extensive damage than what they visualized on Dakota’s body.
The first bridge upstream from where Dakota’s body was found was the I-79 Bridge, a location Gannon’s team felt was more likely the location where his body entered the water rather than the Clemente Bridge. At the very least, they believe his body was placed in the water somewhere downriver from the dam. It was near this location where they located a blue, upside down smiley face graffiti image on the first manmade structure upstream which was very characteristic of other cases involving the theorized Smiley Face Killers.
Gannon’s team took a closer look at the Emsworth Back Channel Dam, which is operated by the Army Corps of Engineers & spoke with retired U.S. Army Corps of Engineer, Werner Loehlein. The concrete dam closure opens in an up & down motion that allows water to pass under the gate & over the concrete dam. If a body passed under an open gate, it could potentially sustain a crushing injury if the current pushed it into a concrete area or perhaps, flow through unharmed.
Detectives asked Loehlein about the gate openings & he indicated that of the six gate openings at the back channel, there are always some open, but depending on how many gates were open at the time that Dakota’s body passed through would indicate the suspected chance of his body being injured as it passed under.
When the detectives requested the reports that would indicate to what extent the gates were open on the day that Dakota’s body was recovered, the total opening of all fourteen gates was 25.5 feet so a few were probably open 1 foot while the others were open 2.5 feet. This would mean that had Dakota’s body passed under the gate underwater, his body would have likely sustained many injuries as it struggled to get through the small space of concrete above & the riverbed below because the openings were so small.
On some days, such as March 1st, five days before the recovery, some of the gates were lifted much higher, with one gate raised as high as 7.5 feet, while all other gates were raised to 6.5 feet. Had Dakota’s body passed through on March 1, the odds of him passing without injury were much higher, however, it’s doubtful that it would have then taken his body five days to travel the half-mile where he was ultimately located & recovered. The lack of injuries on his body indicated that his body had not been caught up on an object in the river that would have held him up from moving forward.
According to Gannon, Dakota’s body also had a blackish green discoloration which would be expected at a point of 24 hours in the water & after forty days, the expectation would be for his skin to be black in color. Pam reflects that when she saw the photo of her son’s foot for identification purposes, his skin was white. The lack of swelling to Dakota’s body also made it clear that his body had not been in the water for the entirety of the forty days he’d been missing, according to the detectives.
According to Gannon, Pittsburgh is a newer area for the suspected Smiley Face Killers & there have been two other victims, 22-year-old Paul Kochu, who was last seen in the early morning hours of Tuesday, December 16, 2014 & 25-year-old Jimmy Slack, who was last seen at a rock concert at Stage AE in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, December 6, 2011.
Jimmy Slack was a barge worker from Bridgeville, Pennsylvania who got separated from his friend during the concert. Early the next morning, he called another friend at 3 am & told them he was partying & didn’t know where he was. Seven weeks later, his body was recovered in the Ohio River, not far from Stage AE. His autopsy concluded that he drowned while his manner of death was undetermined.
Detectives spoke with journalist & podcaster, Michael Fuoco who hosts the podcast, Three Rivers, Two Mysteries, where he & Ashley Murray discuss Dakota’s case as well as the case of Paul Kochu & how eerily similar they were despite the fact that the two had never met.
Paul was 22 while Dakota was 23, both were in the area to attend the same university & they were both athletes who were highly ambitious, fun-loving people. At the time they vanished, they were both only days away from visiting with family; Paul had plans to go home for the holidays. Neither suffered from drug addiction, a medical condition or suicidal ideation.
Paul Kochu was an ICU nurse at Allegheny General Hospital who drowned after a night out drinking & watching Monday Night Football at Smokin’ Joe’s on the South Side in December 2014. He was out with his two roommates & others that night, only a short walk from his apartment. At about midnight he told his friends that he was drunk & heading home. He sent a later text shortly thereafter, saying that he’d cut his hand on glass & needed their help. When they met him at the apartment, they described him as combative when they tried to help him. As the glass was being swept up, one of the roommates knocked him with their shoulder & he fell, striking the wall with some part of his body. With this, Paul became upset & began to cry.
The two roommates left Paul at the house & headed to McDonald’s, returning shortly after 2:30 am. When they didn’t see Paul on their return, they assumed he’d gone to bed, but realized later that day that he, his wallet, cell phone & keys were gone while his white Volvo sat parked out front.
Two weeks after he vanished, surveillance video from a private residence surfaced that showed a man believed to be Paul walking past a grocery store less than a block from his apartment at 2:47 am on the Tuesday morning he vanished. Image depicted showed that he was having difficulty walking. Police theorized that he somehow ended up in the Monongahela River, however, his body was found 94 days after he vanished on March 20, 2015 in the Ohio River near Wheeling, West Virginia. This was 85 miles downstream with several locks, dams & shallows in between. His body was nude when it was recovered & in addition to the cut on his hand, he had three fractured ribs, a one-inch wound to his scalp & a blood alcohol level of 0.15%. His cause of death was undetermined freshwater drowning.
The West Virginia ME ruled Paul’s manner of death as undetermined because the circumstances leading up to the immersion of the decedent into the water are unknown. Whereas the Allegheny County ME ruled Dakota’s manner of death as accidental even though authorities cannot say where, when, why or how he entered the water.
As with Pam & Jeff James, Paul’s parents did not believe that their son had fallen into the river & wished that police would have investigated further.
After speaking with Pam & Jeff, Michael Fuoco got the feeling that the James family were frustrated with Pittsburgh detectives who brushed their son’s death off in a he was drunk & fell in the river, case closed situation despite the fact that they couldn’t even say exactly where they believed Dakota entered the river.
After Dakota’s family read about The Smiley Face Killers, they noted that Dakota fit the pattern of victims; he was highly intelligent, young & had been out drinking with his friends, just like many of the other victims. With this, Pam & Jeff went on to hire a private investigator, Larry Forletta, to delve further into their son’s case.
When Dakota’s computer was forensically analyzed, there was one suspicious email recovered from January 27, 2017, when Dakota had been missing for two days. At 11:05 pm, there was a receipt for a PayPal purchase from Dakota’s account that could not be explained & made Pam question if Dakota was being held somewhere & still alive at that time. Because Gannon believes that other victims of the Smiley Face Killers had been kept alive after they were abducted & before they were killed, this was a possibility.
Detective Gannon & his team, alongside PI Forletta, walked the route that Dakota took on the night he vanished based on surveillance video. His last movements were no longer captured after he exited the alley due to further lack of surveillance video & from here, his route is only assumed based on the direction of where he lived across the river.
There were three potential bridges that Dakota could have taken over the river, but because the 7th Street Bridge was closed at the time, he would have taken either the 6th Street/Roberto Clemente or the 9th Street bridge. Based on the location of his home, the assumption was made that he chose the bridge to the left of the three, the 6th Street/Roberto Clemente Bridge. But the remaining question was, how did he get into the water?
The investigators continued to walk Dakota’s presumed path & noted cameras on both ends of the Clemente Bridge as well as along the bridge but none of them captured Dakota that night. There is a set of stairs just before the bridge crosses the water & investigators have theorized that he went down the stairs rather than crossing the bridge in order to urinate as cadaver dogs alerted at that location early on in the investigation. However, according to Gannon, this does not prove that Dakota was there & had indeed gone down the stairs.
Gannon’s team were scheduled to meet with the Pittsburgh Police Department to obtain both the investigative reports as well as the autopsy & recovery photos from Dakota’s case, however, as they arrived for their meeting, it was unexpectedly cancelled. The team was accustomed to police resistance as no town wanted discussion of a serial killer to hit the media.
After their meeting was cancelled they were notified that records could not be released to them since Dakota’s case was an active criminal investigation. However, this was in direct contrast to what Pam & Jeff were told that Dakota’s case was officially closed after it was ruled accidental.
Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala eventually agreed to meet with Pam to discuss her son’s case & it was determined that she would be able to receive all of the photos & case files which she was given during their follow-up meeting.
As Gannon’s team reviewed all of the documentation & photos they noted suspicious marks around the back of Dakota’s neck which had never been mentioned in the written autopsy report. When Dr. Cyril Wecht reviewed the images, he concluded that the injuries were consistent with a ligature having been applied to the neck. However, according to the autopsy report, there was no internal damage to the neck structure. In another photo, he also noted a distinct difference in the coloration of the fingernail beds of the fourth & fifth fingers on both Dakota’s right & left hands that was consistent with him reaching up to release pressure from the ligature.
It was Dr. Wecht’s opinion that Dakota’s manner of death should be changed to undetermined or even homicide & the case should be reopened & reinvestigated.
When a homicide detective from the DA’s office was sent to the Medical Examiner’s office they concluded that there were no ligature marks & the marks seen on Dakota’s neck in the photo was only dried blood that was washed off during the autopsy.
According to Allegheny County D.A. Stephen Zappala, there are two pictures, one where blood came out of Dakota’s nose & mouth & pooled around the neck & a second set of photos where the neck is clean & there are no ligature marks. This is something that Pam refuses to believe since her son’s body had been in the river for forty days & she does not understand who the ME is suggesting that during that time, the dried blood hadn’t washed off. It also doesn’t explain the pooled blood at the bed of her son’s fingernails.
Since Dakota’s body was cremated after it was recovered, there is no possibility that his body can be re-examined. This is something that Pam acknowledges that she deeply regrets as at the time, she trusted the system.
As Dakota’s case currently stands, there is no active investigation unless new evidence is found & his death remains listed as an accidental drowning at the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s office. According to Gannon, there are still enough unanswered questions in the case to prompt police to take a second look.
Pam is not certain that a serial killer is responsible for taking her son’s life, but she refuses to give up until she knows exactly what happened to Dakota. She understands that nothing she does moving forward will ever bring her beloved son back, but she doesn’t want her son’s name to go down in history as a drunk kid who walked across an alley, & fell into the river, drowning. Dakota was an amazing son, brother & friend who dreamed of one day attending law school, traveling, getting married & starting a family.
Since his death, the Dakota James Foundation has been created in order to safeguard communities by providing education, improving security & assisting underserved areas. The James family want to make it their mission to implement changes so what happened to their son doesn’t happen to another family of a missing person.
References:
- YouTube – Dakota James: Smiley Face Killers: The Hunt for Justice S1 E1
- Positively Pittsburgh: Smiley Face Killers – Fact or fiction?
- CBS News: Serial killer or accidental drowning? KDKA investigates what happened to Dakota James
- Grunge: The untold conspiracy of the Smiley Face Murders
- The Frederick News-Post: Dakota Leo James
- CBS News: Dakota James’ family offers thanks: ‘We’ve been strengthened by the people of Pittsburgh’
- Three Rivers, Two Mysteries: Chapter Three: An Old Soul
- Dakota James Foundation
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Family in ‘disbelief’ after drowning death of Duquesne student ruled accident
- Camh: GHB
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Mysteries remain in Pittsburgh as anniversaries of the disappearances & deaths of two young men approach
- Oxygen True Crime: Forensic pathologist says evidence in potential ‘Smiley Face’ Killing is ‘Suspicious Enough’ to call drowning ‘A Homicide’
- Center for Integrated Healthcare: Club Drugs
- CBS News: KDKA Mysteries: What happened to Paul Kochu?
- AP: Mysteries remain as anniversary of disappearances approaches
- Criminal: Missing at the Mall: The disappearance of Patrick McNeill
- CBS News: Maryland mother fights for answers after her son’s mysterious death, but is it linked to a serial killer?
- Fox 9: The ‘Smiley Face’ murders: What experts say about this theory
- Oxygen True Crime: Dakota James Case: Possible ligature mark found on alleged ‘Smiley Face’ victim in newly released autopsy report
- Nationwide Investigations Case Analysis: Patrick McNeill
