A
s to
murder m
otive
s
in general
, a
side from
obvious
mental
disease
and
deeply
disturbed thinking
,
all
three classifications
of serial killers have
cited
a host of
prompts for their
repeat
offenses. These have been seen to overlap in many
case
s
,
particularly where organized and disorganized traits have merged,
but they generally fall under the following
separate
categories
:
1.
Visionary
(e.g. hearing voices, etc.)
2.
Mission Oriented
(
e.g. religion-based or
purging
of
“undesirables”
,
etc.
)
3.
Hedonistic
(
subsets of
which include
Lust, Thrill,
and
Comfort
)
4.
Power/Control
(“achieving”
greatness
and dominance
by
brutali
zing others
)
While
most
of the
male
killers
will
claim to
have acted
up
on any or
all
of those
four
incentives
,
or
various combinations
of them
,
hedonistic
“comfort killing” is chiefly the domain of the
roughly
five-
percent minority
of serial murderers
who have yet to be discussed
in any detail
here.
N
amely
female
s
who
routinely kill
with the
object
of
inherit
ing
from the deceased
certain
things
of monetary value
,
like
life insurance benefits
,
investment
accounts,
real estate
,
and
other forms of
transferrable
property
.
Homicides
of this nature
require
psychological
cunning
over
physical
cruelty in order
to be
executed
successful
ly
and, thus,
are done with
very little
zeal and
bloodshed
—fast acting poison being the weapon of choice
,
usually
.
A
nd sometimes drowning.
“
The
supposition that only males are drowning does not necessarily support a serial killer theory.”
The
Center For Homicide Research, in their 2010 study attempting to debunk the Smiley Face Murder theory
T
he theory has
become a bit convoluted
of late
, but the
actual
gravamen of
the
interstate
killer
allegation
is that
certain types of
young
m
ales
living
within
close range of
certain northern
U.S.
highways
are being murdered somehow and their
corpses
later
placed in
nearby
bodies of
water
to appear as if they
accidentally
drowned.
N
OT
that they are being
slain
through
the act of
drowning
itself
.
It
’
s a fearful people who think such fearsome thoughts
,
granted
,
but
th
is
desperate
theorizing
is
n’t
really that
farfetched
when
viewed
from a
forensic
perspective
.
B
ecause
, whether by drowning or asphyxiation
through
an
other means, the result
c
ould
look
the
same in a
basic
autopsy
—
a drowning
victim’s lungs don’t necessarily fill with water.
In fact
,
experts
say
many
victims
drown
with
little or
no
water
ever
entering
their lungs
.
MedAire/MedLink
’s
drown-specialist
explains
,
“Most often there is a small amount of water inhaled and an involuntary spasm of the epiglottis that prevents the lungs
from being completely filled.”
This
natural
response to submersion
is
called laryngospasm
and
when
full
y
triggered
will produce
a
“dry drowning”
event
as opposed to a “wet” one
. A
ccording to RescueDiver.org
,
laryngospasm
is
, to some extent,
common
in all
type
s
of drowning death
s
.
Th
at involuntary
reflex
is
also the reason
why
a person
in the
throes
of
drowning are unable to call out for help
,
since they can’
t do so without air.
As to t
h
e relatively
recent
fascination with
smiley faces
and their
anonymous
artisans
, this
flamboyant
iconography
is
secondary to th
e overriding
pre
cept
of
a
cleverly
crafted
“
accident
”
,
for the simple reason that
, even before attention was called to its possible
connection
,
citizens
never
ha
d
to
rely on
the presence of
graffiti
at the
water’s edge
to justify th
eir
supposition
of foul play
. They need
ed
only
to
point to the disproportionately high
number
of
non-recreational
cold weather
“drownings”
occurring
in
the
ir
region
over
the past fifteen years
.
Serial killing is a popular
topic these days,
standard fare in our movies and novels and video games.
B
ut,
due to
the
association
in the present case
with
a
universally recogniz
ed
symbol
,
it
’
s
become
the
otherwise minor
smiley face aspect of the
I-9
0
and I-9
4
murder
theory
that
has garnered
the most
media
attention
, unfortunately
.
T
ypically,
it’s use
ful
to
obtain
national
exposure
for
an issue that’s be
en
deliberately
marginalized
, swept under the rug by local police and politicians
. E
xcept
this
kind of
sensationalism
seems to have put
a
somewhat silly
spin on the
whole
matter
. T
o the point of serious
ly
distract
ing
from what
area
residents
and their
spokes
people
are
actually
trying to
say
.
Th
us
,
th
e
playful
novelty of a s
mil
ing
face
, while
broadly
appealing,
has only
serve
d
to
obfuscat
e
instead
of
illuminat
e
a life-threatening
situation
.
This
then
will
help to
explain why
, in 2010,
when
the
Center For Homicide Research
published a
study
titled “Drowning
the Smiley Face Murder Theory”
they
also
misconstrued the
pub
l
ic’s
belief about
th
e
se
disappearances and
deaths
;
singularly and
erroneously f
ocus
ing their research
on
flouncing
the
idea of
murder-by-drowning and the
so called
smiley face
seri
a
l
killers’
hallmark
happy
signature
, as opposed to analyzing the actual facts and statistics
.
Another
costly
public relations stunt, another swipe at the theorists, another
missed opportunity.
And more unnecessary fatalities, as a result
of the standoff
.
Alt
hough
t
he
issue
of whether water can be used as a weapon of death is not dispositive and it neither advances nor defeats the original theory to argue that it can’t
, I think it
’s
important to
scrutinize
CHR’s
publicized
finding
s
here
anyway
.
Why
is
it
relevant if it’s irrelevant
? B
e
cause
the research is
greatly
flawed
,
and yet
CHR’s
study
delivered such a crushing blow to the theory’s chi
e
f proponents
,
outright
admonishing
them
and
their
followers
for
“observational bias” and “group think”
,
that
it
effectively silenc
e
d
all meaningful
public
discussion
about the drownings
ever since
.