Smiley Face Murders Theory

"Naughty naughty jester, telling secrets again"

"1997 2002 2012"

"...of ent selims"

"40 (more to come)"

This can be read on a note in the deep web video in episode 82 (time 23:12) of the "Deep Web Browsing" series. The note is attached to a man, who is wearing a golden mask.

Also appearing on the note are six smiley's. Most noticeable is one smiley looking like a devil.

Many viewers pointed out that the phrase "ent selims" can be read backwards as "ten smiles". Sadly the beginning of the phrase is unreadible due to the strong camera movements and lack of quality.

So I googled "murder victims in 1997 +smiley" to see if there is something to it. I found a bunch of sites about the "Smiley Face Murders Theory". Here a quick overview from the wikipedia entry:

- ''The Smiley face murder theory (variations include Smiley face murders, Smiley face killings, Smiley face gang, and others) is a theory advanced by two retired New York City detectives, Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte, that a number of young men found dead in bodies of water across several Midwestern American states over the last decade did not accidentally drown, as concluded by law enforcement agencies, but were victims of a serial killer or killers. The term smiley face became connected to the alleged murders when it was made public that the police had discovered graffiti depicting a smiley face near locations where they think the killer dumped the bodies in at least a dozen of the cases. The response of law enforcement investigators and other experts to Gannon and Duarte's theory has been largely skeptical.''

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smiley_face_murder_theory

As a sidenote, the "Happy Face Killer" is an entire different case.

An article on www.the-line-up-.com starts with "The Grisly 'Smiley Face Killer' Theory That Connects 40 College Student Deaths" what matches the last phrase on the note "40 (more to come)"

Reading further into the article it reads:

"In 2008, retired New York police detectives Frank Gannon and Anthony Duarte went public with what many have dismissed as a cockamamie theory. They claimed that starting around 1997 and stretching across 11 states from New York to Minnesota, more than three dozen waterlogged corpses that had been dredged from rivers and lakes and ponds shared too many similarities for it all to be coincidental..."

and:

"Twenty-one-year-old Patrick McNeill was last spotted drinking with friends at Manhattan’s Dapper Dog bar one night in February of 1997. His corpse was dragged out of the East River two months later and 12 miles away."

So, the theory claimed that the murders started in 1997, the same year was on the note. 2002 is also mentioned in the same article:

"On Halloween night 2002, 21-year-old University of Minnesota student Chris Jenkins was last seen being kicked out of a Minneapolis bar. Four months later, his body was found encased in ice in the Mississippi River, face up with his hands folded across his chest..."

And to 2012 the article reads this:

"Gannon — who once claimed to have mortgaged his house so he could pursue his Smiley Face investigations — seems to have stopped researching the case sometime around 2012. He and Duarte have reportedly moved on to more lucrative cases."

and:

"Despite all this, the Smiley Face theory persists. It was invoked after the 2012 disappearance of a Northwestern University student whose floating corpse was found near smiley face graffiti on a tree.”

Source: http://www.the-line-up.com/the-grisly-smiley-face-killer-theory-that-connects-40-college-students-deaths/

So, we get the following:

1997 - The (seemingly) beginning of the Smiley Face Murders.

2002 - The death of Chris Jenkins. (maybe the first smiley face murder case considered a homicide?)

2012 - Gannon and Duarte stopped their research.

If we assume that the note was written by the killer(s), makes it possible that these years are important to the killer(s), especially if it is about fame.

I also stumbled on two videos by LordanArts:

Source Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePd93Q9Wpnc

Source Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W2pQx2Ku-c

He explains the "Smiley Face Murders Theory" in detail and also points out that there is not enough evidence to proof the theory. Most interesting is his own theory at the end of part two. There he explains that, if the smiley face murders theory is true, that it is probably not a single killer, but multiple killers. Like multiple people who want someone killed, everyone kills the targeted victim of somebody else and places the body near a smiley face graffiti on purpose, maybe as proof of kill.

Let's take another look at the note. It shows six smiley faces. If the video with the note is legit, then it could be possible that the smiley faces are used as coordinates to determine were the body has to be placed or as proof of kill by placing the body near one of the smiley's.

Let me create a theory about the video.

Let's assume the victim was kidnapped and placed at a specific location with a note attached to him. The killer arrives later on to pick up the victim, killing him and placing the body, according to the note, near one or multiple smiley face graffitis.

We also can assume that the victims (sur/nick)name is Jester. The phrase "Naughty naughty jester, telling secrets again" could mean that the victim had knowledge about something, maybe about the system behind the smiley face murders. So it could also be possible that the victim was a killer himself who tried to tell the truth to the public.

Also, the fact that all the victims, that seemed to be connected to the smiley face theory are white, male students, raises the question if some sort of fraternity is involved or even responsible for the murders.

That way, the deep web video could show how the killer found the victim and looks at the note to see were he is supposed to place the body.

But it seems odd that the killer takes the risk to get caught by recording what he's doing with the victim. Probably the biggest indication that the video is simply another edgy art project.