Bodies keep surfacing — and so do questions.
There’s a dark current in Houston’s bayous this year, with 16 bodies recovered, five of them in the same week last month.
City officials are minimizing talk of a possible serial killer, yet retired NYPD Sgt. Kevin Gannon, who has consistently supported the theory that a group referred to as the “Smiley Face Killers” is linked to numerous questionable drowning deaths across the U.S., asserts that these fatalities could be connected.
“We’ve never seen drowning numbers like this before, especially with a drowning occurring every other day in the same location,” he told Fox News Digital.
Retired NYPD Sgt. Joseph Giacalone, a criminal justice professor at Penn State Lehigh Valley and a skeptic of the Smiley theory, said the mayor’s remarks were premature.
“You have 16 bodies, you can’t just say everybody’s dying and getting thrown into the river and everybody’s homeless,” he told Fox News Digital. “You don’t even know if they’re from your town.”
The Sims Bayou Greenway near the Houston Botanic Garden and the Glenbrook Park is shown in Houston, Friday, April 4, 2025. (Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)
Each case, he said, should be individually investigated.
“You need an individual autopsy and full toxicology on each one of these bodies,” he continued.
Forensic pathologists can also determine whether the victims were dead before they went into water — or if they drowned, he said.
