Smiley face killers may be stalking college men ALBANY, New York (CNN) -- At the age of 21, Christopher Jenkins appeared to have everything going for him. The University of Minnesota senior was good-looking, had a near perfect grade-point average and had a future in business. Christopher Jenkins, 21, vanished on Halloween 2002. Four years later, police ruled his death a homicide. Then, suddenly, he vanished. He was last seen celebrating Halloween at a bar in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2002. Jenkins' friends said he left about midnight. Four months later, his body was found in the Mississippi River, still wearing his Halloween costume. Minneapolis police classified the drowning as accidental. ... Hundreds of miles away, Kevin Gannon, a retired detective with the New York Police Department, was investigating the mysterious deaths of several college men from New York state. Each of the deaths had been ruled an accidental drowning. ... Gannon enlisted the help of another former NYPD officer, Anthony Duarte, when Christopher Jenkins' death became a homicide. In 2003, the two traveled to Minneapolis to investigate Jenkins' death. They learned about a string of student drowning deaths, many of them involving young men who attended colleges along the Interstate 94 corridor in the Midwest -- in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. Nine of the deceased attended the University of LaCrosse, in Wisconsin. Three attended colleges in New York state. In all, the investigators say they've connected the bizarre drowning deaths of at least 40 college-age men across the country. ... As Gannon and Duarte investigated the deaths, they began to see a trend. The cases spanned 25 cities in 11 states, and at least some of them were connected by a creepy symbol left near the water's edge: a smiley face painted on trees and other surfaces. The detectives believe that the smiley faces were left by the killer or killers. They varied in size, with each face more haunting than the next. The most sinister was found in Iowa. It was drawn in red with a devil's horns. Next to the smiley face was a note that read, "Evil Happy Smiley Face Man."

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.