A new book from Jan Jenkins, the mother of a victim of the Smiley Face Killer, has got College News thinking: Are college campuses prime locations for serial killers to stalk their prey?
The Zodiac killer attacked his young victims in Northern California in the 1960s. Before these anonymous slayings, college-aged students were not particularly targeted for mass murders. There are few motives to kill someone between the ages of 18-24, until the Zodiac Killer began leaving his cryptogram mark all over San Francisco.
Cheri Jo Bates, an 18-year-old student at Riverside City College in California, was returning to her car from studying in the library. When she tried to start the engine, she was unsuccessful. Upon inspecting under the hood, Bates gave in to a ride from a stranger. This stranger just so happened to be the Zodiac Killer, and Bates was his next victim.
They rode past the library and sat in the car conversing for quite some time. Then strangers heard her shrilling scream. The killer attacked Bates, slashing her three times across the throat, choking her, beating her and then cutting her across the face. To this day, the Zodiac Killer has not been arrested.
Fast forward to almost 40 years later, and Natalee Holloway disappears. Holloway, an 18-year-old incoming freshman to Alabama University leaves after high school graduation for an unofficial senior trip with 124 classmates and 7 chaperones. Just like any other Aruba- bound celebrating teen,
Holloway began drinking early and continued all day. Holloway was last seen leaving an Aruban bar and nightclub around 1:30 a.m. May 30th, 2005. She carelessly got in a car with 3 young men she had met earlier in the evening.
Holloway was scheduled to fly home to Alabama later that Monday, but never made it to the airport. Her packaged luggage and untouched passport were found in her room.
After extensive and grueling search, arrests, then releases, Holloway’s body has yet to be found.
Two years later on the New England coast, Suzanne Jovin a 21-year-old senior at Yale is found stabbed to death.
On Jovin’s last night, she attended a pizza party she organized for the school, then drove a friend home in a Yale issued station wagon. Jovin ran in to a classmate at 9:22 p.m. Jovin’s friend recalled her saying she was “very tired and looking forward to a lot of sleep.” A passerby called police at 9:55 when they walked up to a woman bleeding, face down on the sidewalk. When the police arrived four minutes later, they found Jovin fatally stabbed 17 times in the back of the head and her throat slit. She was pronounced dead at 10:26 at Yale New Haven hospital.
Suspects included Jovin’s thesis adviser, James Van de Velde ,based on a tip that the two were engaged in an illicit affair. Van de Velde has since been cleared from the investigation.
But it’s not just women these killers are after--take Trevor Boehm for example. Boehm was a 20-year-old attending Northwestern University in Illinois.
On November 8th, 2008 Boehm’s parents arrive in Evanston, IL for family weekend only to find that Boehm was missing. He had not been in his residence hall or used his dining card in four days. On November 16, 2008, Boehm’s body was found in Lake Michigan, seven miles south of Northwestern University. Police believe Boehm’s cause of death was drowning, but the Boehm family believes there was foul play.
Dan Zamlen, an 18-year-old freshman at the University of St.Thomas in Minnesota left a party never to be seen again in April 2009. Zamlen was speaking with a friend as he walked along the Mississippi River, and she agreed to pick him up. It was 2:30 a.m. when Zamlen’s friend recalls him shrieking, “Oh my god, help,” before the call ended abruptly.
Friends and family tried reaching Zamlen until the morning when his phone battery died. Zamlen’s body was found in the Mississippi on May 1st, 2009. Police say he got too close to the river and slipped, but many believe Zamlen was abducted.
Skeptics believe the Smiley Face gang has something to do with all these suspicious murders, and are urging local police precincts to dive deeper in to these cases.
Jan Jenkins, the mother of a supposed Smiley Face gang victim has just released Footprints of Courage: Our Family’s Struggle for Justice, a book outlining the horror of her son’s untimely death.
Jenkins relives her grief to urge law enforcement to continue to investigate these peculiar cases in which the same athletic, intelligent, and genuinely well-rounded men are disappearing due to drowning.
Students across the country should take these stories and learn from them.Travel with a group whenever possible--walking alone at night makes you an instant target. Also, turn off those iPods. Being aware of your surroundings makes you less likely to be surprised by an attacker. Keep that cell phone handy in case you need to make an emergency call. If you live in a larger city, consider purchasing something to repel attackers such as mace, pepper spray, or a rape whistle. The more awareness there is surrounding this issue, the more these anonymous homicide cases will become fewer and fewer.
