S3E2 The Smiley Face Killer A Midwest Mystery with Jasmine Ellis

Cat Alvarado: [00:00:04] Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is season three episode number two of the unofficial official story. I'm Cat, and I'm here recovering from laryngitis. So if my throat is all scratchy, that's why.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:00:20] Hey, guys, I'm Dwayne. And I'm feeling like moving to somewhere that's landlocked.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:00:26] And I'm Koji, and I have no idea. I'm just here.

Cat Alvarado: [00:00:29] And this is where we tell you the official story. We look at paranormal conspiracies, unexplained phenomena, cryptids and true crime. And by the end, we'll tell you what really maybe happened. In this episode, we're asking the question, is there a serial killer going around killing young men in the Midwest and leaving a happy face where they dispose of the bodies?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:00:53] You just assume that they're killing women.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:00:54] But yeah, that was kind of yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:00:58] Your bias is showing. Oops.

Cat Alvarado: [00:01:02] My bad. Let's introduce our guest, Jasmine Ellis. Jasmine is a stand up comedian, entertainment journalist and podcast host from Arlington, Texas. She tours colleges and clubs nationally and has been featured at over a dozen of the top comedy festivals, including Moontower, 10,000 Laughs, Limestone and Black Girl giggles. Her debut comedy album, Trash Baby, went number one on iTunes and has been featured on the best comedy album by comedians You haven't heard of Playlist on Spotify. Jasmine was honored as a comedian to watch on the hoo ha ha Women in Comedy Forum. And her comedy special, Nobody's Queen, was awarded NPR's Bull's Eye Comedy Album of the Year and is available to watch now on Amazon Prime and the Dry Bar comedy app.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:01:48] Hi, thanks for having me.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:01:49] How did you get started in comedy?

Jasmine Ellis: [00:01:51] I went to school for broadcasting and journalism and thought that's what I was going to do, journalism and radio. And then while I was working part time at a makeup counter, one of my coworkers kind of just heard me having a mental breakdown in the break room, and I was just like, I'm absolutely done with this job and ranting. And he was like, You are so funny when you're upset. Have you ever thought about doing standup? And I was like, No, I'm about to jump off a bridge. I'm like, I'm going to flip my car on the way home. I hate this job. And he was like, Well, I used to do standup in New York. And like, I don't just tell people that, Listen, I do open mics, you should come with me and just hang. And I was like, All right, sure. And like, God, I can never thank Cody James enough. And this is someone who's just like, completely moved on from standup and doesn't do it anymore. But I just tagged along the one time and under the guise like because one thing you'll learn, Oh my God, when you were the new open girl at an open mic, like the open girl. An open girl. That's not what I meant. 

Cat Alvarado: [00:02:43] The new Open mic-er.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:02:43] That's what. That's what they hope. Yeah.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:02:45] That's what they hope.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:02:46] That's my favorite kind of girl. 

Jasmine Ellis: [00:02:48] They hope you are an open girl. When you are q new girl at an open mic. Like you get so much like a troubling amount of male attention. So I remember people were like, Oh, so you're starting? And I just didn't know I was ready to start. So I literally lied and said I was doing like a story about comedians in Dallas. And then all of these comedians were like trying to pitch themselves to be in the story because I was like, I went undercover as a journalist.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:03:11] That made it worse, right?

Jasmine Ellis: [00:03:13] So much worse. So much worse. When people were really disappointed that I was just actually telling jokes and not like giving them a platform, like, how dare I? And then I just stuck it out. So like, you know, a couple of years in the Dallas scene, a couple years in the Austin scene, and now it's crazy at this point. I have lived in Dallas, Austin and LA and equal amount of time, so don't even know where.

Cat Alvarado: [00:03:33] That's wild.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:03:34] Yeah, it just went by so fast. So now I don't even know where where I'm from anymore.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:03:36] Which is the best place of those three places?

Jasmine Ellis: [00:03:39] It's a good Question.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:03:40] Loa Angeles,

Cat Alvarado: [00:03:41] LA. Duh,

Jasmine Ellis: [00:03:42] Is that what you need to hear. 

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:03:43] There are two l.a. Natives here.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:03:45] No, you don't.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:03:46] Yeah, I can tell by the lakers jacket. I can't tell you that. I don't love it. Here. listen. Listen. I'm sure it'll be so much more fun with money.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:03:56] That's everywhere, though. Yeah. There's one thing I tell my son. If you're going to be unhappy, you might as well be rich and unhappy versus poor and unhappy. Because if you're rich and happy, you're like, have a sex addiction. I'm going to go to a retreat for, like two months. Yeah, yeah. Like.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:04:10] Yeah. It's like if you're going to be poor and single, then I think go, go for a city, a big city where you can make, you know, if you're going to be poor in like in a, in a situation,

Cat Alvarado: [00:04:22] In a family.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:04:23] Yeah. Then just, you know, go to Lancaster or wherever you need to go.

Cat Alvarado: [00:04:28] Lancaster is pretty much Arizona at this point. It could be anywhere. Lancaster has an Applebee's. They've got a Chili's.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:04:35] There's a Lancaster, California.

Cat Alvarado: [00:04:36] Yeah.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:04:37] That's so funny. There's a Lancaster, Texas that's just like.

Cat Alvarado: [00:04:39] There's also Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Yeah, it's just kind of like a state.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:04:42] Nothing city between, like, Dallas and Denton, Texas. And you're just. What are you doing in Lancaster? Needed gas, like, you know. Right.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:04:48] Right. That's actually exactly what you do in Lancaster, California. That's exactly what you do.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:04:52] And and have you had a video go viral? Probably more than one. A couple, because I feel like there's a bit and I don't want to attribute it to you wrongly.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:05:03] I'm gonna be so disappointed if it's Michelle Bhutto.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:05:05] No, no, no, no, no. I know her. I know her. I know her.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:05:07] No. Good for her. Not me again.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:05:09] No, it's, uh. I don't know I see so many clips, but it felt like it was a clip about how easy it is to get guys or something like that. Huh? Something that.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:05:20] You know, it's funny because you never like. It's the way men interpret. The way I write. A joke can be so funny, right? So I do have a joke about white men hitting on me. And it was the joke was about and that one went kind of viral last summer. And it was kind of funny because it went from this upswing of like most of the comments were black women going, Oh my God, yes, they do this. It's so annoying. And like, I relate, we relate. Look at us black girls getting along. And then the white men were like, Uh, actually no white guy would ever hit on her. And it's like, first of all, first of all, like, it was like they way they tried to, like, tear you down. And it's like, not that I attribute my ability to get a white man to hit on me as like, some career skill. Like it's not a good thing about me, but like also white man, that's a big net.

Cat Alvarado: [00:06:02] It's a strategy to hit on a woman by being mean to her.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:06:05] So that's a neg move.

Cat Alvarado: [00:06:06] Yeah. Oh, I'm not like that. I'm not like that. And then you. Then they get in your pants. It's a absolutely.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:06:13] Never worked on me.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:06:14] Is that how you get a girl?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:06:15] Some guys who couldn't get girls studied Guys who do get girls. Oh. And took all the wrong things from it. Just like how some comics think. They watch Richard Pryor and they're like, Oh, I'll be dirty. And it's like, Yeah, you missed the whole thing. If you think.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:06:28] Negging has Never, you have to be like, you have to have a specific type of self-esteem because it's like low self-esteem that can be easily influenced by like, I'm not I'm not like negative feedback never works on me. If you're mean to me, I'm like, Why are you being mean to me? I hate you like I'll cry, but you're not going to win me over with negative feedback.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:06:44] And you also have to know how to do it. So like when they studied these guys who were getting girls, they probably had a rapport already and the negs were like, teasing. Just like like playful, heartfelt kind of thing. Yeah. And then the guys said, Oh, and then they probably took it to the next level.

Cat Alvarado: [00:06:58] They were like. You be mean to them.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:06:59] Because that's the funny thing about every piece of like pickup man pickup guy advice is at the end of the day, you have to have charisma and be attractive for any of it to work. There is no.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:07:08] Rich. Too rich would help. 

Jasmine Ellis: [00:07:11] I Mean. But not everybody's out, you know, lots of broke dudes who get plenty of women, but like charisma and character.

Cat Alvarado: [00:07:18] You just have to be hot. Pretty much. If you're hot, you could get any woman. That's like what?

Jasmine Ellis: [00:07:22] Men underestimate how horny women are. Like, they will like they'll attribute every everything. And it's like, no, we look at you and we decide, you know, like we just within seconds we're like, Would I or wouldn't?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:07:33] I did the screenplay on Incels and I interviewed this Incel and he, uh oh. And he was like, I hit on this girl in high school. It's like, can I see her picture? And it was like, Oh, dude, she's like, way out of your league. She's like, She's like an A+. And you're like a C at best, maybe. And I was like And I was like, You only ask this one girl, and she said no to you. And from that point on, you thought, all women hate you. I was like, And. 

Dwayne Perkins: [00:07:53] He Probably thought she was a I know they have all these names. 

Cat Alvarado: [00:07:56] Stacy or something. I think I went down.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:07:58] I went down this rabbit hole because I recently got like a lot of hate on something. And so I got really, really invested in Incel culture because I was like, I was very curious about trying to understand their mind. And I learned all these words like Freud, which is short for like feminized femme Boyd femme noid. I'm fucking up their terminology. Please Incels let me know. Tell me what else you hate about me. And it was just it was. I mean, they, they really like you were saying, like they one bad thing happens to them because so many like, it's like men of all calibers, quote unquote. We're going to treat people like categories. They decide they should only go after women of one particular group. What, like, like and it's crazy. Like men in their 50s are still looking at women under 25. Like, you know what I mean? Like the they all want the same women. And then when they're that tiny pool of women rejects them, they decide to disrespect all women of all groups. Why aren't the dudes who get girls adopting incels and fixing them up? Where is your like, he's all that moment, right? Fix this, man.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:08:55] You know what, though? I will say this. And being from Brooklyn like that was a thing like we didn't it wasn't we didn't have this terminology. But if you couldn't get girls, you got clowned. And people were like, This is what you got to do. Like step your game up like no one felt sorry for you. You know, it was like either you're overshooting or you got to, you know, you got to know what girl you can get. Like there's a whole understanding. No one felt bad for anyone.

Cat Alvarado: [00:09:18] And also aim realistically at someone who's not over too hot. Because I swear, like these guys, like you said, it's always a guy who like, is a C plus and. Aiming for an A+. And then he's sad. And it's like if you aim for another C, you could have a maybe a line,

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:09:33] You could be a B minus

Cat Alvarado: [00:09:33] Maybe a B minus if you got a good personality.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:09:36] Right, Right. So that I think that ship has sailed because like, once we started giving trophies to everybody, you know what I mean? No one understood. Like, they're like.

Cat Alvarado: [00:09:44] Why can't I also get a girl for no effort at all?

Jasmine Ellis: [00:09:47] I mean, that mentality of thinking of women as objects, things to be won. So like, if I do X, Y, and Z, I should get a woman. And then when it doesn't work out, they get really mad. And yeah.

Cat Alvarado: [00:09:57] It's they forget to connect with the other person. It's like, Oh, they're not an object, it's a relationship. There's a dynamic, it's a vibe.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:10:03] They don't learn how to be friends with girls, like being friends with girls. You just have to be comfortable being around.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:10:09] Girls are people.

Cat Alvarado: [00:10:10] I once did a TikTok about that. I was like, Guys, my biggest advice is like, have female friends and all these guys blew up my comments going, Why would I do that?

Jasmine Ellis: [00:10:18] You have got to stop speaking to men directly. I see these like like I love when you do this, though, because you mean so. Well, I'll get in your comments. And I'm like, Oh, I don't even know where to start.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:10:31] Is there a serial killer going around killing young men in the Midwest and leaving a happy face where they dispose of the bodies? Let's say what Wikipedia has to say about this. The smiley face murder is a theory advanced by retired New York City detectives Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte, as well as Dr. Lee Gilbertson, a criminal justice professor and gang expert at Saint Cloud State University. It alleges that a number of young men found dead in bodies of water across Midwestern American states from the late 1990s to the 20 tens 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 to the police that the police had discovered graffiti depicting a smiley face near locations where they think the killer dumped the bodies. And at least a dozen of the cases. Gannon wrote a textbook case on the subject titled Case Studies in Drowning Forensics, which I tried to read as 456 pages. I was I was drowning in paper.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:11:35] According to a Newsweek article, Detective Gannon said there were over 681 cases in their database. He says the men were popular, athletic and good students who they believe were targeted. He also believes the young men were drugged and abducted from bars held and possibly mentally or physically abused before being killed. What is not generally known about these cases is that the smiley face is just one of 13 symbols Gannon and Doherty have identified that have been found around the bodies.

Cat Alvarado: [00:12:02] Let's look at A case historically cited as one of the potential victims. So here's a report of the case we found on Oxygen True Crime Link. In the show notes, Dakota James was 23 years old when he went missing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on January 25th, 2017. Around 11:30 p.m., James was walking back to his apartment after a night out drinking with friends and coworkers, and he never made it home. The last known sighting of the Duquesne University graduate student was caught on a surveillance camera in the downtown area. The footage captured James entering a dark alley, and that was the last time he was seen alive. The following morning, James did not show up for work. His boss informed his family, who filed a missing persons report 72 hours later. James parents later hired a private investigator who organized a massive city wide search which led to the discovery of James body in the Ohio River on March 6th, 2017. This is pretty recent. 40 days after he had disappeared 40 days, the Pittsburgh police theorized that James fell into the river while crossing a bridge near the city center and drowned. Which is weird to just like fall off a bridge like that. Anyways, they believe his body traveled for almost ten miles and even went through a dam before its discovery. James body, however, had almost no visible damage, which was highly suspicious because it had traveled through heavily trafficked river. A smiley face was found spray painted on an underpass near where James body was discovered.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:13:40] This reminds me a lot of the missing 411 cases remember we saw. So for those that don't, that was a couple episodes ago. But basically there's this guy, David Pilaudies, looked at all these cases of missing people in national parks in America and they all disappeared under mysterious circumstances. And it's very similar to this in that, like, he puts together a bunch of missing people and like, you know, they were around bodies of water. Berries, I think was one of them. Right, right, right. When I was reading this case, when I was doing more research, I thought a lot about that.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:14:08] What are some of the theories of who is responsible? We got this list from writer Ali Vanderheyden from Oxygen True Crime. The link is in the show notes. So it could be a serial killer, a group of serial killers, gang initiation, accidental drownings, unconnected foul play.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:14:26] Please, please be gang inniciation.

Cat Alvarado: [00:14:28] Why would you initiate the gang but then you like kill the person.

Cat Alvarado: [00:14:31] Have put a happy.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:14:31] Face. They put a happy face next to it. That's like, Oh, it's a happy face, gang.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:14:35] But like like the gang initiation. You kill somebody. Oh.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:14:39] Okay. But it's the happy face, gang. Yeah. I want to be part of the happy Face, gang?

Jasmine Ellis: [00:14:43] So all of the men who were killed were in their 20s in college. And athletes.

Cat Alvarado: [00:14:47] Yeah, they're all bro.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:14:48] Sounds like it. Yes. Yes.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:14:49] And at different colleges, right?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:14:51] Different colleges in the Midwest.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:14:52] In the Midwest,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:14:53] They happen in clusters. So like there's a there's a Pittsburgh cluster.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:14:56] And usually they've been drinking. It's mean. The most common story is that they go to a bar, they like, Hey, see you guys later. I'll meet you at the dorm or apartment. And then they go And then they disapear.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:15:04] Is there any connectivity between the sports? Like, do any of them play the same sport? Were they in the same championship, the same league? Is this like a march Madness type of thing?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:15:12] That's funny. That's. 

Jasmine Ellis: [00:15:12] Where it's like, are we taking out? I don't know. What are they called? Pointer guards. Who's in charge?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:15:17] Shooting guards. Point guards, Maybe. Maybe they were just winning the pool.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:15:20] Who is the quarterback of basketball?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:15:22] Point guard.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:15:22] Okay, so, like, is it a bunch of point guards getting killed right before March Madness? Okay.

Cat Alvarado: [00:15:27] Actually, it's very like Sweet Valley High.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:15:29] I'm trying. 

Dwayne Perkins: [00:15:33] Dakota James, this guy was actually a swimmer, okay? In high school. He was like like, you know, one a lot of swimming contests. So that was kind of weird that he would drown also.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:15:43] But if you're Drunk,

Cat Alvarado: [00:15:44] That's super Weird.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:15:44] Maybe. But you would also respect water, right? You know what I mean?

Cat Alvarado: [00:15:47] Also heard for believe this one that like the evidence of the body, the the forensics were not quite in line with the body being in water for 40 days.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:15:57] Absolutely. Absolutely.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:15:58] So like he had been killed already, then dumped.

Cat Alvarado: [00:16:00] Yeah. That's that's from the the Crime Junkie podcast. They were saying like, because this is gross, but like the skin is supposed to like, like slide off, like falling off the bone.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:16:09] Yeah. Like when you Marinate something for a long time. So he wasn't slow cooked enough. He it was possible that he was like,

Cat Alvarado: [00:16:15] Skin was still On him, like it wasn't falling Off the bone. 

Jasmine Ellis: [00:16:18] Theory. And this isn't like, I don't know who would do this, but like theory because they had like, everything internally was in line with drowning. Right? He could have been like low water drown, like held down in a tub. Right. Then his body was dumped in water. So like, oh, he drowned. You can see like his lungs collapsed the way you would from drowning. But his skin didn't matter. Like if you microwave something, then throw it in a crockpot. I can tell because the skin's not loose off where This is why I don't do true crime. Because this shit's nasty.

Cat Alvarado: [00:16:45] It gets gross. Koji, you might have made a point of not putting that detail into I'm really on purpose, but I brought it in.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:16:52] I'm just I'm really glad I had a veggie bowl earlier today so I don't have to the meat implications of it much and don't know if it's the same guy or not. Oxygen has a whole series. I was able to watch episode one. I mean you could you could really deep dive on this, but if it's the same guy who was featured in episode one of the Smiley Face Oxygen show, he also had like strangulation marks around his neck.

Cat Alvarado: [00:17:14] I heard about this. 

Dwayne Perkins: [00:17:15] And they mentioned nothing of it on the autopsy. And so they they're trying to get it reopened as like he was clearly strangled and his fingers had. 

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:17:25] Defensive wounds

Dwayne Perkins: [00:17:26] blood clots.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:17:27] Oh, yeah.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:17:27] The tips of his fingers. So as if, like fighting, he put his finger underneath the rope and, like,

Jasmine Ellis: [00:17:33] Trying to get loose.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:17:34] Yeah. And so the fact that they saw that and overlooked it is.

Cat Alvarado: [00:17:38] There was also another detail. Again, not sure if it was this particular person or another similar victim where like the official story is that the guy drowned. But what they found on his body were like larva from Houseflies. So that indicates that his body was actually like inside of a house somewhere, like on land, because this land insect shouldn't be put in larva. If you're submerged in water, it shouldn't be there. Like that doesn't add up.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:18:05] So these men are probably being killed somewhere else and then dumped.

Cat Alvarado: [00:18:08] Yes,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:18:09] Chances are.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:18:09] Well, the question is whether whether there's one person doing them all, because like in individual cases, there's like they're not sure if it's accidental or they've been murdered. But the question is, have all of them, all of them tied to this one killer?

Jasmine Ellis: [00:18:21] Are all these men white?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:18:22] Yes. Yeah.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:18:23] Yeah. And this I Think. 

Jasmine Ellis: [00:18:25] I'm not smiling. You all reacted like that.

Cat Alvarado: [00:18:28] Smile. I mean, I did. I did hear this. This is like, just random theory. I don't even remember where I heard it. I think I just watched a lot of true crime. You guys don't make me cite this, but serial killers don't generally cross racial lines.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:18:40] That's true.

Cat Alvarado: [00:18:40] They tend to kill their own. So I guess we could say probably the smiley face killer, if it is a killer, is a white man.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:18:46] At least one guy was gay.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:18:48] Okay.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:18:48] And and I read somewhere that a few of them were, but I don't think all of them were so that that.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:18:52] So a few of them were out.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:18:54] One was. Yeah. One was literally he left a gay bar in Pittsburgh and walked through an alley and was never seen again.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:19:01] The Center for Homicide Research link in the show notes offers 18 reasons the theory is problematic. Here are a few that we picked out. So one is it's hard to prove that the smiley face was painted around the time of the death. Right The smiley faces do not match each other, so they look different depending on which body, The distances between the discovery of the bodies and the smiley faces vary. No evidence of victim traumas. And my my favorite one, which is the homicide. Drownings are very rare. I mean killing people via drowning is actually very, very challenging,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:19:31] Which is Why they're probably not being killed that way.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:19:33] Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, like, it's funny because I do jiu jitsu and I have a gym and, you know, like, I choke people. We choke all the time. And it's actually really, really difficult to choke somebody to death. I mean, it takes a long time because. 

Dwayne Perkins: [00:19:45] You basically Have to keep choking a person who's non-responsive.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:19:49] Yes. For most of the people will let them go because in jiu jitsu, almost everybody gets choked out.

Cat Alvarado: [00:19:53] So So you choke people, you've choked people out.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:19:55] Choked people and I've been choked out.

Cat Alvarado: [00:19:56] How long does it take to choke someone Out. 

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:19:58] Like, well, if you're doing like a rear naked choke, it could be like 20 seconds. 30 seconds? Yeah. Just to go to sleep. And then they then they like, they basically they fall to the ground.

Cat Alvarado: [00:20:06] They fall to the ground.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:20:06] And it's like most people will let go.

Cat Alvarado: [00:20:07] And then beyond that, you have to keep you have to.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:20:09] Keep doing it. But the problem is that most people let go like like don't know how long. But because I've never I've never killed anybody. I'm. 

Dwayne Perkins: [00:20:14] Probably a few minutes.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:20:15] Yeah, but it takes a while but like it's but the natural reaction when they go limp is to let go even if you're trying to kill them because you're like, Oh, I guess I killed him. But until until you, until you do it. That's why police, LAPD or whoever or sheriff's, I know that they actually they get choked out once until they black out just to know how it feels.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:20:31] Right, Right, right.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:20:32] Because like, you have to see it happen to understand. Like what? And then you have to do it. And it's really interesting. So it's actually a real and then drowning is even worse because you have to actually hold them under water. And it's it's hard. It's like a it's not like it's much easier to fight back. Yeah, it's much easier to shoot. Right. It's much easier to like stab. Drowning is a very.

Cat Alvarado: [00:20:50] Like not they would have to be incapacitated for some other way to easily be drowned Homicidally. 

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:20:56] Yes.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:20:57] Which is, you know, hate to bring up a bummer here, which makes the George Floyd thing super unacceptable. Unacceptable. Yeah.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:21:04] Eight minutes. Yeah. I mean, it takes it takes a very long amount of time. It's not like something that you could just do shortly. Okay.

Cat Alvarado: [00:21:09] According to an FBI statement, they found no credible evidence of a serial killer or killer over the past several years. This is what they said. Law enforcement and the FBI have received information about young college aged men who are found deceased in rivers in the Midwest. And the FBI has reviewed the information about the victims provided by two retired police detectives who have dubbed these incidents the Smiley Face murders and interviewed an individual who provided information to the detectives. To date, we have not developed any evidence to support links between these tragic deaths or any evidence substantiating the theory that these deaths are the work of a serial killer or killers. Vast majority of these instances appear to be alcohol related drownings. The FBI will continue to work with the local police in the affected areas to provide support, as requested, said supervisory agent Richard J. Cocoa in Washington, DC.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:22:02] This whole thing, this feels like when you go to like a restaurant, say you go to KFC and they're just out of chicken and you're like,

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:22:11] What?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:22:11] Yeah, yeah. And you're like, How could you be out of chicken? You know what I mean?

Jasmine Ellis: [00:22:14] That's your whole bag.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:22:15] And then the guy behind the counter is just like, What do you want from me, bro? You know what I mean? This these cops are just taking the easiest way out. What I'm saying in all these different areas because it's sort of like I'm not saying they're all connected, but people get drunk every day and they don't drown, you know, especially in a body of water where you have to go to that body of water. So I feel there's a lot of people here just sort of taking the easy way out.

Cat Alvarado: [00:22:39] And like unless a bridge is like, you know, tiny, short, like a really tiny little like three foot foot bridge with, like, broken planks, you're not going to just fall off the bridge like most bridges are, like, wide enough for a car. And at that point, like, you can walk down that and they usually have railings.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:22:56] Although you and I went to UCSB, how many people fall off the houses at DP. 

Cat Alvarado: [00:22:59] They fall at the bluffs. That's true. So at UC Santa Barbara, for those who don't know, this college is right on the edge of these bluffs. And then there's the Pacific Ocean and there's all these house parties on this street that's right on the bluffs. It's called Del Playa. And there are a lot of stories of people who get drunk and like just run and like fall off the bluffs and die and. 

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:23:21] Super intoxicated. That's super intoxicated.

Cat Alvarado: [00:23:23] Super intoxicated. Right.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:23:24] But these bluffs are like it's not like a structure. It's not like super.

Cat Alvarado: [00:23:28] Sometimes the bluffs crumble under you.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:23:29] Yeah, but a lot of times they're on the patio and. And they.

Cat Alvarado: [00:23:32] Fall off a Balcony,

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:23:33] Right? Yeah. So it happens.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:23:34] That makes sense, though. You have to. You have to. They're already there. These people are like, yeah, no way near the water.

Cat Alvarado: [00:23:39] Fall off the Golden Gate Bridge or like, you know, like if it's a bridge where cars drive, it's too wide.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:23:45] It's crazy how they're able to dump these bodies, though. Like no one's It's a bridge where people are driving. No one sees somebody pulled over.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:23:51] They usually find them up up from the bridge. So like their body, their body goes up a few few miles. But they they hypothesize that that's where they fell in.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:24:00] When was the Last one of these?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:24:01] Was it 2017?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:24:02] I think 2017, yeah.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:24:03] So from 2010 to 2017?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:24:05] No. Early 2000.

Cat Alvarado: [00:24:07] Early 2000, I think there was even one in like 1999.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:24:09] There was. 

Jasmine Ellis: [00:24:10] Oh my gosh,

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:24:11] It's been a while.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:24:11] So okay. Yeah.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:24:13] At that time they thought it was Fred Durst, but he got cleared. Um, sorry, guys.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:24:21] Okay. I was like from Limp Bizkit, like, is there a killer also Named. 

Dwayne Perkins: [00:24:25] Just the Time. 

Jasmine Ellis: [00:24:26] Robert Durst? No.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:24:27] Yeah. Robert Durst was a killer, too. Yeah.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:24:29] Robert Durst was a killer. Yeah. Fred Durst is the lead singer.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:24:32] Okay, I'm so confused.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:24:34] To be clear, there was a happy face killer. Keith Hunter Jesperson in Wyoming sent anonymous letters to the media where he drew smiley faces. But all his victims were women and none were drowned.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:24:46] So let's ask Chatgpt now. What does Chatgpt think? Who are the happy face murderers?

Chat GPT: [00:24:52] The happy face murderers is a term used to describe a series of murders that occurred in the United States in the 1990s. The name comes from the smiley face graffiti found near some of the victims bodies, which some believe was left by the killer as a signature or symbol. However, unlike the smiley face killers, there is little evidence to suggest that the happy face murders are the work of a single organized group of killers. Instead, the term is often used to describe unrelated cases where smiley face graffiti was found near the victim's body.

Cat Alvarado: [00:25:24] All right. What do you guys think? Is a serial killer in the Midwest killing dudes and leaving happy faces. When we return, we'll put our minds together and figure out what really maybe happened... Now that we've discussed the facts and gone a little bit into our theories, now let's really dive into our theories.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:25:42] I'm torn, so I will go first. First of all, I'll say this in terms of solving these things, especially when heard that one of the gentlemen, maybe more than one, maybe a gay guy, it just gave me this idea. I feel like even if they're not gay, if the perception is that a lot of these guys are gay, I think that's going to make some of the law enforcement less motivated for whatever reason. Just like when Jeffrey Dahmer was killing that Vietnamese boy, I think it was.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:26:08] Why are you looking at me? Because.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:26:09] No, no, no. I'm just.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:26:10] Because we're both Asian.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:26:10] No, no, no, no. I'm just looking at you to confirm that this happened. And when he got away, he ran down the street naked. The Asian clearly hurt, and cops gave him back the Dahmer because they didn't want to get involved with this gay situation. You know what I mean? So I think if we're looking at not every single cop or law enforcement person, but, you know, you feel like you're like if you're black, they're not going to look as hard. If you're gay, they're not going to look as hard. 

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:26:35] Or prostitute victims.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:26:36] They're not going to look as hard. So before I give you my theory, I will say I'll give you a solution that I think could help. And I'm sorry to be funny. My heart goes out to the families that lost people. If we can say that all these guys identified as young white women, you know what I mean? Then I think so many resources will be thrown at this and we'll finally figure out what happened, because I'm just appalled at how how glib they are about writing it off as. 

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:27:00] They have to be pretty, though.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:27:01] Yeah. Yeah.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:27:02] Or or at least Like. People that look. 

Dwayne Perkins: [00:27:04] Kind of pretty. Yeah.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:27:04] Okay.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:27:05] Now, secondly, my real theory is so tough. I think that because this happened at different places, I feel like there's a tie in with some someone in law enforcement, you know what I mean? So I don't know. I didn't want to research this because I don't want to say anything. And then like the guy have to come and kill me, you know? But I think if you. 

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:27:23] That'd be great for the show. By the way.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:27:24] I don't think you're athletic enough.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:27:26] Oh,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:27:29] No, no, no. I'm not saying I'm the type he would kill. I'm saying if I out him, he would have to come kill me to to to silence me. That's what I'm saying. I'm not putting myself.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:27:40] I did like the dig, though.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:27:41] Nice. No, it was solid. It was solid. Know what I'm saying? Is that, like, if all the information is just some sort of supercomputer because I think there's someone in law enforcement and it could be someone, I don't know if they're they either work at the medical office or the coroner's office or on the cops side. They work somewhere in there affecting it. And where they go, it's like the nurse, you Know,

Cat Alvarado: [00:28:03] like a traveling nurse type of Thing,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:28:04] Like the nurse who was killing people. So where this person goes, these things happen. And I think the cops haven't been able to pinpoint the commonality between these murders.

Cat Alvarado: [00:28:14] You know There's something to that because a lot of times, like when there is a serial killer, somehow they'll get involved in the investigation some way, shape or form. They'll either be like helping with finding the bodies.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:28:22] Oh, yeah.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:28:23] The Golden State Killer.

Cat Alvarado: [00:28:24] Golden State killer? Yep. Yep.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:28:25] And when the one with the. With the rope around the neck. The rope mark, it wasn't listed. And then when his parents were like, can we reopen it and get it reclassified as a murder, not a drowning? The medical examiner was like, No, no. And I'm not saying it was the medical examiner. I'm just saying it's some sort of like, Dexter inside job kind of thing. Even. I don't think Dexter killed.

Cat Alvarado: [00:28:46] Well, Knowing what we know about cops and like, how even the LAPD. There's a recent story that came out in the last couple months. Lapd has gangs like the. 

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:28:54] Sheriff, Sheriff,

Cat Alvarado: [00:28:55] Sheriff. Okay. The sheriff. Sorry. The sheriffs of Los Angeles have gangs. So if there was a cop killer and everybody else knew about it, then they'd probably cover for their guy, because that is kind of a problem in law enforcement.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:29:11] Yeah. And I don't think it's one person. I think it's maybe several.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:29:14] Okay, so here's mine. Mine is much more realistic than yours, right?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:29:17] I know it's going to be Crazy. Yeah. Yeah.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:29:19] So it's Bigfoot, obviously.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:29:22] Okay.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:29:22] Oh, okay.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:29:23] Yeah. So? So Bigfoot's the one that's responsible for taking the people in the national parks.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:29:26] I'm not mad at that. I was going to say evil. Spirit, like a siren kind of Thing.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:29:30] Yeah. So he. He got. He gets tired or they got tired of taking people in the national parks. And he was kind of they're kind of going through like a midlife crisis of like, you know, like keep, keep staying in like the forest National Forest keep taking people there, you know? And then he so he went to therapy or whatever equivalent for a Bigfoot therapist would be. And they're like, you have to diversify. You have to do something else. And so that's what this was.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:29:50] So is Bigfoot walking along the water. Is he coming out of the water or both?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:29:55] All Yeah. So it always happens at night, right? When they're leaving the club. So no one. So maybe around Halloween sometimes, right? People are like, Oh, that's a really awesome costume. Right? Right. But it's really just bigfoot, right? And he takes these dudes. He's not doing anything sexual because that would be weird, right? Because I was going to say.

Cat Alvarado: [00:30:09] No mention of any kind of assaults like.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:30:10] That. Yeah, because he's like, that would be like interspecies, you know, like. But. But generally, against interspecies, the.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:30:15] Guys who are gay, they they fall for it because, like,

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:30:18] Oh, he's hairy.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:30:18] This guy's a bear.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:30:19] Yeah, he's a bear. Yeah. Okay. So then he takes them and he does his thing and, you know, and that's what it is. I mean, it's clear. I mean, we don't even have to hear anybody else.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:30:32] It's viable.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:30:33] Yeah,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:30:33] It's completely viable.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:30:34] Clearly. It's just what it is, So. Guess we could hear other people's ideas if you want.

Cat Alvarado: [00:30:38] Okay. Mine. I'm actually going to go with. I think it could be a serial killer because I was thinking about Samuel Little, who was probably the most prolific serial killer in US history, who had 93 women nationwide. And if I recall correctly, they were like all across the country.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:30:53] He was a truck driver.

Cat Alvarado: [00:30:54] Think he was he a truck driver? I don't recall. But if I remember correctly, he did actually like hide kill kits in different places in different cities.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:31:03] Right.

Cat Alvarado: [00:31:04] Which is wild.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:31:05] Wow.

Cat Alvarado: [00:31:05] So it is very possible for someone to be an interstate serial killer. Not only that, there's another theory unrelated to Sam Little about a potential serial killer. I believe in the Chicago area who is killing like sex workers with heroin problems because there was like an overwhelming like just a spike of the number of deaths of these women.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:31:25] Ods or. 

Cat Alvarado: [00:31:26] Like ods. Yeah. And it's an would be if you were a serial killer and you don't want to get caught, it would be smart to choose something that people wouldn't believe. So in like that serial killers case, they're already dying of heroin overdose. So if you like, kill them and then stick them with a thing of heroin so that that way, like you cover it up, then nobody's going to look. And also, they don't care about this person, so they're not going to investigate it, which is super sad. Obviously it's tragic. But when they're like, Oh, it's not likely for someone to be homicide via drowning like that, well then boom, there's your thing. You cover it up because no one's looking for that. Everybody's just going to automatically make it an accident. And especially if they are in law enforcement, which I like that theory, then they would know exactly what type of deaths aren't going to get. 

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:32:15] or If they were Bigfoot.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:32:16] Right, right. Right. Right. Exactly.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:32:18] Let's not jump to conclusions.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:32:19] Once the coroner rules it an accident, it's basically case closed.

Cat Alvarado: [00:32:22] Okay, here's my theory It's a coroner who is choosing. I'm going to double down. It's a coroner choosing to drown people because he knows that coroners recommend closing those cases.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:32:34] Right.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:32:35] Could the coroner be Bigfoot?

Cat Alvarado: [00:32:37] He could be Bigfoot. So what is the coroner? That heavy waxing regimen.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:32:41] What is the coroner's motivation?

Cat Alvarado: [00:32:43] Oh, just insatiable urge to kill.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:32:45] Yeah.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:32:45] Okay,

Cat Alvarado: [00:32:46] Men.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:32:46] Well, here's a here's the thing about that.

Cat Alvarado: [00:32:48] A female coroner.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:32:49] In. Right, right, right, right. In the Pittsburgh, the first one in the Oxygen series. It was ruled an accident, but so. So once it's ruled an accident, they're supposed to give give all the related documents to the family, the pictures, all the evidence and stuff like that. But they didn't give it to the family. And so so then the family was like, well, if it's if it's an accident, can we have all of that? And then they were like, Well, we're still investigating. I know why, though. It's like, Well, you said it was an accident or is it a crime or an accident?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:33:18] Do you want to know why? Why? There was a giant bite mark in the middle.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:33:20] Right. Oh, it was big. Yeah. Yeah. Big foot. No, but here's the thing. But they. They.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:33:26] I'm gonna stop with the big. No, no, listen. No.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:33:29] They campaigned for it, right? They got it. And then that's where the rope mark.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:33:34] I was super Excited. 

Dwayne Perkins: [00:33:35] Was maybe it was Bigfoot's hand. Yeah.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:33:37] Oh there you go. There you go. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:33:40] Just want to say that.

Cat Alvarado: [00:33:40] All right. So your turn now. First, I want to start by making the point that, like, obviously this is a true crime. These are like real people. Like I feel terrible for them and their families. But the, like wannabe Hollywood writer in me likes to pitch. Okay. So if we're going to make a cinematic story out of this and also a likely conclusion, here's my thought process. One, it is several different killers. I we didn't I probably would need more information to connect these parts. So if I'm wrong, but remember, you guys mentioned that some of them were gay. Not all. And more of the later cases. I think like all things that are good, a woman started it and a man copied it and is trying to take credit. So hear me out. I think the first gang of killers were one woman who I don't know if you guys have seen the movie. What is it called?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:34:26] Yes.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:34:26] Do you know what I'm talking about?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:34:27] The girl From college? Yes. She. What is that called?

Jasmine Ellis: [00:34:29] A promising young woman?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:34:30] Yes. Yes.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:34:31] That's good. I think it was a because the situation of them being attractive, promising athletic athletes, I could see it being some situation where one of them was assaulted by one or a friend was assaulted because the thing of trapping them after being drunk, catch them after a night of drinking. Think about it.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:34:48] It mirrors what guys.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:34:49] It mirrors what women experience all the time. Where if you get too drunk, if you're alone, if you make a mistake, your life's in danger. So we substitute sexual assault with death and murder. It seems vengeful. It seems woman vengeful. It's giving snapped. You know what I mean?

Cat Alvarado: [00:35:06] I feel like they would have to be a couple women to bring a guy down. But if they worked as a team, they can do it.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:35:10] And what if. There was like a dark web network of like, a woman was like she was angry. Something happened to her friend. She gets on, she's like, What should I do? And they're like, Let me tell you the happy murder recipe. Just like we passed casserole recipes and cobblers for years, there might be murder recipes going around on like the dark pink web, and women are teaching each other how to do this.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:35:30] I'm starting to feel uncomfortable.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:35:31] I know this is what this is. Me writing. Let me cook. Let me Cook. This is insane. This is insane. But then after a couple of these happened, you know, because I'm just curious, like, how far apart were they? How? Like, you know what I mean? Like, were they within. I need to know, like, the whole.

Cat Alvarado: [00:35:46] Like, sisterhood of the traveling pants.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:35:48] Yes, but with A murder recipe,

Cat Alvarado: [00:35:50] One Couple girls does it, and then, like, one of their younger sisters hears that that happened. Then something happens to her and her friend. Then they go do it. Another state.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:35:58] I'm just saying. Because it really does mirror like just those tragic stories you hear over and over again of collegiate girls. And like, the only difference is they're dying instead of being assaulted.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:36:08] Yeah, it's Like a girl gets too drunk. The friend group isn't sort of locked in and they let her leave. And then sometimes bad things happen. And what I like about this too, it kind of explains why they don't have so many marks on them because the girl is not like beating them up.

Cat Alvarado: [00:36:23] She's not strong enough to do a lot of damage.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:36:25] It also would explain why the smiley faces don't.

Cat Alvarado: [00:36:27] Some have horns, some don't. Sometimes it's just like near a place with an older smiley face.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:36:32] And what if the smiley faces are an indicator of the last text that the victim sent to the person he assaulted? If he thought he was funny, like, sorry if last night was weird, smiley face with horns and then that's what's next to his body. Like, did we check the text records against the people? Again, I am very sorry because I know that these people were killed and they're like real human beings. But the writer in me is thinking this through. Now, again, what happens with the ones who are gay? I don't. People just want to copy. And then we get copycats who mess it up.

Cat Alvarado: [00:37:03] Some of these these perpetrators, they could have been like righteous killers. Some of them could like just be a woman scorned with a grudge.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:37:10] Yeah. And the ones who were gay, you don't know. The woman may not know they're gay. You know, like when she sees them drunk walking down the street, she may not know. Or. 

Cat Alvarado: [00:37:18] Some of the Killers could have been gay guys, Right?

Jasmine Ellis: [00:37:21] It's the same MO with the same situation. I'm just I'm just saying, like, if we create a link between text messages, like, when does the emoji first come out? We need to tap that. I need to know when emojis become a thing, when texting becomes a thing, and then when the happy first.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:37:35] I think it started Before.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:37:36] Smiley face started with Forrest Gump. I believe. 

Jasmine Ellis: [00:37:40] He Fell down while running, but I'm just again, the cinematographer in me is concocting a whole story.

Cat Alvarado: [00:37:48] Well, we before we had like the smiley emojis, remember, we had the kind where it was like a colon and a parentheses. So that was AIM days.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:37:56] Any of the smiley faces, colon parentheses. Did they did they progress and become more hyper realistic as it went on?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:38:02] Yeah, because AIM was the.

Cat Alvarado: [00:38:03] Yeah, aim, aim, aim was around In the late 90s.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:38:06] You know what I like about this is too is that either if say if it's a girl or a bunch of girls they're either stalking them right. They're either like at the bar, see them leave you know what I mean? But let's say in a scenario where they're not at the bar or either way, the guy leaves, he's drunk, she leaves, and it's like she sees the guy and asks him one question. And how he answers this question is if he's going to live or die.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:38:27] Oh, I'm invested in this story now because it's like I made it up.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:38:30] I'm going because this is what happened to her, right? So she she or they catch up to the guy and she's like, Oh, man, how are you doing tonight? I'm fine. And he's all drunk. Like, Hey, you're an athlete, right? He says, yes, he dies because it was an athlete that did it to her. You know what I'm saying?

Cat Alvarado: [00:38:46] Doodler was like that. That was a different kiler.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:38:47] If they if they if he says no, then he doesn't fit the mold of like the douchey bro kind of thing.

Cat Alvarado: [00:38:54] Okay. So we're now we're at the point in the show where we need to pick the unofficial official story, one that will once and for all answer this question. So what do you guys think? Which theory do we want to go with? If I if I can go first?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:39:07] Sure.

Cat Alvarado: [00:39:08] Jasmine's a promising young woman theory. That's my Vote.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:39:11] Wait, did you say Bigfoot? I heard Bigfoot.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:39:13] You know What? You should have went with Aquaman, but okay. Yeah, I like. I like Jasmine's as well. It's. It's cinematic, right?

Jasmine Ellis: [00:39:23] I'm So ashamed.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:39:24] No, no, wait. Middle of a writers strike. And, you know, this is great that we could, you know, when. When it when the strike is over. We're ready. Right? You're ready to pitch something. But also it's you can you can kind of like root for both sides. It's still sad that these people lost their lives. But she's not these one woman or a bunch of women. They're not hurting the people that hurt them. But at least you can kind of like your heart goes out to both sides of it that way. So I think it's it's a better story. You know.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:39:51] I didn't think I was gonna win today, but I mean,

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:39:54] Wait, wait. We haven't confirmed.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:39:55] We haven't confirmed.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:39:56] Who are you voting for? Who are you voting for?

Jasmine Ellis: [00:39:57] That's true. I can vote for. I think you guys as coroner theories are grounded in reality, but also how often are coroners? Murder is like. But then again, maybe they're that good. Exactly.

Cat Alvarado: [00:40:08] If anybody would know how to get away, it would be the coroner. They'd be like, Yeah, you got to like, stab them like in the side, back of the knee. No one's going to call. Like no one's going to see you.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:40:16] It's like, Who Robs Jewelry store is the most security guards or you know what I mean? Like when you're in I'm making that up. I don't even know for a fact. It just sounded good, though. Yeah, who knows the code and the system. 

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:40:27] Or Bigfoot.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:40:28] But banks are always inside,

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:40:29] So Bigfoot. 

Dwayne Perkins: [00:40:30] Banks are inside, jobs inside.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:40:32] So, like, Yeah.

Cat Alvarado: [00:40:32] White collar crime. That's an inside job. Yeah.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:40:34] The only thing that makes me. Feel like it's not a coroner in the sense of like because of who it is getting killed.

Cat Alvarado: [00:40:40] You know what I mean? Would a coroner kill a athlete?

Jasmine Ellis: [00:40:43] This is a this is an adult who's been in their career for ten some odd years, I'm assuming. How do they even know college athletes?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:40:49] How about this? And I love your theory. And maybe it's a female coroner who had a traumatic situation in college. Oh, so now she's she's doing her regular coroner thing. But every now and then she gets some get back and gives Dexter and knows how to it is getting Dexter but.

Cat Alvarado: [00:41:08] We just wrote Female Dexter. 

Jasmine Ellis: [00:41:09] We Did.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:41:10] Female coroner. 

Dwayne Perkins: [00:41:11] Yes. 

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:41:12] Bigfoot.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:41:14] Who's also Bigfoot.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:41:16] You know what's crazy?

Cat Alvarado: [00:41:16] He is married to a Bigfoot.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:41:18] You know what's crazy about that? And I'm ashamed of this. I didn't see that coming.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:41:24] Okay, but, like, maybe. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What if we track the moon cycles Because it is becoming a bigfoot. Like a werewolf. Like what if she transforms into a bigfoot on the full moon and needs a kill So she wakes before she knows she can't stop herself. She stalks her kills and makes sure these guys are assholes. They've done bad things. They've. They're cheaters, assaulters. They did all kind of bad things. They're terrible guys. And. And she has a terrible gambling addiction, and she needs needed. She needs Notre Dame to win. So she's killing the point guard was the title of X, Y, Z teams to make sure you get I'm saying this is a coroner, Bigfoot.

Cat Alvarado: [00:42:00] So we're saying All of our theories are right. Yes. And she works for the sheriff's department on top of it. So she's an inside. It's an inside job, like Dwayne said.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:42:09] Look, it just came together like a theory cobbler with all the little parts.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:42:13] It's like a writer's room. Yeah. Really? Really. We just combine them all.

Cat Alvarado: [00:42:17] Studios take note, look at what happens when you have a writers room and why you should pay writers.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:42:22] Yeah, if you don't like, we're going to greenlight this. The show. This movie could happen if you don't end this strike, this is what could end up in the world.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:42:31] That'd be great if, like, this is how the strike ends. We'll come back. We'll come back.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:42:35] Start listening to the podcast, to the people who aren't repped and they're like, Oh God, we need to get the professionals back.

Cat Alvarado: [00:42:41] And that's the official story. We'll take another break and when we return, we'll have fun pretending to be a serial killer.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:42:49] Not all serial killers leave signatures like they do in movies, but when they do, they often express an inner motivation for why they do what they do. Imagine we were serial killers. What would be your signature?

Cat Alvarado: [00:43:01] God, would I leave a signature? Because I feel like that would be how I get caught. I feel like I listen to way too much true crime to leave a signature. I think I would do something different every single time just to throw them off. Throw them off like I would do two with one same pattern and the third one completely different.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:43:14] They would don't know it's you though. Then you can never get credit for it.

Cat Alvarado: [00:43:17] That's fine. Okay. I don't want credit because I don't want to get caught. If I was a serial killer, I wouldn't want to get caught.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:43:22] Pretend you were an egotistical killer who needs the spotlight. You want to be on people's minds.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:43:28] Not for sake of getting caught, but even highlighting who you, how good you are, who. 

Jasmine Ellis: [00:43:33] You've Worked so hard. Don't you want to be acknowledged?

Cat Alvarado: [00:43:35] It would only be okay, Here's my signature move. I would only kill male comics. White male comics who complain about cancel culture. That would be my pattern.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:43:47] Like, you know what? Like you could kill if I can just, you know, not add to your who you're going to kill list.

Cat Alvarado: [00:43:52] Oh, God.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:43:52] White comics who say things like, you know, if I was a Malaysian woman in a wheelchair, then I could get a job, you know, because it's like that's I don't think that's the reason you're not getting a job. So here's here's here's who I would kill. It would take. 

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:44:08] No it's signature. Not who you're going to kill.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:44:10] No. Both. Both.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:44:11] This is taking a turn. It was just supposed to be what your signature would be.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:44:14] Because Because it leads to the signature.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:44:16] Okay,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:44:16] So I would be super diligent about picking my victims. Right? And it wouldn't be like not white men. Just usually men. But it could be anyone but men who were in any kind of position that they were woefully unqualified to be in. Okay. And I would research it. And so any guy and and if they were unqualified but kind of cool and chill like, hey, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. All right, cool. They live but if they're but if they're unqualified and dicks and entitled, they got to go.

Cat Alvarado: [00:44:48] That's a lot of people. You think you could cover that yourself.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:44:50] It's going to take. But here's the thing. And every time I killed one, like, sprawled on his body would be, what do you call it? You know, when you when you have a job and they grade you, you know, like performance reviews. Right. So, yeah, so my, my signature would be performance reviews of him and of other people. You know, they'd put it together like, you know, the only people getting murdered are like people who kind of did shitty jobs.

Cat Alvarado: [00:45:14] Yeah, but here's how. You get caught. They're going to look at the the serial number of the papers that you use in the exact chemical composition of the ink in the paper. And they're going to find like your skin oils on like.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:45:25] It'll probably be thankful though.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:45:26] No, I'm not touching, I'm not touching the paper. I'll wear gloves and I'm printing it on their printer, you know what I mean? And so, so, so you can.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:45:33] Disable all these security cameras. You have to load the printer ram, make sure they have enough ink. Makes it. Oh, God. Now there's nothing but magenta in here. Oh, Lord. You have to.

Cat Alvarado: [00:45:44] Sneak in all sexy across the laser beams like a 90s action movie.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:45:48] But it might just be one page with links to the performance reviews, But it would.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:45:52] What if they Work from home? What if they like? You're going to be like making sure to connect their cell phone to the HP 375 Express What? I've always had a ink. 

Cat Alvarado: [00:46:01] Before You killed them. You have to ask their Wi-Fi password.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:46:04] It would be people who, like everyone they work with, would be like, Oh, they would all say, Oh man, I'm really sorry that happened. But their face wouldn't register any sorrow. You know what I mean? Just the words. I'd be really doing God's work out there. So that's. That's who I'm killing.

Cat Alvarado: [00:46:20] You wouldn't Get caught because there would be so many people with the same Motivation. They'd be like, Who could it be? It could be anyone at this office.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:46:25] That's true, right? It's like we all hated him. And then so, yeah.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:46:28] Mine is a little bit different. So, you know, have a love hate relationship with IMDB because I think it's stupid. But in the beginning of my career you think this is what I need to be on. This is like the most important thing. It's like anyone can change. Anybody can put anything on there. Yeah. And lately I've had a lot of people putting me on projects that I'm not a part of. So I've been. I've been having to delete. I've been having to delete myself from people's projects. So every time I kill someone, I'm going to put their name on my IMDB.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:46:51] You want to get caught as as Killed by like,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:46:56] That's crazy. That's going to lead right to you unless you have an alibi each time.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:46:59] Yeah, have an alibi each time. Plus I'm Asian. I'll be like, I'm Asian. Don't kill anybody.

Cat Alvarado: [00:47:03] They'll be like, You're confusing me with another Asian. What, you think all Asians?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:47:06] Yeah, exactly. Do we all look alike? Is that what you're thinking?

Dwayne Perkins: [00:47:09] You have to be okay with a friend of yours going to jail. Because even if you don't get caught for it or whatever, someone, you know, they're going to make some link.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:47:16] Yeah, it'll be some Asian person. That's fine. Okay. Yeah. There's a lot of Asian people I don't like.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:47:22] Right, right, right.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:47:22] Yeah, they could be, you know, there's like a billion people in China. So there you go.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:47:25] There you go. Like that. I don't. I just wish it wasn't on your page, but, like, I like the IMDB.

Cat Alvarado: [00:47:30] You should make a fake page, make an AI generated fake page of another person.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:47:34] And just like, Oh, Koji, Steve Sakai.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:47:36] No, no.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:47:36] Like you could create like an imbd page of like a murder movie that doesn't exist. And then you keep casting it as you're killing people, but you do it from like, you know, some like dark web IP address type thing, so they can't track you.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:47:48] You bounce it off several towers. That's what they say in the movie. We can't find him. He's bouncing it off. Towers Right. And every role is victim.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:47:55] Yeah.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:47:56] As victim. Victim.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:47:58] There you go.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:47:58] Oh,

Cat Alvarado: [00:47:59] And then they can't track it down. They have no idea who it is.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:48:01] Imdb needs to contact us.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:48:03] That. Yeah, IMDB murderer. That sounds like something Redbox would let happen, right? It sounds like it'd be a dollar to rent, that.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:48:13] They would let it happen.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:48:17] Okay. Okay. I've been, like, overthinking this. At first I was like, I could run with Cat's idea, but, like, I would actually leave a mark, and I'd call myself, like, the mic drop murderer and, like, drop a microphone on their chest, like, on the top of their bodies. But then I thought about it and I was like, what would just visually be the most stunning? So I guess you have to think of who you're going to kill when you think about how your signature is going to be.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:48:37] I think so, yeah.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:48:38] So like, let's just say hypothetically, I was like, killing. Men who troll women on the Internet.

Cat Alvarado: [00:48:43] Okay.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:48:43] Okay.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:48:44] Hypothetically,

Jasmine Ellis: [00:48:44] Guys who leave comments like take her swimming on the first date or women aren't funny and I would call does. 

Dwayne Perkins: [00:48:49] what does that mean? 

Jasmine Ellis: [00:48:50] Oh, it's like makeup will come off like saying that like they're ugly without makeup. I know. It's real bitch ass ness, you know? But what I would do is I would like, have some some edge control in a really tiny comb. And I would, like, lay the baby hairs of my slain victims. And then I would, like, put some, like, 50 mm lashes in a set of press ons. And then they call me. They call me the bad bitch killer, because I would turn these men that talk shit into bad bitches. 

Dwayne Perkins: [00:49:17] I Love it. And and. 

Jasmine Ellis: [00:49:18] I would Do I would leave them there with edges, nails and lashes.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:49:22] I love it. I just feel like everyone's listening. May not know what baby hair is. 

Cat Alvarado: [00:49:28] Or edges.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:49:29] How white is your listenership?

Cat Alvarado: [00:49:30] We don't know for sure

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:49:32] They're very white. It's a very white listenership. So. 

Jasmine Ellis: [00:49:34] Baby hairs Are the tiny little hairs. If you if you've noticed, when black women have hairstyles, sometimes the shorter hairs in the front of their hair will be laid down. There was a phenomenon where white women were referring to them as sticky bangs.

Cat Alvarado: [00:49:47] Sticky,

Jasmine Ellis: [00:49:47] Sticky, sticky bangs. So why call me the baby hair killer. The baby hair killer, I think would be killer.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:49:53] Yeah, very nice. I like That.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:49:55] Wait, so can I just go back to the swimming thing? I mean, for dude to take a woman out, to go swimming in like the ocean, it just makes your penis small.

Dwayne Perkins: [00:50:02] No, but saying, It that she's saying that? They're saying no, but.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:50:05] But, but. But also it makes your penis small. So that's like that's the unless she goes in first and you don't go in,

Dwayne Perkins: [00:50:10] Maybe it's a heated pool.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:50:11] Oh, if it's a heated pool, guess. But going in the ocean means you mean.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:50:14] Overall, it's a stupid concept because there's Waterproofing.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:50:17] Just think about the penis part.

Cat Alvarado: [00:50:18] They don't know. They don't know. Right?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:50:21] Yeah. I was just thinking about the penis. You know,

Jasmine Ellis: [00:50:23] Always thinking about.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:50:23] I'm always thinking about the penis. Yeah.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:50:25] An advocate for penis rights right here.

Cat Alvarado: [00:50:31] Thank you, Jasmine, for coming on with us. Please tell us where people can follow you and listen to your podcast.

Jasmine Ellis: [00:50:36] Of course, I currently am not podcasting, but I'm working on some cool things that will be coming out very soon. So if you enjoyed me today, make sure you follow me on Instagram at Jasmine Ellis comedy. That's Jasmine, Jasmine Ellis comedy. I'm also on TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and on YouTube. You can watch a new special produced by Don't Tell Comedy. It's my new one called Save the Extroverts. So check that out. And I also have an ofTV special that is only fans, TV comedy special. And I'm really excited for you guys.

Cat Alvarado: [00:51:05] She's Fully clothed,

Jasmine Ellis: [00:51:06] Fully clothed, only fans. There you go. That's the jingle. And you can watch that and it's super fun and super funny.

Cat Alvarado: [00:51:12] There are almost 3 million podcasts and we're honored you've chosen ours to listen to. Please check out our website, the unofficial official story.com for our show notes or to hear our past episodes. Be sure to come back next month. Where we will answer the question Are chemicals in the water turning people gay?

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:51:27] Obviously, yeah, of course.

Cat Alvarado: [00:51:29] Of course. Yeah.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:51:30] It's probably Bigfoot, actually. Sorry.

Cat Alvarado: [00:51:33] All right. Bye, everyone.

Koji Steven Sakai: [00:51:34] Bye,

Cat Alvarado: [00:51:35] See you Guys.