The Case of the Drowning Men (18 page)

W
hat, a student in your school was one of those found dead?

DR. LEE GILBERTSON,
PROFESSOR OF CRIMINOLOGY AT
S
T.
CLOUD UNIVERSITY: Yes, Larry, Scott Ra
del
back in February of 2006.

KING: What were the circumstances?

GILBERTSON: Scott was downtown with his friends drinking and he became separated from them. And he was supposed to meet them in one direction at a bar
but
ended up going
in
the opposite direction. Later, he was found drowned in the Mississippi River.

KING: What are your thoughts? You heard the FBI specialist say that a lot of k
ids die of drowning every year.

GILBERTSON: Well, that's true, Larry. But if you actually look at the statistics on drownings, most drownings occur during the summer and they're related to water activities like boating and water skiing and things like that. Very few drownings actually occur during the winter. And those are generally associated with ice fishing and snowmobiling and things like that, up in our northern region.

When I looked at these cases, the first thing that jumped out at me was the victimological profile. It's not a normal distribution. You don't have tall
fat people
,
or tall skinny people and short fat
or skinny
people. They're all right in the middle. The profile is very, very thin. The standard deviation is only 0.4 on their weight and height
…

[
CUT
THROUGH
CROSSTALK
TO
HOST
]

KING: All right
, g
o ahead
.

GILBERTSON: I have spatial profiles across the United States as well as where they land within the city. Time, I've gotten really good at predicting the time. But it really distresses me that I can't pick the location. Evidentiary, Kevin alluded to it. In many of the cases, if you follow the trail where evidence was reintroduced into the scene after the search or dogs tracked them in one directio
n, between 150 and 180 degrees in the opposite direction is where you found the body. Symbolic is
the
next one
―

KING: Because of time limitations,
D
octor, I'm going to break it down to what do you believe is going on?

GILBERTSON: I believe, looking at the
se different patterns as they're put together, that we have a large group that operates under one ideology across the United States, broken up and working, operating
―
however you want to describe it
―
in separate cells under a schedule to commit these crimes.

KING: So it's a group of people in different parts of the country killing people, leaving that smiley face as an example. And there's a pattern to it and there's a common belief among the killers.

GILBERTSON: There is a common belief. And the fourth member of our team, Adam Carlson, that's his area. And he tells us it's actually homogen
iz
ation of four p
olitical and religious beliefs…

KING: We're out of time. We're going to do a lot more on this. W
e
thank Kevin Gannon, Anthony Duarte, Dr. Lee Gilbertson.

DUARTE: Thanks so much for having us.

[EXIT INTERVIEW]

“I find it interesting that
,
while this assault case was closed last summer, the St
.
Paul P
olice
D
epartment
found it necessary to call the media the day after I spoke with St
.
Paul Mayor Chris
Coleman
…
s
imilar to the "leak" made to WCCO on Feb 8
th
of my son's supposed issues with his sexuality
…As for
[Gannon]
giving families
false
hope
―what's more hopeless than having SPPD
’s
S
enio
r Commander tell you that
‘
your son was a very troubled young man, we'll find him when the river gives him up. We don 't have time to look for him
’
…
!
”
editorial
rebuttal
from
Sally Zamlen, mother of 2009 drowni
ng victim Dan Zamlen

ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA
-
MAY 1, 2009
:
“The search for University of St. Thomas freshman Dan Zamlen ended today
when his body
was discovered in the Mississippi River
near
the Ford Motor
plant
. Zamlen went missing on April 5
, 2009
after a night
out with his
classmates
.
Walking home
he
had
called
a friend
and in
the
final seconds
of the
ir
conversation
had c
ried out for help before the phone went dead.
Large volunteer teams
and police
with sonar,
tracking
dogs, and
a
helicopter
searched
the river bluffs
and the water
near the site, but there had been no signs
of
the
19-year-old
until now.
His body was found
just before
noon
by a Ford
employee
who was
at
the water checking the plant's intake
system
.
Zamlen
was identified by items in his wallet, according to sources informed by the police. The St. Paul Police Department
has
not release
d
any further
details
.
”

- - -

It’s not a cheap proposition
for
any
police
force
to
investigat
e
even
just
one
questionable
death
, let alone a string of them. And before such an undertaking
could
ever
be launched
the price would have to be considered
,
not only
from a financial aspect
but also in terms
of its toll on
a municipality’s reputation.

When the major source of that municipality’s
wealth
and
reputation
—its very livelihood—
is so dependent
upon a
local university
and
the
uninterrupted flow of students to and from it
annually
, there’s bound to be some balking
by officials
when it comes to acknowledging
serial
deaths
within
their
boundaries
.
E
ven
when
the public has
already
taken notice
of the problem
and it’s getting harder and harder to deny
it.
Even when the victims are
mostly
college students.

No doubt about it
, i
nvestigations
of th
at
sort
can be
cost prohibitive
.

That’s why it took people by surprise
when they
learn
ed
the
Saint Paul
Police Department
in Minnesota
had
devoted so much
of their
time and resources
in
2010 to compiling
a
400
-
page report on drowning victim Dan Zamlen’s supposed homosexuality
issues
. The
real
reason
,
the
SPPD
suddenly
insisted, for why he
disappeared a
n
d
ended up dead in the Mississippi
River
in
s
pring
of 2009
.

Although
originally
ruling
his
death
in 2009
as
accident
al
,
Zamlen’s
drowning
was
in reality
“
a s
uicide
”
the SPPD
newly
c
on
fide
d
to
reporters
in 2010
,
publicly
respon
d
ing
at long last
to
Sally
Zamlen’s
constant
pleas
for them
to reopen h
er son’s
case
.

The young man
was having
some
very
serious
angst
about his sexuality
, the police
announced
,
and
, as their 400-page
press release
clearly
demonstrate
d
,
he
took his own life
because of it
.
“Case closed.
No further comments.
”

Still, a
glance at the circumstances of Zamlen’s
April 5th 2009
disappearance
,
and
the
result
s of the
search for him
and
of
his autopsy findings
,
would show ample enough reason for his death to have been labeled suspicious
right
from the
very
beginning
.
S
o it’s
completely
understandable why a parent would have wanted
the police to provide
a more thorough
probe
than his case
had
received:
It’s understandable
why it might
’ve
look
ed
like
foul play
.

On
the night
Dan
Zamlen vanished he had just left a downtown St. Paul bar
in
which
he and
a group of
his
classmates
had been carousing unt
il the
early
hours of
morning.
R
eportedly
he
’d
left
that establishment
sometime after
2:00
AM
,
alone because he
’
d
had
a few words with another patron and wanted to walk it
all
off
, maybe meet up with some of his buddies at the
neighboring
University of Minnesota
,
if they were still
awake
and receiving visitors
at
that hour
.