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Body pulled from Charles River was missing Northeastern student
By adamg on Sun, 01/03/2016 - 12:33am
Matt Leighton reports that the body that State Police found in the Charles along the Esplanade Thursday morning was that of Dennis Njoroge, a student who had been missing for more than a month.
In a message to Northeastern students posted today, university President Joseph Aoun wrote:
Born in Kenya, Dennis graduated from Burncoat High School in Worcester, and was currently studying Media Arts at the College of Arts, Media and Design. He was a familiar face to students at the basketball courts in Marino, and was looking forward to beginning a co-op at a television news station in Boston this month. Over the holidays, we continued to hope for Dennis’s safe return, even as we felt his absence. He will be missed greatly.
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RIP, young man
Condolences to his family. Very sad.
Am I the only one?
Am I the only one that finds all these college young men appearing dead in bodies of water around the city weird? Why isn't anyone questioning this. This is like the 4th college male that goes missing only to be found in the water.
Substances or depression +
Substances or depression + water = death
For something seemingly harmless and necessary for life, water kills an alarming number of people each year. As little as 4" of standing water can be fatal under the right circumstances.
We don't even know that much
Maybe he was depressed. Maybe he was just going for a walk along the river, slipped and hit his head on a rock. We don't know. All we know is that some poor kid is dead.
Bias
Yeah, it's a strong confirmation bias at work.
Lots of people in Boston have recently been shot "in the street" (just check back on UHub over the past few months) but no one notices that all these crimes are taking place "in the street" and thinks there's anything more than coincidental to that. You can replace "in the street" with "in a T station" or "on the sidewalk" and it would be the same.
There are others who are
There are others who are convinced some serial killer is knocking off students in the Boston area and dumping them in bodies of water. But the truth is, we have a huge shoreline and coastline and the combination of accidents (often drunken) and suicides occurring in those bodies of water (especially in winter) is to be expected.
No
I mean, I think you're nuts, but you are not alone in your crazy conspiracy theories. The truth is that the bodies of young men have been fished out of the waters of Boston for centuries.
You will have to accept that an autopsy will be done, and most likely this poor man will have drown. Were it foul play, wounds or at least evidence of a struggle will be there.
I posted about confirmation
I posted about confirmation bias above, and another thing to note, bodies found in the water also garner more coverage than say a body found on a sidewalk.
If a guy dies or is killed on a sidewalk, his body will be found within a few hours and there'll be one news story (if that). Anyone without a personal stake in the story forgets about it within a day or two. But when someone falls into water and dies, there's likely going to be multiple stories, longer-term news coverage: First the missing-person story, then a few days pass, maybe more missing-person coverage in an effort to find the person, and then finally weeks/months later, a story about the body being found in the river. So it stands out in people's minds. Combine that with the fact that the metro Boston area has a long shoreline, multiple large rivers, and many dozens of bridges over water, and there's also an increased statistical possibility that when someone does end up dead and missing, it's more likely to happen in water here than in some inland locale.
You're absolutely correct!
You're absolutely correct! People fail to realize that almost half of the square miles in Boston is water.
From having been a college kid in Boston
I can tell you two things:
1) College kids use the relative privacy of the areas around bodies of water at night to use illicit substances. When I was at BU (I graduated in '07) the floating docks along the Esplanade were a popular place to drink: the part of the Esplanade between the BU Bridge and Kenmore Square was the pot smoking spot, because the stoned kids liked watching the lights reflect on the water.
2) Young men who need to relieve themselves in an outdoor situation tend to gravitate towards doing so into the water, which means that they are walking down over uneven and rocky shorelines that they cannot see well. Because their friends are intoxicated as well, they may not notice that the person left the group and did not come back. If they do notice the person is missing, they might assume the person left the group for a sexual encounter with a peer. It's taboo to check up on the friend's whereabouts in those situations, as it's perceived as judgmental or shaming. That's why missing college kids seldom get reported until lunch or dinnertimes the next day: a one night stand would typically be over by then, and their friends finally realize something is wrong.
And of course, there's no guarantee that this young man was doing any of these things. We will have to wait and see. Condolences to his family.
Flaoting dock drinking
Those Esplanade floating docks have been a favorite place to drink since time immemorial. I used to go to one of those docks (no longer there) with a friend to drink wine in the 80s and I was long out of college. We enjoyed sitting there. One time we went there and saw a couple in flagrante delicto and realized that space didn't just "belong" to us. :-)
Not the most common form of suicide, but it does happen.
This past summer a guy put rocks in his pockets and walked into Jamaica Pond which is only like 10 feet deep all around. When people are desperate they are desperate.
Before you ask that, ask how
Before you ask that, ask how many have gone missing and/or turned up dead in other locales, tally them up, and see if there's then anything that stands out about 4 found in the water.
This is confirmation bias at work, I think.
young college age men disappering and turning up in bodies of wa
It is more like the 8th in a decade. There have been 4 similar disappearances since 10/15 in Boston.. Three have been recovered in water
TWO disappearances with the same scensrion in NYC/ hobeken since Nov 2015.
This is not isolated to Boston, but there do seem to be clusters of these "disappearances" and "accidental" deaths in the same areas at certain times... Minnisota and Wisconsin have reported clusters of similar cases as in Boston, which until 2015, has been at 1 or 2 per year over the last decade. All these deaths cannot possibly accidental drownings!!! Hundreds ... I wish someone would connect the dots and launch an investigation... It is CHILLING!
It is many things, but chilling is one thing it isn't
The theory starts falling apart when you look at ALL the people who have been pulled out of the water in Boston over the last decade. All these SFM lists never include all the men whose bodies have been pulled out of the Muddy River, because nobody's heard of them since they're all homeless guys who simply rolled (or were pushed?) into the river at Charlesgate, rather than 20-something middle-class white men or college students last seen in bars.
And I've yet to see any Smiley Face Murderer proponent account for the woman whose body was found floating in the Charles last year (well, OK, I did see one proponent try, but to be honest, he was so obnoxious I basically had to ban him from Universal Hub).
No, poor homeless guys rolling into Charlesgate don't mean somebody isn't going after young white guys at bars, but if you're going to fixate on a conspiracy theory about bodies, you need to account for the bodies that don't fit your tidy criteria. I won't even get into the 40-60 young men who are murdered every year in Boston who are the wrong color and die the wrong way - but, sheesh, we DO have a murder epidemic in this city that SFMers don't seem to care much about.
Let me get this straight
There's someone out there randomingly abducting and murdering college men in Boston, the New York City area, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and who knows, if we looked hard enough in San Francisco and Seattle, too boot?
And, since the has been happening in Boston since before the invention of the telephone, this person is hundreds of years old?
not uncommon
lots of missing guys end up in the water.
http://footprintsattheriversedge.blogspot.com
Sad really
One can only hope that this was simply a tragic accident. Depression, especially while under the duress of college, sucks. Rest in peace and blessings to family...
There is a reasonable chance
There is a reasonable chance that there is a serial killer pushing these young men into the cold water.
Every circumstance or imagined circumstance listed here on these comments to argue it was an accident can be used to argue it was an intentional murder.
The lack of any suspicion would give a lot of cover.
What if young men died under these circumstances last month? Then all these people who are now saying we are within some normal range of probability for these being accidents would all come out saying it very reasonable to suspect murder. How do they know that we are not already over some normal range of probability. No statistics on water deaths for these type of men in similar situations in other cities are sited.
Commenters here who dismiss any chance that this and the other water deaths of young men in Boston are murders seem to have no problem considering that this death may have been caused by an accident or suicide or by high risk behavior due to depression. How is that that the known or imagined circumstances fit such a wide range of causes of death but murder is excluded?
For many years there was person coming up behind men in areas where gay men cruised in the Fenway and bashing then with a large rock or brick. Why not a serial killer pushing vulnerable young men into cold water? Maybe preventing them from getting out if need be, or if what the accident theories say are true not needing to once they hit the cold water.
When that young man disappeared near Cleveland Circle his phone stopped working at the same time in the area of the reservoir. Anyone who thought about it rationally knew he must have gone in the water and no other likely scenario fits that. Then the police searched the reservoir (Mass State Police), found nothing and the police and press declare his body is not in there. Anyone who thought about it rationally knew he must be in there and the divers missed him. Later on his body floated to the surface. How is it that these same police can know whether he fell in or was pushed?
Again remember the same circumstances that could lead to and accident could also lead to being vulnerable to and abstracting this type of serial killer if this person does exist.
What we need is for people to become aware of these deaths and their known circumstances. Preventing these deaths as possible accidents or as possible murders can be done together. Maybe someone was pushed in the water and lived years ago and this would let them know they should report it.
The newspapers need to brutally cover the corrupt incompetence of Boston Police homicide investigations. And investigate the corruption and incompetence and poor attitude that occurs in the lesser things that has left the Boston Police utterly unplugged from the much of the community and from reality. At the same time covering in depth (I am presuming this is true.) the brilliance and dedication of the Boston police homicide investigation of the shooting murder in Copley Square a while back.
No, there is no serial killer
Conspiracy theories are fun, but Boston Police, State Police, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office and the state medical examiner are not all involved in vast coverup of a man-hating serial killer who just waits by the side of the Charles or Boston Harbor to push men in. And the murders that go unsolved for the most part involve black men shot out in the street in neighborhoods like Roxbury.
Was there incompetence in the investigation into the death of that poor BC student? Possibly. Just as possible, though, is a string of occurrences that have to do with when he fell in the reservoir. He fell in the water in February, his body got snagged on something that kept him down, his body didn't go through the normal decomposition process that would make it rise because it was the middle of winter, divers missed his body because there's a lot of stuff down there, then, when the water warmed in April, decomposition set in, creating the conditions in which his body would begin to rise. That's not incompetence or cover up on the part of officials, that's just an unfortunate side effect of some poor kid falling in the water at the wrong time.
One big hole in the serial killer theory
Wouldn't there be a chance that one of the guys pushed in could swim, and would live to tell the tale of being pushed in by a random stranger?
As I said above it is
As I said above it is possible there was a victim that lived who did not come forward.
However difficult it would be for a killer to push these men in, and prevent them from getting out of the cold water if need be, the more difficult it would be for the victim to fall in and be unable to escape in an accident alone and the possible impairments discussed in these comments that would make these young men susceptible to accidental drowning are all things a killer should be able to observe be fully aware of to target these young men.
It's possible that every flaw
It's possible that every flaw in your theory can be countered with an equally or increasingly unlikely possibility that serves to validate the theory.
More classic conspiracy (il)logic.
Also
How has this serial killer been active since the 18th century?
adamg states "Boston Police,
adamg states "Boston Police, State Police, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office and the state medical examiner are not all involved in vast coverup" It does not have to be a coverup.
admang and other commenters here look at the circumstances in these deaths and think that these circumstances and the accidental death theory fit together and that therefore it is not possible that it is murder. If the police are doing the same type of thinking and there actually was a murder they are not engaging in "coverup"
Murder's always a possibility when somebody who shouldn't dies
But I guess I have more faith in local law enforcement and a whole lot more skepticism about Smiley murders than you.
I've got one more question about your theory
Why would the medical examiner, after discovering factors that would indicate a homicide (signs of a struggle, blunt force trauma, and the like) not mention that in his or her report?
adamg states that it is
adamg states that it is possible there was incompetence in the investigation into the death of the BC student who drown in the reservoir then describes possible underwater events that contributed to the police divers not finding the body, then says that's not incompetence or cover up.
The police declared that the body was not in the reservoir because a search by divers had been done but in fact the body was there.
I looked at that same evidence, the phone shutting off in the reservoir area that night and I was convinced the that body was there and the divers missed it.
We need to have the Boston Police reform themselves and conduct these investigations without prejudice and without the presumption that the circumstances and evidence fitting well with accidental drowning proves conclusively that is what happened and there is no possibility.
Why do you keep blaming Boston Police for this case?
The reservoir is state property, so State Police divers conducted the search and the followup investigation after his body was found - along with the Suffolk County DA's office and the state medical examiner's office.
tl;dr: The lack of evidence
tl;dr: The lack of evidence of a conspiracy is evidence in and of itself of a conspiracy.
This is classic conspiracy-nutter logic.
Got another one
Smiley Strikes again just to spite Adam's emphatic denails
"Body of missing country singer found in Oklahoma lake"
Oh my gosh, you're so right!
In a country of 300 million people, another person found drowned in a lake is definitely the proof I've been waiting for that somebody is frantically wandering the nation's byways, pushing men into ponds.
Tell me, does he have an accomplice who spent Christmas shooting people to death? Or are we just dealing with a single bipolar slenderman?
I do think it maybe is
I do think it maybe is unlikely some or several of these drownings are murders. But it is the job of the Boston Police homicide investigators to attempt acquire statistics from other parts of the country about the frequency and circumstances of these type of drownings. They need to get help from experts on this type of drowning from other parts of the country.
The Boston Police homicide investigators need to fully comprehend and be able to communicate why it is not possible that any of these drownings are murders.
If all these drownings are accidental and the statistics and expertise is easy for the Boston Police Homicide investigators to find that's great. If it is difficult to find then our police will have created a protocol they could share with other cities that might actually have such a killer.
Don't you folks agree that someplace in America, Europe or Russia it is very possible and maybe likely there is a murderer going around pushing young men to their death in the winter water? Look at the known cases of people getting pushed in front of a subway train. How many more of that do you think there would be if the killer perceived they would not be caught?
Subway trains?
No, people are not getting pushed in front of subway trains in Boston. And people are not getting pushed into reservoirs or the harbor.
Boston poverty law....
Trust me when I tell you that most, if not all of these "drownings" have a victim who had a history of depression or mental illness that never becomes public. Phone/text trails, family and friend history, notes/last messages, etc are very common.
Relax and put the tin foil hat away. If there was any possibility of a serial murderer, the cops would be sure to put in a few hundred hours of overtime on the cases. Not too hard to see when someone dies of drowning vs.head trauma and then a drowning either.
Like someone said earlier, someone would survive a simple "push". If the majority of these victims had no history of mental health issues, you might be onto something, but you don't get to see what the medical professionals and police see.
Mental illness aside ...
70% involve alcohol.
source
Where is the Vision Zero program???
Suicides outnumber road deaths, yet no Vision Zero program for it.
Opioid deaths outnumber road deaths in Massachusetts by 3 or 4 to 1 and no "Vision Zero" program for that either. The inconvenient political reality is that road deaths are far more visible to the public with media coverage and the others not, so politicians put other people's money where it gets them the most recognition, not where the most lives can be saved.
Aw, Poor Markk
Poor little bunny can't be bothered to avoid driving over people because road rules are unfair and he's special.
Two questions
1. Are you sure the guy got hit by a car? Followup
2. What was a car doing driving down the Esplanade?
A family is grieving a dead member, yet people have to hijack grieving for their own agendas. Sad.