Is the Rainey Street Killer real?
A retired New York Police Department detective believes they are and he thinks he has the evidence to prove it.
Kevin Gannon has worked thousands of cases relating to robberies and narcotics. His most recent placement was with the Bronx Homicide Task Force.
Over the past 20 years, Gannon has made or been involved with over 2,000 arrests and has worked multiple murder cases in which the notion of homicide was dismissed at first.
The fact that five people were found dead and pulled from Lady Bird Lake this year alone, that they were all relatively young men in their 20s, 30s and 40s, and that they all had connections to Rainey Street nightlife has sparked speculation in the community.
It's also got Gannon thinking.
Earlier this year, he and a partner went down to Austin, Texas, where the alleged murders occurred, to conduct their own investigation into the deaths.
When he looked into the coroner's reports, anomalies began to stick out to him.
Two of the victims had injuries to the back of their heads that were inconsistent with a fall into the water, he said. They wouldn't have been able to sustain such injuries without being hit by something or someone.
The reported level of decomposition on some of the bodies is also suspicious, he believes. In some, the level of decay indicated that they'd only been dead for around 24 hours despite having been missing for several days by the time they were found.
Water temperatures can affect the rate of bodily breakdown, he said, and if the water is cooler, decomposition can occur more slowly.
Despite those facts, however, the medical examiners ultimately deemed the mens' deaths as accidental. And that ultimately meant the cases investigating their disappearances were closed.
"It was like a rush to judgment to me," he told The Mirror. "When you look at the autopsy reports, the injuries and level of decomposition — nothing is fitting with the amount of time that they're missing."
He was quick to criticise the investigative efforts of the Austin police and other authorities looking into the disappearances and deaths.
"The problem is they treat these cases as missing persons, and as soon as the person is recovered, he's not missing anymore. He's found," Gannon said.
"They're not handling it as a criminal investigation," he continued. "And because of that, I think they've lost an exorbitant amount of evidence."
Possible victims
In Texas, a bartender in the area told the US Sun in April that police patrols have been seen regularly, suggesting that police believe there is more to the unfortunate cases.
"It's an odd place for people to go, too. I find it hard to see how people could leave Rainey, and end up at the lake... You have to walk blocks to get there," she explained.
Jason John, 30, was the first body to be discovered a week after a night out on Rainey Street on February 5.
Despite one former roommate's claims John may have been drugged, an autopsy report said there were were "no illicit substances or medications."
He went missing on February 5 and a witness saw him go under the water, according to reports.
This was followed by the death of 40-year-old father of two Cliff Axtell, found in early March.
Jonathan Honey, 33, was found dead on April 1, followed by John Christopher Hays-Clark, 30, found on April 15.
Hays-Clark's childhood sweetheart and former partner Reegan Aparicio, 28 told the Daily Mail his death was "totally baffling."
She added: "They [police] haven't told me the cause of death. I've asked, but nothing. Everything is still ''under investigation". I literally have no answers, only questions."
The fact that the drowned persons were all men and that they had all been drinking on the nights of their disappearances might be causing local authorities to view their cases differently, Gannon believes.
"The idea is it's men. There's alcohol involved. It appears to be alcohol-related, so it's just a tragic accident," he said.
To officially rule out the possibility of homicide, Gannon believes investigators should have treated the cases like murders in the first place — even if they later determine that the men weren't, in fact, slain.
"What I was taught at NYPD is that you treat the cases, all cases, as homicides first and work backwards until you can prove it's not," he said. "If you treat it as an accident, then you've already lost the opportunity to collect a lot of vital pieces of physical or forensic evidence that you can never get back later."
Police have ruled out any possibility of a serial killer.
The Austin Police Department said: "There is no evidence in any of these cases to suspect foul play.
"While each incident has occurred at the lake, the circumstances, exact locations, and demographics surrounding these cases vary."
But that does little to calm the fears of many residents, who worry there is a 'roofie killer' on the loose, targeting men around the age of 30, using drugs like GHB to spike people's drinks - known as 'roofies.'
Were Jason John, Cliff Axtell, Jonathan Honey, John Christopher Hays-Clark and Mogga Dogale murdered?
Gannon certainly thinks so — and he won't rest until he's proven it.
