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Kelly: Deaths not linked to serial killer network

BY ROCCO PARASCANDOLA | rocco.parascandola@newsday.com

8:36 PM EDT, April 30, 2008

There is "nothing to suggest" that two men who drowned in city waters a decade ago were slain by a nationwide network of serial killers, as two retired New York police detectives working for the families of the men have said, police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Wednesday.

Lawrence Andrews, a 22-year-old landscaper from upstate Brewster, vanished on New Year's Eve 1996 after drinking near Grand Central Terminal. His body was pulled from the waters off the 69th Street Pier, in Bay Ridge, on Feb. 12, 1997.

Four days later, Fordham University student Patrick McNeill, 20, left an Upper East Side bar and disappeared, police said. His body was found April 7, near where Andrews' body was found.

The medical examiner's office determined that both men had drowned. Neither body had any signs of trauma.

However, earlier this week at a news conference with members of McNeill's family of Port Chester, two retired NYPD detectives, Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte, said the deaths could be the work of a network of killers they say are responsible for the drowning of 39 other men since 1997. Most of them in the Midwest.

A smiley face was found spray-painted near at least 12 locations connected to the deaths, the detectives said, suggesting both a taunt to police and a sign that the cases are the work of one or more serial killers.

But no such symbol was ever found near where Andrews and McNeill were found, police said, and there was never any evidence the men were killed. "There is nothing to suggest anything other than an accident," Kelly said. "We have nothing that would indicate that that was a homicide."

The FBI, meanwhile, has spoken with both detectives about their probe and to a tipster upon whom the detectives relied.

"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," the FBI said in a statement about all the deaths. "The vast majority of these instances appear to be alcohol-related drownings." A law enforcement source familiar with the FBI's review of the deaths said the detectives never told FBI agents about the smiley faces. The source also said such graffiti was commonplace during the late 1990s.

The detectives could not be reached for comment, nor could the families of Andrews and McNeill.