Today, we find ourselves drawn into a chilling mystery that has inspired private investigators, TV shows and countless crime blogs and forums. And yet this case continues to deserve attention. This is the story of Todd Guy, a young man who disappeared while walking home in 2005 upon the discovery of his body three weeks later. It was ruled an accidental drowning, but this case is full of strange details that leave many wondering if Todd Guy was murdered.
And if so, could this case be connected to a series of bizarre deaths? This is a study of strange. Welcome back to the show. I'm Michael May, your host into the strange and Michelob and weird and unsolved. And today on the show, I'm joined again by Bridgette Weitzel. Hi, Bridgette. Hello. Thanks for having me back. How are you? I'm doing great. And I'm so excited you're here because, well, you're a great guest and you have an interest in these things.
Now, Todd Guy, who we're going to talk about, you've told me off the air, but for listeners sake, you don't really know the story of Todd Guy. Is that right? I do not. I think I have vaguely heard reference to a few of the things that I'm sure you're going to talk about in relation to this, but I know very, very little. Okay. So, Todd Guy, I will say you will come across his name, pronounced very differently. I think when I was first reading about it in my head, I was saying, Gabe.
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Sometimes you'll hear a refer to that. However, according to some documentaries that his family is involved with, they also guide some of going to. I'm going to assume that's the way you say his word, though. They would know. And he's a young man who disappeared and died in 2005. And the reason I wanted to cover this case is it is it is very strange. So it is right on point with a study. It's strange and unusual. Perhaps a study of strange. It very much is.
And this case has been covered a lot more so than I like to do four episodes on my show. However, I had a lot of questions about this case, and you'll see that I will. I'm going to be asking you listeners, dear listeners, for your tips or ideas or answers to some of the questions I have throughout this. And you can message me at a study of strange all one word at gmail.com, if you have any. Anything you want to add to today's episode?
Yeah. This this case has inspired an oxygen TV show and milk, but zillions of podcasts like my own and tons of blogs and articles and Reddit threads. And there is a larger theory, a murder theory that I'm going to cover in a follow up episode with you, Bridgette. So I'm going to tease that for the end. So if you want to hear about this connected murder theory, stay till the end of the episode and make sure you subscribe, because that way you won't miss it.
Everybody right? Brigid Lutely Absolutely. Subscribe. Subscribe. There's good stuff coming up. There is, There is. And look, people that follow this case are not going to be surprised by that connection. But if you don't know it, please stay till the end to learn more and then stay for the follow up episode. All right. Shadowing, foreshadowing. Yeah, you're right. So, Todd Guy is our focus today. So who is this guy? What's going on? What's happening?
I'm just going to read through kind of the the bulk of this story, and then we'll get into a discussion. Okay. In June 2005, it was a warm mid-summer evening in the rural heart of Michigan in the town of Cazenovia. And Todd Guy was a 22 year old, well-liked, sociable young man. He was renting a room from his cousin and he had a decent job for a distribution company which was headquartered in Wyoming. Like any 22 year old will do on a Saturday night, he wanted to go out with friends.
And on June 11th, 2005, he first met up with some friends at a restaurant bar around 730. And then a few hours later, he left the bar with five friends to attend an annual gathering that can be best described as a kegger, a cake or paradise. The party was in an area in apple orchard that Todd was familiar with, and he apparently knew most of the people at the party. And it's also only a mile and a half from his home, so it's all nearby. As the party continued into the early hours of June 12th.
Things got a bit rough. There was a fight, and I'm not sure if Todd was involved. There is a rumor that he was, but there are also a lot of other people saying it was not involved with the fight. Regardless, it ruined the vibe. Around 1245, right after the fight. Todd decided to make his way home, a decision that marked the last time he would be seen alive. Don't even. Yeah. He left the party on foot, intending to walk home at or around 1251. Todd began.
Todd became talk began talking, begins and began. That's the way That's what the episode's going to be like today, ladies and gentlemen. So Todd began a string of four phone calls, first to a female friend, and she heard him say, I'm in a field, and that he was lost twice. He had said this before the call cut off. She called back, but only heard wind or breathing sound before the call was true.
Todd then attempted to call another friend twice, but the calls were never answered and Todd never returned home. yeah. So when Todd failed to contact friends or family in the following days, there were everybody was thrown into this nightmare of worry and confusion. Search was quickly organized, scouring the area where he was last seen, but no trace of Todd was ever found. I shouldn't say was ever found because they did find him. That's coming up in a second.
But he wasn't found then and it was as if he had vanished into the night air. The case took a bewildering turn three weeks later when Todd's body was discovered, and it was found in a remote lake, a location that had been previously searched three times. No, the strangest part of this was Todd was found head up basically in a standing type of position, floating in the water, which is not normal for a dead body floating in water. No. So that's the that's the situation.
And I'll get into some more details in a second. But do you have any questions so far? Yes. How far? Okay. So the kegger was about a mile away from his house. He had to walk a mile, presumably a mile that he's well aware of since he lived there. How far was the lake where he was founded from A, the kegger and B, his house. So the kegger was a it's not exact, but roughly in the middle of his house.
And the case of the Cougars, the opposite direction from where he lived with his cousin and the kegger was basically right in the middle of the two. So he went the opposite direction. When he left the kegger, he went the opposite direction. One of many, many odd details about this case. So I wanted to call out a couple of kind of quick comments on the overall story, because you do hear this in different ways online, really researching this.
So there is a rumor that he was in the fight that happened. Okay. And the rumor was that he fought with this particular friend of his. That friend was later questioned by the police and the friend wasn't even at the party. So that rumor that he fought a friend at the fight is not real. There was a fight that happened supposedly.
That's where like some people get mixed up and think that he was involved in the fight because he thought a friend where that friend that he supposedly fought wasn't even there. So that's just not somebody else. He could have. He could have, but he did have I should I'm also jumping around here. But he did not have any bruises, any any sort of signs on his body of getting beat up or injured or anything like that.
So if he was in the fight, it was more of like a, you know, a drunken sort of pushy, pushy, hey scuffle kind of thing. Yeah. Also, I want to make a quick comment about the phone calls because I've heard the phone calls he made in several different ways. I've heard it described as he made a bunch of different calls and all of them were out of the ordinary and strange. I've heard that he called the people that dropped him off at the Orchard Party.
I've heard that he called his friend that dropped him off first and said, Hey, I don't need a ride. I'm walking home. I've heard that he called his sister. I've heard it claim that he called other friends a bunch of times and said weird things. From what I can find and I'm going to reference case studies and drowning, which is written by Kevin Gain and Andy Lee Gilbertson, who are intimately involved with the case.
They mentioned four phone calls using the actual phone records and sure enough, it was to a female friend was the first call. She tried to call back and then he tried to call another a guy friend and the calls were never picked up. There was the four that I can say with certainty did happen, and for the most part he basically just said, I'm in a field. It was kind of like drunk and not really speaking clearly. So that's my comment on the phone. Call a man just. Yes, who found the body.
Okay. So it's a couple and a slightly older couple. They were on a walk. I've also heard that they were planning to go fishing in that lake, but they're in the area near the lake he was found in. They saw him and they described it as bobbing in the water like like a fish bar. And at first, they didn't even notice it was a body. They didn't think it was a body at first because it was the way it was kind of bobbing up and down. So they found the body and they called authorities.
And this is after a massive search. Over 1500 people eventually searched for him and this is Cazenovia is a town of a little over 2000 people. So a lot of people search for for Todd Guy. The you know, the word spread and people were obviously concerned and, you know, the correct authorities that do the sort of search and rescues had helicopters and everything to try to find them. And like I said before, they didn't find him for three weeks.
And the couple that did find him, it said Ovid Hall Lake is the name of the lake, and it was around 5 p.m. when they found him. And police, you know, they come, they get the body. Police ruled pretty quickly that it was an accidental drowning. So the theory is in the body of water. Sure, he got drunk, he tripped, he fell into the lake. Exactly. That's exactly what the police determined pretty quickly. But like you've already pointed out, Bridget, he wasn't on his way home.
He went the opposite direction in an area that he knows really well that didn't of itself. Is it like a 100% sign that there's foul play? Because what if he was hammered and went the wrong way with a hammer? And I will I'll tell a little story about my friend Dave. So I'm a friend, Dave, and I was working with him on a documentary project in Washington State. And one night we went to a bar because we we had a late call. The next morning he had a lot to drink.
And walking back to the hotel room, he decided to wander down the train tracks and it was in the middle of the night and he was just drunk and wanted to walk and didn't want to go back yet and looked like he was fine. It was a little scary, but for me I was like, Look, he's an adult. I can't get him to stop, so I'm just going to go to bed. But he was totally fine. And I thought of that when I first read this case, because when people were like, why did he go the wrong way home?
It's like, you know, I know a lot of people. Dave, as a specific example, that's like, you know what, I want to walk over there. Let me see with this totally. I do have more series or his thoughts specifically on on why he was found in a lake, as many people do, which I will I will get into more. As I did mention, I want to say this again. The lake was searched three times. It's also hard to walk to. He would have had to climb over a gate. He would have had to go through some bushes and shrubs.
There's not like as clear perfect as the lake. That's. Yep. And so during the search, two dogs tracked his sent to the edge of I think it's called Moon Court is the road that was near the apple orchard but they tracked his sent to like the direction home not the direction to the lake And then they lost. Stop. Really? Yeah. In fact, fascinating. Here's what I'm going to do, Bridget, because I'm already somebody me.
Guess I what I'm going to do is I'm just going to list out strange details about this case. I have a little bit of an outline, but I kind of feel like this case has been covered so much. If you want to know more details, there's great references out there. I provide links in my show notes, including other podcasts.
But what I want to do is I'm going to list out all these little details about the case, some of them stranger than others, because the point is here is that the media, the not the media, the police quickly said it's an accident. But so much of this case makes you think or makes a layman think that something it doesn't line up with accidental drowning here. Okay. And and that's really what we can't forget doing a story like this, like this is a real person.
It was still I mean, I know it's almost 20 years ago, but it's still recent. He still has family. The family wants the case open even after the oxygen show and all this other stuff, trying to get the police to open the case again. They haven't done it as of yet, at least that I can tell, unless they did it really recently. And I somehow missed that in my research.
And and that's kind of the point of this story of Todd guy, because I feel like somebody should be investigating this more than they did. And yeah, like what? Aside from just him going the opposite direction, which really is kind of explainable pretty easily like he drank too much, went the wrong direction. But what aside from that makes this, you know, stand out as being something to study as strange?
It's almost like you knew exactly how to tie me up, Bridget, because I'm going to go into all these strange things. And what I mean, this isn't even going to be in any particular order. I'm just going to list off some stuff about this, which makes you question the story of drowning, the first of which is they didn't find a lot of water in his lungs, which is the sign of brown. Well, that's yeah, that's a biggie. And jeez. Yes. Hey, he was found fully closed wallet in his back pocket.
So that that's like, okay, well, maybe he wasn't. Maybe there was no foul play. He wasn't robbed, which is kind of typical of this kind of stuff. You know, he had his wallet. However, he is missing a cell phone, a hat and one shoe. And none of those items, as far as I've been able to find, has ever been recovered.
And normally, police have mentioned in this case, normally when you miss like a victim is missing a shoe or a hat or a cell phone, normally you find those things in the given area in like the search area where the body is found, you'll uncover that shoe or that hat or whatever. And they've never found any of it. He had a blood alcohol content of Point 12, which according to my reading, because I'm terrible about those levels is a 6 to 8 beers I think.
Yeah that's not super hammered I mean that's how it was he a big dude I mean bigger than me not not a huge guy but he was athletic, but not like I'm not a giant guy and I'm actually going to come back to the alcohol content because this is where my first questions came up in the case that I still don't fully understand that I want help from my listeners on. So I'm going to circle back to the blood alcohol content reading, except for to say that alcohol was found in his system.
Sure. And that, of course, leads into the the official ruling of how he got drunk and stumbled into a lake in drought. I will say also with drowning, a lot of the things I've read or even like comments on Reddit and stuff about this case is people are like, no one's no one just gets drunk and walks into water. A very easy search online shows you that. No, that happens all the time. It is, man. Very it is very common for people to get drunk and fall into water.
Walking the water gets like it happens so often. It's no wonder that like there's certain areas of towns along like rivers and stuff where there's a lot of bars where they're like, make sure to put up extra safety railings that have signage and all sorts of stuff because it happens a lot. And I was reading about a couple, I didn't even write it down because I didn't think I would say it.
But there's a university somewhere that's like near a river in the main area where the restaurants and college bars are is along this walkway. And over the last like 20 years, there's been like two dozen drowning of drunk college students. Yeah. So it's a very normal thing.
No, that makes complete sense because you can, you know, number one, think you're good and I'm going to go for a swim and then you realize where you can't even walk in a straight line, let alone keep yourself buoyant or you tire out quickly or you hit your head when you fall in. And yeah, that makes complete sense.
That that absolutely I will say, you know, we have in this case, just to sort of do the the contradictory sort of point of view about that is it was so hard for him to get to this lake. It's not an easy. That's interesting. So that is interesting. One of the police officers apparently just said, he wanted to go for a swim, but he had all his clothes on like he's not he's not even when you're drunk. I don't think you're just going to, like, jump in the water.
Now, the day he was found, there was a canoe on the shore of the lake. There were empty beer cans or alcohol bottles around that canoe. And they were relatively recent. So that's an interesting saying because maybe people were there, but why didn't they see the body if they had been there hanging out at the lake? There's also a couple stories of people going fishing in the lake after he had disappeared and they didn't see or call in about the body either.
One of the annoying factors of that canoe with the beer bottles, though they never forensically tested any fail. Yes, huge, huge fail. Even if it has nothing to do with what happened to Todd Guy. You still you got to do your due diligence. You kind of got to rule things out. Come on. It's like police 101 police, 101. And there is the weird way that he was found floating sort of in this weird position of questions.
Yeah, I don't think anybody's ever actually been able to solve the riddle because it is apparently not normal at all because of the way that you use your body. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead. No. So scientifically, I mean, you probably that's what you're referring to. Like, is there something with the gases or, you know, the way the body decomposes, let's say he died somewhere else and then somehow somebody put it in there.
Is there potential that, like the rigor mortis or anything could change the way I'm making movements with my hands? As if your listeners have any idea what I'm saying with my hands. But you know what I'm. What I'm getting at. What's what's the science behind it? Is that right? And I think that's why it's an interesting fact of this case, because if he didn't just drown or fall in, maybe that's what kind of led to this very odd body position. And no one has quite had an answer for it.
Some people we've even like tested out different theories with bodies or skin or whatever, and they haven't concluded why that is. So it's just one of there's many, many strange things about this case. Yeah. So the the family had a private investigator hired at some point and the CEO of Forensic Identification and Profiling Laboratory, Dr. Michael Sicker. Yeah, I have heard his name sound different ways, so I'm not going to feel too bad that I'm probably mispronouncing it.
He he reviewed Todd's autopsy report and recovery photos, and based on his findings, he concluded that Todd, who was missing for three weeks reminder, had only been dead roughly 2 to 5 days when he was removed. So that doesn't quite line up either. That was my next question. What was the decomposition of the body? Was it he was decomposed as if he had been in water for an extended period of time or not? Not really.
So he was in really good shape, which is an odd thing to say out loud about a dead body. But there was like I've already mentioned, there was little to no water in his lungs, according to all the reports. And what was noticed by all these various doctors. There's also a Dr. Benbow from Michigan State University. I think he was brought on for the Oxygen series, but he may have been brought on the case earlier.
So he had talked about there should be more biofilm on the body as it's, you know, degrading and decomposing and stuff in water. And there wasn't a lot of biofilm on him. There was no sign of like insect eggs and insect bites and all that kind of stuff. And he tested out this theory by using pigs because they're the closest thing to human sort of skinning condition. And he put them in in similar type of lakes and water.
And surely just after like a few days there were bugs and bugs and biofilm and sludge and also the carcasses collapsed after three weeks, whereas Todd Guy was in relatively good condition. I have read just to give both points of view on this, I have read, you know, it is Michigan, it is the summer, but the water is still relatively cold. I know I went to summer camp in Michigan Lakes. They're frickin freezing.
Right. The water is cold. And if if he had actually sunk down towards the bottom, he would have been away from more of the sort of bio living organisms and insects and things in the lake. And perhaps that's what prohibited him from decomposing faster than you would expect. However, that's just something I read. I don't know if I believe that 100%. Yeah, I don't know if that makes sense to my uneducated, not scientific mind. Right.
Like you think about something being in the water for three weeks, no matter what it is. Yes. Or what's around, that's going to do something to you. And there's fish in there and that's what else is in there, right? Absolutely. And so that's that's the biggest thing in my mind. That's huge. It's huge. Now, he was later found to have two types of antidepressants in his system. And again, listeners, if you want to know more, you can just Google. Todd gave antidepressants.
I don't want to try to pronounce, but these drugs are called. I'm not good at that kind of stuff, but it's two types of antidepressants. And a pathologist looked into this information, a doctor, Cyril Wecht, who said that the amount he had is he yeah, he does like all sorts of famous crimes and wow. And as an expert all the time, I knew that. that's amazing. So sorry. I said no, that's a I didn't realize that. That's awesome. I did think I recognize the name. So that's really funny. Yeah.
So he said these were practically lethal dosages of these drugs and that she may have ever been unconscious before reaching the water. There are other sort of doctors and stuff because I think the family or the investigator the family hired took the information from the case to one of these like conventions with pathologist and forensic scientist.
And there were like hundreds of them looked at the information and just I know probably very quickly at a convention, but looked at and were like, well, these these drugs cause all sorts of interesting side effects within the first hour of taking them, which can include confusion, potential cardiac arrest, sort of delirium, and who knows what it even does combined with alcohol. I'm sure the doctors know, but it's just something I'm thinking of right now then.
And his family and friends say that they weren't aware that he was taking these drugs. He wasn't a depressed person. They weren't aware that he had a prescription. I don't think they ever did find a prescription either for that. So some people have brought up a theory that he could have been drugged and he could have been drugged at the party because you can mush these these antidepressants up an atom to liquid, to alcohol, to drinks.
And so that's, again, a sort of a remote theory that he might have been drugged at the party for some reason that we do not know. But that still doesn't everything for me from here on in is going to take me back to the fact that they're saying he had only been dead for 2 to 3 days. Yeah, they found. Yeah, three weeks later. Absolutely. So no matter what happens from here on in, there's this gap. Yeah, that doesn't make sense. And I mentioned earlier I want to come back around to the alcohol.
Bled blood alcohol content because so many of my questions in this case that I thought taking extra time, extra time to even research that I still don't have an answer to kind of ties in to the time of death and related to the blood alcohol content. So I'm saying that more for myself to remember to circle back around, but there's a reason I want to do that. So police got a tip in in the police report that a woman could have hit him in a hit and run and then like dumped the body.
This is actually someone talking to police about this. I completely don't believe that at all, because he had no marks on his body of being injured. To say that doesn't make sense. And why is it going to be a woman being the bad driver that hits him? Well, it was I think it was a witness, Bridgette, But yeah, good point. got it. Yeah. It wasn't just like, you know, that a woman hit on women driving this time of night. Not a good thing. They should be allowed to drive. I mean, or. Or vote.
I'm sorry. You might want to edit this part out. That's Bridget saying that everybody, not me, not me. And her point of view is no correlation to the point of view of the producers are makers of a study of strange delete, delete, delete. Doing so I say all these things. That's a bunch of like the weird little details because I want to paint a picture that there's a lot more questions about Todd Guy than there are answers.
And the fact that the investigators sort of fastidiously ruled this an accidental drowning with no sign of foul play is just kind of amazing. And I do actually. There's a couple of things I want to point out because I even just said it, but so many other people are like police just quickly ruled in an accidental drowning. They didn't say there was foul play.
I do think some investigators assumed or thought or theorized, whatever the correct term is, that there could have been foul play because of an article that came out, I think the day after he was found in the local paper. And I'm going to have you read a section of that. Bridget Sweet So this is from an article in the Detroit Free Press in July of 2005. When you're raiding suspicious death, missing man's body is found floating in Lake.
The body of a man who had been missing for three weeks was found Saturday floating in a lake in rural Muskegon County. Results of an autopsy conducted Sunday on Todd Gib, 22, of Cazenovia, were incomplete. The case has been labeled a suspicious death investigation, the Muskegon Chronicle reported. Gibb's body was found Saturday in Ovid Hall Lake in Hanover Township. A female acquaintance told police that Gib called her on his cell phone about 12:50 a.m. to say he was lost.
More than 1500 people helped search for Gib. So the reason I wanted to read this is because it's the title of the article is Suspicious Death. It is. So I don't know. I always find it interesting to look at newspaper articles right when these stories happen because I feel like they tell us more than over time on the internet kind of creates them out to be.
And the fact that it's titled Suspicious Death to Me says that there was some thought like there is definitely some work, some thought by locals that something isn't right here. Something's weird, man. That doesn't mean the police did it too quickly, rule it accidental. But I think some some thought went into it. And we should definitely give some credit to whoever mentioned to the to the local reporters that it is a suspicious death.
Indeed. Now, here's what I want to do next, I think, is I'll circle back around to this blood alcohol saying, okay. And so the question the first question I had is, wait a second, three weeks? Is that what happens to alcohol in the system after three weeks? Can you even question do a reading? And the answer what I typically come up with looking into this is you can't really do a good job getting a reading of it after 48 hours. Okay. And so so then I'm asking, well, what was the reason?
I'm asking all those sounds for sure. I'm coming out of my head around this case. A lot of people theorize that he died much closer to when he was found because of all the stuff we've already talked about. Yeah, and that makes me immediately go, Well, then why do all those same people say he had this really high alcohol content, blood alcohol content in his system because what did he not have but blood or alcohol in his system three weeks later or when he died.
You know, so it the guys I mean let's say he was like being held captive somewhere or he was lost somewhere for two weeks and five days or, you know, whatever it is. And he drinks and or has alcohol consumed up until that day or so before he's killed, then it would be in a system. We're not necessarily talking about the alcohol he consumed at the party, at the party. Right. And so that also makes me think of the the beer bottles and things found near a lake that seemed more recent.
So could he have been alive and doing something, but also like he didn't seem to be fighting with friends or family. So why like and also just having alcohol if you've been abducted or saw something or were exposed to you, why do you have alcohol in your system like you will be have people are going to be like, hey, I'm holding you captive, but here have to beer a brewski, have a brewski, let's hang out. So all of that is weird and I don't have a answer to that, but all of it is weird.
And I did find another thing. So as much as I went down that of like, hey, maybe the alcohol content doesn't quite line up, I did find something else from the adolescent at length. Teen Jury Law Blog talking about official it. It is, I guess, how blood alcohol after death can lead to false positives up 2.20. And it's an article written by a guy named Ken Chagla. And I'm going to read a little section of this and handling wrongful death and life insurance claims for clients.
I learned years ago that blood alcohol test after a person dies may not be reliable due to postmortem fermentation. When a body is not kept cool after death, there can be false positive blood alcohol reports up 2.2 grams percent. Slash numbers and math. It's been well-established for many years that one blood alcohol levels of at autopsy are valid up to 48 hours after death.
Two alcohol levels in samples of blood taken from the intact heart are as significant as levels of blood from the femoral veins. Three false blood alcohol level is greater than 0.2. 0% can be generated in autopsy blood samples, which are not correctly stored for high blood alcohol levels may be may developed during future fixation. So I'd say and level 6.30 do not necessarily indicate that alcohol was imbibed before death. And yes, so that I was going to use the word fermentation.
But I know that's too morbid. No, I think, you know, it it makes it morbid. It does. It does. And so what that says to me is, even if they found this much alcohol in his system, perhaps he actually didn't have alcohol by drinking drink. He drinks in his system and maybe there's also just a false positive. Maybe it's not lining up perfectly. I did read there are other ways to read blood alcohol level that do last longer than the 48 hours that I think it's from hair samples.
But I'm not sure how they took his his reading. And I also don't think it was a full like three weeks. I think it was a little less than that for it to be kind of accurate. So I do find that really interesting. That's fascinating. Yeah, because it really doesn't it tells you that that could mean literally nothing. Nothing. And that also ties into this theory of, hey, wait, if he had only been dead 2 to 5 days, maybe the alcohol had nothing to do with that and he could have been killed.
Something fishy could have actually happened to that guy. Yeah. So you generally think, though, like if we're talking about him being held captive somewhere or something, that's a significant period of time. Two and a half, three years, let's say two and a half weeks, give a couple days for the body or whatever you I feel like if that's the case, like he's going to look thinner or just more disheveled or have some sort of physical illustration of that because that's traumatic. Right.
It's not like he's going to be held captive up in a fancy hotel or something. But no, and that's where I keep like I don't have one way or another that I kind of lean in this case. Yeah. In terms of like, I think something bad happened to him because somebody killed him or he just drowned. I'm kind of in the middle and I kind of float back and forth. If I. That's what you did there. Yeah. I didn't actually end up. Yes, I do.
It's almost state a standing position, strangely enough, as I'm stuck on that quite person. I mean, to interrupt, but I know you're stuck on that. That's weird. It's very weird. What's the like? Nobody can explain that. What does that mean? And and maybe it means nothing. But when you tie or when you add all these things together. The body. Yeah, the the biofilm, the the other signs that perhaps he was only dead 2 to 5 days instead of three weeks.
You add all these things together, I'm of the opinion that maybe he did actually accidentally drown or maybe he fell unconscious because of drugs in his system and then just fell over into the lake. And maybe that answers why he didn't breathe and more water than was found. It could be. And however, I think there's so many things that are weird that it is one of those cases that's like, no, they should look into this more like they should release the police report two more people.
They should have, you know, other pathologist come in and look at things like just get more opinions on it because so much of this is strange. And the fact that you didn't forensically do any tests on like the canoe or the beer bottles or anything else, it's it's just odd to me that it wasn't taken further than it was. The lack of decomposition is a giant thing for me. And there's so many theories.
Again, there aren't there is plenty of content out there for people to want to explore more theories. A lot of them are outlandish, of course, because you're always going to have UFOs and serial killers and everything. Obviously aliens, obviously aliens. But you can kind of go into that. However, I do want to mention that there the family itself, the guy the family wants more answers. That's why they've been working.
They don't necessarily believe all the things that some of the people online believe about the case, but they just think more investigation needs to happen. They've had a change.org, what is it called? And you get signatures. They've had one of those things up, for a handful of years. I'll provide a link to that. I don't know if it's active anymore, but it is still interesting to see that they wanted to get enough signatures to try to force the authorities to open up the case again.
And then lastly, Bridget, before we finish, I tease this at the beginning of the episode that there is a little story connected to Todd Guy called The Smiley Face Killers and dun, dun dun. And this is because there's a there's a bit of a rumor or folktale or whatever that the mother found a smiley face spray painted on a tree nearby where Todd was found. Also, the the mother found a smiley face sticker on his gravestone years later. And yes. And guy's face, Guy space.
Gabe's case fits in with the descriptions of a lot of other deaths, mostly on the East Coast. But there have been found all around the country deaths where the victims are in their early twenties, college kids, males in good physical shape, popular and white. There's the characteristics of all these. They've been found drowned. Most were walking home drunk the night that they had disappeared. And Dodge is some of them were drugged.
And supposedly near these crime scenes are graffiti of smiley faces or a smiley face. And that, of course, leads to the smiley face killer theory, also called the smiley face murders. And it is a popular theory. It did inspire a movie written by Bret Easton Ellis and a lot of people of color covered the smiley face killers. But much like the Todd Guide case, I wanted to learn more about it because I had questions. I am both a professor and a student of strange Tales.
There you have it, and I wanted to learn more. It is a bit of a a there's a lot of opinions about the Smiley Face Killer's theory. Bridget. And can we we're going to get into another time. I would like to know more. Yes, we are. So we're going to do a follow up episode. Everybody with Bridget. We're going to continue top guide conversation into the Smiley Face Killers episode. So make sure you are subscribed and stay tuned for that follow up episode.
But before you go, Bridget, is there anything else? Do you have any other questions, comments, theories about Todd Guy When I was reading that article was I saying, Gabe, You were. But that's what most people do. It's okay. But that's ridiculous because we've said guide this entire time. And then I was like, I'm just going to go off the rails and say it wrong.
Yeah, no, you're actually may save me because if I did somehow mishear the family, say it now, at least you're saying it correctly and I'm the idiot. So right then I will not ask you if I could rerecord that part. We'll keep it as it is as far as the case goes. I mean, it's one of those ones that you like on the surface, it looks very obviously fucked like something is not right. There's just it doesn't add up. All the pieces are not there. It's not clear.
So all the questions that you've asked I think are all super viable. And I see myself going down a rabbit hole now. It's like trying to see what else is out there because it's just weird and I can't imagine, honestly, I can't imagine being the family and having them be like, Yeah, I accidentally drowned and see all this other stuff and have no recourse for finding out why all this other stuff.
And if I was the family and one of the first things I hear is that there's little to no water in his lungs. You'd be like, Well, wait, wait, what? You just said he'd drain on. Like, what do you do? Right? What explains it? Like, you're you're thing of like, okay, he took those the lethal dosage of the antidepressants and he had a heart attack and then fell into the water. Their autopsy should then show that it wasn't the drowning, it was the heart attack or whatever.
So did they just not test for the things that they should have? Is this just such a podunk little town that they didn't get proper law enforcement, they didn't have the background to do it? And you know what happened? And I don't know. And that's honestly where, you know, this case has been a tough one for to research. And and I took an extra week to do it because I felt like I wasn't getting answers to questions.
And so that's just part of the story is that I don't have answers to all the questions. And I think that's why most other people don't too. I do get a little annoyed because I consume content like this constantly, as you can imagine, as I know you probably do too. Bridget Yeah, and I don't like how so many people online say everything matter of factly, like, this is what it was, this is what it.
And it's like, no, there's a lot of like in this case and a lot of a lot of information that we don't have access to because as far as I've been able to find out, the police report hasn't been released publicly. And it's interesting, too. Why not? It's teen years. Absolutely. And so, again, a call, a call to action to my listeners, like if you have answers to some of my questions or if there's anything you want to clarify in the case, we can do that in a follow up with the Smiley Face murders.
So please email a study of Strange at gmail.com if the police report has been released and I just couldn't find it, please send me that as well, because I would love to see that as many as also a lot of other people online would love to see the police report. I'd go, yeah, because that that would clarify a lot of things. And the book I was reading, Case Studies and Drowning that was written by two of the main people behind the smiley face murder theory.
And so their their book is a bit biased because they're believers in the smiley face murders. However, they actually did give a lot more specific details than you normally find. So it was a good research book for this case. And they did clarify some of that stuff about the phone calls. And, you know, some of the test was biofilm and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, still, there's still plenty of answers that I have even after reading things like that.
So the mystery wasn't the source then we wouldn't be here talking about it in the first place. It's true. You know it's true. The mystery always drives this. Yeah. If we knew all the answers, I don't know we if we'd be covering it. So, Bridget, anything you want people to know about? Any plugs, you want people to find you anywhere or not. You don't have to. I don't really have too much going on right now. People can always follow me on Instagram and see pictures of my dogs.
Nice, nice queen bee on the move. That's me. Queen Bee on the move. And yeah, we're always great. Just happy to be a part of this stuff. And I'm really looking forward to the smiley case. The smiley face case too. Yeah, me too. Have heard of that. Like I said, I don't know much, but it's. Yeah, in the ether of all kind of true crime mystery stuff. So it is a fun it's a big one. It's it's been floating out there for a long time.
The first time I came across it, I was like, wait, got all these there's like 40 plus cases that are potentially connected. And, you know, I had to read more about it. But yeah, I have a lot of opinions on it, so I'm excited to share them and wait to hear the story. Yeah, well, thank you again, Bridget. Until the next episode coming up soon. I'll talk to you, Michael. I'll see you on the next one. Thank you for listening to a study of Strange. I'm Michael May do me a quick favor.
Hit that subscribe follow button on whatever platform you use to listen to podcast. And if you're on Apple and Spotify, leave us a rating and review, you can get exclusive additional content from a study of Strange through our SUBSTACK, which you'll find through our support tab of our website. A study of strange Tor.com. You can also follow us on Instagram if you want, and a study of Strange. A very special thank you to the wonderful Bridget Weitzel, one of my favorites.
I hope you're looking forward to her and I discussing the Smiley Face Killers theory. That episode will probably not be next week. If you're listening to this episode when it comes out, I think it's going to be a two weeks just because I have a family vacation to attend and enjoy. Thank you. Goodnight.