Only the River Knows

An Alibi is Not an Answer

Clearly, Brown's subject could not possibly have been responsible for Jared Dion's death. He was in prison 500 miles to the south when Dion vanished. But that does not necessarily exclude him from consideration in the other cases, Brown says.

Missing poster for Jared Dion

As Brown said, the fact that the man has an apparently airtight alibi for one of the cases doesn't necessarily mean that he is in the clear. Perhaps the killer was responsible for only one or two, or perhaps three of the deaths, she said. "It could be one guy who killed maybe two of them and that was it," she said, "or a serial killer killed one and no more in that area and no more in that way."

Brown, and others who have considered the cases, contend that while the man from Missouri may not necessarily be the killer, he at least provides a strong argument that one might exist, that it is truly possible that among those hoof beats pounding down by the Mississippi River, some, perhaps one, perhaps more, are being made by zebras.

To be sure, Brown says, the Missouri man is, at least in her mind, capable of committing such a crime. "He would, definitely," Brown said. "But you know, he just had to have an opportunity, and the things he said were very (worrying), things about where he could do it and where he couldn't; which state has a death penalty and which state doesn't. He's (been) checking into it.

"And of course," she added, there is the matter of his itinerary. "He moves around a lot. He's been in Wisconsin; he's been in Pennsylvania. He's been all over...but we just really don't know when he's gone where.

"That's one of the problems with serial killers," Brown said. Often, by the time authorities realize a killer is in their community, in many cases, he's moved on. "They don't catch on to what the guy's doing until he's already moved. They say, 'You know, one guy was killed in the community and nobody else has died, it must not be a serial killer."

Adding to the confusion in the La Crosse cases is the nature of the victims and the fact that there could be such a tragically plausible and prosaic explanation for the deaths. "Really, the problem is drunk college students are great victims as well as stupid people. You know, they could have just fallen in the water, they could have done something stupid and drowned themselves, or, on the other hand, they're easy to grab."

That certainly is one thing all five victims had in common. According to autopsy reports, all five of them were young, strong, and had blood-alcohol contents at the time of their deaths that exceeded the legal limit. In each case, there was no sign of pre-death trauma, and all of them disappeared or were found in either October or April when the river is cold but not frozen.