Only the River Knows

They Might Be Zebras

There are of course, a thousand reasons why the authorities might be right to give short shrift to the notion that a homicidal maniac is stalking the young men of La Crosse.

As Kim Vogt, a criminology professor at the university and co-author of an open letter to students written after Dion's death entitled "Why We Are 99.9 Percent Sure It Is Not A Serial Killer" put it, there are far more plausible answers for the string of tragic deaths at La Crosse. But each of those explanations would require the student body and the community at large to take a good hard look at themselves, at the pattern of alcohol consumption among students and the economic benefits that it brings to some sectors of the business community. The truth is, she says, there's no real willingness to do that.

In a way, the existence of a serial killer, even if it's a mythical one, is more palatable. "I think it's easier for people to believe that something beyond their control is causing the deaths of these students," Vogt told Stuff. "I mean it's much more comforting for them."

"I think that...we don't want to face how our personal actions might affect putting ourselves in harm's way," she said. Add to that, she said, the fact that as long as the rumors persist, the media will amplify them. "The other piece of the reality is that the media loves to hype the fact that this might be an unknown. There are stories...in these cases that feeds this and that's the stuff that goes around with the students in the bars, even those who weren't here the last time somebody drowned."

University of Wisconsin, La Crosse

In other words, she said, the idea of a serial killer has become part of the urban lore of the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse and legends, particularly those with the summer camp ghost story flavor that this one has, die hard. It has become such a persistent topic of conversation, Conte notes, that a local columnist, Matt James, was motivated to, as Conte put it, dismiss the talk of a serial killer as "an urban legend" and he "wrote an angry article commanding people to stop talking about it, stop writing letters and stop calling the TV stations."

There is little evidence that the people of La Crosse heeded James.