Me, I got away. I know this sounds crazy but it's true. I've spent many years coming to grips with what happened to me almost a decade ago, and I've been in touch with the detectives who started this theory to explain what happened to me and hopefully help someone else. I'll post my story to the best of my recollection here.
I was 23 years old, a few months out of college. I lived in Portland, OR. I was out with friends one night drinking. We went to a few different bars and were drinking until closing time. One of my friends and I sat outside the last bar for awhile and talked to some homeless people. A police officer came up and told us to leave. Somehow I got separated from my friend after that so I just started walking home on Burnside. A white van with windows pulled up and some guys started talking to me. I'm a friendly guy so we just chit chatted for a bit. Eventually one of the guys pointed to someone who was sitting in the backseat of this van and said "Our friend has a crush on you, you should get in the van." I refused and they changed the subject and just chatted for a little while longer. Then a couple minutes later the guy repeated "Our friend has a crush on you, you should get in the van." I said no, and by this time I was surrounded by 5 or 6 guys. The guys were young, around my age, early 20s I would guess. They grabbed me and tried to force me into the van. I started swinging and tried to deadweight myself so they couldn't get me in. I assume one of them hit me in the back of the head because the next thing I remember I was waking up on the ground and the van was pulling away. It left, I made it home, and that was the end. I really didn't think a lot about it for a long time afterwards until I was telling the story years later and realized exactly what had happened to me. I then discovered the Smiley Face/River Killings theory and realized that I was right by the Willamette River when this happened and thought it might be related. It still gives me the creeps and speaking about it publicly freaks me out, but I thought what happened to me might help people who are investigating the case.