This was listed on "alien earth" website (I think this article is really good and explains a lot- van, drugs, gang, multiple locations, etc)
From Milwaukee Magazine
After three months of research into the case, Milwaukee Magazine has learned a gang called the "Dealers of Death" claims involvement in the deaths of some of these men. Convicted murderer Jeramy Alford, who is also a suspect in a river death that police now believe is a homicide, told the FBI last year that the gang had murdered 40 of the men. One admitted gang member: a man nicknamed "Zmiley."
In a letter obtained by Milwaukee Magazine, the FBI said there’s no evidence the gang exists, but admits Alford discussed the gang. (Both the FBI and the New York cops talked to Alford.) Milwaukee Magazine also has discovered documents from the New Brighton, Minn., police department in which two men associated with Alford, including Zmiley, admit belonging to the Dealers of Death.
Gannon’s team seems to have developed the smiley face theory at least in part after interviewing Alford. The team then talked to the FBI, which made an attempt to investigate, but not enough to satisfy Gannon (see "Sensenbrenner and the FBI," page 76).
He may have a point. Milwaukee Magazine has interviewed police in Iowa and Minnesota and examined investigative documents in New Brighton, all of which paints a portrait of a gang called the Dealers of Death with links to Jeramy Alford.
The Alford brothers are from rural Iowa, near Cedar Rapids, which is 75 miles from East Dubuque. They’d also lived in the Minneapolis area, sometimes shuttling back and forth between states.
"They were a transient family who became well-known to us," says Detective Bob Knoop of the Williamsburg, Iowa, police department. "They lived in subsidized housing and then in a trailer park. We had been watching them for illegal drug activity. Jeramy was one of those guys who couldn’t keep out of the way of the police."
In 2005, Knoop says, Jeramy Alford was arrested for harboring runaways. Police discovered he’d branded one of them, using a hot razor to create the beginnings of a five-point star. "He told them he would take them to Minnesota and make them part of his gang," Knoop says. Alford claimed his group was a political subdivision of a Chicago gang; another cop remembers the name as the "Dealers of Death."
David Miller, who prosecuted Jeramy Alford for the murder of Douglas Miller, says Alford had tried to falsely blame that homicide on fellow gang members nicknamed Zmiley and Roach. As a result, the police questioned these two men.
Did they try to dispose of the van used in the murders?
From another source
The Alfords lived with Miller but were about to be evicted because they were stealing from him and not paying rent, witnesses told police.
From another source...A van was dumped in the Iowa River
Luis Alford told police he hit Miller with a hammer and stabbed him with a barbecue fork, while his brother stabbed him with a knife, authorities said. His brother claimed full responsibility for the killing, after first blaming it on an unidentified third party, according to the county attorney's office.
"He said he hit Mr. Miller in the head with a pipe five or six times and stabbed him with anything he could find," the criminal complaint states.
A fisherman discovered the van belonging to Miller's employer submerged in the Cedar River Friday morning near Palo.
Continued from Milwaukee Magazine
Zmiley told police that the Dealers of Death had 300 members. "I was once a part of a little clique they had called the DOD," the records quote Zmiley as saying. DOD stood for "Dealers of Death" and was based in Iowa, he said.
Zmiley said he was on antipsychotic medication, lived in a tent by the river, was a regular at Brothers bar in Minneapolis, and had engaged in violence in the past. He claimed Alford confessed to murdering a college student in an Indian costume. But Zmiley remembered the victim’s name as Andrew, not Chris Jenkins. However, according to David Miller, Alford once had a jail visit with a relative and spent his "precious 15 minutes" discussing a possible alibi for Halloween, the night Jenkins was killed.
"He [Alford] just said, ‘I killed this stupid looking dude and I threw him over the bridge,’ " Zmiley told police.
Roach, who has a Minnesota criminal record, also told police he’d been a member of a gang he referred to as "DOD" and then called Dealers of Death. He said Jeramy Alford was the leader. (Zmiley told police someone else had taken over the gang after Alford was incarcerated.) Alford declined to be interviewed by Milwaukee Magazine. But when questioned by FBI agents, he claimed the DOD gang had murdered 40 young men.
Detective Gary Sykes of the New Brighton police department, who investigated the Miller homicide, is convinced the DOD gang robbed people for drug money, mostly in Minneapolis. "They hung out on the street all night and slept where they could during the day. Did Alford kill Chris Jenkins? It’s possible. Is he involved in other deaths? They are capable of almost anything, especially Jeramy. They have no compassion for human life. They were just plain weird."
Head to the Internet, and it gets even weirder. Zmiley’s devil-worshipping Internet profile contains a flaming skull over a pentacle and reads, "I am me and there is no one like me, so back off before you get put down on the ground." A friend writes on his site, "I also have a fascination with serial killers … the more u learn about history the better a person can learn from other peoples’ mistakes."
Could Alford’s gang be the smiley face killers who murdered some of these young men? "I believe they were a part of it," says Steve Jenkins, the father of Chris. "The FBI is not doing enough to confirm it."
Local law enforcement authorities are more guarded. But like Sykes, they believe the DOD gang could be connected to the murder of young men. "It’s plausible," says David Miller. Alford has already shown what he’s capable of. "He killed a defenseless man," says Knoop, the Iowa cop. But Knoop adds that Alford is an untrustworthy character who "likes to brag." He wants the FBI to take a closer look.
http://www.milwaukeemagazine.com/CurrentIssue/full _feature_story.asp?
This doesn't sound good after reading the account from his friends who had gone to pick him up. I have so many questions.
