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October 31st, 2002. Minneapolis, Minnesota.

21-year-old university student Chris Jenkins celebrates Halloween by going to a local bar with friends.

After he's ejected from the establishment, Chris vanishes without a trace and his body is found in the Mississippi River four months later.

While police initially believe that Chris's death was an accidental drowning, his family uncovers disturbing evidence to suggest he was a victim of foul play.

The police chief eventually reclassifies the death as a homicide and issues an apology to the Jenkins family, but the exact circumstances of how Chris died remain unknown.

After that, the trail went cold.

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of The Trail Went Cold. I'm your host Robin Warder and today I'll be covering another tragic cold case which occurred on Halloween.

The unexplained 2002 death of Chris Jenkins.

As you probably know, our show has been spending the month of October covering mysteries which either took place on Halloween or have some sort of Halloween slant to them.

At the start of the month, we did an episode about university student Cindy Song who went out partying on Halloween night but vanished without a trace after she was dropped off at her apartment.

Today, we will be discussing another university student named Chris Jenkins who also went out partying on Halloween night before he was kicked out of a bar, never returned home and was found dead in a river months later.

At first, the authorities were content to write off his death as a tragic alcohol-cuelled accident or even a suicide, but Chris's family disagreed.

You'll find a number of stories out there just like this one where a deceased individual's family will dispute law enforcement's official ruling and maintain that their loved one was a victim of foul play.

However, this is one of those rare cases where law enforcement eventually changed their mind and came to believe the victim's death really was a homicide after all.

Chris's case is still officially unsolved and there has been speculation that his death might be connected to a phenomenon known as the Smiley Face Murder Theory, but you'll hear my own thoughts on that a little later.

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