A pair of private investigators has pegged the drowning of an Ohio University student 10 years ago as possibly being linked to dozens of similar drownings of college-age males.

Keith Noble Jr., an OU freshman, was last seen alive at a party on April 25, 1998, and his body was found in the Hocking River two weeks later. Athens police determined his death was an apparent drowning after an autopsy and investigation, according to 1998 articles in The Messenger.

Now, Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte, two retired police detectives from New York City, say the apparent drowning deaths of 40 male college students like Noble were actually homicides, according to WBNS-TV Channel 10 in Columbus. Calls placed by The Messenger to Gannon and Duarte’s private investigation firm went unanswered Tuesday night.

The cases have several things in common, the detectives said in a Tuesday segment of the “Today” show. The victims were all college-age males, athletic and popular with high grades. All disappeared after nights of drinking and were found in nearby bodies of water. Most of the cases occurred in the Midwest, and some were connected by a graffiti image found near the supposed crime scene of a smiley face.

Athens Police Lt. David Williams, who was the lead investigator on the case in 1998, told WBNS-TV Tuesday that he had just heard about the detectives’ theory. Police are searching the area for graffiti and going through old photographs, Williams told the TV station. He said that Athens police would be interested in speaking with investigators to compare notes, and would reopen the case if new evidence surfaced. Williams could not be reached for comment by The Messenger Tuesday night.

Noble, of Worthington, went missing after a party on West Washington Street. Police spoke to other students who saw Noble at the party, but found no one who saw him leave, according to a May 7, 1998, Messenger article. Then-OU Police Chief Ted Jones said that witnesses said Noble, who lived on South Green and was unfamiliar with the city’s west side, had been drinking enough to be disoriented.

Family and friends searched with police and canine search teams along the Hocking River and the city’s west side for two weeks after Noble’s disappearance. Cadaver dogs showed interest in the area underneath the Richland Avenue bridge, and a dive team dredged the river and found nothing. His body was eventually spotted by two students walking along the river near White’s Mill, an area that had been searched twice by search teams, according to the May 7 article.

Noble was clothed from the waist down and had injuries to his body that were consistent with injuries a body would receive from being underwater in rapids, Capt. Tom Pyle previously told The Messenger. Police continued to search upstream to find out where his body entered the river, but said recent heavy rains might make clues sparse. Nothing was mentioned about smiley face graffiti in The Messenger’s reports on Noble’s death, but it is unlikely the common symbol would have received any attention from police at the time.

The private detectives told members of the press they can prove that some of the young men did not go into the water the night they went missing, meaning they were held for a period of time. One of the cases identified by the detectives has been reclassified as a homicide, and Minneapolis police now agree Chris Jenkins was abducted before being drowned in the Mississippi River, according to WKYC-TV in Cleveland.

The detectives also looked into whether a missing Ohio State University medical student who disappeared from a campus bar in April 2006 may have been a victim of the so-called “smiley face killers.” Columbus Police said they did not believe Brian Shaffer’s case was connected with the other cases, according to WBNS-TV.

Gannon and Duarte, who’ve spent the past 11 years linking the 40 deaths, reportedly believe they are not the work of one killer, but of a network of killers. They’ve called on the FBI to step in.

The FBI released a statement Tuesday in response to questions about the detectives’ theory. The FBI reviewed the detectives’ information and interviewed one of their informants, and stated that they have no evidence the deaths were connected and no evidence the drownings were the work of serial killers.

“The vast majority of these instances appear to be alcohol-related drownings,” wrote Supervisory Special Agent Richard J. Kolko.

Athens Police were not available for comment Tuesday evening. Ohio University Police have plans to speak with the detectives, an employee said. County Prosecutor C. David Warren said Tuesday he was aware of the investigation only from the television news.