“Al Cohol” – THE TRUTH

March 29th, 2010

The La Crosse Medical Examiner said the name of the serial killer is “Al Cohol.” La Crosse officials investigated the local drowning deaths and ruled out any connection or foul play.

 My research has found that it is difficult to accurately determine the level of intoxication in drowning victims.  

Nathan Kapfer

Nathan Kapfer

Before I show you what the experts say, let’s look at the drowning of 19 year-old Nathan Kapfer.  He was last seen on February 22, 1998 by a La Crosse, Wisconsin police officer.  According to reports, Kapfer registered a .07 on a sobriety test.  The level is below the legal driving limit. Kapfer was underage and issued a citation.  The citation, Kapfer’s wallet and ball cap were recovered neatly placed near a statue along the banks of the Mississippi River.  Kapfer’s body was found in the water more than a month later.  At his autopsy, Kapfer’s blood alcohol level was .22.  Police say after Kapfer got the citation, he likely kept drinking – possibly with someone else.  Police have not identified where Kapfer continued to party or who he was with.

Experts agree that there is not a reliable way to determine blood alcohol content accurately in a dead body.  In fact, it becomes even more difficult in a drowning victim.  Studies show that postmortem forces in the body can increase the blood alcohol level.

“We searched the scientific literature for articles dealing with postmortem aspects of ethanol and problems associated with making a correct interpretation of the results. A person’s blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) and state of inebriation at the time of death is not always easy to establish owing to various postmortem artifacts. The possibility of alcohol being produced in the body after death, e.g. via microbial contamination and fermentation is a recurring issue in routine casework. If ethanol remains unabsorbed in the stomach at the time of death, this raises the possibility of continued local diffusion into surrounding tissues and central blood after death. “”Bodies recovered from water are particular problematic to deal with owing to possible dilution of body fluids, decomposition, and enhanced risk of microbial synthesis of ethanol.”

Kugelberg FC, Jones AW.  Department of Forensic Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, SE-171 77 Stockholm, Sweden.

  1. Mike
    February 17th, 2010 at 08:38 | #29

    I attended the University of Montana in the small mountain town of Missoula in the 1970’s. It was second to none for partying, and it had its share of illicit drugs. UM was famous for an annual bash with many hundreds of kegs of beer. One year, that kegger was held in a riverside park and campground. A huge crowd of partiers literally spanned the river, and there was much revelry and drug taking alongside and in the water. Nobody drowned. Furthermore, tavern row in Missoula was on a street that paralleled another river not a stones-throw away from those several popular bars. On any weekend night during the school year, those bars were packed with students, and probably still are. For the 10 or 15 years I lived in that town, I don’t recall once that a drunk student at one of those huge keggers or from tavern row ever drown in any of the three large rivers or two streams that flow through Missoula. The only drownings I can recall were of boaters, floaters, fishermen and swimmers as you might expect would occasionally have such accidents. But no students disappeared to later turn up drowned, and it was not from a shortage of potential candidates, that’s for sure.

    Consequently, I believe that the interpretation of drowning statistics is highly misleading in the context of these smiley face deaths. They just about have to be murders, in my view, or are somehow related to increased rates of suicide among students.

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