Wait, I just read that article, and a few things stood out.
One:
"The smiley face gang is loosely connected via the Internet and various members meet up, kidnap young college-age men off the street by throwing them into a waiting cargo van, then torture their victims for hours before dumping the unconscious young men into a nearby river."
How do they know that they use a cargo van, and if the victims were tortured that would show up in the autopsy, so of course they wouldn't be listed as an accidental drowning.
Two:
"water washes away all the DNA evidence."
I've seen one or two episodes of CSI, and that's just bullshit.