She was reported missing by her roommate, Sherri Green, when she failed to return to her dormitory after curfew. [20], Despite tracing and eliminating more than 150 registered owners of red-and-black vehicles in the state of Michigan, and establishing the alibis of numerous individuals whose physical features bore a likeness to the composite drawing of the driver the police had obtained from Kolbe, all investigative lines of inquiry into the murder of Joan Schell failed to bear fruit. The point is: It's not society's judgment that's important, but the individual's own choice of will and intellect. Although investigators had informally exchanged information with agencies from other jurisdictions on an irregular basis since the previous summer, no coordination to combine efforts and resources had ensued until the discovery of the third victim definitely linked to the series. The Michigan Murders | Themichiganmurders | The These 10 Famous Murders In Michigan Will Never Be Forgotten Neighbors speechless after triple homicide Interrogation tapes reveal connections between Jeffrey Willis and [52] (The farmhouse itself was destroyed in an act of arson on May 13; when the fire was extinguished, five clipped lilacs[53] were found arranged in an even row across the driveway to the building, leading investigators to theorize they had been placed there by the murderer to symbolize each victim. In an effort to discredit Goshe's testimony, Fink diverted questioning as to the model of motorcycle she had seen outside her shop, to which Goshe conceded her initial belief as to the model being a Honda 350 was inaccurate. In the case of California victim Roxie Ann Phillips, police had discovered that, prior to her murder, the victim had told a close friend she had met an Eastern Michigan University student named John, who owned a silver Oldsmobile Cutlass and several motorcycles; her nude, strangled body was found discarded in a patch of poison oak on July 13,[164] with the distinctive red-and-white floral patterned belt from her culotte dress knotted around her neck. [57] Sections of her clothing were scattered around her body, although one of her shoes was missing. Detective: Nursing home killers suffocated up to a dozen patients Although forensic experts would deduce later that morning that the stains covered by the black paint had actually been varnish stains, one of the investigators discovered numerous hair clippingsmany measuring less than three-eights of an inchbeside the family washing machine. Case not closed: Unsolved homicides in the Kalamazoo area David Leik. Serial killer Don Miller, who admitted to killing 4 women, denied Man charged with murdering For example, in the case of Mary Fleszar, investigators discovered that at the time of her disappearance, Collins had worked part-time in the Eastern Michigan University administration unit, and that his office had been located directly opposite the hallway from the office where Fleszar had herself worked. If a person wants something, he alone is the deciding factor of whether or not to take it, regardless of what society thinks is right or wrong if a person holds a gun on somebodyit's up to him to decide whether to take the other's life or not. [44], At 6:30a.m. on April 16, the body of a 13-year-old schoolgirl named Dawn Louise Basom was found beside a desolate road in Ypsilanti. The first motion by Collins' attorneys, contending denial of defense motions to move the trial outside of Washtenaw County and the prejudice of prosecution witnesses, was filed with the Michigan Court of Appeals on December 14, 1970. [n 4], The defense contended that although the murder of Beineman was a "vicious, sadistic attack" which had degraded her body "almost beyond human comprehension,"[102] the prosecution's case that Collins was the perpetrator of the crime was a weak one at best. Barlow testified as to the fact that although Beineman had been deceased for almost 72 hours, her body had only lain in the location where she was found for 24 hours before discovery.[74]. To expand on their allegations that certain defense witnesses had been subjected to police harassment, and that eyewitness accounts had been flawed, defense attorney Joseph Louisell subjected Sheriff Harvey to a 45-minute cross-examination as to his contact with the two eyewitnesses prior to completion of this composite drawing. Despite the evident distress of Sandra Leik throughout her testimony, during which she had testified that Collins had been as "close to me" as her own sons, For several years following his incarceration, Collins refused to grant interviews to the media; but six years after his conviction, Collins formally requested a personal interview with reporters from, In October 1977, Collins was transferred from Southern Michigan Prison to, In 1980, Collins legally changed his surname to that of his biological father, Chapman. Police investigating break-in at home of slain Detroit [41] By early April, each of these law enforcement agencies had collectively assigned 20 investigators to work exclusively upon the four homicides. [119], In November, Ryan, in an effort to determine the most effective defense strategy, persuaded Collins to undergo a private and independent polygraph test. After hearing six hours of testimony from nine prosecution witnesses, Judge Edward Deake ruled that probable cause had been established, and Collins was formally ordered to stand trial for Beineman's murder.[73]. The pair would commit several murders of young women over the next few months. [114] No hard evidence would ever arise suggesting his involvement in any murders, and the Washtenaw County prosecutor's office would publicly announce on December 18 their satisfaction that Manuel had "no knowledge of the murders. Donaldson killed three of the victims, 22-year-old Benjamin Edward Mitchell, 32-year-old Monica Caridad Hoffa and 20-year-old Anthony Naiboa, in October 2017, police said at the time. [66], Despite recovering numerous stolen items from his apartment and being informed by Arnold Davis that Collins had been in the habit of committing burglaries with a former roommate of theirs named Andrew Manuel,[100] no incriminating evidence linking Collins to Beineman or any victim of the Michigan Murders was discovered, although officers were informed by Arnold Davis on this date of the incident two days earlier in which he (Davis) had observed Collins carrying a laundry box containing women's clothing and jewelry from his apartment and towards his car. On October 14, Judge Conlin rejected defense motions to dismiss the case, or suppress any evidence obtained; ruling Collins' arrest had been on the reasonable grounds he had committed a felony. The first known victim linked to the Michigan Murderer was a 19-year-old Eastern Michigan University accounting student named Mary Terese Fleszar,[8] who was last seen alive on the evening of July 9, 1967, by a neighbor walking towards her Ypsilanti apartment. The circumstantial evidence linking Collins to Schell's abduction and murder was stronger than that of any other Michigan victim linked to him, and police would formally announce this fact within days of his arrest. [157], The state of California postponed their requests to extradite Collins to face charges relating to Phillips' murder in June 1971. Investigators had established that each victim had been menstruating at the time of her death, and had theorized this may be a factor in the sexual violence exhibited upon the victims. Although police theorized that Fleszar had been raped, the advanced state of decomposition of the corpse had erased any conclusive evidence of sexual assault. why the suspected Michigan school Category:People murdered in Michigan [144] The jury then retired to consider their verdict, and would deliberate for over 27 hours over a period of three days, with an additional five-and-a-half hours devoted to their re-reading portions of testimony, before announcing they had reached their verdict. The first witness to testify was the head of the Michigan Health Department's Crime Detective Laboratory, Walter Holz, who testified as to the human hair clippings found inside Karen Sue Beineman's panties being an exact match to those recovered from the basement of Sgt. Furthermore, Goshe had identified a photograph shown to her of Collins as being the man she had seen with Beineman. The perpetrator, John Norman Chapman (then known as John Norman Collins) was arrested one week after the final murder. [96], The same day, Leik was advised by investigators of his nephew's suspect status, and the level of circumstantial evidence unfolding against him. [67] Although this information proved to be of little help throughout the actual manhunt, Hurkos also predicted that this individual would shortly strike one final time. Devon Hoover was found wrapped in sheet after domestic incident Karen Sue Beineman (18): July 23, 1969, In the years immediately following his conviction, Collins' mother, siblings and several of his friends remained steadfast in their belief that Collins had been the victim of a. Collins' mother, Loretta, and his two siblings, Jerry and Gail, refused to speak with Sgt. Moreover, although the prosecution at Collins' trial had been unable to question Arnold Davis in detail as to the contents of the laundry box he had observed his roommate hurriedly remove from their apartment and towards his car two days prior to his arrest, one of the items he had seen within this laundry box had been a distinctive purple leather shoe, which may have belonged to Kalom.[58]. Davis informed police he had long suspected Collins had murdered Schell, but had been too afraid to report his suspicions. This is In this lineup, Goshe positively identified the man she had seen with Karen Sue Beineman as John Norman Collins. Several of these wounds had punctured her lungs, liver and carotid artery, with one additional wound inflicted behind her left ear fracturing her skull. [126], Initial jury selection began on this date, and would continue until July 9. Michigan Murders - Wikipedia One of the men in the car Schell had entered was Collins' roommate, Arnold Davis, who later informed police the girl had indeed entered the car he had been driving, but that Collins had insisted he give Schell the lift she was seeking to Ann Arbor in his own car. Web10 Famous Homicides In Michigan That Will Never Be Forgotten 1) Robert Bashara, AKA "Big Bob" 2) Andrew Kehoe, AKA "The Bath School Murder" "AndrewKehoe". [163], When Kalom's body was found, a distinctive boot print on her skirt was found to be a perfect match to a boot Collins had owned, and although Collins had evidently cleaned his car in an effort to destroy evidence prior to his arrest, investigators would find bloodstains in this vehicle and upon a raincoat he owned which were determined to match Kalom's blood type. Maine's oldest unsolved murder case is that of 13-year-old Mary Catherine Olenchuk. Web0:00. The victim had received multiple slash and stab wounds to the body (including two stab wounds which had pierced her heart),[55] and a gunshot wound to the forehead before her neck had been cut through to the spine. Joan Schell (20): June 30, 1968 3. [106] Collins had later returned to Michigan alone in his vehicle; Manuel would later be located in Arizona following Collins' arrest. Alice Kalom (21): June 8, 1969 6. Kennard Christensen, testified as to the results of forensic tests conducted in the Leik family basement: the results of these tests confirmed evidence of bloodstains in four separate areas. [19], Kolbe later stated she had attempted to dissuade Schell from entering this vehicle, but that Schell had opted to accept the driver's offer, promising to call her roommate to assure her of her safety once she reached her boyfriend's Ann Arbor residence. "[14] Sternly informed a second time he would not be allowed to view the body, the young man had wordlessly exited the funeral home. guilty of first-degree murder for six of the seven victims. [75], The 47th and final witness to appear for the prosecution at Collins' trial was a University of California chemistry professor named Dr. Vincent P. Guinn, who testified on August 5 as to his conclusions that the hair samples retrieved from Beineman's panties bore "a remarkable similarity" to those retrieved from the Leik household and that, upon statistical calculations he had begun the previous month, the odds of erroneous matching of the hair samples earlier testified to by Walter Holz were quite low. [105], On August 14, 1969, Collins attended a pretrial hearing at Ypsilanti District Court. [110] Several of Phillips' personal possessions would later be found strewn along State Route 68.[111][112]. In a final address to the jury on August 14, Judge Conlin informed the panel they had two choices in the verdict they could render: Guilty of first-degree murder, or not guilty. [12] Kolbe later informed investigators that Schell had informed her of her intentions to hitchhike when it became apparent she had missed the last bus, and that one of the first vehicles to pass when Schell had begun hitchhiking was a red-and-black Pontiac Bonneville containing three young white men. Initial reports had listed as many as eight possible victims. Investigators determined the knife was consistent with the weapon used to stab Kalom. Witnesses say that they saw her standing next to a maroon car driven by a man in his 30s on August 9, 1970. Upon cross-examination, Dr. Guinn did agree with defense attorney Neil Fink that a statistical analysis of hair mixtures had never been attempted in a court of law,[136] although he remained firm that his applications had been performed via scientific principles. [42], Little physical evidence existed beyond eyewitness descriptions and forensic reports. [86] Upon their return from their vacation, Leik's wife, Sandra, had noted numerous paint marks covering the floor of the family basement, and that several itemsincluding a bottle of ammonia, a box of laundry detergent, and a canister of black spray paintwere missing from the household. [132] Mrs. Leik also testified to having cut her children's hair in her basement two days prior to embarking on a vacation with her family, and that when they had returned home, she had noticed that several items from her basement had been moved, that she had discovered a wet, soiled cloth containing hair aside a laundry tub, and that other itemsincluding a nearly-full bottle of ammoniawere missing.[76]. Throughout their vacation, Collins had been temporarily residing in the Leik family's Ypsilanti home, having been granted sole access to the house in order that he could feed their German shepherd. [28][n 1], Four days after the discovery of Mixer's body, on March 25, a surveyor discovered the nude, mutilated body of a teenage girl lying upon a blue jacket behind a vacant house on a remote, rural section of Earhart Road,[30] just a few hundred yards from where the body of Joan Schell had been discovered eight months previously. Fleszar's case and the cases of five other victims, Joan She had received extensive skull and brain injuries which had been inflicted with a blunt instrument, had been forced to ingest a caustic substance,[58] and her neck, shoulders, nipples and breasts had been burned with the same caustic agent. [137] On this date, Collins was formally sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. [130], Three days after both counsels had begun introducing witnesses, Joan Goshe was called to testify on behalf of the prosecution. [50] She had been accompanied part of the way by a friend named Earl Kidd, who informed police he and Basom had parted company at a desolate road just five blocks from her home,[51] where Basom had begun walking alone alongside railroad tracks toward her home. Collins was then informed by Judge Conlin that if the jurors' verdict was wrong, the error would be corrected in due course. Moreover, this search had also uncovered small bloodstains in nine areas of the basement. Two of these bloodstains[75] were discovered to be type Athe blood type of Karen Sue Beineman. Police had noted (and would continue to note) common denominators in the physical characteristics of the victims, and the manner in which they died: all of the victims had been brunette Caucasians; each (excluding Mixer) had been the recipient of extensive violence inflicted with a blunt and/or bladed instrument prior to her murder; each of the victims' bodies had been found within a 15-mile radius of Washtenaw County; and each victim (excluding Mixer) had received knife wounds to the neck. [3], All the victims of the Michigan Murderer were young women between the ages of 13 and 21 who were abducted, raped, beaten and murderedtypically by stabbing or strangulationwith their bodies occasionally mutilated after death before being discarded within a 15-mile radius of Washtenaw County. "[155] This appeal motion was partly upheld upon the basis that Dr. Guinn's testimony relating to probabilities was based upon on the statistical probability of another prosecution expert, and therefore, this part of his testimony was impermissible. Moreover, a psychologist retained by the defense had testified as such on April 20, 1970. [61][62] Investigators had publicly claimed prior to Kalom's murder they were satisfied that the third victim initially linked to the Michigan Murderer, Jane Mixer, had been killed by a separate perpetrator; the fact Kalom had also received a gunshot wound to the head led investigators to reconsider the possibility Mixer may have been murdered by the same perpetrator. WebA Murder of Scott Amedure Ann Arbor Hospital murders B Murders of Jourdan Bobbish and Jacob Kudla Murder of Aundria Bowman Jerry Buckley (journalist) Bugz C Vincent Jen Chin D Laura Dickinson (murder victim) E Robert Eddins G Donald Goines Tara Lynn Grant H Reggie Harding Robert Hawkins (basketball) I Blade Icewood J Eddie Jefferson Michigan The testimony of Joan Goshe was further supported by Patricia Spaulding, who testified as to having observed Collins for between three and four minutes as he had waited for Beineman to return to his motorcycle. As such, he may have become acquainted with Basom throughout the time he frequented his girlfriend. [134] Although subjected to intense cross-examination by Joseph Louisell as to the reliability of his findings, Holz remained adamant the color, length, type and diameter of the hair samples found upon Beineman's panties were a precise match to those found in the Leik family basement. [158] Just six months later, in January 1972, Monterey County District Attorney William Curtis formally announced, via a spokesman, the intention of California authorities to waive all extradition proceedings against Collins for Phillips' murder.