The Snow Killings Page 6

  “Operation Lure” was implemented in schools, a program that asked children in their classrooms about any “past or recent attempts to accost or approach them under suspicious circumstances.” Teachers filled out a form listing time and date, location, sound of suspect’s voice, number of suspects, and “M.O. Lure: Coercion, Bribe, Offers Aid?”9

  A group of CBers formed the Birmingham Mobile Watch, patrolling city streets at night and on weekends. The Helping Hand program, started by nine southeastern Oakland County police departments, mass produced a flyer of a white hand that residents could put in the front windows of their homes as a sign of sanctuary. If children felt threatened or were approached by a stranger, they could look for the flyer and know that the house was a safe place. (Of course, if a killer living among them had posted the flyer, it wouldn’t be much help.)

  The Task Force hired a public relations agency, the Three Bees Production group, who came up with a catchy tune titled “Don’t Go with Strangers.” It was played in schools and on radio stations in Detroit, several times a day, particularly during the winter months.

  In the immediate aftermath of Tim’s death, more than 6,000 telephoned tips poured in. Seven phones operating at the Task Force rang constantly. Still, callers said they had to wait an average of 15 minutes to get through. Birmingham Police Chief Rollin G. Tobin appealed to any psychiatrist, priest or lawyer who may be counseling the killer to “give police a fighting chance” to prevent further murders.10

  “It’s frightening to see what has happened,” said Diane Vincent, director of Common Ground, a Birmingham social agency geared to providing youth services. “When the killer is caught, our children are going to have to be deprogrammed,” she told a Detroit News reporter. “Under normal circumstances, the fear we’ve taught would be unhealthy.”11

  Lou Gordon, a local television journalist with an hour-long weekly commentary/interview show on CBS, filmed an entire program on the killings. His guest was Dr. Emanuel Tanay, a forensic psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor and professor of clinical psychiatry at Wayne State University in Detroit. Tanay felt the murderer was someone “fairly young” and emphasized that youngsters must be extremely careful since there had been no evidence to indicate that the kids were forcibly grabbed. The assailant could be anybody, he said, someone posing as a policeman or a clergyman. Most certainly, the murderer is sadistic. “I believe he suffers from a sexual type perversion,” Tanay said. “He derives a sadistic pleasure from the anguish of the parents, the concern of the community and the brutality to the children.”

  The drop-off sites of the bodies in such highly visible places were an intended sneer. “He becomes bolder each time. This is some powerless individual who now has the entire community terrorized and the whole country following his footsteps. It is a tremendous sense of power.”12

  The Task Force had moved from the temporary set-up at Poppleton Park to the Adams Street Firehouse. But they would soon outgrow that office space. The discovery of Tim King’s body in Livonia meant the additional involvement of Wayne County law enforcement in the case.

  The Birmingham School District had a vacant school building it had been trying to sell—they offered the use of it to the Task Force free of charge. Valley Woods Elementary, on the west side of town, had the added advantage of being set back from public view by a long driveway off Lahser Road; the relative seclusion was a bonus for holding high-level meetings. Several phone lines were open around the clock; police said they averaged more than 60 calls an hour. The city of Birmingham and local merchants provided ribs, sandwiches, chicken and at least 12 cases of Coke and 7-Up per day for detectives and volunteers. Computer equipment and operators were provided by the Hewlett-Packard Co. of Farmington Hills. By the end of April, the Task Force had cleared more than 1,000 persons in connection with the murders.

  To finance a 31-person task force for at least six months, the Michigan State Legislature sought $1 million from the federal government. Within days of the request, the state was granted $671,000 from the federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration. Rewards from the private sector for the killer’s apprehension exceeded $100,000. At its peak, the Oakland County Child Killer Task Force employed 200 detectives from 50 communities in the tri-county area—the largest murder investigation in U.S. history to date.

  Graph from the Detroit News, March 24, 1977, comparing the seven unsolved child murders with ties to Oakland County since January 1976. Cynthia Cadieux and Sheila Srock’s cases were later solved; Jane Louise Allan’s death was linked to a motorcycle gang in Ohio (author scan of Detroit News clippings).

  In a July 1977 report entitled “Finding the Child Killer in the Woodward Corridor,” published by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, an analysis of the four murders noted similarities that suggested the crimes were committed by “a single killer or small group of killers”:

  1. All four victims were alone when abducted; also they were all taken from business areas, in or near parking lots.

  2. Two victims were abducted on a Sunday afternoon, two on a Wednesday evening.

  3. Victims were held captive for periods ranging from three to nineteen days.

  4. Victims appeared to have been well fed while held and not subjected to weather or other exposure.

  5. The victims were well cared for during their period of captivity, including caring for their normal biological needs. All the bodies were clean, and Tim King’s body was described as clinically clean (his finger and toenails had been scraped).

  6. All four victims were dressed in their own clothing (possibly by someone else) just before or after death.

  7. All four bodies were deposited along roadsides where they would be readily found.

  8. There was no evidence of sexual molestation of either girl; both boys showed obvious anal dilation.

  9. Apparently little if any force was used in the abductions; no commotions were reported in this regard.

  The report also noted that police believed the three teenage girls with ties to Oakland County—Cynthia Cadieux, Sheila Srock and Jane Louise Allan—all of whom died in roughly the same time frame, were not related to the four children in the Oakland County Child Killings case. In due course, Cadieux’s and Srock’s cases were both solved.

  In May of 1979, Robert “Bobby Lee” Anglin, 30, of Roseville was convicted of Cadieux’s murder and sentenced to life in prison.13 After a 15-month investigation, Srock’s murderer was apprehended as well. Oliver Rhodes Andrews, 43, from North Carolina was arrested in June 1978 and sentenced to life in prison in January 1979.14

  While Jane Louise Allan’s case remains unsolved, police informants in Ohio linked Jane to a young girl seen with members of a motorcycle gang, the Dayton Outlaws, prior to her death, but no solid evidence was ever produced. Michigan State Police reports suggest Jane was picked up while hitchhiking and was killed by the motorist who then disposed of her body in the river. Still, police said they would never discount any evidence that would seem to connect all seven homicides.

  On March 24, 1977, two days after Tim King’s body was found, the Detroit News published a map plotting locations in Oakland County connected to seven unsolved child murders since January 1976. Cynthia Cadieux and Sheila Srock’s cases were later solved (author scan of Detroit News clipping).

  In the weeks following Tim King’s death, police conducted surveillance at (what were then termed) “homosexual hangouts” in Oakland County and Detroit. They put pressure on every police snitch in the tri-county area. Particular attention was focused on Detroit’s inner city, especially the Cass Corridor where the sex trades thrived. They placed personal ads in sex magazines to snag “perverts attracted to child sex.” They got responses from people willing to “sell” their children for as little as $5, but no leads to the killer.15

  While Dr. Bruce Danto’s “Squirrel Road” lead did not pan out, Danto was still in pursuit. On March 27, five
days after Tim King died, the Detroit News printed an “open letter” Danto had penned to the murderer, pleading with him to turn himself in. “You have a chance—right now—to achieve victory in a greater game,” the letter read. “You can become a hero by way of being the only person who can stop you.”16

  A week and a half after the letter appeared in the paper, Danto called police and told them he’d received a letter from a man who claimed he was living with the killer. Postmarked from Detroit, April 4, 1977, the typewritten letter was replete with misspellings and typos. The author said his name was “Allen.”

  Dr. Danto

  I am dsperite and nearly gone crazy and havnt got no place left to trun. I am going to comit suicide if you cant help me. Please don’t give up the killer to the police You must help me as there is no one else I cant turn to. This is for real I know who the killer is, I live with him I am his slave. He whips me and beats me all the time. And he will kill me if e finds out that I have written this letter. I have been with him in his car when we go out looking for boys but I swear I hav never never never been with him when he picks up the ones killsed But I amin it in it so deep I am just as guilty to the law as he is I stayed with them here right here in our apartment during the day while he is working. That makes me just as guilty. And no one can hear them as they gaged all the time. You know he brings them in stuffed clothes hamper no one here knows the difference. You keep saying Oakland county not true. He has delivery rout in Oakland and Birmingham places but we live in Detroit. You want to now people in this building. Pimps and hookers and fags, you name it. Like on Gremlin he had it sure until last boy no one stops him in Detroit. He junk it out in Ohio to never be found ever. I tell you what makes him do it Vietnam we were there together, frank and me, oh Frank not his real name I call him that here. Nam screw up your mind doc, it gotta be fuckin Nam. You ever be over there? It would screw up your mind too. Tell you something else he killed lots of little kids then with medals for it. Burned them to death bombed them with napalm it’s real beautiful there doc. He wanst rich people like peple in Birmingham to suffer like all of us suffered to get nothing back for what we did for our country. Hes not a monster like you think he really loves children especially that little girl for 3 weeks not doint it because hates children but doing it because hates everybody else out there and this be his way to get even and get back at everybody.

  But I cannot do it any more he says he wont but I just know he is going to kill some more. I swear I had not idea he going to kill that first little boy the one with blond colored hair. I shouldn8t ever never helped but trapped too late helped him stay uncaught, I am just as guilty as he is. I cant go on like this I feel I feel like to die.

  I will turn him in if you will swear to help me. I don’t want any of reward. I am so afraid if I turn him in I be killed or do fever to jail for what so something I didn8t want or didn’t start. If you be real doctor you must help me. If you promise and what really promise that you not punish me like you call it immuty I meeting with you this Sunday night, I swear, I swear I tell you all of it everything I have to tell someone have to tell someone. Please please please do not print this in paper he frank killme. I am his slave and he owns me like whatever he wants almost killed me once. I be only one alive know it him. Nobody else know I so scared all the time police come to door never happen. He say we never be caught but I am scare to die. I be guilty too. I not ge be call you araid police trace all your calls back to here. But if will only please please help me help me and promise not to go to jail in wirting I tll you all of it everything everything and it all be over. I never never want it to be like this with little children dead. If you will help me please please. There is no other hope You tell me it will be all right with code in Sunday papaers this Sunday news freepress. You do olike other letter you write on front page of papers this Sunday, it be to say Weather beuau say Trees to Bloom in 3 Weeks—you understand what I to say to you, it be code I know you get my letter and you understand. You make it to ay Trees Bloom in 3 Weeks, I know you get my letter and understdna. It mean I can trust you, I set up meeting with you, no more little childres die. Please help me please. I feel so bad like garbage not deserve to live any more. Maybe I kill self first must get out of this some way. Please help me.

  “I singnd Allen17

  It took some persuading for the editors of the Detroit News to agree to print a false weather forecast, with the intent of misleading the killer about any imminent snowfall. But on April 10, 1977, the front page of the Sunday edition read:

  WARM EASTER SPELL EXPECTED TO LINGER

  The warm weather of this Easter weekend should continue for several days, the Weather Service says. Highs in the 70’s are expected—at least through Tuesday—although there will be some rain. If the warming trend persists, trees should be blooming in three weeks.18

  At 2 p.m. that Sunday, a man who called himself Allen phoned Dr. Danto at home. He asked Danto to meet him the following night, April 11, at 9 p.m. at the Pony Cart Bar, a watering hole serving a gay clientele, located at Seven Mile Road and Woodward Avenue. Upon meeting, Allen promised he would provide Polaroid photos as proof of the crimes in exchange for a letter from the Governor of Michigan promising immunity. Danto taped the call.

  On Monday, Danto reported to the state police post on Eight Mile Road in Oak Park, where officers put a wire on him. Another officer, also wired, would be sitting at the bar, watching. Police in an unmarked vehicle parked nearby would be listening in. Another cover team was parked on Woodward.

  Nervous but somewhat thrilled, Danto pulled into the parking lot in his Mercedes and took a seat at the bar. Jerry Tobias, Ph.D., a Task Force officer and University of Detroit professor of criminal justice, sat at a table at the other end of the bar. He had brought with him a university textbook and some papers he would appear to be correcting while surveilling the scene.

  But, for all the preparation, not much happened during the two-hour stakeout. Danto conversed with the bartender. A man offered to buy Tobias a drink. Allen was either a no-show, or he was scared off when he caught on to the officer’s presence.

  A few weeks later, “cryptanalysis” conducted by the FBI comparing the taped phone call with “Allen’s” typewritten letter concluded that the caller and the letter writer were the same person. “Not only is the subject’s manner of speaking compatible with the syntax contained in the letter,” the report read, “but, also his highly distraught emotional state as manifested in both, is very similar.… This individual appears to be a male between the ages of 25 and 30, of Latin descent, probably Spanish. From the contents of the letter, it appears that he is the female counterpart of a homosexual relationship with the suspect.”19

  In May of 1979, a Detroit radio station appealed to listeners to help identify the voice of the man who had called Danto. Task Force Commander Robert Robertson made the tape available to the station saying: “When they (the radio station) proposed this program, I said, ‘Well, we’re at rock bottom and if something else is tried that might work let’s try it.”

  Clinical psychologist Sonya Friedman played the tape on her afternoon listener call-in show. The voice had a heavy foreign accent and became hysterical a few seconds into the conversation. As he had told Danto, the man claimed to have been the roommate of the Oakland County Child Killer and said he had several Polaroid pictures to prove it. Afterward, several listeners called the Michigan State Police to say they recognized the voice. But nothing ever came of it.20

  Since the murders all occurred during a time when there was snow on the ground, the employment records of workers at the five ski resorts in Oakland County were checked. Noting the exceptionally clean condition of the clothing and the bodies of the victims, police consulted with several scholars from the Wayne State University School of Mortuary Science, but they failed to find any link with burial rituals of any religious or ethnic group.

  Police arrested a few pedophiles, inclu
ding a priest. Only two men were held for any length of time and both had alibis that checked out. One was a psychiatric patient who was turned over to Waterford Township police on charges of child molestation. The second admitted that he attended the funeral of Kristine Mihelich because he had nothing else to do. They also consulted a psychic who, for close to a week, visited each abduction and drop-off site and reviewed all the evidence. In a 10-page report, the psychic enhanced earlier psychological profiles, but the report provided little more than interesting reading.

  By the end of June 1977, the Detroit Free Press reported the “Horror seems past.” “The license numbers of 2,336 Gremlins, a type of car that figures heavily in the investigation, have been logged into the police computer…. Between 50 and 100 suspects have been given and passed lie detectors tests absolving them of guilt in the case.”21

  Frustration led to accusations of incompetence. Oakland County Sheriff Johannes Spreen delivered a speech to the Southern Police Institute Alumni Association, blaming interdepartmental jealousies and lack of cooperation between agencies for the failures in the investigation of the OCCK cases.

  A major problem initially was a lack of coordination between the agencies involved. Information was not shared, offers of assistance from other police agencies were refused, each investigator jealously guarded the identity of his suspects in order to be the one to crack the case…. The killer of four South Oakland County youngsters might be in jail today if local police departments had not mishandled parts of the murder investigation.22

  By December 1977, the Federal grant had expired. Still, the Task Force continued to operate for another year, funded by 19 various police departments. In March of 1978, three Michigan State Police detectives flew to Joliet, Illinois, to talk with a convicted distributor of child pornography serving time at Stateville Correctional Center. They were trying to determine if the children might have been used to make illicit films and if so, “where and how such material would be marketed.”