THE MICHIGAN COED MURDERS

As a 12 year old in 1967 I was living at Ft. Leonard Wood, MO with my family. News came from our relatives and friends about the "Coed" Killer in Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor area. Female college students from Eastern Michigan University were disappearing. Soon it was to include University of Michigan and West Junior High students as well.

We were back living in Ypsilanti in 1968 because my Dad was heading off for his first tour of Vietnam. The murders were still not solved and there was a mass panic across Washtenaw County and the entire country knew about this little town of Ypsilanti. The murders really put us on the map. Our parents were terrified to let us play outside even in our own yards.

Students were on the alert and coeds were being escorted to and from classes every day for security. The most frightening part was the fact that they thought the "killer" himself might be a local student. Trusting anyone became a huge problem.

The murders began with Eastern Michigan student Mary Fleszlar from Willis, MI on July 10, 1967. Her body was later found with multiple stab wounds, and grotesquely maimed on August 7. Mary was found just north of Ypsilanti near a farm where two teenage boys found her body and called police.

The youngest victim Dawn Basom, 13 was a year older than me. She went to my junior high but I didn't know her.

Dawn was found near Gale and Vreeland Roads on April 16, 1969. She was last seen the day before leaving a house close to Eastern Michigan University. She was strangled with a black electrical cord, and official believed she was killed in the barn where her clothes were found, and she was moved to where she was found.

By this time in 1969, my Dad had returned unharmed from Vietnam and we moved to Ft. McClellan AL. Far away from the threat of the "Coed Killer" The murders just kept happening.

The many different area law enforcement offices were at their wit's end trying to capture this guy. Thousands of tips poured in and just as many were crank calls and mentally unstable people.

Then famous psychic crime solver Peter Hurkos was called in to assist in the investigation. His services failed to help solve the case and the police officers were furious at his show boating for the media.

The last victim was Karen Sue Bieneman 18, of Grand Rapids, MI. This was her first year at EMU taking summer classes.

July 23, 1969, Karen Sue was seen accepting a ride on a motorcycle from a man she did not know. She sent a letter to her parents assuring them that she would be careful. She was found off Riverside Drive near Huron River Drive strangled, beaten, and in the nude. She was killed elsewhere and then moved like the majority of the victims. This was the last body found before Collins' was caught, and evidence found on her led to his conviction.

John Norman Collins was born on June 17, 1947, in Center Line, Michigan. His father abandoned him, and left his mother as a single parent. She then remarried an abusive alcoholic, for whom John took his last name. She then divorced him when John was four years old.

He was described as a polite, yet timid young man as a child. Me made good grades, and played sports. He attended St. Clements High School, where he was an honors student, tri-captain of the football team, president of the C-Club, and star pitcher on the baseball team.

He dated regularly, many of the people who knew him said he was "quiet", "polite", "respectful" and "nice". However, his girlfriends claimed that he was angry most of the time. He was sexually agressive, which was a possible killing motive of his.

My friend Anne whose Dad was the Mayor of Ypsilanti at the time told me she once went on a "date" with him and he terrified her. She refused his advances and he choked her in his car. She managed to wriggle free and ran to a phone to call her parents.

It was mentioned that the Coed killer may have been the "real" Boston Strangler as a lot of people believe Albert Desalvo wasn't the real strangler. The Boston strangler used very complicated nautical knots when strangling his victims. Anne's father told me that those same knots were used on JNC victims.

It seemed his pattern to pick brunettes with pierced ears . A similar pattern to Ted Bundy. The killer wasn't Ted he was busy back in Seattle and then Utah. It was also rumored that an older friend of JNC was the "real" killer. This friend was with him in California where another girl was murder in a similar fashion.

If it was the "friend" then he left town and thus stopped the killing spree when JNC was arrested. Oddly enough, right after we moved to MO JNC moved into the house next door to where we had just lived. We lived at 617 Emmett St. and JNC moved into 619. It was here that police found motorcycles and recently painted parts that may have been disguised.

John Norman Collins on August 19, 1970, was found guilty and sent to prison for life with hard labor. He is currently encarcerated at Marquette Prison and has been in prison nearly his entire life. Collins will be 62 years old this year and has spent 39 years behind bars.

John Norman Collins Timeline

There have always been lots of speculation on whether or not JNC killed all of the victims. He was convicted based on hair and fiber evidence found on the body of Karen Sue Beineman and in the basement of his Uncle's the state policeman's home.

What really mattered to me was this... The murders stopped after JNC was arrested.

Trutv/Crimelibrary has the most information though the author sides with Collins. Which of course is her opinion which she is entitled. Those of us that lived there at that time believe that John Norman Collins was involved in the killing of these young women. He may not have acted alone and there may have been more killers taking the opportunity to "copy cat". But he definitely deserves to be in prison for life.

Read More:

The Michigan Murders by Edward Keyes

Ann Arbor Police Crime Gallery
Victims of JNC
Peter Hurkos

The Coed Murders

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