MICHIGAN MURDERS: *NEW* 4 PART SERIES IN THE DETROIT FREE PRESS!

Detroit Free Press Reporter, Frank WitsIl contacted me this past July and described his plan to do a 50-year update on the Michigan Murders.

We spoke in great detail (July-Aug-Sept-Oct) about the horrific impact these crimes had on my small home town of Ypsilanti, Michigan. We also delved into the unsolved cases and the possibility of finding new DNA evidence regarding these murders.

John Norman Collins and his infamous motorcycle

Today Frank's John Norman Collins/Michigan Murders article hit the web and it is really good. The article is in 4 parts including Evidence Locker which has some never before seen crime scene photos. 

Frank and his team did a fantastic job updating this crime story. xK

Detectives at the Dawn Basom crime scene on Gale Rd 

Here is the link to part one of Frank's article.

Frank Witsil, Detroit Free Press
4:55 a.m. EST Nov. 8, 2019

Never-before-published letters, interviews offer clues in infamous Michigan murders

Eight women and girls were slain in the late 1960s. New details shed more light on the crimes and John Norman Collins, who never fit anyone's image of a killer...Read More Here

PART 2 Murders of Michigan women still unsolved 50 years later 

PART 3 NEW DNA! Letters, interviews reveal dark side

EMAIL TO FRANK WITSIL FROM JOHN COLLINS

Hello Frank:

The "ONLY" reason I am responding to your e-mail is out of RESPECT for Neil Fink. A while back I was contacted by Neil Fink's wife, Ms. Kimberley Stout, and she told me of his death to Cancer back in 2016. She also mentioned they had a son by the name of Wade who followed in his fathers, and his mother, footsteps and became an attorney. Of course, his Dear Mother said that he was a VERY GOOD ATTORNEY!

Then you also mentioned Wade in your e-mail, so I felt somewhat obliged to at least give you a brief response since you have been kind of a "PAIN IN THE ASS" with your persistence. lol

You brought up those "TWO LETTERS" that I sent to my cousin, John Chapman, who in turn, GAVE THEM TO greg.f. I must admit that I didn't think they would become such a "FOCAL POINT" after 50 years, BUTT, knowing greg's ENORMOUS "EGO" for MEDIA ATTENTION I knew that he would want to CAPITALIZE on ANYTHING he could gather up on ME. His "ENORMOUS EGO" rivals the GRAND CANYON, BUTT his 'BIG MOUTH' manages to surpass that.

He's been 'USING ME' as a Catalyst to LURE unsuspecting women into his "PRIVATE CHAT ROOM" in hopes of 'SCORING' with them. This comes from WOMEN that have told me about how he likes to take PHOTO'S with all the women so that he can put his arm around them.

One woman, in particular, said that she felt that he was "CREEPY" with his advances & touching. Anyhow, greg ran his ENORMOUS MOUTH to someone that I was friends with and this person told me that greg was BRAGGING about having my cousin in Canada writing me so that THEY could dig-up some dirt on me, etc. When I found out about that I was UPSET that my cousin would do something like that to me. So I thought to myself, TWO can play this "GAME!"

I knew that WHATEVER I wrote to my cousin would end up in greg's lap. So I wrote those TWO LETTERS to my cousin, which included some "PARTIAL FACTS", BUTT, Heavy on the "FICTION!" My cousin was just a "PAWN" in greg's chess game & greg even wrote and told me how "EASY" it was to manipulate John.

I have ALL my cousin's letters & e-mails and what he's told YOU "DO NOT" match what he's said to me. I have "NO" control over what people say about ME and that is WHY I have chosen to REFUSE interviews of any kind.

I've been deceived too many times in the past. When you see/hear from greg - AND YOU WILL BECAUSE HIS EGO IS SO ENORMOUS - Please tell him that because of his EGO & BIG MOUTH that he got "PLAYED" by me. lol

An Attorney has told me that I have a "Legal Expectation of Privacy" concerning those letters so my cousin & greg should be careful. As for my cousin...he got "DUPED" by greg and STILL doesn't realize it. If I chose to, I could easily bring up some very PAINFUL issues about John C., BUTT, I elect to take the proverbial "High Road" & NOT discuss our DIRTY LAUNDRY with the public. I like to believe that I still have some "INTEGRITY."

As for Sgt. E. Schroeder, I liked him and thought well of him. I heard that he was having some HEALTH ISSUES. If you ever come in contact with him again kindly tell him that I wish him nothing BUTT Good Health the rest of his retired years. I think he is a good man. He kept his "Word" to me and that ALWAYS means something to me. In here, all you have is your "WORD!"

Well, Frank, I've spent much more time with you than I had anticipated. You can say whatever you want about me, BUTT, if You have any "INTEGRITY" at all you will leave my Dear Mother out-of-this. She's NOT here to defend herself from all the "LIES" that have already been told about her by Keyes, my cousin etc. People that never even knew her. I will ALWAYS Love her! She was a Kind & Loving person to all that knew her.

Now I hope that you will simply leave me alone. Peace, John

READ MORE

KIMMER ASSISTING WITH NEW YPSILANTI CRIME FILM!

Took a tour for about 4 hours today around John Norman Collins old stomping grounds before they made him live in igloo country in Marquette!  This is the area where they found Karen Sue Beinemen...

Here is Josh Barnett the filmmaker who is taking on this project one more time. This time we hope to get the mistakes out of the story.  (Like there is no basement in the barn)

Here is the creek where Sheriff Harvey and his men posed a mannequin to trap the killer. I will let Josh show the viewers the locations in his movie.

Josh has a fabulous but light weight camera and hand held tripod system. It so cool.  Well that's about all I can say for now, except I will be the narrator of the new film.

anyone recognize this house?

SHERIFF DOUG HARVEY TALKS ABOUT COED MURDERS FOR NEW TV SHOW

Former Washtenaw County Sheriff, Doug Harvey was interviewed in New York City for a new tv show that is going to feature the Michigan Coed Murders.

Sheriff Harvey at Dawn Basom site at Gale and Vreeland Rds

THE BAD OLD DAYS is a nod to twisted tales of decades past, detailing the most provocative, juicy, real-life murder cases of the '50s and '60s. Set against the backdrop of the fetishized world of bullet bras, garter belts, suburban secrets and three-martini lunches, these stories of truly mad men and women reveal layer upon layer of warped relationships turned terrible crimes.

John Norman Collins' Mother

A Victim's shoe

JNC going to court

 

JNC interviewed from prison

By John Counts MLIVE.COM
johncounts@mlive.com
October 13, 2013

From 1967 to 1970, seven young women were abducted and brutally murdered in Washtenaw County, creating a palpable atmosphere of fear in already-turbulent times.

A new television show now in production will revisit the haunting murders. “The Bad Old Days,” a new series that highlights murder cases from the 1950s and 1960s, will tell the story of what are alternately called “The Co-Ed Murders” or “The Michigan Murders.” The latter is also the title of a 1977 book by Edward Keyes.

Eastern Michigan University student John Norman Collins was eventually arrested and convicted of strangling and beating to death the final victim, Karen Sue Beineman.

Police believed Collins killed Beineman in the Ypsilanti home of his uncle, a corporal with the Michigan State Police who was vacationing at the time. Prosecutors presented blood splatters from the basement floor as evidence at what would be the longest trial in the county’s history.

Read full story on MLive.com

READ MORE ON RETROKIMMER

THE MICHIGAN COED MURDERS

40 YEARS MICHIGAN COED MURDERS LANDMARKS

40 YEARS MICHIGAN COED MURDERS PART 2

SHERIFF DOUG HARVEY MICHIGAN MURDERS 

JOHN NORMAN COLLINS: KELLY AND CO.

 

 

 

MICHIGAN 2010 ELVIS FEST IN DEPOT TOWN YPSILANTI!

ELVIS in my favorite suit www.mielvisfest.com

We will be visiting the fabulous Elvis Fest in Depot Town to party and dance! Stanley T. Madhatter will be there doing the spot lights for the acts.

Stanley T. Madhatter

www.mielvisfest.com

THOUSANDS DESCEND ON ONE OF THE LARGEST ELVIS CONCERTS IN NORTH AMERICAN COMMEMORATING THE 32st ANNIVERSARY OF THE PASSING OF THE KING OF ROCK AND ROLL

The 11th year of the Festival, sanctioned by Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. This is not a contest, but a true concert with spectacular performances from the first act to the last act, by the best professional Elvis Tribute Artist’s in North America. Also appearing with tributes to such artists as: Tom Jones, Roy Orbison, Ricky Nelson, & Sir Elton John.

This unique event attracts families and fans alike. An attendance of 9,000 is expected for this popular Midwest festival.

Their charities for 2010 are the Depot Town Community Development Corporation, and the Ypsilanti Meals on Wheels.

JANE MIXER DENTON RD BRIDGE AND THE HUTCHINSON MANSION

A body found yesterday afternoon on a Superior Township farm was tentatively identified as that of a 19-year-old Eastern Michigan University coed who disappeared without a trace July 9."

This report in the Ann Arbor News on Tuesday, August 8th, 1967 described the first of a string of coed murders in the Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor area of Michigan over the next two years. The body was that of Mary Fleszar, 19, who was last seen by a roommate when she left their apartment near the university campus to go for a walk. She was wearing a bright orange tent dress with large white polka dots, and a pair of sandals. She was five foot two, weighing about 110 pounds, wore glasses, and had brown hair. She had not taken her purse, but her car keys were gone, and her car was parked across from where she normally left it, which her mother thought was odd.

Half an hour after she left the apartment, a university police officer had spotted her walking alone. Later, a man sitting on his porch who knew her saw her walking toward her apartment. Then he saw a young man driving a bluish-grey Chevy stop beside her, open his window, and talk with her. She shook her head and walked on. He drove by again and pulled up in front of her. She again shook her head and walked around him. He backed out, accelerated with an angry screech, and left. Concerned, the man on the porch watched her draw close to her building and then lost sight of her, but did not see the car return. He was the last person to see her alive.

ON 48 HOURS

Jane Mixer was murdered in Ann Arbor, Michigan in March 1969. She was 23 - about the same age her niece, Maggie Nelson, was when she resolved to learn all she could about the aunt she never knew.

“Jane was many things I wanted to be - driven, disobedient, brilliant, independent. And I also knew that she died horribly,” says Maggie.

Maggie says she didn’t feel she could ask anyone in her family for details about Jane’s murder but says the case has haunted her.

Maggie’s mother, Barbara, Jane’s older sister by two years, admits there was a pall of silence. “We didn’t talk about what had happened to Jane,” says Barbara. “One, it was painful. And it seemed almost lurid to think about it or talk about it.”

But Maggie felt compelled to unravel the mystery surrounding Jane. She went to the public library and pored over old newspaper reports, finally learning the details of her aunt’s death.

Back home, she dug up some of Jane’s diaries and began to read.

Maggie discovered that Jane was high school valedictorian and, over the objections of school officials, had given a fiery graduation speech calling for social justice. She went on to the University of Michigan and was committed to changing the world.

Maggie also tracked down Phil Weitzman, one of the people closest to Jane in 1969, when she was one of just 37 female law students in a class of 420.

“Whatever she got involved in, she was extremely passionate about,” remembers Phil.

And she was passionate about Phil. Early that spring, Phil says, they were ready to announce their engagement. “Jane said that she wanted to go home and talk with her parents, and felt that she could convince them that this was a good thing.”

Jane planned to go home first, with Phil following a few days later. So she posted a note on a college ride board, looking for a lift from Ann Arbor to her home in Muskegon.

Phil says no one thought anything of it, because everyone did it in those days. He says Jane found a ride with a man named David Johnson.

Jane Mixer

“We talked on the telephone and I thought she should come with Phil," her sister Barbara recalls. "She told me that she thought it would work out better if they came independently, and I said it wasn’t right and she said, ‘Trust me.’ And those are the last two words she ever said.”

Jane had told her parents she would be leaving Ann Arbor around 6 p.m. and was expecting to arrive by 9:30 p.m. that evening.

As time ticked by and Jane didn’t show up, her father grew concerned. Finally, around 11 p.m., he simply couldn’t wait around anymore, and Maggie says he set out looking for her in his car, driving around for several hours.

Sometime that night, Jane Mixer was killed. SEE MORE HERE

THE GILBERT MANSION echoed the Quirk Mansion across the Huron River and their families sent signals back and forth from the tall towers on dark and stormy nights...

Few towns can boast such a perfect setting for a ghost story as Ypsilanti with its famed Gilbert Mansion at 227 N. Grove. Its mansard roof, tall chimneys, and looming tower call out for tales of other worldliness.William H. Gilbert built his spectacular Second Empire home on a knoll overlooking a scenic curve in the Michigan Central Railroad as it approaches Depot Town from Detroit.

Colorful gardens, ponds, and waterfalls from a spring on the property made the entire countenance a showplace. While some might think this a strange place for a houseof such style and dignity, Gilbert enjoyed the view––because he was a high official with the MCRR.

Mrs. Gilbert regularly opened the house to the children of her neighborhood at Halloween so they could climb to the top of the four-story tower to survey the city’s many towered skyline.

Even in its declining years of disrepair, the Gilbert Mansion maintained its dignity and fostered stories worth repeating. Although the place was uninhabited for several years, some contend there were other kinds of inhabitants in that grand edifice.

When the Boys & Girls Club occupied that building and played basketball in the former dining room, Randy Carpenter was the handyman who strove to maintain the failing structure. He reports sleeping on the floor after working late and waking to find his heavy toolbox moved and hidden elsewhere in the building. Carpenter and others testify to hearing “strange noises” throughout the building, but have never made visual contact with anything suspicious.

In later years the Gilbert Mansion was converted to elegant apartments and, since the central chimney collapsed in 1990, nothing more has been heard from this apparition. Perhaps it was crushed by the tons of bricks cascading to the basement..

DENTON RD BRIDGE

There are many legends surrounding the Denton Rd bridge. The bridge is said to be haunted by a woman who's child was killed by a car, she walks the bridge and legend has it that you can hear the baby cry. Dark figures chase cars over the bridge.

GREAT LAKES GHOST STORIES

HUTCHINSON HOUSE IN YPSILANTI

A large house stands overlooking the city at the corner of Forest Avenue and River Street, known as the Hutchinson House for the man who had it built. The house is a local landmark, and the subject of some conversation. The story is the stuff of novels, but is true.
Shelley Byron Hutchinson was born in a log cabin just north of Ypsilanti on Oct. 19, 1864, in Superior Township.

The family soon after moved to Ypsilanti, and the father, Stephen, became the town constable. The young Shelley made his living as a dancing master.

It was while working as a clerk in a store in Battle Creek that the young Shelley came up with the idea for trading stamps. The stamps were given to customers to encourage sales, and customers saved the stamps until they had enough to exchange for premiums.

He opened his first store in Jackson, and from this modest beginning the business grew. Then Hutchinson took in a partner, Thomas Sperry, and the business became S&H Green Stamps.

The business was a great success. Hutchinson once told a friend, "The money came in so fast he couldn't take care of it with a scoop shovel."

In 1899 Hutchinson married the 18-year-old Clara Unsinger in San Francisco. The couple lived in New York for a time, and then came to Ypsilanti for a visit in 1901.

On his arrival, he informed his father the household furniture was on the way. A few days later he said to his father: "I think I will build a house here or in Detroit. Which place do you prefer?" "Here, of course," said his father. Work on the new house began in August of 1901.

40 YEARS MICHIGAN COED MURDERS PART 2

Karen Sue Beineman, 18, of Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was an EMU freshman attending summer classes. She had just sent a note to her parents assuring them she was being careful, but then accepted a ride on a motorcycle from a man she did not know. She was last seen on July 23, 1969, leaving a wig shop to go with him, and was found, strangled, in a ravine off Riverside Drive near Huron River Drive in Ann Arbor. Her face was badly battered and she was nude. She had been killed elsewhere. She was the last victim before Collins was caught, and it was the evidence found on her that led to his conviction.

Riverside at Chalmers is where Karen Sue Beineman was found. This road is just outside of town but it appears very remote in the photographs. It was very risky for the killer maneuvering around with a body so close to the city limits.

 JNC top right corner

Look at the density of the swamp brush across the street from the ravine and creek. It was impossible for a stakeout to be located here. But it seemed like a good idea at the time. The walkie talkies made too much noise. The mosquitoes were torturing the sheriffs, humidity and rain were all hampering the stake out.

They have a little bridge with this railing. It is very creepy looking down at that creek bed. Such a beautiful natural setting. Such a horrific thing for the residents to find.

The Karen Sue Beineman case lead to the arrest and conviction of John Norman Collins. Forensics and hair fragments came through in the end.

The former Wig shop on Washington St. Just across from the old Art One theater. This is a narrow street and wouldn't be a big stretch for a bystander to clearly see a person driving off on a motorcycle.

This is the former JJ Cycle where John Norman hung out.

From a RK Reader:

Collins used to hang out at JJ Cycle on Ecorse road. He was there one time, I thought he worked there, and I asked him questions about a Hodaka dirtbike on the sales floor that I wanted but could never afford as a 12-13 year old kid. But I used to go up there a lot to sit on the bikes, grab brochures, etc. as it was only a couple of blocks from my house. After talking to him at J.J's, I saw him once at Roy's Squeeze Inn (drive in restaurant) , and at W.T. Grant's (discount store) and we waved to each other...

When Collins picked up Karen Sue Beineman, the women who worked in the Wig Shop on Washington street misidentified the bike as a 450 Honda. According to the Michigan Murders book by Edward Keyes, one of the women had been motorcycle shopping with her husband the previous weekend, looking at Hondas. The reason the bike stuck out in her mind was as she thought, the bike she identified had a square rear view mirror. Collins Triumph had a round rear view mirror.

Bike Like Collins road...

The police, Ypsi press, Ann Arbor news and Detroit TV stations ran pictures of a 450 Honda identical to my Dad's bike. Dad was hassled A LOT in the following weeks by the police, even being run off the road by a Washtenaw County Sheriff. Collins actually was riding a 650 Triumph Bonneville similar to the 900 Bonnie I ride now. He also had another Triumph, 2 Bultacos, and a green 69 Olds Cutlass 442, possibly all stolen...

READ MORE ON JOHN NORMAN COLLINS

Thanks Ted and Jason