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well on a very basic level people who are from Detroit simply don't like to get pushed around I guess and and I got
00:01:13
tired of listening to the rhetoric surrounding the the investigation or the alleged in alleged investigation into
00:01:21
the Oakland County child killings um there there are two possible reasons this case was never officially closed
00:01:29
and I I don't I don't believe in the first one which which is that the incompetence of the
00:01:36
investigation uh led to it remaining open for four over four decades now the other the other reason this case was
00:01:44
never officially closed was that it was not meant to be closed and and I could tell from from very early on listening
00:01:52
to the news stories about this case and doing some initial reading there were certain people in in positions of power
00:01:59
who didn't didn't want this thing shut because to shut the case means you have to come up with a a conclusion and but
00:02:07
on a very personal level this case anchored in me very early on uh because when I was a kid somebody tried to
00:02:14
snatch me while I was walking home from the Sentry drugs that that used to be at
00:02:19
uh Evergreen Plaza they called it over at 11 Mile in Evergreen in Southfield which is outside of Detroit nothing
00:02:27
happened somebody I thought was a security guard had followed me out of the store gotten into his car followed
00:02:34
me for three blocks and and then later tried to get me into that car I ran away I never told anybody and as an adult um
00:02:44
I started thinking of of the time period in which this attempted snatch of me happened and and it was the same time
00:02:53
period in which the uh Oak County child killings were occurring 7677 and uh the same M Mo uh people
00:03:03
thought uh snatching kids from outside little strip malls they speculated that it was uh somebody acting in a position
00:03:12
of power like a security guard or police officer [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
00:03:57
you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and I'm very lucky to have this guy with me
00:04:03
because lately he's not been sleeping in the garage he's been at a week long RV party hosted by Baker Mayfield ladies
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and gentlemen the captain the Browns are so desperate they offered me a contract
00:04:15
thank you thank you thank you it's good to be seeing it's good to see you thanks
00:04:19
for listening thanks for telling a [Music] friend tonight we are drinking Scotty
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karate SC ale by the brilliant team of Brewers up at Dark Horse Brewing in Marshall Michigan garage grade four out
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of five bottle caps this is a big bold beer brew with Cherrywood smoked malt offering up warming notes of coffee and
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sweet caramelized brown sugar Scotty karate finishes earthy giving this beer a character all its own and this
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fantastic beer comes to us from our good friends first up we have Holly in Fredericktown Ohio and Lindsay in Salem
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Ohio and a big shout out to Julie which says that she's Ohio girl at heart and a
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cheers to Amy from Indianapolis Indiana and a big cheers to Craig from Santiago here's a big cheers to Penny and a
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little cheers to Becket laml in Flushing New York and last but not least a cheers
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to Jessica all the way in Gothenburg Sweden so if you'd like to help us fill up the fridge check out our website true
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Crim garage.com and click on the Donate banner and if you'd like to show your support for True Crime garage go to our
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website check out the store Page we have shirts we have coffee mugs beer glasses
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tumblers just about anything you can think of all at true Crim garage.com that is enough of the business everybody
00:05:42
gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime people from Michigan often describe
00:06:06
their state as a mitten they hold up their right hand and point to where they live on their Palm in regards to this
00:06:13
week's case they would show you the location of Oakland County by pointing to the base of their
00:06:19
thumb sounds odd but ask anyone from Michigan and the Hand will come up Oakland county is near Detroit in the
00:06:28
1970s it was a county that had very high- paid Executives as well as many middle class blue collar
00:06:35
workers this combination provided both great schools and a safe environment but Oakland county is not
00:06:42
famous for the schools or the industry it is Infamous for the serial killer who found his prey
00:06:51
[Music] there this week we are talking about the case of the Oakland County child killer
00:07:04
it is a 40-year-old unsolved mystery where in 1976 and 77 children were abducted and held for days then they
00:07:13
were murdered and staged the killer stole these kids off the streets before holding them captive he fed them and
00:07:21
took care of their physical needs while at the same time torturing them the bodies were not tossed out or dumped
00:07:28
like garbage the killer cleaned them and placed them in public places the bodies were easy to find but
00:07:36
the killer was not what happened to him some have speculated that the killer committed suicide taking his secrets to
00:07:44
the Grave some believe that just like the boogeyman he terrified us and vanished
00:07:50
back into the Shadows years later people began to wonder was this the work of something
00:07:58
bigger something even more Sinister than a lone [Music] [Music] killer Mark steans lived in Ferndale
00:08:26
Michigan one of the many hamlets inside Oakland County Ferndale is primarily residential with a smaller commercial
00:08:33
and Industrial sector in the southeast part of the city ferndale's business district is anchored by the intersection
00:08:41
of Woodward Avenue and 9mile road where privately owned storefronts dance clubs bars and numerous restaurants are
00:08:49
featured in the 1970s the Ferndale suburb Community emerged as a place for families to raise children during the
00:08:57
baby boom era with its elementary schools a Downtown City Parks active churches and Civic groups it was a small
00:09:06
town just like the other towns where these victims lived peacefully up until the day that they were taken Mark was
00:09:13
born September 13th 1963 now in 1976 Mark was a seventh grader at Lincoln Jor high he lived with his
00:09:23
mother after his parents split up when he was just 5 years old besides his mother Mark lived with his older brother
00:09:31
Michael Mark was an average 12-year-old boy in just about every way he was 4' 8 Ines tall and weighed about 100 lb but
00:09:40
life was about to change for everyone in Oakland County yeah this is going to be
00:09:44
Sunday February 15th 1976 this would turn out to be a rainy day but it was quite warm for the season
00:09:52
Mark's mother Ruth wanted to attend a work party at the American Legion Hall so mark his brother Michael Ruth and her
00:10:00
boyfriend drove the three blocks to the hall when they arrived there was a pool tournament in progress but watching
00:10:07
adults drink and play pool only entertains a 12-year-old boy for so long so Mark before the party was over asked
00:10:15
his mother if he could head home he wanted to go home and watch television his mom was hesitant but she did allow
00:10:22
Mark to leave alone Mark then asked her for a quarter so he could buy some ice cream at the store
00:10:29
next door to the American Legion his mom reminded him that he had just received his allowance and said no now his
00:10:36
brother offered to go along with him but Mark he was 12 and he said he would be fine by
00:10:42
himself at 12:25 p.m. Mark steans walked out of the hall alone now sometime in the 700 p.m. hour Ruth tried to call
00:10:52
Mark at home but there was no answer this did not raise any alarms and probably shouldn't have but she so she's
00:10:59
not worried and she continued to enjoy the party at 9:00 she returned to an empty house now this put her on edge a
00:11:07
bit but she figured she would wait one more hour to see if Mark would come home he did not and at 10:00 Ruth called the
00:11:15
police and reported him as missing the police responded to the Steen house not expecting anything more than a runaway
00:11:24
or a kid who lost track of time the police informed her we haven't had any kidnappings in Ferndale in 10 years but
00:11:32
nonetheless the search for the 12-year-old boy began they searched abandoned buildings and other stops
00:11:39
popular with the kids but nothing turned up and he never came back and then the hours turned to days the walk from the
00:11:47
American Legion to Mark's house was only three blocks what could he have encountered on such a short walk home
00:11:54
and unfortunately 4 days later they're going to find his body yeah this is on on Thursday February 19th at
00:12:01
approximately 11:40 a.m. when a man is out picking up lunch from the Fairfax Plaza office building he spotted a body
00:12:09
lying on a pile of leaves near the building's dumpster the man found Mark Stan's body curled on a snow bank in the
00:12:16
fetal position it appeared that the body was placed there gently the odd thing here Captain this is not a secluded
00:12:23
location it is and was an active office building with people coming and going all day long right so the perpetrator
00:12:31
could have been seen by anybody yeah this killer was bold enough to remove mark from whatever kind of vehicle he
00:12:39
was driving and place the body in a location where he the killer could have been easily spotted or at least his
00:12:46
vehicle seen by somebody well on the extra time that he's going to be taking to place the body in a certain position
00:12:54
this spot is only 2 and 1 12 miles from Mark's house but even in that short distance we have a different police
00:13:01
jurisdiction so the victim Mark lived in Ferndale but his body was found in Southfield this is another town in
00:13:09
Oakland County and one has to wonder if this is done on purpose yeah would the killer have been aware of this uh did he
00:13:16
Place Mark there knowing that it would involve another Police Department so the Southfield Police arrived to find Mark
00:13:24
the scene was like no other upon the first review of Mark there were several things that jumped out at the officers
00:13:32
Mark appeared to be clean Mark was wearing the clothes he had on the day he disappeared his jacket was zipped up and
00:13:40
his hood was pulled over his head the Southfield Police radioed in the information that they had found the
00:13:47
boy's body this quickly got back to Ferndale police and they realized that their missing person's case just became
00:13:55
a murder investigation the Ferndale police showed up at the office building and started to
00:14:01
process the scene this is hard to believe knowing today's practices but remember we have two different police
00:14:07
departments working this one crime scene well and remember it's the late 70s I mean doctors used to smoke in the
00:14:14
hospital well and in this area too Captain neither of these police jurisdictions neither of these
00:14:20
departments had much experience in murder cases so rather than process the scene believe it or not the Southfield
00:14:28
Police removed Mark's Body this is just wrong of course but they take the body to the police station not to the morg to
00:14:35
the police station then they decide to remove Mark's clothes at the police station then after sending the body to
00:14:43
the morg they go back and processed the scene back at the dump site they decide to involve a local psychiatrist this is
00:14:51
Bruce Danto he was brought to the scene to create a profile of this killer but he had a better idea or at least at
00:14:58
least a better idea that he thought to him yes so he suggested that they place a life-sized
00:15:06
child's mannequin wearing similar clothes as Mark in the same spot so let's stop here and review shall we well
00:15:13
first of all what the hell does it have to do with profiling the perpetrator well he's brought into profile and I
00:15:19
think what he thought was let's see if we can get the killer to return to the scene and we'll just arrest him on the
00:15:26
spot and I we won't need to up with any profile so I know that this whole thing sounds like a very weird technique but
00:15:34
it's not unique it's not a unique technique so well let me just see if I'm hearing you right okay so the idea from
00:15:43
this doctor is that we're going to take this mannequin and we're going to place them in similar clothes or the same
00:15:49
clothes no similar clothes similar clothes and we're going to put them in the similar position and it's kind of
00:15:54
out in the open we know that sometimes Killers will go back mhm to where they dump victims to kind of see has the
00:16:03
victim been found yet so their idea is that the the suspect will come back mhm and when he
00:16:11
comes back we arrest him on the spot correct okay and and like I said though it it sounds weird but it's not a
00:16:18
technique that was unique and I mean that for the time period I don't know that they would do something like this
00:16:26
today or I can't find any recent where they did something like this today but we know that in the Michigan murders in
00:16:34
the case it's often referred to as the Michigan murders they used this technique they've used it in the Green
00:16:40
River Killer case as well as the Atlanta child murders right now question would you sign up for this special Duty CU
00:16:48
that's what they'd call it they'd have special Duty where police officers would have to wait in their vehicle somewhere
00:16:55
mhm looking for the suspect to return of course of course so like in the you get
00:17:01
the Donuts I'll get the coffee but here's the reason why I think that he decided to do this or at least suggested
00:17:08
it was because the Michigan murders took place in 1967 through 1969 right and that was when Ann Arbor brought in a man
00:17:16
named Peter Heros to assist he had he had assisted in the Boston Strangler case so they brought this dude in and
00:17:23
say look we got a serial killer and we need to try some things to try to figure out who this guy is now I don't recall
00:17:30
for certain whose idea it was but it was likely Hero's idea that they employed this technique in the Michigan murders
00:17:38
the idea as you said that the killer would return to the bodies um I'm guessing my guess here captain and I
00:17:46
would be willing to wager a $100 bill bill and sixpack of beer that Danto the guy brought in on the Oakland County
00:17:54
case on Mark stean murder had studied the Michigan murders case and was taking a tactic from that and whether or not
00:18:02
you think this is a genius idea or a dumbass idea what could it hurt really right well other than destroying the
00:18:11
crime scene it doesn't hurt much well but if you process the crime scene properly in advance correct but here's
00:18:18
the problem with it with using this technique uh or tactic in this particular case so the main there's two
00:18:26
main reasons why the killer will return turn to the body the first being and and
00:18:32
actually most of the time it being sexual for sexual reasons the killer will return to the body there's also
00:18:38
investigative where the killer wants to see why nobody's found the body right the problem with this situation is this
00:18:46
situation is unique in that most of the times when the in fact the the investigations that we just discussed
00:18:54
the Michigan murders the Green River Killer the Atlanta child murders and there's more but the bodies that they
00:18:59
were returning to were secluded they were in the woods they were hidden this this body is left out in the open so
00:19:08
returning to the body for sexual reasons means you're going to have to bring the
00:19:13
pick up the body and take it with you you know it seems unlikely that a killer would dump the body in a very public
00:19:20
open location not secluded and then choose to return to it yeah and you got to be pretty Brazen to return to open
00:19:28
area and then drop trial and it almost seems usually when a killer will leave a body in a very public place like this
00:19:36
that psychologically for some reason it's almost a sign of of that maybe they want the body to be found sooner rather
00:19:44
than later for some some unknown reason yeah you wonder if that is um kind of a control thing like I'm letting you find
00:19:53
the body well we could go through our thoughts on the actual crime scene but the general report is simple they just
00:20:00
took a crime scene that that they could have produced something and they destroyed it so Footprints fingerprints
00:20:07
and fibers were destroyed they had nothing and we will get back to this in a minute the medical examiner findings
00:20:15
were as follows Mark had been alive wellfed and cared for during the time he was missing about 4 days presumably by
00:20:25
his killer or someone involved we say care for for a lack of better terms someone who is kidnapped and later
00:20:32
killed is never really cared for by the perpetrator mhm the cause of death was strangulation this could have been any
00:20:39
number of ways some suggest it could have been as simple as covering Mark's nose and mouth with a hand or hands or a
00:20:48
bag placed over his head they found a large wound on the back of Mark's head they concluded this was from either from
00:20:56
the car trunk slam slamming down on his head as he was thrown into the trunk of the car right or it could have been from
00:21:03
the killer striking Mark in the back of the head with a shotgun this was violence that Mark had experienced in
00:21:10
the first few hours of the abduction Mark was sexually assaulted with an object what object we do not know but
00:21:18
this would be important so police could find could they could possibly look for this item as they investigate the case
00:21:25
Mark was bound and likely for a good length of time we know this because he had rope burns on his ankles and hands
00:21:33
further digging we find that it was determined that The Binding marks on the wrist and ankles were believed to have
00:21:38
been caused by an eighth or qu inch Bell Telephone type wire his body was bathed
00:21:45
his nails were cleaned and trimmed and this leads to several questions right Captain one did Mark struggle with his
00:21:54
abductor scratching him leaving evidence under Mark's fingernails and the killer
00:21:58
then decided to clean and trim the nails was Mark bathed before or after he was killed did this killer tell Mark he was
00:22:08
safe in taking him home convincing Mark to bathe and put on his clean clothes to
00:22:13
meet his parents after this nightmarish 4 days these are all good questions that
00:22:19
anyone who has studied this case has likely pondered right you want the answers to these questions well here you
00:22:26
go well if we have the shotgun attack on the back of the head and they think that
00:22:33
happened early in the abduction maybe is that how he got Mark into his car if he's posing as a
00:22:42
security guard or a police officer and he gets this young kid to turn around put your hands on the car crack him with
00:22:50
your shotgun mhm or a gun and then put him in the vehicle well let's provide a few answers to some of those questions
00:22:59
okay because this is reported just wrong and it has been reported wrong for 40 years so why here's the truth okay Mark
00:23:11
was washed cleaned uh clothes washed and cleaned no evidence or mess was found that has always been what was reported
00:23:21
because of a report PR prepared by Lauren D of Springfield PD the truth is and this is taken from this week's
00:23:29
recommended reading the kill jar that on February 20th 1976 evidence collected from The Mark steans scene was received
00:23:38
by Charlotte day at the Michigan State Police crime lab and reported on March 2nd 1976 as chronicled in that report on
00:23:48
the body of steans his blue parka with blood stains on the hood blue jeans soiled with dirt
00:23:56
and oil from the parking lot where he was found Trace fibers of white wool red wool blue wool and yellow or gold
00:24:04
carpeting one human hair whose Source was other than Steen was found rodent hair and dog hair on all outerwear and
00:24:13
unknown source of decorative blue paint on Stein's left rubber boot urine and feal stains in his
00:24:21
underpants soil and perspiration stains on his T-shirt Stein's red sweatshirt was stained with blood now that's a
00:24:30
completely different report than we found no evidence and the boy was washed and cleaned his clothes were washed and
00:24:38
cleaned right just if you're wondering you shouldn't find any of that stuff after you wash clothes right right uh
00:24:46
yeah so a completely different report why I think it has to do with several things here likely one the mishandling
00:24:55
of the body remember we said that the body was sent to the police department before it went to the morg right the
00:25:01
clothes were removed from the body before it went to the morg so I'm guessing here that what you have is you
00:25:08
have two different reports conducted by two different people at two different locations and they each have different
00:25:14
findings one finds a messy body with evidence on it all over it and the other finds a clean body with no evidence well
00:25:22
maybe one of them's processing the dummy well what has always made its way to the
00:25:27
media and to documentaries regarding this case this 40-year-old unsolved mystery is the clean version that no
00:25:36
evidence was found that the body was cleaned so for the next 10 months Captain the Southfield infernale Police
00:25:43
investigated they called in The Usual Suspects the registration of sex offenders would not start for another 20
00:25:50
years but they would round up the local sex perverts and they were checked out yeah you got to round up the local
00:25:57
flicky flickies but uh the other thing here though is this if you're going to if you're going to profile this suspect
00:26:05
having a clean victim washed and bathed and clothes clean and now a dirty victim
00:26:12
with dirty clothes you would profile this killer differently mhm oh of course I think the thing to hone in on is the
00:26:22
the four days the 96 hours that someone held Mark captive so let's think about that how do you hold a child for that
00:26:29
long from the afternoon of Sunday then all of Monday Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday morning can you go to work
00:26:37
during that time can you do this by yourself or do you need someone's help and where do you live that you can bring
00:26:44
a child to your house without suspicion and hold them there for that many [Music]
00:26:56
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freedom [Music] all right we're back cheers mates cheers captain on Wednesday December 22nd
00:29:14
1976 12-year-old sixth grader Jill Robinson and her mom agreed on one thing that they had had enough of each other
00:29:23
they lived in Royal Oak another town like Southfield and fern this is about 10 minutes from where Mark
00:29:30
Stein's body was found Jill's dad Tom had divorced the mother a few years earlier now she had a long day already
00:29:38
and now she was rushing to get dinner on the table before going to church Jill's
00:29:43
mom asked Jill to make biscuits for dinner and Jill was known as being a smart and stubborn girl she was having a
00:29:51
bad day too so Wednesdays are supposed to be the days that Jill would spend spend with her father he would get her
00:29:59
after school and they would have the evening together well Tom failed to get Jill on this Wednesday no surprise
00:30:06
surprise and now she is stuck with her mom and sister for the night not exactly what she wanted she was also not
00:30:15
sleeping well lately because she was having this reoccurring nightmare this nightmare was so concerning to Carol
00:30:23
that Jill was seeing a psychiatrist to help uh help her through this problem what was the dream about the nightmare
00:30:32
that she was having I don't know exactly what the nightmare was but she's stating that it
00:30:39
caused Jill to have fear that someone was going to shoot her to death that she would be shot at some point in her life
00:30:45
Jill refused to help with the dinner and an argument started between the two Carol was at her breaking point and she
00:30:54
looked at her daughter and she shouted get out which was Was Heard loud and clear Jill grabbed her denim backpack
00:31:01
and she was going to take off she filled she filled the backpack with her hairbrush a blue and green plaid blanket
00:31:08
some makeup some underwear and two books no so she's going to go live out on her
00:31:13
own not exactly the the first book is a first edition Little House on the Prairie book this one had an inscription
00:31:22
from a family member that gave it to her as a gift the second book she checked out of the library which was a Nancy
00:31:29
Drew mystery these books are very important Clues now Jill before leaving is going to put on winter clothes it was
00:31:36
below freezing outside and as she was leaving she told her younger sister that she was going to their father's house
00:31:44
she slammed the door behind her now her father's home is approximately 6 miles away so she grabbed her bike she loved
00:31:52
her bike it was a high-speed brand 20-in frame purple with chrome f Enders it had
00:31:58
a white banana seat sounds like your bike she hopped on her bike and she was gone mhm Jill's mom waited an hour and
00:32:06
went outside to look for her Carol thought that she would find Jill sitting out front of their house ready to
00:32:13
apologize but when she got out there there was no sign of Jill so Carol called Tom Jill's father and when he
00:32:21
told her that she wasn't there and he had not seen her Carol called the police and reported her missing the police
00:32:29
began searching they checked if she had stopped at any stores and they interviewed a bunch of people Joe was
00:32:36
seen by a family friend at about 7:30 p.m. near the Tiny Tim hobby center they didn't find anyone who saw her after
00:32:46
this nothing the police found nothing else until the next day this is when the police found her bike in the 160 block
00:32:56
of Washington Street it was leaning against a tree the police started searching the neighborhood when a local
00:33:03
teenager came up to them and informed them that they had found the bike he and his friends somewhere else and they had
00:33:11
been out joy riding it through the area before leaving it at the tree MH so the police went to 1523 North Main Street
00:33:19
this is where the boys said that they had originally found the bike the address was for a building in a business
00:33:25
area the bike was found at the rear of the building according to the boys now this would be a concealed area behind
00:33:32
the building about a 3/4 of a mile from Jill's home it was in the direction that
00:33:38
she would have traveled if she was in route to her father's house I won't put too much emphasis on where the bike was
00:33:45
found or where it could have been during the course of that day because we now know all these years later that we have
00:33:53
many reasons to believe that the bike was moved several times throughout the course of this time period before it was
00:34:00
found by the police well first of all the police need to tell these kids look what you did you little jerk don't move
00:34:07
a bike it's not yours that's stealing long days passed as everyone searched for Jill now the day after Christmas
00:34:15
Sunday December 26th 1976 at 6:30 a.m. 4 days after her disappearance a motorist
00:34:23
driving Northbound in Troy Michigan saw her body on on the I75 shoulder he got on his CB Radio and contacted the police
00:34:32
MH he reported this but was gone by the time that the police had arrived the police arrived to find a girl who was
00:34:38
shot in the face and killed it appeared she was shot Point Blank the police reported a Halo of crimson around her
00:34:47
head Jill's body was placed in the snow fully clothed with her backpack still on
00:34:53
her there was a light layer of snow on the body this location was not shielded in any
00:34:59
way anyone driving down the road could have witnessed this murder or The Dumping of the body in fact Jill's body
00:35:07
was within Sight and Sound of the Troy police station no one at the police station heard or saw a thing but there
00:35:16
was a witness the witness was driving his car on Highway I75 at 3:30 in the morning when he spotted a 1971 ponti
00:35:27
lamons idling on the highway shoulder the witness slowed down and merged into the left lane as he approached the
00:35:35
lemons the lemons slowly pulled onto the road the witness was adamant to the police that it was in fact a 1971 lemons
00:35:46
because he had once owned the same vehicle similar vehicle the witness offered up specific details regarding
00:35:54
the vehicle there were primer spots on the left side and a broken left tail light Jill's body was transported to the
00:36:03
morg and an a topsy was performed she was fully clothed she still had her backpack on the two books were missing
00:36:12
her body was bathed and her nails were trimmed and clean Jill had been quote cared for and fed during the 4 days that
00:36:20
she was missing Jill was also placed where she was found not dumped or thrown I I think it's fair to say we have the
00:36:29
right to question the last few items that we stated here you know we we saw in the mark steans incident that one
00:36:36
thing is reported and another thing actually happened regarding the body yeah if there's urine and FEI those
00:36:43
clothes weren't washed the cause of death was from a shotgun blast to her face while she was lying on her back so
00:36:52
she was killed where she was found she had died the same way that she had feared that she would or at least what
00:36:58
she had told her mom and the psychiatrist wait go back to that so you're you're claiming that they're stating that she
00:37:06
was killed where she was left yes but this eyewitness that saw the car leaving the scene did not hear anything did not
00:37:16
hear anything and there's also no other reports of hearing anything right and like I said the Troy police department
00:37:23
is within an earshot yeah shotgun blast going to there's going to be somebody reporting that what what makes them
00:37:31
believe this if nobody heard it then there's no one to report it mhm I'm just saying what other evidence did they have
00:37:39
to make it them think that the the actual death happened where well where the victim was I had reported the Crim
00:37:47
the Halo of crimson above her head mhm so that would be the the blood being blasted out of her I mean I can't put it
00:37:56
there's no nice way to put it the blood being blasted out of her head as she was
00:38:00
shot in the in the in the face with the shotgun mhm uh the crown of her I was going to leave this out of the story but
00:38:07
uh since pushed for an explanation the top of her head was located there as well did they do an autopsy to find out
00:38:16
if she if there was strangulation at all um look it's the report is the same as with Mark and what we will with the
00:38:27
other two victims as well the public the public reports of these are not the actual findings not the actual police
00:38:36
findings right and all of these situations we're going to be told and at some point it became like almost like
00:38:43
lore like like local Legend right that this mystery of a killer who's who's so smart and so tactful that they decide
00:38:52
you know what I'm going to I'm going to abduct children off of the streets um and these are middle class kids too
00:39:00
I'm going to take these kids and I'm going to keep them do whatever I want and I'm going to clean them scrub them
00:39:05
clean to the point where you can't find anything on me mhm you know they want that there's this portrayal of some kind
00:39:13
of Genius child killer that was stalking the area right and really as we saw with
00:39:19
the Mark Stein case that wasn't the case that's not how the body was found it was
00:39:24
right but we see this a lot in the the 60s 70s 80s 90s 2000s and and it's really just starting to turn over now
00:39:35
where this idea of these genius killers and these genius serial killers like if this guy was such a damn genius then why
00:39:44
is his tail light busted you know what I mean if if in fact that was the car that
00:39:49
dumped the body or placed her there and then shot her there right but again here's a here's folklore taking over
00:39:57
going uh this guy's an evil genius and he grabs these victims and he cleans them up and you'll never catch him you
00:40:04
brought up a great question though was there any sign of possible strangulation I believe that there was
00:40:10
and and I have not much to base this off of at all but my here's what my suspicion is she was laid on her back
00:40:18
and her backpack was found on her I think that somebody one of two things possibly happened I think that this
00:40:25
individual that was dumping her body there on the side of the highway took the shotgun along with them for two
00:40:33
reasons one in case they needed it to use it on the victim and two if they needed it for protection of themselves
00:40:41
mhm okay so picture this he's walking he or they are carrying the body of of a girl that they have already strangled
00:40:53
that they believe to have been dead right and they're going to put her in the snow place her off the side of the
00:41:00
highway and then get back in the car and drive on right mhm now I think one of two things happened they lied her down
00:41:06
they laid her down on her back and they said that her backpack was found still on her back so I think that either a she
00:41:15
wasn't actually dead and when they placed her on the ground she came to and took a breath and it scared them and
00:41:24
they shot her there and then or she was in fact dead they placed her down and because of the backpack it may
00:41:33
have made the cause the body to move in a way or even push out air from the lungs where they would have the same
00:41:41
reaction they would think maybe she was still alive and react the same way using
00:41:46
the shotgun there and then okay you want to know the fact what's up you want to know the fact
00:41:54
Jack that came out a little hairier than I thought it would here's the fact Jack
00:41:59
this is what I believe I believe like you said perfectly is that she was strangled before she was strangled at
00:42:08
this suspect's house she was dead she was in this person's possession for 4 days what was the biggest thing going on
00:42:17
in her life or one of the biggest things going on in her life she's seeing a therapist about these nightmares of
00:42:23
being shot and killed and I think she was dead and I think this killer went out of his way to bring
00:42:31
a gun to shoot her in the face as a sign to the parents as like I got to know her
00:42:40
and that's what I believe right I think this person I think this killer knew about these dreams and and thought they
00:42:47
were clever in some way well and I think that goes with the profiling as well we're we're not talking you know let's
00:42:54
stop calling these people evil Geniuses but this person does have some intelligence and they do have some
00:43:01
thought process on what's Happening and what's interesting here is you have one body that's found in the fetal position
00:43:07
and one body that's found face up right with the book bag on and I wonder if that's some kind of clue that they're
00:43:15
trying to leave because they took their time to put these bodies and they're wide openen spaces right mhm but they're
00:43:24
taking their time to almost place the body that's there's some thought process behind or possibly again that could just
00:43:31
be the way that it's reported what we learned with the first murder is you can't we can't trust the reports on the
00:43:37
Mark steans Case so I don't know that we can trust all of the you know it it almost looks to me more like Mark was
00:43:45
just dumped not not really placed with a whole lot of thought and it it could just be reported that way oh well he was
00:43:53
found kind of in the fetal position right and I think I here's the one thing that we
00:44:00
cannot uh dispute you know you got to look for actual scientific fact in these things and so what we're going to go
00:44:07
ahead and talk about here is we the the layer of snow that was on Jill is going to tell us what time she was
00:44:15
approximately killed because it it didn't start snowing until about 3:00 a.m. that night okay so they would they
00:44:24
would determine that she was killed between 3 and 6: a.m. that helps us out a little bit
00:44:30
scientific fact we know about what time it started to snow well we know not killed possibly but we know when the
00:44:38
body was left in that spot correct correct um there was no sign of sexual abuse found with Jill um some so the
00:44:48
cause of death uh lack of sexual assault different gender different victim gender
00:44:54
and the location was enough to keep these two murders unrelated as far as police are concerned
00:45:02
at least for the moment so now Captain what we have is we have police from four different agencies working these cases
00:45:11
Troy police Royal Oak police they are working the Jill Robinson case right while Ferndale and Southfield are
00:45:18
working the Mark steans Case now again gut your gut feeling here is does this person know does the suspect know does
00:45:25
the Killer know that they're leaving them in different areas under different jurisdictions it's
00:45:33
possible it's very possible it could also be possible that the victims were victims of opportunity for the killer uh
00:45:41
that they went out trolling around looking for somebody walking alone and that's who they took and presumably did
00:45:49
the same thing when it came time to dump the body I'll drive around and look for
00:45:53
a spot where nobody is and if it happens to be out in the open then boom I got to
00:45:57
park my car and get this thing on the side of the road very quickly well there's another two victims so I think
00:46:03
that's going to lead us down more of a funnel a week after Jill's body was found Christine melik vanished she was a
00:46:11
10-year-old fifth grader who lived in Berkeley Michigan another Detroit suburb on the day of her disappearance
00:46:18
Christine was helping her mom around the house she already had run an errand for
00:46:23
her mom that required her to cross 12 miles this is considered to be a busy street
00:46:28
to most So Christine asked her mom if she could run to the 7-Eleven across 12 mile she'd love to paper her walls with
00:46:37
the pictures from the hottest teen magazines the new Teen Superstar magazine had just come out and she
00:46:45
wanted to pick up this issue who you think was on the cover uh this was Donnie and Marie Osman were that was
00:46:52
going to be my guess her mom had trouble saying no to Christine she didn't really
00:46:57
want her to go but she had already sent her off on an errand for herself mhm across this busy road and so now it's
00:47:05
going to be tough to say no to her so she lets her go to go pick up this magazine she even gave her $2 so that
00:47:12
she could pay for it now it was around 27° that day so she put on her baby Blue ski jacket over a white blouse and gray
00:47:21
jeans it's about a five minute walk for her when Christine was not back in an hour her mom started to panic she
00:47:29
contacted the police and Christine's father the police checked with the clerk at the 7-Eleven and found out that
00:47:37
Christine made it to the 7-Eleven store and in fact had purchased the magazine this would be around 300 p.m. so the
00:47:46
search for her began immediately after finding out that she had made it to the store but not returned home it was a
00:47:53
fullon search the the parents hit the streets looking for her uh her father he was he was out on the streets with his
00:48:02
gun in his belt looking for his daughter we had two missing children that showed
00:48:06
up dead the police were stopping cars and investigating every possible lead the neighbors of the melic started
00:48:13
collecting money in case of a ransom demand the total was up to $117,000 in just a couple of days the
00:48:21
parents and grandparents went on TV begging to whoever to allow Christine to come home the search in the media
00:48:28
attention stayed strong for 19 days for the 19 days that Christine was missing let's emphasize that one more time 19
00:48:38
days over two weeks almost three weeks Jerry wasney a an 11-year-old veteran of the postal service was following the
00:48:47
same route that he did every day when he saw tracks leading about 6 ft off of Bruce Lane there he spotted what he
00:48:55
thought was just a blue blanket as he approached this and got closer he noticed that a hand and knees were
00:49:02
sticking out from it terrified he jumped in his mail truck and he went to the closest police station wasney told the
00:49:10
police that the body was snow covered except for a hand and her knee sticking out Christine's father received a call
00:49:17
at work from a reporter nice that that's how you get notified about your daughter's body
00:49:23
being found her father drove through a blizzard to the state police station in Pontiac Michigan he arrived in time to
00:49:32
see his little girl's frozen body lying on the metal autopsy table and then did he punch somebody in their freaking face
00:49:39
for not letting him know he did not after defrosting the coroner was able to perform the autopsy she was dressed in
00:49:49
the clothes that she was kidnapped in they had been cleaned and pressed like the other two victims she was recently
00:49:56
bathed and her fingernails had been cleaned and trimmed the cause of death was Suffocation there were no signs of
00:50:03
sexual assault or blunt force trauma they ruled that she had been killed within 24 hours of the discovery that
00:50:11
means that she was alive for at least 18 of the 19 days that she was missing there was one thing noticed about
00:50:18
Christine's clothing that the parents of the other children did not mention Christine's mom was adamant that
00:50:26
Christine did not dress herself the way that her body was found she cites two reasons one her pants were tucked into
00:50:33
her boots and two her blouse was tied in front instead of in back or may have been put on backwards right these are
00:50:42
two signs that might at least in this case show that the killer dressed the victim after death there was evidence
00:50:49
left at this scene tire and Footprints were found in the snow with the discovery of Christine's body a task
00:50:57
force was formed authorities announced that they believe the children were murdered by the same person the task
00:51:03
force will investigate the three murders and the possibility of a serial killer the task force was made up of law
00:51:10
enforcement from 13 communities and led by the Michigan State Police the Detroit
00:51:16
News offered up of 1,000 I'm sorry Captain a $100,000 reward for the Killer's apprehension and local stations AGG Ely
00:51:26
covered the case the Michigan State Police and the police departments where the children were last seen or the
00:51:32
bodies were found received a Federal grant to help pursue the investigation Oakland County was on high alert police
00:51:40
were giving classes at schools on how to stay away from strangers and how to escape if someone tries to grab them
00:51:48
yeah old stranger danger parents were not allowing their kids to walk by themselves there was a safe house House
00:51:55
program established where participants would be screened and then allowed to put a safe house placard in their front
00:52:02
window if a child felt that they were in danger they would be able to run to one
00:52:07
of these houses for help fathers sat down with their children and told them to be careful and steer clear of
00:52:15
stranger dangers lurking in the nearby areas this is what Barry King did with his son Timothy on Wednesday March 16th
00:52:26
1977 Tim King a straight A student he's a sixth grader at Adams Elementary School went out to play around on his
00:52:35
skateboard it was chilly but not freezing Tim was small for his age at 4 foot3 in and only 63 lbs Tim and his
00:52:45
family lived in Birmingham Michigan this was a it's a little bit nicer than the other towns that we've already discussed
00:52:51
but not rich by any means Tim's father Barry was a lawyer and on this night he had to meet with a client since he
00:53:00
needed a witness he convinced Tim's mom to come with him Tim has always been the
00:53:07
responsible type he even recently took on a paper route but his parents were worried about him being out on his route
00:53:14
so Tim was spending the night at home with his brothers and his sister throughout the evening they each got
00:53:21
called away his sister Kathy was getting ready to to leave when Tim asked to borrow 30 cents so he
00:53:28
could buy some candy at the local pharmacy she lent him the change and left to meet her friends Tim ended up
00:53:36
alone for the night at about 8:15 p.m. wearing a red nylon shirt dark green Levi corduroy pants and white sneakers
00:53:46
Tim headed out and he arrived at the pharmacy on Maple Road at about 8:30 Tim left the pharmacy through the
00:53:53
rear door that led to the parking lot which is where he would typically ride his skateboard Tim's parents were eating
00:54:00
at the diner across the street this is at Peabody's restaurant after dinner Tim's parents went home arriving around
00:54:08
9900 p.m. they immediately contacted the police once they realized Tim was not home police suspected this to be the act
00:54:16
of the serial killer that they were looking for and they wasted no time searching for the boy and spreading his
00:54:22
story an intensive search was exec uted that covered the entire Detroit metropolitan area and there was
00:54:30
widespread media coverage in an emotional television appeal Timothy's father Barry King begged the abductor to
00:54:38
release his son unharmed in a letter printed in the Detroit News Tim's mother wrote that she hoped Timothy would come
00:54:45
home soon so she could serve him his favorite meal Kentucky Fried Chicken a tip came in from a woman claiming she
00:54:53
had seen a boy with a skateboard talking to a man in the parking lot of the drugstore that Tim had been to the woman
00:55:01
described the man as white with a dark complexion and around 25 to 35 years of age he had shaggy hair and sideburns and
00:55:11
had been driving a blue AMC Gremlin with a white stripe on its sides so we got two two cars now this Gremlin was seen
00:55:21
during the evening Tim went missing by his brother a deposit sketch of the man was released all over the area
00:55:29
authorities question everybody in Oakland County who owned a gremlin this is a good move right here Captain they
00:55:37
they got a countywide search warrant so officers could randomly pull over vehicles to search for Tim King a lot of
00:55:47
effort was made here but sadly in the late evening hours of March 22nd 1977 two teenagers spotted Tim's body in a
00:55:56
shallow ditch alongside Gil Road in Leonia this is across the county line in Wayne County his skateboard was placed
00:56:06
next to his body again it has been reported that Tim was found like the others his clothing neatly pressed and
00:56:14
washed he had been tied up sexually assaulted with an object and suffocated the postmortem showed that Timothy had
00:56:22
fried chicken before he was killed and that he was suffocated approximately 6 hours before his body was found the
00:56:30
Oakland County child killer task force reportedly investigated over 18,000 tips but when the Federal grant money ran out
00:56:38
in December of 1978 the task force was formally disbanded as of 2012 reports the case File has acred 20,000 tips
00:56:50
500,000 pages of documentation thousands of interviews and hundreds of pieces of
00:56:56
evidence yet to this day no one has been convicted of the murders of Mark steans
00:57:02
Jill Robinson Christine melich and Timothy King however the investigations continued the victim's families have
00:57:11
refused to let these Child Murders be forgotten they have formed their own task force conducted their own
00:57:17
investigations and from that came theories the theories put together in the last 15 years are far more plausible
00:57:25
than the theories worked by investigators in the late 7s we believe that now we are closer
00:57:31
than ever to solving these murders and tomorrow we will explore the mother of all theories in the continued search for
00:57:39
the Oakland County child [Music] killer want to thank you guys so much for listening thanks so much for sharing
00:57:53
on social media if you'd like to hear the us talk about the update on the Aurora Hammer Slayer
00:58:00
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00:58:15
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