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On April 30, 1989, police responded to a quadruple murder in a Lakeville, Indiana home. BENTON HARBOR, Mich. (WNDU/Gray News) - A 3-year-old and a 4-year-old were killed in a house fire early Thursday morning in Michigan, according to officials. In this lineup, Goshe positively identified the man she had seen with Karen Sue Beineman as John Norman Collins. where she spent some years as a teenager was a miserable place. The victim's right thumb had also received a gunshot wound, suggesting the woman had instinctively raised her hand to protect herself before her killer had fired the gun at point-blank range. [121] Mrs. Collins reportedly remortgaged her home to secure their services. CROWN POINT, IN On Wednesday, Kelly Cochran, 35, was convicted and sentenced to 65 years in prison after pleading guilty to the 2016 slaying of her husband, Jason Cochran, 37. Dr. Jervis testified as to his belief that insufficient chemical samples had existed in the samples retrieved from the basement which the prosecution scientists had worked with to form their conclusions, and that to form a conclusive neutron activation analysis, at least ten components in a hair sample must be compared, whereas only five components had been used by the prosecution's forensics experts to determine their findings. As they later passed the creepy motorist, they saw him commit a heinous murder. Welt marks upon the chest and shoulders indicated the killer had also used restraints to hold the victim prone as he whipped her torso and upper legs with a leather belt[35] before tearing a branch from a nearby tree and inserting this instrument eight inches into her vagina. When informed his request was impossible,[3] the young man had replied: "You mean you can't fix her up enough so I could just get one picture of her? [60] She was last seen walking home towards her apartment on Thompson Street, having attended a friend's party. State (s) Michigan. 6 The Murder Of Nevaeh Buchanan. [75], The 47th and final witness to appear for the prosecution at Collins' trial was a University of California chemistry professor named Dr. Vincent P. Guinn, who testified on August 5 as to his conclusions that the hair samples retrieved from Beineman's panties bore "a remarkable similarity" to those retrieved from the Leik household and that, upon statistical calculations he had begun the previous month, the odds of erroneous matching of the hair samples earlier testified to by Walter Holz were quite low. Each motion filed had been reserved or, in the final instance, denied. Although this officer attempted to radio this sighting to his colleagues, the rain had rendered his radio inoperable. Alex Murdaugh listens to testimony during his murder trial at the Colleton County Courthouse on Feb. 10, 2023, in Walterboro, South Carolina. The Michigan Murders was a series of highly publicized killings of young women committed between 1967 and 1969 in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area of Southeastern Michigan by an individual known as the Ypsilanti Ripper, the Michigan Murderer, and the Co-Ed Killer. Although forensic experts would deduce later that morning that the stains covered by the black paint had actually been varnish stains, one of the investigators discovered numerous hair clippingsmany measuring less than three-eights of an inchbeside the family washing machine. It's just a little clearing in the forest in Onaway, Michigan, a few miles from the Canadian border, population slightly over 800. [74]), The forensic examination of Beineman's body further revealed she had been raped prior to her murder, and that her torn panties had been forcefully placed inside her vagina; these panties revealed the presence of human semen and 509[75] human hair clippings measuring less than three-eights of an inch upon the material. He was then sentenced to serve a term of life imprisonment with hard labor, in solitary confinement, at Southern Michigan Prison. On Sunday, July 27, police arrived at the apartment on Emmet Street Collins shared with his roommate, Arnold Davis. Siblings Kandy and Randy Laufer were heading home from school one uneventful day in September when their lives changed forever. [42], Little physical evidence existed beyond eyewitness descriptions and forensic reports. [139], Dr. Jervis' conclusions were supported by a private consultant named Auseklis Perkons, and a Massachusetts-based Director of Forensic Research named Samuel Golub. After being convicted in the brutal triple murder of two women and an 11-month-old baby, Walker was convicted and sentenced to life for the crime. Karen Sue Beineman (18): July 23, 1969, In the years immediately following his conviction, Collins' mother, siblings and several of his friends remained steadfast in their belief that Collins had been the victim of a. Collins' mother, Loretta, and his two siblings, Jerry and Gail, refused to speak with Sgt. To expand on their allegations that certain defense witnesses had been subjected to police harassment, and that eyewitness accounts had been flawed, defense attorney Joseph Louisell subjected Sheriff Harvey to a 45-minute cross-examination as to his contact with the two eyewitnesses prior to completion of this composite drawing. [50] She had been accompanied part of the way by a friend named Earl Kidd, who informed police he and Basom had parted company at a desolate road just five blocks from her home,[51] where Basom had begun walking alone alongside railroad tracks toward her home. They grew up in Detroit, Michigan. One eyewitness reported seeing the girl minutes thereafter, at approximately 7:35, although her movements thereafter were never verified. James Cleophas Nelson, who went by the nickname "Bubba," died on June 8, 2020, according to Michigan Department of Corrections records. He worked hard as an accountant at a nearby bank to provide for his family. [24], On March 20, 1969,[24] a 23-year-old University of Michigan law student named Jane Louise Mixer disappeared after posting a note on a college bulletin board seeking a lift across the state to her hometown of Muskegon,[25] where she had intended to inform her family of her engagement and imminent move to New York City. Two of these bloodstains[75] were discovered to be type Athe blood type of Karen Sue Beineman. Two months after Schell's murder, police inquiries produced two further eyewitnesses who stated they had observed Schell walking with a young man along Emmet Street on the evening she disappeared. Leik acknowledged that the evidence thus far gathered against his nephew was compelling, although in this first interview, he did not advise officers of the items missing from his household, or the paint marks he and his wife had found upon the floor of the family basement; however, the following morning, Leik scraped away some of the black paint which had been sprayed in his basement to reveal a stain which looked ominously like human blood and immediately returned to the police station to report his findings. He did not die of COVID-19; prison officials did not release his cause . Sex Slayer Could be Anyone! The testimony of Joan Goshe was further supported by Patricia Spaulding, who testified as to having observed Collins for between three and four minutes as he had waited for Beineman to return to his motorcycle. Her roommate became concerned when she did not return that night and notified police the next day. [162] Although Collins had claimed to police that he had been with his mother in the Detroit suburb of Center Line on the weekend of Schell's disappearance, police had never sought to verify his alibi.[24]. [83], Although Goshe would initiallyand incorrectlydescribe the motorcycle as being possibly a Honda 350 model,[84] when police questioned Carol Wieczerca, a clerk in the store adjacent to the wig shop, Wieczerca was able to state that the model of the motorcycle was actually a Triumph. Collins was then informed by Judge Conlin that if the jurors' verdict was wrong, the error would be corrected in due course. 10:18 . The documentary shows the case from start to finish and features . [153], In each appeal instance, Collins' conviction was upheld, with successive appellate judges of the Supreme Court announcing in October 1974, their refusal to review his conviction[154] and the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit announcing their own satisfaction with the earlier findings of the district court. [16] In addition, her throat had been slashed, and her miniskirt then tied around her neck. Prior to his passing sentence, Judge Conlin asked Collins if he wished to address the court before mandatory life sentencing was imposed. He left her body behind an abandoned church and fled. In September 1988, Chapman agreed to participate in a live interview conducted by the. She was convicted in Michigan and sentenced to life in prison for Regan's murder in May 2016. Kelly admitted to intentionally injecting Jason with a fatal overdose of heroin and then smothering him to death with a pillow. [82], The description of the young man with whom Beineman had last been seen alive was heard by a patrolman named Larry Mathewson, who believed the person described by Diana Goshe and others may be John Norman Collins: a former Theta Chi fraternity brother[85] of his who had previously been interviewed but eliminated from police inquiries,[86] and who he had himself seen riding his motorcycle around the Eastern Michigan University campus on the afternoon of July 23. [77], At approximately 12:15a.m. the following morning,[78] in the midst of a heavy, humid storm, one officer observed a young man running from the gully;[79] the heavy rain and insect irritation had prevented the officer from observing the young man actually approaching the gully. "[93] before angrily walking out of her apartment. On November 22, 1985, they planned to go hunting near David's family cabin in White Cloud. Clothed only in a white blouse and bra, which had been pushed around her neck, she had been repeatedly stabbed in the chest and genitals,[45] had received multiple slash wounds across the breasts, buttocks and stomach,[46] then strangled to death with a two-foot length electrical flex still knotted around her neck. Mrs. Collins, incensed at the implication, immediately dismissed Ryan from the case. Police had noted (and would continue to note) common denominators in the physical characteristics of the victims, and the manner in which they died: all of the victims had been brunette Caucasians; each (excluding Mixer) had been the recipient of extensive violence inflicted with a blunt and/or bladed instrument prior to her murder; each of the victims' bodies had been found within a 15-mile radius of Washtenaw County; and each victim (excluding Mixer) had received knife wounds to the neck. David Leik and his wife, Sandra, following their testimony against Collins at his trial. [84] He held a part-time job as an inspector at a firm which manufactured drum brakes,[66] and was currently majoring in elementary education at Eastern Michigan University. The discovery of several dried bloodstains and two buttons missing from the victim's raincoat at a Northfield Township commercial gravel pit on June 10 indicated the victim had been murdered at this location. Police suspect brothers J.R. and Coco Duvall beat two Michigan hunters to death, chopped up the bodies, and fed them to pigs; and a serial rapist, who holds a mini-flashlight in his mouth to blind victims, is nabbed when he drops it during an attack and police develop a DNA profile from . Alex Murdaugh was at the center of this trial. [23] Prior to enrolling at Eastern Michigan University in the fall of 1966, he had been an honor student and football co-captain at his high school.[89]. I was flabbergasted when I found this documentary. Between 1976 and 1977, the sleepy suburbs of Oakland County, Michigan, were invaded by a demonic presence. [36], The victim was identified as a 16-year-old Romulus[37] high school student named Maralynn Skelton, who had disappeared while hitchhiking in Ann Arbor. [60], By July 1969, as a result of the coordinated investigation into the killings, more than 1,000 convicted sex offenders had been investigated and eliminated as suspects; over 800 tips from informants had been actively investigated; and several thousand individuals routinely interviewed. [56] She had also been raped, although the pathologist was unable to determine whether this act had occurred before or after death. [28][n 1], Four days after the discovery of Mixer's body, on March 25, a surveyor discovered the nude, mutilated body of a teenage girl lying upon a blue jacket behind a vacant house on a remote, rural section of Earhart Road,[30] just a few hundred yards from where the body of Joan Schell had been discovered eight months previously. Or if the island is horrific enough, and the killing of four . [3] Although Schell had been dead for several days, her entire lower body was in a remarkably preserved condition, whereas her head, shoulders and breasts were in an advanced state of decomposition, leading the pathologist to conclude her body had been stored in a naturally cool environment, but with the upper third of her body exposed to natural heat. No search warrant had been sought prior to Collins being questioned on this date, and his apartment would only be searched on July 30two days after Arnold Davis had observed Collins hurriedly remove a box of women's clothing and jewelry from his apartment. Promoted by Open Road Media | By Olivia Mason | Published Feb 5, 2018 When people looked at John Norman Collins, they did not see a killer. Investigators determined the knife was consistent with the weapon used to stab Kalom. In a brief final argument on behalf of the prosecution, Booker Williams re-emphasized the physical and circumstantial evidence against Collins, before accusing the defense attorneys of attempting to sow doubt in, particularly, the forensic evidence presented by the prosecution. Our verdict: Skye Borgman's 2017 documentary Abducted in Plain Sight was a true crime standout, stirring up conversation among viewers about its 12-year-old subject's kidnapping by her neighbor. Several motions by the defense counsel throughout the jury selection process that the trial should be moved to a jurisdiction outside of Washtenaw County were rejected by Judge John Conlin, who ruled on June 29 that the 14 members of the jury selected from Ann Arbor by this date and considered satisfactory by both counsels would serve as jurors throughout the trial. In Kim Barker's memory, the city of Laramie, Wyo. [166] In addition, prior to his returning to Michigan, Collins is known to have visited a California hospital to receive treatment for poison oak anaphylaxis.[166]. [52] (The farmhouse itself was destroyed in an act of arson on May 13; when the fire was extinguished, five clipped lilacs[53] were found arranged in an even row across the driveway to the building, leading investigators to theorize they had been placed there by the murderer to symbolize each victim. Through interviewing a recent girlfriend of Collins, investigators also learned that she had lived in an apartment complex directly across the road from the home of Dawn Basom, and that, throughout their courtship, Collins had been a regular visitor to her apartment. [137] On this date, Collins was formally sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. [161] He had further informed his roommate he had agreed to drive Schell from Ann Arbor to Ypsilanti the following day. INVESTIGATION DISCOVERY TRAVELS TO MICHIGAN'S UPPER PENINSULA IN PURSUIT OF A SUSPECTED FEMALE SERIAL KILLER IN DEAD NORTH Two-Night Special Premieres Monday, May 28 and Tuesday, May 29 at 9/8c on ID. Upon recommendation from his lawyers, Collins chose not to testify in his own defense. Autopsy results were completed Wednesday for the victims, reports Correspondent Christine Behrens of CBS affiliate WWMT-TV in Kalamazoo, Mich. Despite repeatedly challenging the overturning of the 1981 decision to transfer him to a Canadian prison, a federal appellate court ruled in May 1988 that Chapman should remain incarcerated at Marquette Branch Prison. Upon conducting a search of the basement of this farmhouse, investigators discovered a further garment of her clothing, a length of electrical flex of the same type used to strangle the victim, and fresh human bloodstains, indicating this location as being the site of Basom's murder. [88], Evidence of culpability in remaining cases. Investigators also ascertained Collins had either been acquainted with most of the victims, had currently or previously lived close to their place of residence, or had likely established possible prior contact prior to their murders. Even Michigan's beautiful north is safe from crime, as two of the cases spotlight cases from the Upper Peninsula. . | dG1fR01hTXN4TXg0UDA . [165] Moreover, a sweater found in Collins' closet was found to contain 22 pubic hairs which had not originated from Collins or any of the seven Michigan victims. [137], Five independent witnesses were called to testify on behalf of the defense as to Collins' whereabouts on the dates Karen Sue Beineman had disappeared and her body had been found. The Pesce Family Murders - Billy Wadd's Awakening . John List appeared to be the perfect son, husband, and father. Samples recovered from both locations would prove to be a precise match. [127], The prosecutors at Collins' trial, William Delhey and Booker Williams, opted to charge Collins only with the murder of Karen Sue Beineman, with the state contending that she had been murdered by Collins in the basement of the Leik household. [34], These injuries had been inflicted after the victim had been extensively beaten and tortured: her killer had placed a section of her own shirt into her trachea to muffle her screams as she received extensive blunt force trauma to the face, head and body,[34] including several deep lacerations believed to have been inflicted with a leather strap. The first known victim linked to the Michigan Murderer was a 19-year-old Eastern Michigan University accounting student named Mary Terese Fleszar,[8] who was last seen alive on the evening of July 9, 1967, by a neighbor walking towards her Ypsilanti apartment. Hurkos accurately predicted that the murderer was a strongly built white male under 25 years of age, who had been born outside the United States, and who rode a motorcycle. [12], Almost one year later, on July 5, 1968, the partially decomposed, mutilated body of a 20-year-old art student named Joan Elspeth Schell[15] was found by construction workers on an Ann Arbor roadside. On August 18, investigators announced that all significant leads had been exhausted, and that the number of officers assigned to investigate the case had been reduced. [124], The trial of John Norman Collins for the murder of Karen Sue Beineman began in the Washtenaw County Court Building on June 2, 1970. "[155] This appeal motion was partly upheld upon the basis that Dr. Guinn's testimony relating to probabilities was based upon on the statistical probability of another prosecution expert, and therefore, this part of his testimony was impermissible. [97], The hairs found upon Beineman's panties and those recovered from the basement of the Leik home were subjected to a detailed forensic neutron analysis[98] to determine whether they had sourced from the same individuals. This former girlfriend was able to provide Mathewson with two recent photographs of Collins. The forensic experts who had testified on behalf of the prosecution, Dr. Jervis stated, had therefore based their conclusions on "insufficient data". Went to a family gathering and my dad told me this story about my cousin who I had never met and couldn't believe it. Collins' attorneys also alleged these alibi witnesses had been subjected to police harassment, that the tests conducted upon the hair samples found upon Beineman's panties were unreliable, and that Collins' uncle, Sgt. DePue assaulted his wife in front of their three children and then took her away. [107] Albrecht described this individual, whose surname she did not know, as being 5 ft 11 in tall, clean-cut, with dark brown hair and who had described himself as an Eastern Michigan University senior with aspirations to become a teacher. [81] Reportedly, Beineman herself insisted Goshe observe the man with whom she had accepted a ride, stating that she had made two foolish errors in her life: purchasing a wig; and accepting a ride from a stranger,[82] before stating: "I've got to be either the bravest or the dumbest girl alive, because I've just accepted a ride from this guy." [152], At his 1972 appeal hearing, Collins' lawyers did succeed in securing the partial striking of the testimony of Dr. Vincent P. Guinn, the final prosecution witness at his trial, who had testified as to the odds of erroneous matching of the hairs found upon Karen Beineman's panties to those in the Leik family basement being "more than a million-to-one. Barlow testified as to the fact that although Beineman had been deceased for almost 72 hours, her body had only lain in the location where she was found for 24 hours before discovery.[74]. [49] Many female students opted to arm themselves with knives, with others adopting a "buddy system" whereby they would refuse to walk anywhere unless in the company of a trusted male friend or at least three other girls. [126], Initial jury selection began on this date, and would continue until July 9. [44], At 6:30a.m. on April 16, the body of a 13-year-old schoolgirl named Dawn Louise Basom was found beside a desolate road in Ypsilanti. [48], Investigators found no definite evidence Basom had been subjected to a sexual assault prior to her murder. [46], The orange mohair sweater belonging to Basom was found in a deserted farmhouse just 100 yards from the desolate road on which her body had been placed after her murder. [66], Despite recovering numerous stolen items from his apartment and being informed by Arnold Davis that Collins had been in the habit of committing burglaries with a former roommate of theirs named Andrew Manuel,[100] no incriminating evidence linking Collins to Beineman or any victim of the Michigan Murders was discovered, although officers were informed by Arnold Davis on this date of the incident two days earlier in which he (Davis) had observed Collins carrying a laundry box containing women's clothing and jewelry from his apartment and towards his car. The following day, Washtenaw County Sheriff Douglas Harvey testified as to the discovery of Beineman's body, her subsequent autopsy, and his obtaining an updated composite drawing of the suspect with whom Beineman had last been seen alive from Mrs. Joan Goshe and her assistant, Patricia Spaulding. Although her mother, Jennifer, had told her to stay in the friend's apartment, Nevaeh decided to ride her tricycle outside. [89] At a press conference relating to the arrest and charge of Collins in relation to the last of the Michigan Murders held on this date, Police Superintendent Frederick Davids revealed that Collins had been a suspect in the Beineman case from the very day she had disappeared, and that these suspicions had heightened following their forensic examination of David Leik's basement; furthermore, surveillance of Collins had been initiated on July 26, following the submission of a report compiled by Patrolman Larry Mathewson detailing the positive eyewitness identification he had obtained, and he had been formally arrested upon an open charge on the evening prior to his arraignment. [146] He remained impassive upon hearing the jury foreman announce the verdict, although many spectators gasped audibly,[102] and his mother and sister left the courtroom in tears. What Lies Beyond. The increase in frequency in which the killer was striking throughout the spring and summer of 1969coupled with the fact most victims had been connected to the University of Michigan or Eastern Michigan University, suggesting the killer may be a fellow studentfurther compounded the concerns of female students.