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E146: The Oakland County Child Killer
4.9k Plays3 years ago
Between February 15, 1976 and March 16, 1977, fear reigned in Oakland County, Michigan when, during that span, muiltiple children between the ages of 10 and 12 were abducted and subsequently murdered. The deaths triggered a murder investigation which, at the time, was the largest in U.S. history, with numerous radio and television stations covering the case. To this day, the cases remain unsolved.
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Transcript
Reflections on Tragedy
00:00:00
Speaker
Death often passes over us like a whisper. It comes quietly when we least expect it. We don't hear it until it's right up on us, and if we don't listen carefully, it's gone before we know it. Yesterday, death showed its ugly head on the quiet cul-de-sac where I live. At first, it was like a whisper, quiet but growing in strength until it turned into a scream.
A Friendship Through Cats
00:00:22
Speaker
Anthony and I have grown fairly close to an older couple that lived diagonally from our front porch. I first bonded with Betty over cats. She, like me, has a soft spot for the fuzzy feline. Every stray in our neighborhood at one time has found its way to Betty's house. Betty would fix each stray and find them homes, keeping the ones she couldn't re-home until the perfect forever home became available for said cat.
00:00:45
Speaker
This is much like myself. I'm the girl who stops traffic to get a turtle safely across the road. I'm the girl who worries if I see a dead worm because it might have had a family I was taking care of. I'm the girl who wants all the fur babies to go to good homes. So when a large orange cat made its appearance several times in my backyard catching mice and birds, I didn't want to believe that he was homeless. But when said orange cat was found living under a storage building,
00:01:09
Speaker
I knew he didn't have a home. But to be sure, I checked with the local cat lady, Betty. She confirmed he was astray, as did his visit to the vet that we provided.
A Shocking Loss
00:01:18
Speaker
That fat cat became my new cat, and since that time, Betty and I are cat friends. That single conversation turned into Anthony and I delivering 10 meals for Betty and her husband that I made right after Betty got out of the hospital. That meal delivery turned into cards lovingly placed in each other's mailboxes and small talks in the cul-de-sac. Sometimes Betty rings the doorbell just to say hi.
00:01:38
Speaker
And that happened yesterday.
00:01:40
Speaker
Anthony and I were completing one of our house projects when the doorbell rang. It was Betty. As Anthony opened the door, my smiling face fell. She'd come to ask Anthony to help her move her husband's wheelchair into the car. They were going to a funeral, she told us, as tears fell from her face. Her son had died in a car accident on his way home from work. You see sleuth hounds. Betty only has one son. One son and no grandkids. One son that she talks about every single time we see each other. And that one son was now gone.
00:02:10
Speaker
As she threw her arms around my neck, my heart shattered for the family across the street. Sweet Betty has been in my life for a very short time, but my heart broke for her and her husband, and for the life that was cut short. Anthony said she cried the entire time he was helping her, and honestly, I cried too. Death screamed at me as I watched Betty walk away from my front door. It screamed to remind me of all that death has stolen from the people I love.
Oakland County Child Killer Case Introduction
00:02:34
Speaker
It screamed at me to remind me that life is fleeting.
00:02:37
Speaker
Oftentimes here on Coffee and Cases, we talk about how the death of one is horrific.
00:02:41
Speaker
but today we're talking about the death of several. And there's nothing gentle about death here. It doesn't whisper to the loved ones in this week's episode. Instead, it overcomes them and leaves them broken. Sarah Riot wrote, dying is like the ocean. Sometimes the tide comes in gently with soft, delicate waves quietly working in the background. Other days, the waves violently crash into explosions, demanding to be noticed.
00:03:07
Speaker
But regardless of how it chooses to do its job, the tide will always come in.
True Crime Podcast Mission
00:03:12
Speaker
This is the case of the Oakland County Child Killer.
00:03:49
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold. My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron. We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the cases will take those tips to law enforcement. So justice and closure can be brought to these families.
00:04:08
Speaker
With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, because as we all know, conversation helps to keep the missing person in the public consciousness, helping keep their memories alive. So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week. All right, Allison, before we jump into today's case, let's take a second or a couple minutes.
00:04:34
Speaker
to give everyone some love in this week's Love Notes with Maggie and Alison segment. Yes, love it. Okay, so this is absolutely my favorite part of the week. As you all know, Maggie and I
00:04:49
Speaker
are obsessed with checking for new ratings on so many of the apps that people use to listen. So when we see new ratings come in, we really do stop and celebrate each one. And while we appreciate each new five-star review,
Community Support and Engagement
00:05:06
Speaker
it is the written reviews like this one from Sea Verit, I think is how I'll say it, that we live for.
00:05:15
Speaker
Yes, here is what the review said, quote, I recently was selected to participate in the final voting for the People's Choice Podcast Awards. One category was best female podcasters. I know still, it's surreal, but I did not recognize any of the nominees. So I started listening.
00:05:35
Speaker
These two ladies have a great rapport. They are great storytellers and I enjoy listening to their personal input. I've been telling everyone I know to listen to them. Thank you. If you love true crime, you won't regret it." Thank you so much for that review and for voting for our podcast. Yes, and that was one review that I read about a bazillion times.
00:06:03
Speaker
Because I have, again, just, you know, start of school, being sick. I've been so tired this week, so it was really nice to read that and see that people realize the hard work that we put into this.
00:06:17
Speaker
show week after week and we want to say some special love or give some special love I should say to Dana, Bonnie, Lauren, Amanda, Catriona, sorry if I'm mispronouncing your name you guys know that
00:06:35
Speaker
that's a shortcoming of mine and our friends food and crime for reaching out to us via email um facebook and instagram and we also have a new patreon member tani so welcome to our patreon family and
00:06:52
Speaker
to know like as I'm reading this yeah I mean I don't know but I think it I don't know I mean that's such an unusual name but I'm pretty positive that my cousin Amy she's an RN worked with a Tawny and now I'm wondering if I know you in a in a roundabout way so now I need to know so if it's you let me know
00:07:13
Speaker
But regardless, either way, welcome to our Patreon family and you join just in time to hear three new minis and a new full solved episode that will drop here in just a few days or actually by
Case Details: Oakland County Child Killer
00:07:27
Speaker
the time you listen to this, it's probably already there. Yeah.
00:07:31
Speaker
That's right, because we just recorded all that content for you. Maggie is about to upload it. So if you are all caught up on Coffee and Cases and you need something to hold you over until next week, or if you just want some additional content, head on over to patreon.com forward slash Coffee and Cases, all one word, and join in on the fun for as little as $5 a month. The final bit of good news is that
00:08:01
Speaker
Coffee and cases is still in the running for best female hosted podcast category of the podcast awards, which is mind blowing. Yes. So just now, if you voted during the first round, just like the listener that gave us that fantastic review, you may have been one of the people selected to
00:08:21
Speaker
take part in the final ballot. So please do so. Yes. Check your email to see ours was in the spam folder. But if you were chosen for the follow-up voting for the final round, it's actually you guys who got us through this far. And I really want to see if you guys can help us take it home.
00:08:46
Speaker
And as we said before, you know, show some of these bigger shows out there that heart is more powerful than money. And while you're voting for Coffee and Cases for Best Female Hosted Podcast, I would urge you to vote for Real Life Real Crime for Best Male Hosted Podcast. All right, Maggie, I think I'm ready for today's episode though. Children, I don't know.
00:09:15
Speaker
Yeah, they were always hard ones. Yeah. So every week, though, is hard, honestly, because every case we talk about is sad because someone has lost somebody that they love. And we so badly want justice for the victims and for their families.
The Disappearance of Mark Stebbins
00:09:35
Speaker
Right. The facts stand true every single week. But in this case,
00:09:41
Speaker
um like the one we're discussing today that involve children that like urge for justice especially in a case like this where i mean i feel like there has to be somebody that knows something that call for justice rings even louder for me because we're talking about the murder of multiple young people so like this case just
00:10:09
Speaker
One makes me furious and two really just pulls at me like I feel like there has to be somebody out there that could give information to solve this case. Right. So this episode is going to be a little bit different for us because you know typically we talk about
00:10:30
Speaker
maybe one or two people this week, we're talking about four, there could have potentially been six different victims. So the background that we typically give, um, this week is not as long for this case because if it would have been, this would have been like a 10 part or episode. Um, so I tried to condense the background
00:10:54
Speaker
enough that it could be around the average length that we have for podcasts. But between February 15th, 1976 and March 16th, 1977, so like a year basically, two boys and two girls between the ages of 10 and 12 went missing like outside their homes within their communities in Oakland County, Michigan.
00:11:22
Speaker
Okay, so four within a year. Yeah, potentially some people say sick. Oh, I bet these parents are like, my kid is never going outside again. That's what I would end up saying. I would be like, I would have been like that. Yeah, I think I would have been like that from the beginning. But I don't think I would have let it get that this far for me to say something. But each child's body
00:11:49
Speaker
was discovered in a super public area and discovered pretty quickly considering some of the cases that we've covered after they went missing. The longest it took a body to be discovered was just 19 days. So not a long time. So whoever left them there wanted them to be found. Yeah. There's some weird little, this person has some weird little quirks.
00:12:17
Speaker
And we'll talk about them. Okay. But all of the children were either strangled or shot. All of the boys will have something in common. Some of their backgrounds, like the way they were raised, were very similar. But the four deaths that we're talking about today triggered a murder investigation, which at the time was one of the largest in US history.
00:12:45
Speaker
So it was reported on by Detroit's newspapers, numerous radio and television stations, all of which covered this case. And despite having multiple victims, these cases are still unsolved. And it's my hope that talking about this will help get us solved. Yeah, because now we're talking about the grief of multiple families.
00:13:13
Speaker
Right. I know there has to be a slip up somewhere in here by this person if you're murdering that many people. Right. That's why I feel like someone has to know something. Like I said, this episode isn't a typical one where we're talking about one incident. We're talking about four different incidents that
00:13:35
Speaker
revolve around one killer or we believe because we don't know but we believe they all revolve around one killer so before we jump into the theories and you know that typical stuff i'm going to take you um briefly through each child's disappearance a little bit about their background because i think that kind of helps narrow down like a profile okay and then um a little bit about their deaths as well okay
00:14:03
Speaker
So the first person we're going to talk about today is Mark Stebbins. He was 12 and he was the first child that went missing in connection to the Oakland County Child Killer.
00:14:18
Speaker
Mark was in the seventh grade at the time of his disappearance. So just like one of my little babies, his parents were divorced and he lived with his mother. So again, I just feel a very typical childhood
00:14:34
Speaker
in America. Mark grew up Roman Catholic. And according to many of the people who were interviewed around the time that Mark disappeared, he was often described as a loner. Okay. And you know, that's not
00:14:54
Speaker
really always a bad thing. I think we hear that word. Oh, right. You know, really weird. But I mean, some of the best kids that I have at school, I would probably describe as a loner. It's just more introverted and not, you know, super loud and just kind of keep to themselves. That's not always like, you know, a negative thing. Right. Yeah. His teachers did describe him as a good student.
00:15:17
Speaker
and he was pretty well liked by most of his peers just you know kind of kept to himself and right just did his own thing but on February the 15th 1976 Mark had phoned his mom to let her know that he was leaving the American Legion Hall to head home so he could watch some TV so it's just right after Valentine's Day yeah and I don't know what he was doing there like I guess maybe they have activities for kids maybe it's like the YMCA or something oh yeah it could be I'm not sure
00:15:48
Speaker
I mean, I know when we lived before we moved, they had an American Legion in their other city and they would have like pancake breakfasts that were free to the community and you know, stuff like that. So I'm wondering if maybe he was at one of those events. Right. But from all that I read, Mark seemed to have a pretty good and close relationship with his mom. I mean, he lived with her
00:16:13
Speaker
And they seemed to have a pretty open relationship about where they were going, what time they would be home, and that kind of thing. He would often go out of his way to help her, make sure that she knew he was going to follow through with the rules and the promises that he was making to her. He just seems like a sweet kid.
00:16:33
Speaker
Yes, I know. All of these all of these kids just seemed so good. But the two spoke on the phone around 1 30 p.m. So, you know, not late. And he says, hey, I just want you to know, I'm getting ready to leave. I'm going to go home and watch some TV.
00:16:50
Speaker
And he often walked from place to place. So his mom was just like, yeah, okay, that's fine. I'll see you in a little bit. And so she expected her son to be at home when she got there later on that evening. And he's 12. So again, it's not like she's sending a seven-year-old out on the streets. He's 12. So in 1976, 12-year-olds were probably doing a lot more independent things than 12-year-olds today are doing. Right, exactly.
Jill Robinson's Case
00:17:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:17
Speaker
But when Mark's mom arrived at home, Mark was nowhere to be seen and Mark never made it home. His mom waits as long as she can stand it. And then finally is like, all right, like it's 11 PM, you should be home.
00:17:38
Speaker
And he wasn't, so she made the call to the Ferndale Police Department at 11 o'clock to report her four foot, eight inch, 100 pound child was missing. And I know that's a phone call no parent ever wants to make. And to think, I'm sure even at this point, she's probably not thinking abduction. I mean, I know he's a good kid, but I would still be thinking, okay, maybe he went. I mean, my heart would be pounding.
00:18:06
Speaker
But I'd be trying to convince myself like, Oh, maybe he went, maybe he, you know, stayed longer or whatever. Because if somebody abducted him, that would have been they did it in broad daylight too. Yeah.
00:18:20
Speaker
And like you, I think that I would have just been like, you know, maybe something else was happening at the Legion and he wanted to stay, he ran into a friend. You know, I wouldn't want to hop directly into he was kidnapped in broad daylight. But she gives him time before she calls. And then more time passes as she waits for news about Mark's whereabouts. Days and days ticked by with little news or results in the search for Mark.
00:18:49
Speaker
And so finally at 1145 a.m. On Friday the 19th of 1976 a businessman left his office building and headed toward a drugstore that was located inside a mall and on his way something caught his eye like in the parking lot. So in the northeast corner is what I read in most sources of this parking lot.
00:19:18
Speaker
And of course, he would later report to the police that what he saw, he was pretty positive, was a mannequin dressed in a blue jacket and denim jeans. It's never a mannequin. Yeah, like Slootown's life lesson for you. If you see what you believe is a mannequin in a random location, please call the police.
00:19:44
Speaker
Well, and okay, so this guy discovers it, but this is in a, you know, not just, you know, I made a comment earlier, these bodies, whoever did this wanted them to be found, but this is not just found in a public parking lot of a mall. I mean, the chances of, yeah, of somebody seeing you, number one, abduct a child in broad daylight.
00:20:13
Speaker
Number two, dispose of this poor child's body in a public place. It's very brazen, this act. Well, I feel like they have to be very, like you said, you know, just real brazen or it's kind of almost like, and I'll see if you feel the same way towards the end, but it's almost like they kind of want to be caught. You know what I mean? I could see that already. Yeah.
00:20:42
Speaker
Yeah. And obviously this mannequin was not actually a mannequin. It was the body of a little boy and it was the lifeless body of 12 year old Mark.
00:20:56
Speaker
Allison, I did read in an article posted on a website called Click on Detroit that after Mark's body was discovered, police asked for people to come forward if they were in the area around that time. And you mentioned that this person is dumping the body at
00:21:13
Speaker
a very in a very easy location to be caught and at a very odd time right and we did have somebody come forward and tell police that he and his dog walk around that parking lot
00:21:29
Speaker
pretty much daily to get exercise. And he's like, usually we go on our morning walks between nine and nine 30. So they have a routine that they follow that particular day. The pair was walking at nine 30. So he's like, we're in, I was in this parking lot at nine 30. And not only was I in this parking lot, I was with my dog. My dog was on a 20 foot long leash because the parking lot is usually
00:21:54
Speaker
Pretty empty. So I just let my dog walk on this 20-foot leash around the parking lot while I walked as well and On this particular walk that day the dog found absolutely nothing of interest In fact, it was just a normal walk for the two now just
00:22:16
Speaker
As I believe so too did the owner but this dog would have and should have found Mark's body had it been there at the time of their walk. It definitely would. I mean you do not have to be a trained cadaver dog or whatever to find a body laying in the parking lot.
00:22:36
Speaker
when especially if it were that exposed. Right. Right. My dog Willow is a golden noodle. She has like two brain cells and I'm pretty positive. He would probably at least go up to this body thinking that it was somebody she could play with. Like she would have at least noticed that it was there. She may not have known it was dead, but she would know it was there and
00:22:58
Speaker
This dog found nothing. So if that's true, Mark's body wasn't there at 9.30, but it was there at 11.45 when he was found by the business man. So this means there's only like a two hour window in which someone would have been able to pull up and put Mark's body in the parking lot. Right. So it's not like they
00:23:20
Speaker
Even though he had abducted Mark in the broad day, in broad daylight, that he had disposed of his body, you know, that night or something like that. This was also done during the day. I get why you said it's almost as though he wants to be caught. Yeah, it's very weird decisions were made in almost all of these
00:23:42
Speaker
Well, in all of these. But per usual, everyone was super hopeful that the autopsy would reveal something that would be prudent to the investigation. But I did not find in all of my multiple pages of research really anywhere where the investigation was helped by the autopsy. If anything, they just had some more questions about some really weird things that came up in the autopsy. Okay, like what?
00:24:12
Speaker
Well, we know from the autopsy that Mark had been strangled to death and he was sexually abused with a foreign object. I never found any more details on that and I'm glad that I didn't.
00:24:25
Speaker
He had two lacerations to the left rear of his head. Rope marks were evident on both his wrists and ankles. So this to me says that he was bound for a while. More than likely he was held captive for a while before he was killed. And Mark's body had been washed. And I read in one place that
00:24:54
Speaker
They think the autopsy examiner washed it, but most places that I read believe that he was washed before his body was left in the parking lot. So because his body was clean, there were no fingerprints that we were able to lift from the body. Wow.
00:25:15
Speaker
And it makes me think the latter that the killer washed the body because of some details we'll talk about in one of the other children's case. So there's a connection.
00:25:30
Speaker
So we have one kid right now, 12 year old Mark, that has been kidnapped, killed, and left to be discovered in a public location. Jill Robinson is the next person we are going to talk about. And you will find a lot of similarities between her life and Mark's life. Jill's parents were also divorced at the time of her disappearance.
00:26:01
Speaker
She too lived with her mother just as Mark had Mm-hmm, but unlike with mark I was able to find that Jill and her father had a very close relationship like her father Made it his goal to visit her regularly at least once a month and they talked on the phone I don't know if mark had that same relationship with his dad I never found that in my research, but it was in almost all the research about Jill and
00:26:26
Speaker
Also, as with Mark, Jill was raised in a Roman Catholic home and was also described as a loner by most everyone that was interviewed or spoke about Jill. Interesting. So now, obviously we know now that Mark's case and Jill's case were connected. At the time Jill disappeared, or are connected. At the time Jill disappeared,
00:26:54
Speaker
They didn't know that, but in retrospect, I'm wondering like, could this have been in some way related to the church? Did they attend like similar church functions? I was thinking that right when you said that as well, because especially if they attended the same church, then obviously there would really be that connection that needs to be looked into.
00:27:21
Speaker
Or like Anthony's parents' church, the other church that's in their little town.
00:27:26
Speaker
They sometimes flip-flop like Sunday evening services. Their pastor will come to Anthony's parents' church and preach and their choir comes and then vice versa. So I'm wondering maybe if it was something like that that they connected them in some way. I don't know. But she was also described as a loner and despite her tendency to keep to herself, just as with Mark, Jill was very smart and her teacher said performed very well in class.
00:27:55
Speaker
Jill's mom Carol had three daughters and Jill was the oldest of those three. Okay. So just like most mother-daughter relationships, especially when they're in this tween, early teen stage, Jill and Carol often butted heads. And I feel like the oldest daughter is, or even only daughter, is always opinionated and always
00:28:24
Speaker
like headstrong.
Christine's Disappearance and Murder
00:28:26
Speaker
Oh yeah. My little flu sound is sassy. Yeah, she is definitely headstrong. Cause I know every time that my mom and I would argue when I was around Jill's age, it was because I was being stubborn and thought I knew more than she did. Oh, same. And I was always right. Yeah. And one such argument took place between Jill and her mom on December 22nd, 1976. And
00:28:53
Speaker
This is such, I feel, a mommy-daughter argument. The two were in an argument about biscuits.
00:29:06
Speaker
Okay. Like it's not anything super life altering. Jill isn't wanting to get her belly button pierced. They're arguing about biscuits. Oh my goodness. And I guess, I guess Carol had asked Jill to make biscuits for dinner and she was like, no, I'm literally not making biscuits for dinner and the two
00:29:29
Speaker
kind of went back and forth and it got a little bit heated. And Carol told her, you need to go outside, ride your bike, go for a walk, you need to cool down. And when you're cooled down, you can come back and sit down and be part of this family and eat dinner. But you need to basically get out of my face for a little bit and go off. Yeah. And that was just too much for Jill. She was basically like, screw you, and went to her room, packed up her clothes,
00:29:59
Speaker
and put a plaid blanket into her denim bag. And she was like, yeah, I'm going to leave and cool off. I'm running away.
00:30:06
Speaker
Oh no. So she left her house, but I'm pretty positive in Sherrilyn Marler, an episode we did a couple episodes back. Um, I talked about the reason that kids run away from home because she of course was originally thought to have been a runaway and it's things, little things like this that are in their minds, such big arguments and big inconveniences that some kids enter run away from home. And that was her plan. So she left her house dressed in blue jeans, a shirt,
00:30:36
Speaker
and an orange winter coat with a blue knit cap on with a yellow design on it because she's not stupid it's winter time so she's dressing appropriately and then she's leaving so she hopped on her bike very typical 1976 I feel like right yeah away from Allison I'm not sure if Jill did this very often but if I had to guess I would say she probably did
00:31:06
Speaker
Like, you know, I'm running away and then she would leave and be gone for a couple hours and then come back. I don't know, cause I didn't read that, but I felt in my research that Carol wasn't really worried when Jill rode away with like a little bag that she expected her to be back, you know, with an apology not long after leaving. So I think it must've been something that she did pretty often. Not really run away, but pretend like she's going to.
00:31:37
Speaker
But Jill never came back home to talk to her mom or to give her mom that apology. And I'm sure that that last conversation with Jill has haunted her mother. I'm sure she had to spell a lot of guilt over that. Oh, I totally would. Yeah. She shouldn't, but I get it. Yeah, but she's human. So I definitely get it.
00:32:03
Speaker
Jill's father, Thomas, wasn't as trusting as Carol. And when he called to talk to Jill later that night and she wasn't home, he was like, well, it's really late and she should be home by now. I'm calling the police. And at 11 30, he called the police to report that Jill was missing. Okay. So around the same time. Yeah. As Mark's parents, this is mom.
00:32:27
Speaker
And police began searching for her right away. Several people came forward with sightings of Jill in the early days of her disappearance. A family friend, which I feel would be very credible as, you know, saying, Hey, I saw her at blah, blah, blah. Oh yeah. Yeah.
00:32:47
Speaker
A family friend told police that they had seen Jill at a hobby store on Woodward Avenue just about four and a half blocks away from her mom's house the day that she quote unquote ran away. Okay.
00:33:01
Speaker
The next morning, two witnesses told police they saw Jill in the Donut Depot, also where I would run away to, on Maple Road between 6 and 7 a.m. So super early because you gotta get there. Maggie and Allison, if we run away, Krispy Kreme. Yep, 100% UK. Especially if the hot light's on. That's right.
00:33:24
Speaker
But each time the police went to investigate one of these locations, they found nothing concrete that would tell them for sure that Jill had been there or any signs of her. But we don't know where she stayed the night. Because, you know, there's sightings of her that night. Well, I guess we don't even really know if that's her the next morning. That they're true. Right. That's what I was going to say. I pretty well trust the family for inciting.
00:33:53
Speaker
I don't know that I would say I 100% trust the two random people because they could have thought another girl was Jill. And I feel that if that was me and there's a missing kid in my community and I'm at the donut depot and I'm like, oh, that kid kind of looks like Jill. I think I would go up and say, hey, are you Jill? Even if I don't know who's really worried. Yeah. Yeah. If I had just seen someone, I would say, is your name Jill?
00:34:24
Speaker
You look just like a Jill I know, you know, or whatever. And then at least alert the police, even if Jill didn't want to come with them. Right. Or I would like, yeah, like you just said, you look just like a Jill I know. And then she'd be like, oh, well, I am Jill. And then maybe I could tell the person behind the counter, you need to call the police. And then I'll try to keep Jill there until the police got there. But I mean, we say all these things, and we don't know how we would be in that true scenario. But I would hope I would be that way.
00:34:54
Speaker
Several days later on December 26, so she goes missing on the 22nd. This is now the day after Christmas. So gosh, the last one was Valentine's Day. This one's Christmas. Oh, I didn't even think about that. That's true. Oh, that just makes it tougher for the family. And both bodies found very quickly after their disappearance. Jill's body was
00:35:19
Speaker
much like marks found in a very public place, it was found along the side of I-75 North. And I-75 in any state that you go to is highly traffic, like there's lots of traffic on that thing. And from what I read, it wasn't like she was in the woods off of I-75. Well, from what I read,
00:35:45
Speaker
She was literally on the side of I-75, like on the roadway. So just like the other one, super public and like with no, no concern given to the fact that somebody could see. Right. So one's in the parking lot, one's on the side of a busy interstate. Wow.
00:36:11
Speaker
The killer had transported her to the location. She was still alive when she was brought to the side of I-75 just north of Big Beeper Road. And on the side of I-75, she was shot at close range in the head with a shotgun. On the interstate.
00:36:37
Speaker
That's how all the research made it sound, was that the shooting was happening literally on the side of the interstate. I never read where anything said, he killed her on the side of I-75. But everything said she was transported there. When she was brought to, yes, and that she was shot
00:37:00
Speaker
at close range with a shotgun. And you wouldn't do that inside a car. I mean, maybe, maybe for the murder, he took her into a more wooded area then brought the body, you know, to the side. But from what I read, it sounds like he just pulled over and put her out and shot her.
00:37:21
Speaker
Wow. She was found lying on her back fully clothed, not bound in any way, but she did have a ring of red like around her head. And police believe that Jill was actually well fed and cared for for at least three days before she was killed.
00:37:47
Speaker
So it's almost like he's taking care of her and then to kill her that callously, that's weird. Yeah. And there's so many in the other two, like similarities and oddities like that. But she
Timothy King's Tragic End
00:38:06
Speaker
too was washed clean with no fingerprints that could be lifted. Unlike Mark though, she was not sexually abused.
00:38:16
Speaker
in any way. That's interesting. Okay. And police didn't initially link the murders of Mark and Jill because, you know, Jill had not been sexually assaulted. Mark had, she'd been shot in the head. He had been smothered. Um, but the murders were like 10 months apart. So when these other two murders that we're going to talk about happen, then I think investigators start kind of clicking pieces. Right. Right.
00:38:44
Speaker
So the third victim we're talking about today is Christine Mahalik. She was 10 when she went missing on January 2nd, 1977. So right after New Year's. And like both Mark and Jill, Christine's parents were divorced and she lived with her mother.
00:39:09
Speaker
in their town in Oakland County. Christine was also described as shy and quiet by most people that knew her. So I feel like there's definitely a type. And she was also a pretty good student and had a couple really good friends. She was a fifth grader at the time that she went missing.
00:39:34
Speaker
And I'm guessing too, the reason some of the kids were described as loners or whatever, maybe I don't want to say would make them easier victims, but if they're walking, let's say home alone versus in a group. Yeah, that's true.
00:39:54
Speaker
Just like most kids her age, Christine was itching to be a grown up at 10. You know, everybody feels so grown up when they're, you know, they can use all their fingers until their age. Right. So on January 2nd,
00:40:14
Speaker
She begged and begged and begged her mom to let her go to the 7-Eleven to buy some magazines. And I want to say because her mom agreed to let her go, that has to mean that the 7-Eleven was close to their house. Probably, yeah.
00:40:29
Speaker
I don't see it being multiple blocks away, but she's finally like, yes, go to the 7-Eleven, get your magazine and come back really fast. Don't, you know, lollygag, get the magazine and come back home. Cause I'm going to worry if you're going for a really long time. And Christine's like, mom, please, I'm fine. I'll go get the magazine and I'll be straight home. Yeah, I'm capable. I will be fine. And so she leaves and heads out for the 7-Eleven.
00:40:58
Speaker
Hours passed though Allison and Christine never returned home and her mom fearing the worst and not wanting to waste any time actually called police only three hours after Christine left her house. Yeah I'd be that mom. Yeah because I mean you're walking to the 7-Eleven you're buying magazines and walking back it should not take you three hours to do that. Right. You should have been home. Right it probably would have taken 15 minutes.
00:41:28
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I'd have been freaking out at that hour point, I think. I don't even think I would have lasted three hours. Yeah. But sadly, Christine was found 19 days later on the side of a road by the local mail carrier. Now is this one also a super public place like the other two?
00:41:50
Speaker
Well, this one was described as more of a rural area, but she was placed in view of several houses. Like they could have looked out windows and seen her body on this road. Oh my goodness.
00:42:12
Speaker
Mm hmm. Wow. And she was found also in a very peculiar position. OK. She was found because remember we're in Michigan and it's January. So there was snow out. But she was found in the snow with her eyes closed and her arms folded across her chest. So in a very peaceful position. But she is she's been placed there. Yeah. Like that.
00:42:43
Speaker
Yeah. And they know from her autopsy that she was smothered less than 24 hours before she was found dead, which means she was held captive for like 18 days. Oh my gosh. So just like the last one, you know, seemingly cared for right before she was killed. Hmm. Hmm.
00:43:15
Speaker
You know, but yes, she cared for is a much is a better way to put that. Yeah, she was fed and kept alive for 18 days. Police said that there were around 18 days. Police said there were no signs of violence when they arrived at the scene and that she was in the same clothes that she left home in. So her body was on its back. Her knees were drawn up and her arms were over her little chest.
00:43:33
Speaker
Yeah, and I felt really weird topping that she was cared for because... Right, right, right.
00:43:43
Speaker
And the mailman said he first noticed her blue jacket in the snow. And that's when he pulled over and discovered that it was Christine. Wow. I can't imagine coming upon a scene like that either. And Christine was one of a growing list of children who had died in Oakland County over those few short, I wouldn't even say a year. Those are brands. Yeah.
00:44:14
Speaker
And so because of this, they're like, we've got to do something. So they formed a 35 officer team from non-different departments. They made this big task force and prosecutor Patterson, who was a part of this task force said it was quote, the strongest effort I've seen in this county, end quote, to find the person responsible for killing all of these kids. I mean, that is good that they all came together because I feel like that doesn't happen very often.
00:44:43
Speaker
Mmhmm. And I feel...
00:44:46
Speaker
People respond differently, I feel like, when it's children versus adults. There's just something different about that. Christine's mother, Deborah, said, quote, people kept talking about the Royal Oak Girl, meaning Jill Robinson. But I'm just not even going to think about that, end quote. So the mom's like, I can't even. She said that, like, about on January 5th. So not long after, Christine had gone missing.
00:45:15
Speaker
But she's like, I can't even think about there being any connection between this Royal Oaks girl and my kid. Wow. And her mom said in that same interview that Christine's two younger brothers kept asking her when she was coming home. That's when Christine was going to come home. I know it's so hard. I feel it would be so hard to describe
00:45:41
Speaker
that for your kid, like to let, to tell them what that is, to tell them what that is that she got kidnapped and that she may not come home. Like that would be so hard to tell anybody, but especially little kid. Yeah. Crazily shortly after her disappearance, a kid from the elementary school she went to went missing while at school and it set off like a frenzied panic.
00:46:07
Speaker
And so everyone thought that someone else had been kidnapped in broad daylight, but that kid was found on campus later that day and was safe. But obviously you can tell, I think I read that it took about 20 minutes for that kid to be found, but you can tell tensions are extremely high right now because so many kids have been gone missing.
00:46:31
Speaker
They reported that the parent pickup line was huge, like wrapping around the outside because the kids that used to walk home no longer were walking home after the disappearance of Christine, like all of that stuff. My kid would be walking. Yeah. No. Like Mark, Christine was suffocated. Like Jill, she was not in any way sexually assaulted. Hmm.
00:47:00
Speaker
Okay, so the girls not sexually assaulted. But you have the two different causes of death. The last person that we're going to talk about today because remember I said there were four potentially six.
00:47:16
Speaker
So I just did the four that we for sure knew about or that we for sure knew we're all connected. But the last kid that we're going to talk about is Timothy King, and he was last seen on March 16th, 1977. So like a month after Jill was gone missing. OK. I'm connecting all these holidays. Yeah. I'm telling you, I feel like you missed your calling. You should have been.
00:47:47
Speaker
like a profiler for the FBI. I pay attention to detail, unless it's in my own home, and then I'm oblivious. It's fine. When I'm looking at research, I can notice it.
00:48:00
Speaker
Unlike the previous four kids that we have talked about, Timothy, some articles also called him Tim. So I may, I may switch back and forth between those, but we're talking about the same person. But Tim's situation and like lifestyle personality is very much different from Mark, Jill and Christine. Okay.
00:48:26
Speaker
And I think I just said that he went missing a month after Jill, but it was a month after Christine. Okay. But unlike the previous ones that we have talked about, Timothy's parents were not divorced, so he still was living with both mom and dad. They lived in Birmingham, Michigan, which I did not know was a place until this research right here.
00:48:48
Speaker
and like but like all the other children timothy was raised in a roman catholic home so i feel am i good yeah there's a connection i feel am i good it's yeah there's a connection there i don't know is it coincidental maybe there's a high population of roman catholics in oakland county i don't know but i just feel there's a connection there
00:49:12
Speaker
Unlike the previous three kids who were described as loners, Timothy was described as the opposite by literally everyone that interviewed him. Timothy was that outgoing kid that loved sports, loved watching sports, loved playing sports, loved being outside, loved being with his family, loved being with friends. He was athletic. He was really popular in school. He was very well liked by his peers. People were always around him.
Suspects and Theories
00:49:39
Speaker
So quite the opposite of the other three that we've talked about.
00:49:42
Speaker
Which I think is kind of weird, but there's still a lot of similarities. Right. But on the evening of March 16th, Timothy left home with 30 cents in his pocket that he had borrowed from his older sister, Catherine. And today, 30 cents would buy you nothing because the Dollar Tree is not even the Dollar Tree anymore. Right.
00:50:04
Speaker
the $1.25 tree, which makes no sense, but okay. But he had this 30 cents in his pocket and he was headed to the local corner store. And he was headed to the local corner store to get some candy. Yeah, because he knows what's what. Yes, and if I lived close enough that I could walk to the candy store, I too would be taking a borrowed 30 cents to the candy store.
00:50:33
Speaker
I'd be moving some couch cushions to try to find some change for that candy. I would be like Charlie from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and pick up the quarter from the drain on the side of the street. That's right. That scene is etched into my childhood. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is
00:50:58
Speaker
I feel like such a big part of me growing up. I can remember me and my mom watching that movie every time it would come on TV and she would always make sure that I had candy and we would get it out and eat it at the park where they go into like the room that has the chocolate water fountain and we would open up all of our candy bars and eat it during that scene. That's so fun. Yeah. And I was always so jealous of all those kids that got to go to that candy store. Oh yeah.
00:51:24
Speaker
Cause the, it's just that little drink that they had with the frog on the top. I mean, it looked so good. So he's on, that's what I, that's where I picture that.
00:51:41
Speaker
This trip wasn't out of the ordinary for him though so he often went to the corner store for candy and on this particular day he left on his skateboard with his football and toe because remember he loves sports and he headed out to this Hunter Maple Pharmacy which was the corner store that had all the candies. Okay.
00:52:04
Speaker
A clerk named Amy Walters said that she sold Tim candy and he left through the back door into a dark parking lot around 8.30 PM. So he's out pretty late. I mean, not super late, but it's already dark because it's a winter time. Birmingham police chief, Jerry Tobin said, quote, whatever happened to Tim happened between the time he left the store and before he got home. It doesn't look particularly good at this time, end quote.
00:52:32
Speaker
So I don't think it would have taken him a very long time to skateboard to this little corner store. Right. So whatever happened to him happened to him pretty quickly, I would think. And this one is weird because I feel like it's a little later. Yeah, because all the other ones were potentially daytime.
00:52:58
Speaker
Catherine, the older sister, was out for the night. Tim's parents were also not home at the time that he went to the pharmacy.
00:53:05
Speaker
His older brothers were gone as well. One was babysitting and one was at play rehearsal. So for the very first time, it was reported, this would be the very first time that Tim would have been left at home alone for any period of significant time. So when his parents said, yeah, I go to the corner store, they knew he would be coming back to an empty house because they were going out and all of his siblings were going out.
00:53:32
Speaker
See, I don't like that. And Tim actually tells, yeah. And Tim actually tells Catherine, you know, be sure that you leave the back door open for me because I'll be coming back after you all have already left. Okay. Um, it's reported that Timothy's parents got back to the house around 9 PM. So, Oh, so not long. Yeah. Corner grocery. Yeah.
00:54:00
Speaker
And they do find the door ajar, just as Timothy had requested from Catherine, but there was no sign of Tim anywhere in their house. The King family immediately searched for him everywhere they thought that he might be. They called his friends, they searched the neighborhood, they searched surrounding areas. And then by 9.15 that morning, so the next day, the chief actually called in
00:54:30
Speaker
that task force requesting their full involvement. So by that point, they're sure something bad has happened. Yeah.
00:54:39
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And by that afternoon, so the day after Timmy went missing or Tim went missing, they actually established a headquarters there at the Adams Firehouse just a few blocks from Tim's home. And they did do door-to-door searches. They questioned some of his classmates. According to Click on Detroit, Tim was abducted on a Wednesday. By Thursday, there were 100 law enforcement officers
00:55:09
Speaker
from Oakland County volunteers. The Oakland County Sheriff's Department were all involved. They were using helicopters to search for him. They had special task forces out scouring the area. And that Thursday, the Kings actually stayed behind at home
00:55:32
Speaker
Um, they just said they just needed some privacy, but was very much hoping that Tim would come home to them that night. Wow. So law enforcement mobilized really quickly. And out of the four
00:55:48
Speaker
different kids that we've talked about today that with Tim I found the most information about the police investigation and I'm wondering if it's because they're like holy crap this is the fourth kid right you know yeah but days passed and the searching and longing for Tim to come home safely just kept growing and growing and growing
00:56:09
Speaker
Eventually, though, a woman came forward with some very important information. She said, you know what, I was actually at the pharmacy that day at the corner store and I saw Tim talking to a man in the pharmacy parking lot. So we have Tim and the potential abductor sodding. Hmm.
00:56:35
Speaker
She was able to describe the man that she had seen talking to the boy that we believe is Timothy King. This witness also described the vehicle that she thought the man was either driving or was in. I have never heard of this car in my life. A dark blue gremlin
00:56:59
Speaker
i feel like i've heard of a gremlin but i i don't know what it looks like but i feel like i've heard of it the only gremlin that i've heard of is from the movie the gremlins but this car had a white stripe on its side she said it looked like a hockey stick like the stripe did okay police say the man was between 25
Community Call to Action
00:57:20
Speaker
and 35 he was swiped with dark hair cut into a shaggy
00:57:27
Speaker
type style. He had Mutton Chop sideburn. So that's like Abraham Lincoln style, isn't it? Mutton Chops. A very fair complexion and was of a Husky build. Yeah. And like, I think, aren't they?
00:57:42
Speaker
like a mustache with basically the chin shaved off but your mustache and sideburns are connected and there's nothing on your chin. Is that a mutton shop? I don't know. I just know no fancy listeners that may have mutton shops but Anthony went through a phase where he was like I'm gonna grow up mutton shops and a girl at his school when they were in college had to do they did like a get to know me thing with the person beside you and she thought that Anthony drove like
00:58:09
Speaker
a truck and worked on a cow farm because he had these mutton shops and then he came home and shaved them off that day. That's funny.
00:58:19
Speaker
But this dude had munchops. He was fair complected. He was a husky build. And then he drove that car with the white stripe. As pretty much everyone in the area was involved in the search for Timothy, his dad Barry decided that he would make a public plea to his son's abductor on local TV. And I think these are so
00:58:45
Speaker
gut wrenching. I hate that any family has to plan out how they're gonna beg for somebody to bring their kid back. I know. But he made that public plea and in that public plea he said to Tim's abductors quote, I don't know if you have children or if you want them. Please treat Tim the same way you would treat your own children. Talk to him. He's a talkative kid.
00:59:09
Speaker
I don't know if you have a brother or want one, but Kathy, Chris, and Mark, those are Tim's brothers and sisters, said to treat him like you would a brother. But we want him back. Please send him back. Oh my goodness.
00:59:23
Speaker
Yeah. And even more sad, as you probably predicted, Tim was never sent back home and said on March 23rd, 1977, on a dirt road, just a short distance from a super busy intersection, a passing motorist stumbled upon the body of Timothy King. So again, off the side of a big road. Yep. Again, public.
00:59:51
Speaker
public place. He was in the ditch. He was wearing the same clothes he had been wearing the day that he left the pharmacy about a week earlier. And about 15 feet away from his body was the skateboard that he had left home with. What about the football? Do we ever know anything about that? You know, I didn't read that they found the football. But this, I mean, that was thought out to put his skateboard there by him. Yep.
01:00:21
Speaker
Unlike the other children we have talked about today, Tim's autopsy report actually revealed a good bit of information to the police regarding Tim's final days here on this planet. The autopsy report, and this was the kid that I felt really weird saying that he had been taken care of because he was held hostage and then killed. But, um, the autopsy report showed that Tim was fed his favorite meal of Kentucky fried chicken on the day that he died.
01:00:52
Speaker
Interesting. Like the other children, he was also cleaned and groomed before he was killed and placed where he was placed. And it was also discovered in his autopsy that like Mark, Tim had been raped while he was being held captive and he was suffocated to death in the end. So three of the four suffocated. The boys
01:01:21
Speaker
were sexually abused, but the girls were not. And these are just four victims of the same killer. As I've mentioned, there are at least a potential of adding two more kids to this list, though they have never been confirmed.
01:01:42
Speaker
So now that we've ran through those four we're going to talk about some of the theories and in full transparency all of these theories and much of the information regarding these theories I found in an article called the babysitter killer which is another name that people call this
01:02:05
Speaker
serial killer instead of the Oakland County child killer. So we're going to talk about, I think there's like five theories that we're going to talk about. So theory one is this person, Alan. So in the days and weeks that followed the death of Tim,
01:02:27
Speaker
a Detroit psychiatrist who was working with that task force that was formed received a poorly written and guilt written letter from this anonymous writer that was referred to as Allen. Hmm. Okay. This Allen claimed in this letter that he was pretty much a slave.
01:02:56
Speaker
for his crazy roommate Frank. And Alan says Frank is the Oakland County child killer. Alan wrote a pleading remorseful fearful letter about how he was losing his sanity. He was going crazy. He was endangered. He had developed suicide thoughts.
01:03:20
Speaker
to the point that it convinced this psychiatrist that this Allen person's letter was genuine. He's like, you can't make this up, this is real. Wow.
01:03:33
Speaker
According to Allen, he had accompanied this Frank on many road trips seeking out boys, but claimed that he wasn't present during the abductions for the boys that Frank had murdered. So he wasn't there when Frank abducted Tim or Mark. He also confirmed that Frank drove a gremlin.
01:03:57
Speaker
but he got rid of it in Ohio after all these murders and that it was never seen again after it was pointed out to police that that was his car. Allen stated in the letter that Frank was traumatized by the experience of killing children during the Vietnam War in which he and Allen served together and was seeking revenge against more affluent citizens of Oakland County.
01:04:25
Speaker
So he said that Frank wanted to see rich people suffer for sending the troops to Vietnam and essentially getting nothing in return. But the kids? Oh, I know. I know. Alan had instructed this psychiatrist to respond to the letter by printing the code code words like the weather bureau says trees to bloom in three weeks.
01:04:52
Speaker
and publish those in the Sunday free press edition of the newspaper. Hmm. This is so confused. Yeah. Yeah. Like this psychiatrist said, I feel it's so crazy that it almost has to be true. Like it'd be hard for somebody to make this up, but he's saying, say that you got this letter by putting this in the newspaper and I'll be looking for it. If I see these,
01:05:18
Speaker
like phrases, I don't know, you received my letter. And then we can make contact again. So they put that in the newspaper, that crazy thing about the trees blooming in three weeks or whatever. And this psychiatrist actually gets a phone call from Alan. So we moved from a letter to a phone call and Alan says, you know what, I
01:05:42
Speaker
really have to meet you. I have got to clear this off of my conscience. I can give you photographic evidence in exchange for a letter from the governor of Michigan that will guarantee me immunity when this goes to trial.
01:06:00
Speaker
Oh. So I'll give you photograph evidence that all these kids were killed by Frank if the governor will write a letter saying, I will have immunity when Frank is brought to trial. Wow. And they agree to that. They're like, yep, we'll give you this letter. You bring us those pictures and you'll get your letter.
01:06:22
Speaker
They arranged a meeting time at a bar that was called the Pony Court Bar. And it was near Detroit's Palmer Woods neighborhood. They show up, letter in tow, ready to get their pictures, ready to prosecute their guy. And Alan never showed up at the venue and he never reached out to investigators again. So that is theory number one. Theory number two is Archibald Edward Sloan. So three names, I'm just saying.
01:06:53
Speaker
And he was a pedophile who typically victimized young boys in his neighborhood at the time these killings transpired. So
01:07:03
Speaker
fits the profile as far as the two boys are concerned. He became a suspect in the Oakland County child killer case when hair samples were discovered in his 1966 Pontiac Bonneville and matched hair that was found on the body of Tim King and Mark Stevens. But I read that I guess there were other samples taken from the other victims and
01:07:32
Speaker
that DNA did not match the other victims, what was found on the other victims. It's believed perhaps that Sloan often lent his car to some friends that he had who just happened to also be pedophiles like him. So they're thinking maybe that car
01:07:56
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Maybe that car was used but then it makes me wonder did they check out these friends? Right. Or would he even name them? Which I doubt he would. Yeah. The third theory is John Wayne Gacy. Hmm. I know. That's what I thought interesting. As the child killings took place in Michigan the authorities considered the possibility that John Wayne Gacy
01:08:24
Speaker
the killer clown, right? Wasn't that what he was called? Yeah. Was perhaps also the Oakland County child killer. According to the witness from 77 that saw
01:08:39
Speaker
the person talking to Timothy. There were two men with him that day. The first suspect was described as a young man in his late 20s. And the other suspect was the one who was described to resemble Gacy. And this theory
01:09:02
Speaker
I didn't read in a whole lot of other places. Um, I think I'm pretty, pretty positive. I just saw it, um, in that article, the babysitter killer. But, um, he says that there were two people there, the one, the Husky build guy, and then the other one that resembled Gacy. And in this theory, it's believed that Gacy was in Michigan around the time of these murders. And so that's why some people think that it could have been him.
01:09:34
Speaker
But several DNA tests were conducted in 2013, they were around the the year 2013, and it confirmed that John Wayne Gacy was not the Oakland County child killer, though some people still believe. I was gonna say, so with Gacy, I mean he was
01:09:53
Speaker
like stocky, dark hair, all that stuff. He would have been around 35, I guess, when these murders took place. And I get the connection where people think he could be involved because of the sexual assault on the males, because obviously Gacy was known to abduct sexually assault and then murder young men. But
01:10:21
Speaker
from what I can tell. And I know that these years also are in the middle of his murder spree, but generally his victims were between like, I don't know, on average, probably between 16 and 19. And these are young kids. Yeah. So I don't know if it necessarily fits his MO.
01:10:50
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with you and they rolled it out with DNA, so. Right, right. I'm a stand behind the science. Yeah. So theory four revolves around this man named Theodore. He was a retired auto worker who was believed to be involved in a rather large child pornography ring in the 1970s. Hmm. Yeah.
01:11:16
Speaker
So on March 27th, 2007, investigators told WXYZ TV station in Detroit that Theodore was considered as one of their top suspects in the case. Um, he had pled guilty to 15 sex related counts that involved young boys. Wow.
01:11:34
Speaker
Yeah, disgusting. And rather than accepting a plea deal, which would have required him to take a polygraph test on the Oakland County child killings, he is like, nah, I'm good. I'm going to refuse that offer of your reduced sentence. And I'm just going to take my sentence and I'm just not going to do this polygraph test. That makes no sense. Unless he had something to hide.
01:12:03
Speaker
That's true. Otherwise, I'd be like, whatever you need to do to lessen my sentence, let's do it. And Mark's family was really upset about this. And in October of 2007, his family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Theodore and sought for $25,000 in damages.
01:12:27
Speaker
The lawsuit alleged that Theodore, who lived in the Detroit metro area in the 70s, abducted Mark, held him captive in a royal oak house for four days in the February time of 1976 before smothering him to death during a sexual assault against him. So very graphic. Yeah.
01:12:51
Speaker
um but Theodore had never been formally linked or charged with anything involving Mark's death and the Stevens family attorney said they were really just seeking compensation for funeral costs for Mark's brother Michael because I guess they're claiming that his death was somehow
01:13:19
Speaker
maybe intertwined with the death of his brother. But they stressed that the money was secondary to knowing obviously who killed Mark. And the last theory that I have for you today is Chris Bush. Okay. So eventually the case sparked new interest when
01:13:45
Speaker
Timothy King's father and his uncle tried to get the Michigan State Police to release information about this man named Chris Bush, who was the son of a high level executive at General Motors. So he's got connections. Right.
01:14:05
Speaker
Chris had been in police custody before Tim King's abduction for suspected involvement in a child pornography ring. What is wrong with people? Yeah, seriously.
01:14:17
Speaker
In November of 1978, it was alleged, so like a year later after all these deaths, that Chris had committed suicide. However, the strange thing that I read in that babysitter killer article was that no gunshot residue was found on his corpse and there was no sign of blood splatter. And this article said that he appeared to be wrapped neatly under his sheets. There
01:14:45
Speaker
weren't really any signs, I guess, of like a typical suicide. And so the King family is like, we want information about this dude. There's lots of things that, in our mind, connect him possibly to Tim. There was a drawing depicting a child screaming in agony that was found in Chris's house.
01:15:10
Speaker
And many people who have seen this drawing said that it was of Mark Stevens. Wow. And I guess because of his connection with the child pornography ring and potentially these other children. That's why people are saying that he committed suicide because he did not want to be connected to the Oakland County child killer.
01:15:32
Speaker
That makes sense. And since that time, Michigan State Police have released over 3,000 pages of investigation records to bury King Timothy's father. But I didn't see where the Kings have made significant progress with any of the information that they were given. Wow. So do you have any theories with any of that? I'm definitely not sold on the
01:16:01
Speaker
John Wayne Gacy. That one to me is out. I'm also not sold on Allen because I feel like, I don't know if he's talking about this Frank, his roommate who was traumatized because of having to kill children. I don't think if that's something that traumatized you that you would then go out and do it again as a way to cope with that trauma because I feel like that would heighten it. It would just make it worse.
01:16:29
Speaker
Um, the hair samples being similar in the theory number two, that is interesting to me. And I feel like is something that should definitely be looked into, especially because it's with the two boys. And we know both of them were sexually assaulted, right? Um, both of them were smothered. So the same cause of death.
01:16:58
Speaker
And so I think that's something worth exploring. And because of, I don't know, there just seem a couple outliers, especially in terms of the cause of death, like gunshot wound versus smothering. You know what I mean? I'm wondering if there were two people or you know what I mean? If it could possibly have been two people working together or whatever. That's interesting.
01:17:27
Speaker
Because I don't know, they seem too different to me. I do think it's weird. I guess my gut might actually be going to Theodore because I know he pled guilty to the sex-related counts involving young boys. He refused to take a polygraph even with the promise of a reduced sentence. Yeah.
01:17:56
Speaker
I guess I'm going to have to say that that's where my gut is leading me, even though the Chris Bush guy had the creepy drawing. I think though, even if it was like the car, the Chris Bush guy, the Theodore guy,
01:18:16
Speaker
They have had to slip up in some conversation somewhere and somebody has to know something that could give us a fresh look on this case. Death did anything but whisper to the families involved in today's case. Death screamed at them and took everything they held precious and true. Death ruined them.
01:18:38
Speaker
I say it's time we shout back at death. Someone listening out there knows something that could turn this case around. We have the power to bring law enforcement the name of the person or persons responsible for the death of these kids and potentially two more. Don't carry that weight around anymore if you have that information.
01:18:57
Speaker
come forward and help these families find closure. The following is a profile that was created for the man we're searching for. He was a male and may be living with another male. At the time, he would have been between 20 and 35 years of age.
01:19:12
Speaker
He's Caucasian. He would have had the capacity to store or keep his victims for at least 18 days. He has kept the victims during the following time periods. March 16, 1977 to March 23, 1977. January 2, 1977 to January 20, 1977. December 22, 1976 to December 26, 1976.
01:19:37
Speaker
February 15th 1976 to February 19th 1976. He has freedom of movement. He has no problem with his sexual adjustment. He may have difficulty relating to members of the opposite sex. He may have difficulty relating to other adults. He does relate well to young people. He could be someone that you may have been in contact with. If you know anybody that fits these characteristics,
01:20:05
Speaker
please notify your local police department, your sheriff's department, or your state police post. You can even call 313-644-3400 to the Birmingham Police Department and let them know that you have information regarding the Oakland County Child Killer.
01:20:28
Speaker
Again, please like and join our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast to continue the conversation and see images related to this episode. As always, follow us on Twitter, at casescoffee, on Instagram, at coffee cases podcast, or you can always email us suggestions to coffeeandcasespodcastatgmail.com. Please tell your friends about our podcast so more people can be reached to possibly help bring some closure to these families. Don't forget to rate our show and leave us a comment as well. We hope to hear from you soon.
01:20:58
Speaker
Stay together. Stay safe. We'll see you next week.