The Oakland County Child Killer /// Part 1 /// 232 | Forensic Files

well on a very basic level people who are from Detroit simply don't like to get pushed around I guess and and I got
tired of listening to the rhetoric surrounding the the investigation or the legend but alleged investigation into
the Oakland County child killings um there there are two possible reasons this case was never officially closed
and I I don't believe in the first one which which is that the incompetence of the investigation uh led to it remaining
open for for over four decades now the other the other reason this case was never officially closed was that it was
not meant to be closed and and I could tell from from very early on listening to the news stories about this case and
doing some initial reading there were certain people in in positions of power who didn't want this thing shut because
to shut the case means you have to come up with a conclusion and but on a very personal level this case anchored in me
very early on because when I was a kid somebody tried to snatch me while I was walking home from the Century Drugs that
that used to be at Evergreen Plaza they called it over at 11 Mile and Evergreen in Southfield which is outside of
Detroit nothing happened somebody I thought was a security guard had followed me out of the store gotten into
his car followed me for three blocks and and then later tried to get me into that
car I ran away I never told anybody and as an adult I started thinking of the time period in which this attempted
snatch of me happened and and it was the same time period in which the uh Oakland
County child killings were occurring 76 77 and the same MMO people thought uh snatching kids from outside little strip
malls they speculated that it was somebody acting as in a position of power like a security guard or police
officer [Music] thank you [Applause] thank you [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
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a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] people from Michigan often describe
their state as a mitten they hold up their right hand and point to where they live on their Palm
in regards to this week's case they would show you the location of Oakland County by pointing to the base of their
thumb sounds odd but ask anyone from Michigan and the Hand will come up Oakland county is near Detroit
in the 1970s it was a county that had very high paid Executives as well as many middle class blue-collar workers
this combination provided both great schools and a safe environment but Oakland county is not famous for the
schools or the industry it is Infamous for the serial killer who found his prey there
[Music] this week we are talking about the case of the Oakland County child killer it is
a 40 year old unsolved mystery where in 1976 and 77 children were abducted and held for days then they were murdered
and staged the killer stole these kids off the streets before holding them captive
fed them and took care of their physical needs while at the same time torturing them
the bodies were not tossed out or dumped like garbage the killer cleaned them and placed them
in public places the bodies were easy to find but the killer was not what happened to him
some have speculated that the killer committed suicide taking his secrets to the Grave
some believe that just like the boogeyman he terrified us and vanished back into the Shadows
years later people began to wonder was this the work of something bigger something even more Sinister than a lone
killer [Music] [Music] Mark Stebbins lived in Ferndale Michigan one of the many hamlets inside Oakland
County Ferndale is primarily residential with a smaller commercial and Industrial
sector in the southeast part of the city ferndale's business district is anchored
by the intersection of Woodward Avenue and Nine Mile Road where privately owned storefronts dance clubs bars and
numerous restaurants are featured in the 1970s the Ferndale suburb Community emerged as a place for families to raise
children during the baby boom era with its elementary schools a Downtown City Parks active churches and Civic groups
it was a small town just like the other towns where these victims lived peacefully up until the day that they
were taken Mark was born September 13 1963. now in 1976 Mark was a seventh grader at Lincoln Junior High he lived
with his mother after his parents split up when he was just five years old besides his mother Mark lived with his
older brother Michael Mark was an average 12 year old boy in just about every way he was four foot eight inches
tall and weighed about a hundred pounds but life was about to change for everyone in Oakland County yeah this is
going to be Sunday February 15 1976. this would turn out to be a rainy day but it was quite warm for the season
Mark's mother Ruth wanted to attend a work party at the American Legion Hall so mark his brother Michael Ruth and her
boyfriend drove the three blocks to the hall when they arrived there was a pool tournament in progress but watching
adults drink and play pool only entertains a 12 year old boy for so long so Mark before the party was over asked
his mother if he could head home he wanted to go home and watch television his mom was hesitant but she did allow
Mark to leave alone Mark then asked her for a quarter so he could buy some ice cream at the store next door to the
American Legion his mom reminded him that he had just received his allowance and said no now his brother offered to
go along with him but Mark he was 12 and he said he would be fine by himself at 12 25 pm
Mark Stebbins walked out of the hall alone sometime in the 7 PM hour Ruth tried to call Mark at home but there was
no answer this did not raise any alarms and probably shouldn't have but she so she's not worried and she
continued to enjoy the party at nine o'clock she returned to an empty house now this put her on edge a bit but
she figured she would wait one more hour to see if Mark would come home he did not and at 10 o'clock Ruth called the
police and reported him as missing the police responded to the Stebbins house not expecting anything more than a
runaway or a kid who lost track of time the police informed her we haven't had any kidnappings in Ferndale in 10 years
but nonetheless the search for the 12 year old boy began they searched abandoned buildings and
other stops popular with the kids but nothing turned up and he never came back and then the hours turned to days the
walk from the American Legion to Mark's house was only three blocks what could he have encountered on such a short walk
home unfortunately four days later they're going to find his body yeah this is on Thursday February 19th at
approximately 11 40 a.m when a man is out picking up lunch from the Fairfax Plaza office building he spotted a body
lying on a pile of leaves near the building's dumpster the man found Mark Stebbins body curled on a snow bank in
the fetal position it appeared that the body was placed there gently the odd thing here Captain this is not a
secluded location it is and was an active office building with people coming and going all day long right so
the perpetrator could have been seen by anybody yeah this killer was bold enough
to remove mark from whatever kind of vehicle he was driving and place the body in a location where he the Killer
could have been easily spotted or at least his vehicle seen by somebody on the extra time that he's going to be
taking to place the body in a certain position this spot is only two and a half miles from Mark's house but even in
that short distance we have a different police jurisdiction so the victim Mark lived in Ferndale but his body was found
in Southfield this is another town in Oakland County and one has to wonder if this is done on purpose yeah would the
killer have been aware of this uh did he Place Mark there knowing that it would involve another Police Department
so the Southfield Police arrived to find Mark the scene was like no other upon the first review of Mark there were
several things that jumped out at the officers Mark appeared to be clean Mark was wearing the clothes he had on the
day he disappeared his jacket was zipped up and his hood was pulled over his head
the Southfield Police radioed in the information that they had found the boy's body this quickly got back to
Ferndale police and they realized that their missing persons case just became a murder investigation
the Ferndale police showed up at the office building and started to process the scene this is hard to believe
knowing today's practices but remember we have two different police departments working this one crime scene well and
remember it's the late 70s I mean doctors used to smoke in the hospital well and in this area too Captain
neither of these police jurisdictions neither of these departments had much experience in murder cases so rather
than process the scene believe it or not the Southfield Police removed Mark's Body this is just wrong of course but
they take the body to the police station not to the morgue to the police station
then they decide to remove Mark's clothes at the police station then after sending the body to the morgue they go
back and processed the scene back at the dump site they decide to involve a local
psychiatrist this is Bruce Danto he was brought to the scene to create a profile
of this killer but he had a a better idea or at least a better idea that he thought to him yes so he suggested that
they place a life-size child's mannequin wearing similar closes Mark in the same
spot so let's stop here and review shall we well first of all what the hell does
that have to do with profine the perpetrator well he's brought into profile and I think what he thought was
let's see if we can get the killer to return to the scene and we'll just arrest him on the spot and I we won't
need to come up with any profile so I know that this whole thing sounds like a very weird technique but it's not unique
it's not a unique technique so let me just see if I'm hearing you right okay so the idea from this doctor is that
we're going to take this mannequin and we're going to place him in similar clothes or the same clothes no similar
clothes similar clothes and we're going to put them in a similar position and it's kind of out in the open we know
that sometimes Killers will go back to where they dump victims to kind of see has the victim been found yet
so their idea is that the the suspect will come back and when he comes back we'll arrest him on the spot correct
okay and and like I said though it sounds weird but it's not a technique that was unique and I mean that for the
time period I don't know that they would do something like this today or I can't
find anything recent where they did something like this today but we know that in the Michigan murders in the case
it's often referred to as the Michigan murders they use this technique they've used it in the Green River Killer case
as well as the Atlanta child murders right now question would you sign up for this special Duty
because that's what they call it they'd have special Duty where police officers would have to wait in their vehicle
somewhere looking for the suspect to return of course of course so like in the you get the Donuts I'll get the
coffee but here's the reason why I think that he decided to do this or at least suggested it was because the Michigan
murders took place in 1967 through 1969 right and that was when Ann Arbor brought in a man named Peter hercos to
assist he had he had assisted in the Boston Strangler case so they brought this dude in and say look we got a
serial killer and we need to try some things to try to figure out who this guy is now I don't
recall for certain whose idea it was but it was likely hercos's idea that they employed this technique in the Michigan
murders the idea as you said that the killer would return to the bodies um I'm guessing my guess here captain and I
would be willing to wager a hundred dollar bill bill and six pack of beer the Danto the guy brought in on the
Oakland County case on Mark Stebbins murder had studied the Michigan murders case and was taking a tactic from that
and whether or not you think this is a genius idea or a dumbass idea what could it hurt really right well
other than destroying the crime scene it doesn't hurt much well but if you process the crime scene properly in
advance right but here's the problem with it with using this technique uh or tactic in this particular case so the
main there's two main reasons why the killer will return to the body the first being in in actually most of the time it
being sexual for sexual reasons the killer will return to the body there's also investigative where the
killer wants to see why nobody's found the body right the problem with this situation is this situation is unique in
that most of the times when the in fact the the investigations that we just discussed the Michigan murders the Green
River Killer the Atlanta child murders and there's more but the bodies that they were returning to
were secluded they were in the woods they were hidden this this body is left out in the open so returning to the body
for sexual reasons means you're going to have to bring the pick up the body and take it with you you know it seems
unlikely that a killer would dump the body in a very public open location not secluded and then choose to return to it
yeah and you got to be pretty Brazen to return to open area and then drop trial and it almost seems usually when a
killer will leave a body in a very public place like this that psychologically for some reason it's
almost a sign of of that maybe they want the body to be found sooner rather than
later for some some unknown reason yeah you'll wonder if that is um kind of a control thing like I'm letting you find
the body well we could go through our thoughts on the actual crime scene but the general report is simple they just
took a crime seen that they could have produced something and they destroyed it so Footprints fingerprints and fibers
were destroyed they had nothing and we will get back to this in a minute the medical examiner's findings were as
follows Mark had been alive well fed and cared for during the time he was missing
about four days presumably by his killer or someone involved we say cared for for
a lack of better term someone who is kidnapped and later killed is never really cared for by the perpetrator
the cause of death was strangulation this could have been any number of ways some suggest it could have been as
simple as covering Mark's nose and mouth with a hand or hands or a bag placed over his head they found a large wound
on the back of Mark's head they concluded this was from either from the car trunk slamming down on his head as
he was thrown into the trunk of the car right or it could have been from the killer striking Mark in the back of the
head with a shotgun this was violence that Mark had experienced in the first few hours of the abduction Mark was
sexually assaulted with an object what object we do not know but this would be important so police could find could
they could possibly look for this item as they investigate the case Mark was bound and likely for a good length of
time we know this because he had rope burns on his ankles and hands further digging we find that it was determined
that The Binding marks on on the wrist and ankles were believed to have been caused by an eighth or quarter inch Bell
Telephone type wire his body was bathed his nails were cleaned and trimmed and this leads to
several questions right Captain one did Mark struggle with his abductor scratching him leaving evidence under
Mark's fingernails and the killer then decided to clean and trim the nails was Mark bathe before or after he was killed
did this killer tell Mark he was safe and taking him home convincing Mark to bathe and put on his clean clothes to
meet his parents after this nightmarish four days these are all good questions that anyone
who has studied this case has likely pondered right you want the answers to these questions well here you go well if
we have the shotgun attack on the back of the head and they think that happened early
and the abduction maybe is that how he got Mark into his car if he's posing as a security guard or a
police officer and he gets this young kid to turn around put your hands on the car crack him with your shotgun or a gun
and then put him in the vehicle well let's provide a few answers to some of those questions okay because this is
reported just wrong and it has been reported wrong for 40 years so why here's the truth
okay Mark was washed cleaned uh closed washed and cleaned no evidence or mess was found that has always been what was
reported because of a report prepared by Lauren Doan of Springfield p e the truth is and
this is taken from this week's recommended reading the kill jar that on February 20th 1976 evidence collected
from The Mark Stebbins scene was received by Charlotte day at the Michigan State Police crime lab and
reported on March 2nd 1976 as chronicled in that report on the body of Stebbins his blue parka with blood stains on the
hood blue jeans soiled with dirt and oil from the parking lot where he was found
Trace fibers of white wool red wool blue wool and yellow or gold carpeting one human hair whose Source was other than
Stebbins was found rodent hair and dog hair on all outerwear an unknown source of decorative blue paint on steben's
left rubber boot urine and fecal stains in his underpants soil and perspiration stains on his
T-shirt Stebbins red sweatshirt was stained with blood now that's a completely different report
than we found no evidence and the boy was washed and cleaned his clothes were washed and cleaned right just if you're
wondering you shouldn't find any of that stuff after you wash clothes right right
uh yeah so a completely different report why I think it has to do with several things here
likely won the mishandling of the body remember we said that the body was sent to the police department before it went
to the morgue right the clothes were removed from the body before it went to the morgue so I'm guessing here that
what you have is you have two different reports conducted by two different people at two different locations and
they each have different findings one finds a messy body with evidence on it all over it and the other finds a clean
body with no evidence well maybe one of them's processing the dummy well what has always made its way to the media and
to documentaries regarding this case this 40 year old unsolved mystery is the clean version that no evidence was found
that the body was cleaned so for the next 10 months Captain the south field in Ferndale police investigated they
called in The Usual Suspects the registration of sex offenders would not start for another 20 years but they
would round up the local sex perverts and they were checked out yeah you gotta round up the local flicky flickies but
uh the other thing here though is this if you're gonna if you're gonna profile this suspect
having a clean victim washed and bathed and closed clean and now a dirty victim with dirty
clothes you would profile this killer differently oh of course I think the thing to hone in on is the the four days
the 96 hours that someone held Mark captive so let's think about that how do you hold a child for that long from the
afternoon of Sunday then all of Monday Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday morning can you go to work during that time can
you do this by yourself or do you need someone's help and where do you live that you can bring
a child to your house without suspicion and hold them there for that many days [Music]
[Music] all right we're back cheers mates cheers captain on Wednesday December 22nd 1976
12 year old sixth grader Jill Robinson and her mom agreed on one thing that they had had enough of each other they
lived in Royal Oak another town like Southfield and Ferndale this is about 10 minutes from where Mark Stebbins body
was found Jill's dad Tom had divorced the mother a few years earlier now she had a long day already and now she was
rushing to get dinner on the table before going to church Jill's mom asked Jill to make biscuits for dinner and
Jill was known as being a smart and stubborn girl she was having a bad day too so Wednesdays are supposed to be the
days that Jill would spend with her father he would get her after school and they
would have the evening together well Tom failed to get Jill on this Wednesday no
surprise surprise and now she is stuck with her mom and sister for the night not exactly what she wanted
she was also not sleeping well lately because she was having this reoccurring nightmare this nightmare was so
concerning to Carol that Jill was seeing a psychiatrist to help uh help her through this problem what was the dream
about the nightmare that she was having I don't know exactly what the nightmare was but she's stating that it caused
Jill to have fear that someone was going to shoot her to death and she would be shot at some point in her life Jill
refused to help with the dinner and an argument started between the two Carol was at her breaking point and she looked
at her daughter and she shouted get out which was heard loud and clear Jill grabbed her denim backpack and she was
going to take off she filled she filled the backpack with her hairbrush a blue and green plaid blanket some makeup some
underwear and two books no so she's gonna go live out on her own not exactly the the first book is a first edition
Little House on the Prairie book this one had an inscription from a family member that gave it to her as a gift the
second book she checked out of the library which was a Nancy Drew mystery these books are very important Clues now
Jill before leaving is going to put on winter clothes it was below freezing outside and as she was leaving she told
her younger sister that she was going to their father's house she slammed the door behind her now
her father's home is approximately six miles away so she grabbed her bike she loved her bike it was a high-speed brand
20 inch frame purple with chrome fenders it had a white banana seat sounds like your bike she hopped on her bike and she
was gone Jill's mom waited an hour and went outside to look for her Carol thought that she would find Jill sitting
out front of their house ready to apologize but when she got out there there was no sign of Jill
so Carol called Tom Jill's father and when he told her that she wasn't there and he had not seen her Carol
called the police and reported her missing the police began searching they checked if she had stopped at any stores
and they interviewed a bunch of people Jill was seen by a family friend at about 7 30 PM near the Tiny Tim Hobby
Center they didn't find anyone who saw her after this nothing the police found nothing else until the next day
this is when the police found her bike in the 160 block of Washington Street it was leaning against a tree the police
started searching the neighborhood when a local teenager came up to them and informed them that they had found the
bike he and his friends somewhere else and they had been out joy riding it through the area before leaving it at
the tree so the police went to 1523 North Main Street this is where the boys said that they had originally found the
bike the address was for a building and a business area the bike was found at the rear of the building according to
the boys now this would be a concealed area behind the building about a three-quarters of a mile from Jill's
home it was in the direction that she would have traveled if she was in route to her
father's house I won't put too much emphasis on where the bike was found or where it could have been during the
course of that day because we now know all these years later that we have many reasons to believe that the bike was
moved several times throughout the course of this time period before it was found by the police well first of all
the police need to tell these kids look what you did you little jerk don't move a bike it's not yours that's stealing
long days passed as everyone searched for Jill now the day after Christmas Sunday December 26 1976 at 6 30 a.m four
days after her disappearance a motorist driving Northbound in Troy Michigan saw her body on the I-75 shoulder he got on
his CB Radio and contacted the police he reported this but was gone by the time that the police had arrived the police
arrived to find a girl who was shot in the face and killed it appeared she was shot Point Blank the police reported a
Halo of crimson around her head Jill's body was placed in the snow fully clothed with her backpack still on her
there was a light layer of snow on the body this location was not shielded in any way anyone driving down the road
could have witnessed this murder or The Dumping of the body in fact Jill's body was within Sight and Sound of the Troy
police station no one at the police station heard or saw a thing but there was a witness the
witness was driving his car on Highway I-75 at 3 30 in the morning when he spotted a 1971 Pontiac Le Mans idling on
the highway shoulder the witness slowed down and merged into the left lane as he
approached the Le Mans the Le Mans slowly pulled onto the road the witness was adamant to the police that it was in
fact in 1971 Le Mans because he had once owned the same vehicle similar vehicle the witness offered up specific details
regarding the vehicle there were primer spots on the left side and a broken left
tail light Jill's body was transported to the morgue and an autopsy was performed she
was fully clothed she still had her backpack on the two books were missing her body was bathed and her nails were
trimmed and clean Jill had been quote cared for and fed during the four days that she was missing Jill was also
placed where she was found not dumped or thrown I think it's fair to say we have the right to question the last
few items that we stated here you know we we saw in the mark Stebbins incident that one thing is reported and another
thing actually happened regarding the body yeah if there's urine and feces those clothes weren't washed the cause
of death was from a shotgun blast to her face while she was lying on her back so
she was killed where she was found she had died the same way that she had feared that she would or at least what
she had told her mom and the psychiatrist wait go back to that so you're you're claiming
that they're stating that she was killed where she was left yes but this eyewitness that saw the car leaving the
scene did not hear anything did not hear anything and there's also no other reports of hearing anything
right and like I said the Troy police department is within an earshot yeah shotgun blast you're going to there's
going to be somebody reporting that what what makes them believe this if nobody heard it then there's no one to report
it mm-hmm I'm just saying what other evidence did they have to make it them think that the the actual Death happen
where well where the victim was I had reported the Crim the Halo of crimson above her head so that would be the the
blood being blasted out of her I mean I can't put it there's no nice way to put it the
blood being blasted out of her head as she was shot in the in the in the face with the shotgun
uh the crown of her I was going to leave this out of the story but uh since pushed for an explanation the top of her
head was located there as well did they do an autopsy to find out if she if there was regulation
at all um look it's the report is the same as with Mark and what we will see with the other
two victims as well the public the public reports of these are not the actual findings not the actual police
findings right and all of these situations we're going to be told and at some point it became like almost like
lore like like local Legend right that this mystery of a killer who's who's so smart and so tactful that they decide
you know what I'm gonna I'm going to abduct children off of the streets um and these are middle class kids too
I'm going to take these kids and I'm going to keep them do whatever I want and I'm going to clean them scrub them
clean to the point where you can't find anything on me you know they want the there's this
portrayal of some kind of Genius child killer that was stalking the area right and really as we saw with the mark
Stebbins case that wasn't the case that's not how the body was found right but we see this a lot in the the 60s 70s
80s 90s 2000s and and it's really just starting to turn over now where this idea of these genius killers and these
genius serial killers like if this guy was such a damn genius then why is his tail light busted
you know I mean if in fact that was the car that dumped the body or right placed
her there and then shot her there right but again here's a here's folklore taking over going uh not this guy's an
evil genius and he grabs these victims and he cleans them up and you'll never catch him you brought up a great
question though was there any sign of possible strangulation I believe that there was and and I have
not much to base this off of at all but my here's what my suspicion is she was laid on her back and her backpack was
found on her I think that somebody one of two things possibly happened I think that this individual that was dumping
her body there on the side of the highway took the shotgun along with them for two
reasons one in case they needed it to use it on the victim and two if they needed it for protection of themselves
okay so picture this he's walking he or they are carrying the body of of a girl that they have already strangled
that they believe to have been dead right and they're going to put her in the snow place her off the side of the
highway and then get back in the car and drive on right now I think one of two things happened they lied her down they
laid her down on her back and they said that her backpack was found still on her
back so I think that either a she wasn't actually dead and when they placed her on the ground
she came to and took a breath and it scared them and they shot her there and then or
she was in fact dead they placed her down and because of the backpack it may have made the cause the body to move in
a way or even push out air from the lungs where they would have the same reaction they would think maybe she was
still alive and react the same way using the shotgun there and then okay you want
to know the fact what's that you wanna know the fact Jack but that came out a little hairier than I
thought it would here's the fact Jack this is what I believe I believe like you said
perfectly is that she was strangled before she was strangled at this suspect's house she
was dead she was in this person's possession for four days what was the biggest thing going on in
our life or one of the biggest things going on in her life she's seeing a therapist about these nightmares of
being shot and killed and I think she was dead and I think this killer went out of his way
to bring a gun to shoot her in the face as a sign to the parents as at like I got to know her
and that's what I believe right I think this person I think this killer knew about these dreams and and thought they
were clever in some way well I think that goes with the profiling as well we're we're not talking you know let's
stop calling these people Evil Geniuses but this person does have some intelligence and they do have some
thought process on what's Happening and what's interesting here is you have one body that's found in the fetal position
and one body that's found face up right with the book bag on and I wonder if that's some kind of clue that they're
trying to leave because they took their time to put these bodies and their wide open
spaces right but they're taking their time to almost place the body that's there's some thought process or possibly
again that could just be the way that it's reported what we learned with the first murder is you can't we can't trust
the reports on the mark Stebbins case so I don't know that we can trust all of the
you know it it almost looks to me more like Mark was just dumped not not really placed with a whole lot of thought and
it could be and it could just be reported that way oh well he was found kind of in the fetal position right and
I think I here's the one thing that we cannot uh dispute you know you got to look for actual
scientific fact in these things and so what we're going to go ahead and talk about here is we the the layer of snow
that was on Jill is going to tell us what time she was approximately killed because it it didn't start snowing until
about 3 A.M that night okay so they would they would determine that she was killed between three and six A.M
that helps us out a little bit scientific fact we know about what time it started to snow well we know
not killed possibly but we know when the body was left in that spot correct correct
um there was no sign of sexual abuse found with Jill um some so the cause of death
uh lack of sexual assault different gender different victim gender and the location was enough to keep these two
murders unrelated as far as police are concerned at least for the moment so now Captain what we
have is we have police from four different agencies working these cases Troy police Royal Oak police they are
working the Jill Robinson case right while Ferndale and Southfield are working the mark Stebbins case now again
gut your gut feeling here is does this person know does the suspect know does the killer know that they're leaving
them in different areas under different jurisdictions it's possible it's very possible it could
also be possible that the victims were victims of opportunity for the killer uh that they went out trolling around
looking for somebody walking alone and that's who they took and presumably did the same thing when it
came time to dump the body I'll drive around and look for a spot where nobody is and if it happens to be out in the
open then boom I gotta park my car and get this thing on the side of the road very quickly well there's another two
victims so I think that's gonna lead us down more of a funnel a week after Jill's body was found Christine
mihelik vanished she was a 10 year old fifth grader who lived in Berkeley Michigan another Detroit suburb on the
day of her disappearance Christine was helping her mom around the house she already had run an errand for her mom
that required her to cross 12 mile this is considered to be a busy street to most So Christine asked her mom if
she could run to the 7-Eleven across 12 mile she'd love to paper her walls with the pictures from the hottest teen
magazines the new Teen Superstar magazine had just come out and she wanted to pick up this issue who you
think was on the cover uh this was Donnie and Marie Osmond that was going to be my guess her mom had trouble
saying no to Christine she didn't really want her to go but she had already sent
her off on an errand for herself across this busy road and so now it's going to be tough to say no to her so
she lets her go to go pick up this magazine she even gave her two dollars so that she could pay for it now it was
around 27 degrees that day so she put on her baby Blue ski jacket over a white blouse and gray jeans it's about a five
minute walk for her when Christine was not back in hour her mom started to panic she contacted the police and
Christine's father the police checked with the clerk at the 7-Eleven and found out that Christine made it to the
7-Eleven store and in fact had purchased the magazine this would be around 3 P.M
so the search for her began immediately after finding out that she had made it to the store but not returned home
it was a full-on search the parents hit the streets looking for her her father he was he was out on the streets with
his gun and his belt looking for his daughter we had two missing children that showed up dead the police were
stopping cars and investigating every possible lead the neighbors of the mihalix started collecting money in case
of a ransom demand the the total was up to seventeen thousand dollars in just a couple of days the parents and
grandparents went on TV begging to whoever to allow Christine to come home the search in the media attention stayed
strong for 19 days for the 19 days that Christine was missing let's emphasize that one more time 19 days over two
weeks almost three weeks Jerry wozny a an 11 year old veteran of the postal service was following the same route
that he did every day when he saw tracks leading about six feet off of Bruce Lane
there he spotted what he thought was just a blue blanket as he approached this and got closer he noticed that a
hand and knees were sticking out from it terrified he jumped in his mail truck and he went to the closest police
station wozni told the police that the body was snow covered except for a hand in her knees sticking out Christine's
father received a call at work from a reporter nice that that's how you get notified
about your daughter's body being found her father drove through a blizzard to the state police station in Pontiac
Michigan he arrived in time to see his little girl's frozen body lying on the metal autopsy table and then did he
punch somebody in there freaking face for not letting him know he did not after defrosting the coroner
was able to perform the autopsy she was dressed in the clothes that she was kidnapped in they had been cleaned and
pressed like the other two victims She was recently bathed and her fingernails had been cleaned and trimmed the cause
of death was Suffocation there were no signs of sexual assault or blunt force trauma they ruled that she had been
killed within 24 hours of the discovery that means that she was alive for at least 18 of the 19 days that she was
missing there was one thing noticed about Christine's clothing that the parents of
the other children did not mention Christine's mom was adamant that Christine did not dress herself the way
that her body was found she cites two reasons one her pants were tucked into her boots and two her blouse was tied in
front instead of in back or may have been put on backwards right these are two signs that might at least in this
case show that the killer dressed the victim after death there was evidence left at this scene tire and Footprints
were found in the snow with the discovery of Christine's body a task force was formed authorities
announced that they believed that children were murdered by the same person the task force will investigate
the three murders and the possibility of a serial killer the task force was made
up of law enforcement from 13 communities and led by the Michigan State Police the Detroit News offered up
of one thousand I'm sorry Captain a 100 000 reward for the Killer's apprehension
and local stations aggressively covered the case the Michigan State Police and the police
departments where the children were last seen or the bodies were found received a
Federal grant to help pursue the investigation Oakland County was on high alert police were giving classes at
schools on how to stay away from strangers and how to escape if someone tries to grab them yeah old stranger
danger parents were not allowing their kids to walk by themselves there was a safe house program established where
participants would be screened and then allowed to put a safe house placard in their front window if a child felt that
they were in danger they would be able to run to one of these houses for help fathers sat down with their children and
told them to be careful and steer clear of stranger dangers lurking in the nearby areas this is what Barry King did
with his son Timothy on Wednesday March 16 1977 Tim King a straight A student he's
a sixth grader Adams Elementary School went out to play around on his skateboard it was chilly but not
freezing Tim was small for his age at four foot three inches and only 63 pounds Tim and his family lived in
Birmingham Michigan this was a it's a little bit nicer than the other towns that we've already discussed but not
rich by any means Tim's father Barry was a lawyer and on this night he had to meet with a client since he needed a
witness he convinced Tim's mom to come with him Tim has always been the responsible type
he even recently took on a paper route but his parents were worried about him being out on his route
so Tim was spending the night at home with his brothers and his sister throughout the evening they each got
called away his sister Kathy was getting ready to to leave when Tim asked to borrow 30 cents so he could buy some
candy at the local pharmacy she lent him the change and left to meet her friends Tim ended up alone for the
night at about 8 15 p.m wearing a red nylon shirt dark green Levi corduroy pants and white sneakers Tim headed out
and he arrived at the pharmacy on Maple Road at about 8 30. Tim left the pharmacy through the rear door that led
to the parking lot which is where he would typically ride his skateboard Tim's parents were eating at the diner
across the street this is at Peabody's restaurant after dinner Tim's parents went home arriving around 9pm they
immediately contacted the police once they realized Tim was not home police suspected this to be the act of the
serial killer that they were looking for and they wasted no time searching for the boy and spreading his story an
intensive search was executed that covered the entire Detroit metropolitan area and there was widespread media
coverage and an emotional television appeal Timothy's father Barry King begged the abductor to release his son
unharmed in a letter printed in the Detroit News Tim's mother wrote that she hoped Timothy would come home soon so
she could serve him his favorite meal Kentucky Fried Chicken a tip came in from a woman claiming she
had seen a boy with a skateboard talking to a man in the parking lot of the drugstore that Tim had been to the woman
described the man as white with a dark complexion and around 25 to 35 years of age he had shaggy hair and sideburns and
had been driving a blue AMC Gremlin with a white stripe on its sides so we got two two cars now this Gremlin was seen
during the evening Tim went missing by his brother a composite sketch of the man was
released all over the area authorities questioned everybody in Oakland County who owned a gremlin
this is a good move right here Captain they they got a county-wide search warrant so officers could randomly pull
over vehicles to search for Tim King a lot of effort was made here but sadly in the late evening hours of March 22nd
1977 two teenagers spotted Tim's body in a shallow ditch alongside Gill Road in Livonia this is across the county line
in Wayne County his skateboard was placed next to his body again it has been reported that Tim
was found like the others his clothing neatly pressed and washed he had been tied up sexually assaulted with an
object and suffocated the post-mortem showed that Timothy had fried chicken before he was killed and that he was
suffocated approximately six hours before his body was found the Oakland County child killer task force
reportedly investigated over 18 000 tips but when the Federal grant money ran out
in December of 1978 the task force was formally disbanded as of 2012 reports the case File has
accrued 20 000 tips 500 000 pages of documentation thousands of interviews and hundreds of pieces of evidence yet
to this day no one has been convicted of the murders of Mark Stebbins Jill Robinson Christine mihelik and Timothy
King however the investigations continued the victims families have refused to let these Child Murders be
forgotten they have formed their own task force conducted their own investigations and from that came
theories the theories put together in the last 15 years are far more plausible than the theories worked by
investigators in the late 70s we believe that now we are closer than ever to solving these murders and
tomorrow we will explore the mother of all theories in the continued search for the Oakland County child killer
[Music] I want to thank you guys so much for listening thanks so much for sharing on
social media if you'd like to hear us talk about the update on the Aurora Hammer Slayer murders you can check us
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[Music] [Applause] [Music]

The Oakland County Child Killer /// Part 1 /// 232

Part 1 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

Four children were abducted and murdered in Oakland County, Michigan during the winters of 1976 and 1977. All of the victim’s were held captive for several days, one victim for nineteen. All four children appeared to have been well care for during their time in captivity. This week we revisit a case in an attempt to layout the final solution in one of America’s most haunting serial murder cases. And Captain and Nic crack a few beers and have a quick chat with J. Reuben Appelman the author the much anticipated book “The Kill Jar.” Beer of the Week - Scotty Karate Scotch Ale by Dark Horse Brewing CompanyGarage Grade - 4 and a quarter out of 5 bottle caps

Beer Fund: https://truecrimegarage.com/home

Brief Summary

The episode discusses the Oakland County child killings, detailing the victims and investigation failures over decades.

Key points

The Oakland County Child Killer. A 40-year-old unsolved mystery involving the abduction and murder of children in the 1970s.
Mark Stebbins' Disappearance. Mark Stebbins went missing on February 15, 1976, after leaving a party alone.
Discovery of Mark's Body. Mark's body was found four days later, raising questions about the killer's boldness.
Police Investigation Mishaps. Confusion between police departments led to mishandling of the crime scene.
The Killer's Profile. A psychiatrist suggested placing a mannequin at the crime scene to lure the killer.
The Conflicting Reports. Two different reports on the body’s condition raise questions about the investigation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

What happened to him?

6:43WatchNov 25, 2022

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

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