Tuesday, December 10th, "A New Kind of Monster" on Investigation Discovery

Early in 2013, I was asked by XCON Productions if I would be interested in appearing on an episode of a new true crime series they were doing called A Crime To Remember. 

One of their staffers had seen my blog posts on the Washtenaw County Murders of 1967-1969 and their presumed killer, John Norman Collins. 

I say "presumed" because Collins was only charged with one of the seven local murders before being sentenced to "Life" in prison. With his arrest and conviction, the series of grisly sex-slayings in the Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, Michigan ended.

The episode entitled "A New Kind of Monster" will air this Tuesday, December 10th, at 10:00 PM Eastern time. Other people appearing on the program will be Dr. Katherine Ramsland, forensic psychologist; Larry Mathewson, former Eastern Michigan University policeman; Douglas Harvey, former Washtenaw County Sheriff; and others. 

Re-enactments using the actual names of the people involved in these matters will be a feature of this program, which is a thumbnail sketch of an extremely complicated, controversial, and convoluted case.

I was put on the program because of the strength of my blog posts on the subject at large. For the last three and a half years, my researcher, Ryan M. Place and I have been working tirelessly on these other cases which have remained officially unsolved. 


Soon, I will be finished with the first draft of The Rainy Day Murders. My treatment of the subject benefits from forty-five years of hindsight and the living history of people who have had some direct connection with these events. 

Once my true crime account goes through revision and editing, I hope to get it published sometime next year. 

In addition to giving the latest information known about each of the murders and recreating the "lost" court case, which the Washtenaw County Courthouse has "purged" from their records, my book will cover for the first time ever, John Norman Collins' prison years and his efforts to get out of prison.

When Ryan and I started this project almost four years ago, we could not have imagined where it would lead. Many thanks to all the individuals who have come forward with information on these cases and also to the many people in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor affected by this dark period in Washtenaw County's history who were willing to share their stories with us. 

William Treml  (1929 - 2013)

And a special thanks needs to go out to all the reporters who covered these murders and the subsequent trial, especially William Treml of The Ann Arbor News, who died last month. 

Without their efforts, this story would have been lost to time and institutional neglect. A debt needs to be paid to history, and its on their shoulders I stand.

Check this link for more information about the press and these cases: http://fornology.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-fourth-estate-proves-its-worth-in.html