The Jane Mixer Murder--John Norman Collins or Gary Earl Leiterman

In her profoundly personal memoir, The Red Parts, Maggie Nelson gives readers a glimpse of what lies behind the curtain of American jurisprudence and its affect on the surviving members of one family. Miss Nelson is the niece of Jane Mixer, John Norman Collins' alleged third victim.

Thirty-six years after Jane's perplexing murder on March 20, 1969, the Mixer family had to endure testimony of the details of her tragic death in a trial held in Wayne County, Michigan, in 2004. For over three decades, Jane's murder was lumped together with the six other unsolved killings in the Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor area, despite fundamental differences including where, how, and what condition the body was found.

Armed with a positive DNA match, as well as convincing circumstantial evidence, Gary Earl Leiterman, a retired male nurse working in Ann Arbor at the time, was found guilt of her murder. John Norman Collins claimed since the beginning he never knew Jane, now he was exonerated for at least one of the seven Michigan murders he was accused of. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

With unflinching honesty, Miss Nelson tells us the ins-and-outs of her aunt's case with brutal clarity and a benumbing sense of self-awareness that only comes from profound emotional trauma. Early in her book, she asks herself, "Who am I to tell Jane's story?" I can think of nobody better. Later in the book, she finds herself getting drawn into the media vortex of the trial and its aftermath. Miss Mixer has some insightful things to say about American media's fascination with the "dead-white-girl-of-the-week" club.

After reading Maggie Nelson's memoir, I am reminded that disturbing the feelings and memories of the families of the other victims in the Collins case is not to be taken lightly. These girls deserve to be remembered as living human beings, rather than victims of something wicked that happened in another time no longer relevant today. For their memories and what happened to them to simply fade away is unacceptable.

This is Ypsilanti, Michigan history, however unpleasant for some individuals or for the city. The six other murdered girls deserve to have their stories told for the record as well, like Maggie Nelson did for the memory of her aunt, Jane Mixer. I want to honor these lost young women by relating the most accurate account of these matters as possible and bringing some degree of closure to people who cared about these young girls. In the end, the public deserves the truth.

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/predators/collins/13.html

The Dutch Psychic--Peter Hurkos

I was just settling into an interview with someone who knew John Norman Collins. It was a late lunch meeting at Haab's--downtown Ypsilanti's oldest and finest restaurant. I overheard two women, sitting in a booth adjacent to us, talking in hushed tones about John Collins and those times. What a coincidence!

After the lunch crowd, the restaurant was almost empty, so I interjected myself into their conversation. "Ladies! I'm in town this week doing research and interviewing people for a book I'm writing about John Norman Collins."

Both ladies said in unison, "Really?" One of the women had worked for the county police as a dispatcher at that time, and the other claimed to be a psychic.

"How amazing is this?" I said. "I just learned something new about Peter Hurkos--the Danish psychic who was summoned onto the unsolved murdercases by an Ann Arbor citizens' group."

"He helped solve the Boston Strangler case, didn't he," the lady psychic added.

Peter Hurkos being fingerprinted.

"Not really," I said. "He played a controversial role in that case. Boston police arrested him for impersonating an officer when he aggressively interrogated an emotionally disturbed man. He was told to leave town or face a judge.

Back in Los Angeles, he parlayed his experience into a nightclub act. Hurkos entered the coed killing media circus in an attempt to punch up his waning career."

Hurkos was hired for one day as a consultant for the disturbing Tony Curtis movie The Boston Strangler--a film John Collins was obsessed with. Years later, Hurkos was hired to appear in a cameo role in the movie version of the Collins' killings entitled Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep--which began filming in 1969 but was never released.

I explained to the ladies, "Mr. Archie Allen--head of an Ann Arbor citizens' group--offered Peter Hurkos $1,100 for expenses to come down from LA to look into this case. Hurkos asked for $2,500 plus expenses and was insulted when the group could not raise more money. He reluctantly agreed to come anyway because of all the potential free publicity generated from this case--especially if he got lucky and helped solve it."

"The man had powers," the lady psychic insisted. "He was a painter who fell off a ladder and banged his head, or something like that. I don't remember exactly. From then on, he could sense people and events from handling their things. He had the gift."

"Yes, I know. That was his claim to fame."

The former police dispatcher added, "Yes, that's right. I remember Lieutenant William Mulholland--an investigator on the case--saying, "He (Hurkos) is making a believer out of me."

John Sinclair

Well," I continued, "do you know who the citizens' group was?" I gave the psychic another chance to divine the answer. She could not.

"Remember, John Sinclair? He was always in trouble with the Washtenaw County sheriff."

"Yes, we do!"

"Sinclair and a bunch of his followers were tired of the police harassment they were getting, so they offered to help. They wanted to show they were responsible, caring members of the Ann Arbor community. One of their members said she thought there might be something cosmic or supernatural going on with this case, so why not try to get a psychic involved?"

"That's interesting," the women agreed

"My theory is they wanted to throw a wildcard into the mix and make the police look stupid. Soon afterwards, the Washtenaw County police were called the Keystone Kops by the Detroit Free Press."

Sheriff Douglas Harvey

"I remember how upset Sheriff Harvey was with that reporter," the former dispatcher said.

"Harvey did take it personally," I agreed. "I also discovered John Collins came into close contact with Hurkos just before Hurkos left town for LA. Peter Hurkos did not have the slightest clue. I got that information from someone who was there with Collins."

Henry Ford's Tough Guy--Harry Bennett

Harry Bennett

Harry Herbert Bennett was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan on January 17, 1892. At the age of seventeen, he joined the United States Navy where he learned the pugilistic arts and became a champion lightweight boxer fighting under the name of Sailor Reese.

Legend has it that sometime in 1916, New York newspaper columnist Arthur Brisbane introduced the twenty-four year-old Bennett to Henry Ford. Brisbane witnessed a street brawl where Bennett came to the defense of a fellow sailor under attack by some local thugs. The naval boxing champion acquitted himself well. When the police arrived, they were going to arrest Bennett, but the newspaper man vouched for the young sailor and he was released.

Brisbane told the young tough he had someone he wanted him to meet. Brisbane was writing an article about Henry Ford for the Hearst newspaper chain while Ford was in New York. They met in Ford's hotel room. Kidnapping wealthy people was on the rise in America and Henry Ford was concerned for the safety of his family. Ford was fascinated hearing about the street brawl Bennett was just in. He asked Bennett if he could handle a gun. He could. Upon the young sailor's discharge from the Navy, Bennett was hired at the Highland Park Ford plant in the art department.

Red-haired Harry Bennett was five feet, six inches tall--built like a fire hydrant and just as strong. He cultivated his tough guy image by wearing a fedora, a hand gun, and a bow tie. People who knew him said he was fearless. With no background in engineering or the automobile business, Bennett rose in five years to become head of Ford's infamous Service Department. He was known within the company as the old man's hatchet man. 

Battle of the Overpass reaching flash point.

The Battle of the Overpass outside the Ford Rouge plant was a defining moment for Harry Bennett and the United Auto Workers (UAW). On May 26, 1937, Walter Reuther, Richard Frankensteen, among other union organizers, were beaten by Ford Service men and dragged and kicked down two flights of steel and concrete stairs. The attack was captured by a Detroit News staff photographer. The next day, newspapers around the world ran the photographs and the story. Overnight, Walter Reuther became the most recognized labor leader in America.

Walter Reuther and Richard Frankensteen

At a National Labor Relations Board hearing held in the summer of 1937, UAW field-organizer Frankensteen testified how Ford's security force assaulted him and Walter Reuther. The labor board found the Ford Service Department had underworld connections with the local Black Hand--a Sicilian gang, and the Dearborn police stood by while the labor demonstrators were beaten. No charges were ever filed.

In 1941, the four-year bloody conflict resulted in the Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo) recognizing the UAW and negotiating their first contract. The Ford executive to sign the contract--Harry Bennett. But this was the beginning of the end of Bennett's tenure with the automotive giant. Henry Ford's wife Clara had as much to do with the contract settlement as anyone. Ford family history notes she threatened to divorce her husband if the labor violence wasn't ended and the contract settled.

Henry Ford II

By 1945, the old man's health and mental state were declining as Bennett maneuvered to gain control of the company. Clara and her son Edsel's widow--Eleanor Clay-Ford--insisted the company remain under family control. Eleanor threatened to sell her stock if her son was not made president. On September 20th, Henry Ford I officially resigned the presidency and nominated his grandson Henry Ford II to replace him. The Board of Directors rubber-stamped the recommendation. Twenty-eight-year-old Henry Ford II was discharged from active duty with the United States Navy to man the helm of his grand sire's company.

Henry's first official act was to fire Harry Bennett. He drove to the Ford Administration Building on Schaefer Road and walked down to the secluded basement office of his late father's nemesis. But Bennett could see the writing on the wall. It was written in dark blue and read Ford.

The former boxer could not resist giving the young Ford a parting shot. "You're taking over a billion dollar organization here that you haven't contributed a thing to?" The rest of the afternoon, the basement was filled with smoke as Bennett burned his records--almost thirty years of company history--the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Henry Ford I

Later that evening, Henry II drove to his grandfather's estate and told him he fired Bennett. The elder Ford's reaction was understated. He simply remarked, "Now Harry is back where he started." 

After his loss of power, Bennett retired to an 800 acre wilderness area outside Desert Springs, California. His last moment in the public spotlight came when he was called to testify in the Kefauver Senate Crime Investigation Committee Hearings in 1951. 

In 1973, Bennett suffered a stroke. In 1975, he entered the Beverly Manor Nursing Home in Los Gatos, California. On January 4, 1979, he died. His death went unreported for a week--the cause was never released to the public.

http://fornology.blogspot.com/2015/10/walter-p-reuther-assassination-attempt.html

The Ann Arbor Mallet Murder

Pauline Campbell was a nurse at St. Joseph's Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan

Saturday, September 15, 1951, had been a hot day in Ann Arbor, but near midnight it was pleasantly cool. Pauline Campbell (34) had just finished her evening shift working the maternity ward at St. Joseph's Mercy Hospital. She crossed Observatory Street kitty-corner and headed down Washington Heights, a narrow, darker street towards where she lived several houses away. 

***

Only four nights before, a man had slugged a nurse with a blunt instrument while walking home from University Hospital in this same neighborhood. 

Bill Morey, Max Pell, and Dan Meyers were recent Ypsilanti High School graduates. On Wednesday night, they drove to Milan and bought two six-packs of beer at a tavern known to sell to minors.

Dan Meyers owned the car but didn't have his license yet and allowed Bill Morey to drive his car that night. They were cruising Ann Arbor, according to Dan, because they wanted to steal some hubcaps they could sell or trade for an echo can--a fifteen inch chrome exhaust pipe for his car.

Rather than steal hub caps on a quiet, shadowy street, Bill drove towards the well-lit University Hospital area. The three of them were tipsy, and Bill decided he wanted to pick up some girls. On the way over, Max and Bill began talking about snatching a nurse's purse. Later in court, Dan testified it was mainly Bill's idea.

"Let's hit somebody over the head and rob them," Bill said. There was a 12" crescent wrench among some loose tools they used to steal car parts under the front seat.

"This should do it," he said, striking his open palm to test its heft.

The street was busy, but when they saw a nurse walking up a deserted street alone, Bill said, "I'm going to hit her and drag her into the car."

In court, Dan Meyers claimed he kept telling Bill not to do it, but he did not hold Bill back nor did he shout out a warning to the nurse.

Bill got out of the car swiftly and walked up behind the unsuspecting nurse and swung the wrench. He hit her--but she didn't fall down--she screamed and ran. Bill jumped back to the car, and the three teenagers drove away laughing about the failed attempt.

Shirley Mackley was able to describe her attacker for police: five feet, ten inches tall; about one-hundred and seventy-five pounds; and young--possibly twenty years old. She was not seriously hurt. Her attacker had wanted to stun her and drag her into the car, so he held back a fatal blow. That would not happen again.

***

Four nights later, Bill Morey and Max Pell were out cruising again, but this time with Dave Royal, someone they recently met. Max was driving his beloved car that night.

They talked Dave into paying for the beer because he worked construction and had money. Max bought a case of beer, and they split it between themselves and two "wild" girls Bill knew from Milan. Dave was the odd man out and drank alone in the car.

They drank most of the beer and dropped the girls off at their homes at about eleven. The inebriated trio headed into Ann Arbor. That's when Bill told Max Pell, "Go up around the hospital."

There was a rubber mallet with a foot long wooden handle in the car that Max's father used to repair household furniture. They spotted a lone nurse leaving Mercy Hospital. She crossed Observatory Street kitty-corner and starting down the hill on Washington Heights Street which was narrower and darker.

Max turned off his headlights and Bill said, "Let me out here behind the nurse." 

With Bill on foot, Dave asked Max if Bill intended to assault and rob the nurse. "I know he had it on his mind, but I don't know if he is going to do it."

Wearing moccasins, Bill gained on the nurse, rushed her from behind, and knocked her unconscious. Bill struck her several more times, then he called out to Dave to help him drag her limp body to the car. 

They got only as much as her head in the car when Max told them, "Don't put her in the car!" They dropped her body in the street and drove off leaving her unconscious. She died soon after in the hospital where she had just finished her shift.

The young thugs took Huron River Drive back to Ypsilanti, but not before Bill went through the victim's purse. In it was a cigarette lighter, a watch, and a dollar and a half. From a bridge, they threw her purse into the Huron River. Afterward, they bought ninety-four cents worth of gas, ate sandwiches, and drank coffee to sober up at a truck stop called the Fifth Wheel.

***

After the first nurse attack, Bill confessed to his good friend, Dan Baughey, who was on probation at the time, that he was the person who hit the nurse. When Dan heard about the killing of the second nurse, he was urged by his priest and his father to tell the police what he knew.

At 3:00 PM on Wednesday, September 19, Dan Baughey reported to police, and the three suspects were apprehended. On their drive from the Ann Arbor police station to Lansing to take lie-detector tests, Bill chatted with detectives about police cars. That's all he talked about. Dave Royal did not say much for most of the ride. 

But Max Pell was worried chiefly about his car which had been taken into evidence. He told the police that he recently put a new engine in it and asked them not to drive it over fifty miles an hour.

The young toughs confessed when they got to Lansing. Max Pell was the first to break down when police told him they were going to cut up his car's upholstery to check for blood evidence.

"You don't need to tear my car apart. I'll tell you. It's blood."

***

The victim, Pauline Campbell, was an orphan born in Ohio and raised by a farm family. She worked her way through college as a housemaid and later as a nurse's aide. She was single, quiet, tidy, and rather slight of build said her landlady.

Less than six weeks after the arrest, the case went to trial. The courtroom as packed with local teenage girls, some who managed to get their pictures in the paper and later got in trouble for skipping school. When the defendants entered or left the courtroom, Bill was always first, then Max, and then Dave. 

In his summation, Washtenaw County Prosecutor Reading told the jury that "...on the night Miss Campbell was killed she, unlike the three teens, had been working and working at a task that benefits other people." He asked the jury to bring forth a first degree murder conviction for all three defendants.

Bill Morey's aunt, mother, and father at arraignment.

Bill Morey and Max Pell were found guilty of murder one and given life sentences. Dave Royal was convicted of second degree murder and got twenty-two years to life for his part. Dan Meyers was sentenced to serve one to ten years for his complicity in the attack upon the first nurse who survived. 

***

After the trial, the community of Ypsilanti felt that the finger of shame was being pointed at them for letting their kids run wild and get out of control. This was true from the Ann Arbor News perspective and the Detroit newspapers also.

The city of Ypsilanti went into a defensive mode. One former Ypsilanti policewoman, Mrs. Dellinger, was quoted as saying, "The community has committed itself to a hush-hush policy. My feeling is that there will be another episode just as horrifying before this community can be awakened."

Sixteen years later, the first of the Washtenaw County Murders struck the Ypsilanti community. This time a serial killer was on the loose, and the rubber mallet murder had long been forgotten.

The Ypsi-Ann Trolley - Maybe What's Old Can Be Made New Again!

While doing some research on Washtenaw County, Michigan, for my next book - The Rainy Day Murders - I came across an interesting tidbit of history about the Ypsi-Ann trolley which linked the campus of Michigan State Normal College in Ypsilanti with the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor some nine miles away.

This early mass transit service was popular, and at its height served approximately 600 people a day. Trains operated every ninety minutes at an average speed of eight miles per hour. The original fare was a thin dime. Despite frequent breakdowns and delays in its schedule, the line got plenty of use from U of M students, who were mostly young men--and from the Normal College students, who were mostly young women. It was said that on the weekends, a rough parity was achieved.

Established in 1889, this extension of Detroit's longer Interurban line was steam powered. Because Ypsilanti's population could not support its own streetcar system, a seven and a half mile line was built the following year connecting Ypsilanti's downtown with the outskirts of Ann Arbor. Ypsi-Ann trolley owners petitioned the Ann Arbor Common Council to extend the line into the city. The steam powered engine was designed to look like a street car on wheels, so it would not scare the horses. It could haul as many as four trailers.

But Ann Arbor residents opposed the noisy and dirty steam locomotives. Arrangements were made with the Ann Arbor Street Railway Company for its cleaner and quieter electric cars to meet the Ypsi-Ann at the city limits and transfer passengers. In November of 1896, the Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor route was fully electrified opening a direct connection between the cities without a transfer.

The trolley service continued to operate until 1929. As the trolley made horses obsolete, cars and bus service made the trolley obsolete. Most of the line's tracks were pulled up in World War II for scrap metal drives. It was believed all of the Ypsilanti tracks were removed, but in 2004, road construction crews found a stretch of track on Washington Street buried under the pavement.

Today, anyone who drives down Washtenaw Avenue can attest to the congested traffic between the cities. Too bad an old idea can't be made new again--or maybe it can. What about a solar powered mono-rail with electromagnets or some hybrid energy backup built over existing right of way?

America needs new technology. Why shouldn't Washtenaw County be the developmental center for a new age in transportation? Ann Arbor has the technical resources and Ypsi has the manufacturing facilities and know how. Create the new technology, build it in the old Ford plant, and ship it across the country and the world.

This could be the hottest commercial venture for the area since the development of the Ypsilanti union suit with the flap in the back--a well-known and sought after product across America in the nineteenth century. Look to the future.

John Norman Collins--the Wayside Theater--and The Boston Strangler Movie

John Norman Collins in 1969 and 2014

As I edit The Rainy Day Murders manuscript--material which is either too broad or doesn't advance the story of the Washtenaw County, Michigan murders--is being removed. Rather than reject these portions out of hand, I have decided to rework and repurpose some of them in my blog.

***

Early on in my research, I interviewed someone who rode motorcycles with accused serial killer John Norman Collins. He asked that I refer to him by his biking nickname. Dundee said that he and several others rode with Collins--who always took the lead position--and toured the back country north of Ypsilanti. This was the area where six of seven bodies of young women were deposited over a two year period. "Collins knew the area like the back of his hand," Dundee said.

I asked him if he had ever seen Collins pick up young women while cruising with him. "Yes, Collins liked riding with girls."

"What was his come-on to these girls?

"When he spotted someone who caught his eye, he'd drive up next to her and gun the bike's engine a few times to get her attention. Then he would grin and ask if she wanted a ride. He was a handsome, clean-cut guy who worked out with weights. Sometimes a girl would hop on the back of his bike, and he'd gun his engine and speed off--usually splitting from the pack. Sometimes John would only make a date or get a phone number.

"How often would this happen?'

"Occasionally. John was popular with the ladies," Dundee grinned.

"Did any of these ladies turn up dead?"

His grin disappeared, "Not that I know of."

"Do you think Collins was guilty of killing any of these girls?

Dundee's answer disappointed me.

"No. I don't believe he killed any of them."

"Not even Karen Sue Beineman, the coed Collins was found guilty of murdering?"

"No."

When I asked why not, he had nothing of substance to say other than John was a scapegoat for the county sheriff. It was obvious that--even after forty-five years--Dundee felt uncomfortable with the subject matter. I was hoping for more incriminating information about Collins. I asked if he had anything else he could tell me about his friend. Then, he shared this anecdote with me.

Tony Curtis as The Boston Strangler

In October of 1968, he and Collins went to the Wayside Theater located on Washtenaw Boulevard--between Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor--to see Tony Curtis in The Boston Strangler. The movie had just been released and was being shown in the new state-of-the-art theater which could seat one thousand patrons. The Wayside had the biggest screen in the county at that time--56' wide by 24' tall.

Dundee told me that when the movie was over, John was clearly excited and talkative. "John loved the cool split screen effects where you saw the killer’s view and the victim’s view. We went into the lobby afterwards," Dundee said. "We talked about going someplace to eat when John asked if I would stay and watch the movie again with him.

"I told Collins that Tony Curtis’ performance freaked me out because I liked seeing Curtis in comedies. The role of Albert DeSalvo was too dark and disturbing for me." Dundee took off and left Collins to view the movie a second time alone. What Collins did after the film is anybody’s guess.

Dundee remembered Collins remarking with pride how he thought he resembled Tony Curtis in that role--his looks and mannerisms.

“If you watch The Boston Strangler," Dundee said, "the movie very clearly leaves room for a split personality interpretation. Also, Albert DeSalvo was never taken to trial or convicted of any of the crimes for which he was accused. The movie’s theme was that he got away with all those murders.”

It should be noted for the record that Albert DeSalvo was recently found to be the Strangler when DNA evidence--recovered in 2013 from his exhumed body--proved he killed Mary Sullivan in 1964.

    

Albert DeSalvo in mental institution with handmade choker chain.

It seems clear that John Norman Collins found inspiration and a kindred spirit in Albert DeSalvo--the Boston Strangler--but not motivation. He had plenty of that already. By the time The Boston Strangler movie was released, two of the Washtenaw County murders had already been committed. Regardless, the movie undeniably resonated with Collins.

The Rainy Day Murders--2015 New Year's Progress Report

For the last six months, people have been asking me when The Rainy Day Murders--my true crime account of the Washtenaw County Michigan murders--will be available. My short answer is when it is ready. Last month, my editor returned my manuscript and recommended that I read her remarks and comments, then step away from it for awhile and let my subconscious go to work.

What great timing! The 2014 holiday season gave me the time and space to think about the project without working on the day-to-day subject matter. As I begin 2015, my first priority is to revise my manuscript and seek publication. I am confident that the final product will be all the better for it. Everyone personally involved with or affected by these senseless murders of seven young women--in the late 1960s--deserves nothing less.

The grim details of these tragedies speak for themselves. Now, I need to tighten-up my narrative and increase the manuscript's sense of time and place--both suggestions from my San Diego editor, Jean Jenkins. Any author has only two eyes, and seeing things from the informed perspective of a skilled editor helps bring out areas of weakness that might otherwise be overlooked. As the High Lama in the novel Lost Horizon notes, "The eye sees but doesn't see itself."

Serial Killer Groupie - Sondra London - Pt. One

Warning! This interview may be disturbing to some people. It is part of my research for The Rainy Day Murders, my book about John Norman Collins and the Washtenaw County Coed Killings of the late sixties in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Ex-Deputy Sheriff Gerald Schaefer

More inscrutable than trying to understand the logic of a psychotic serial killer is trying to understand why some women are attracted to them and have relationships with them behind bars. It is the ultimate expression of either falling for the bad boy or flirting with disaster that some women seem wedded to in our culture.

Sondra London

Rather than going crazy trying to understand these people, I will satisfy myself with trying to become familiar with them and their behavior. This video link goes into the relationship between Sondra London, a writer and lover of serial killer Gerard John Schaefer. Watch part one of an interesting interview about their relationship. Then, check out Schaefer's Wikipedia entry. It is amazing how serial killers share so many of the same characteristics. Look at that smile on Schaefer's face. It says "Recognition at Last!"

Gerald John Schaefer had a fatal reaction to some sharpened steel in his Florida prison cell one December night in 1995 - an early Christmas present from his cellmate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbLhBISXbVA&feature=player_embedded

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_John_Schaefer
 

The Prosecutor's Conundrum in the John Norman Collins' Cases

The Burden of Justice

Of the seven young Michigan women thought to be the victims of a sadistic serial killer in the Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor areas in the late sixties, only one case was brought to trial, the murder case of Karen Sue Beineman on July 23, 1969.

Arrested on July 31, 1969 was an Eastern Michigan University junior named John Norman Collins studying to be an elementary school teacher. From the second floor courtroom of the Washtenaw County Building in Ann Arbor, Collins was found guilty of Miss Beineman's premeditated murder in the first degree on August 19, 1970. Nine days later on August 28, 1970, Circuit Court Judge John W. Conlin sentenced Collins to life in prison without possibility of parole. After twenty years of serving his life sentence, Collins could be eligible for a pardon by a sitting Michigan Governor. That is Michigan law.

Washtenaw County Prosecutor William F. Delhey made a deliberate decision not to prosecute John Collins for the other sex-slayings he believed Collins to have committed. The law enforcement community was confident that they had the right guy for the murders. The elusive serial killer was finally off the streets and the string of vicious, motiveless killings had come to an end after a reign of terror spanning three violent summers.

Because prosecuting the Beineman case was the most expensive criminal proceeding in Washtenaw County history to date, many people believed the other cases were not prosecuted solely for economic reasons, leaving the grieving families without answers. Somehow, the institutional belief that the greater good of the community had been served was little comfort to them. They had lost a loved one.

Taking exception with that point of view is Cris Bronson, a former secretary in the office of Prosecutor William Delhey during the span of the trial. She recently shared her insights with me regarding Delhey's decision not to prosecute Collins for the remaining murders.

"This oversight was not due to negligence or incompetence on the part of William Delhey. Nor was it about the amount of money which would be spent prosecuting John Norman Collins (for the other murders). Mr. Delhey had a strategy which was designated to keep Collins in prison for the rest of his life. Further prosecution was designated to occur successively if there was any risk that Collins was to be pardoned or otherwise released. This decision by William Delhey may have given rise to doubt over Collins' guilt in the other cases. But not so!

"Mr. Delhey had prosecuted another murderer of several individuals, throwing the full weight of each murder in one case against the defendant. The offender pleaded guilty by reason of insanity. Some time after this multiple murderer was committed, the State of Michigan changed its laws regarding those offenders who plead insanity defenses and were remanded to mental hospitals for the rest of their lives. The intent of the new law was to prevent mental health facilities from acting as prisons. The result in this specific instance was that this multiple murderer was released onto Michigan streets.

"Mr. Delhey tried to refile criminal charges against this defendant because the time for filing an appeal in the case had long run out. But the circuit court judge who had been assigned the second trial threw the case out as 'double jeopardy.' State and Federal laws prohibit charging an individual twice for the same crime once an official decision had been rendered in the first trial. Prosecutor Delhey was mindful of this and was determined that Collins would stay behind prison bars in Michigan to serve out the full measure of his sentence - life in prison.

"With respect to the law, the public release of evidence collected in the murders of the other victims held in abeyance cannot be made public. But Mr. Delhey had enough evidence to bring charges for each successive case as follow up to prevent this serial killer from being released to harm anyone else again. Although these cases are cold, they still remain officially open. There is no statute of limitations on murder."

There you have it. The State's evidence in these other cases would be inadmissible in court if the chain of custody were broken or if the facts were released to the public. This evidence will likely never be revealed, even after fifty years or when all the parties to these cases have passed on.

Coed Killer Composite Drawings and John Norman Collins

Shortly before midnight on July 23rd, 1969, another young woman from Eastern Michigan University was reported missing. Her dormitory resident adviser Verna (Ma) Carson called the EMU Campus Police and told the desk clerk on duty that eighteen year old freshman coed Karen Sue Beineman was last known to have been walking alone to Wigs by Joan in downtown Ypsilanti.

She left the dorm at about 12:20 PM after eating a small lunch with her roommates in the Downing Hall Dining Commons. Then she headed south across campus and strolled down Ballard St. to pick up and pay for a wig she had ordered the day before. The wig shop was less than a mile's walk, and it was a bright, sunny afternoon.

The next morning, two Ypsilanti City Police officers went to Wigs by Joan to interview the owner, Diana Joan Goshe, and her wig stylist, Patricia Spaulding. It was from their initial description that a composite drawing was made by a Ypsilanti Police artist. Both women agreed that "Yes" Karen Sue Beineman had been in their shop shortly after 12:30 PM. They remember the young lady because of something she said, "I've only done two foolish things in my life - buy this wig and accept a ride from a stranger on a motorcycle."

The hair on the back of their necks went up when they heard Miss Beineman say those words. Despite every effort of Washtenaw County law enforcement to discover the identity of the serial killer who they suspected had killed seven young women in the area, police were literally and figuratively clueless. The shop ladies tried to dissuade the young woman from getting back on the motorcycle. Mrs. Goshe even offered to drive Karen Sue back to her dorm, but Miss Beineman did not want to put the ladies to any bother.

While Karen paid for the wiglet and was shown how to wear it in her hair by Patricia Spaulding, Mrs. Goshe walked outside of her shop and squarely took a look at the handsome young man on the shiny motorcycle. He was parked only two car lengths away from the front of her shop, no more than thirty feet away. Goshe went back into her shop and again urged Karen not to get back on the motorcycle but to no avail. Karen left the shop, and after a brief conversation with the driver, hopped back onto the motorcycle and sped off.

The next day, the wig shop ladies gave the investigators the following description of the young man which was wired to every newspaper in the state of Michigan. The Ann Arbor News ran the description of the suspect, "a white male, about 22 years old, six feet tall with dark brown hair. The hair is curly in the front and extends down on the forehead and cut short with short sideburns. The suspect, of thin to medium build, wore a T-shirt with wide green and yellow horizontal stripes."

A composite sketch was drawn from that description and released to the press by the Ypsilanti City Police. Within days of Karen's disappearance, the Beineman family had four thousand handbills printed and distributed on the campuses of Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan. Of the seven unsolved murders in the area within the last two years, three were students from EMU and two were from U of M.

Looking over the newest composite drawing, an EMU official noted the similarity between sketches of a suspect in the death of Joan Schell a year earlier, drawn by an Ann Arbor police artist. The suspect in that case was previously described as "five feet, eight inches tall, about 20 years old with dark brown hair, and wearing a dark green Eastern Michigan University T-shirt." On Friday, July 25, the Ann Arbor News publicly noted the similarity and the fact that Miss Beineman's body was found in Ann Arbor Township, and Miss Schell's body was found on the outskirts of Ann Arbor.

***

Tony Hale was a sixteen year old Ypsilanti High School student who participated in Eastern Michigan's Upward Bound program on the EMU campus in July of 1969. Summer session dorm residents were required to attend a meeting where the handbills were distributed and young women were urged to carry them in their purses.

Some of the girls in the Upward Bound program were from the Warren/Center Line area where John Norman Collins was raised, so he would hang out in the lounge of Goddard Hall dormitory and mingle with the girls. Tony and her roommate Linda got to know Collins, and Linda took a couple of rides on his motorcycle and dated him. On one date, she reported that they went to his room to watch color TV, and he tried to get her skirt off.

"I could force you," he told her.

But the teenager replied, "But that wouldn't be good," and he relented.

Linda told a Detroit News reporter after Collins was arrested on July 31st that only two days before, she and Tony saw him riding his motorcycle on campus. Linda shouted out to him while waving the handbill, "Hey, John. You look like the picture," referring to the composite drawing of the suspected killer.

"You look like the other picture," he shouted back, referring to the photograph of Karen Sue Beineman on the handbill.

***

On July 30th, the day before Collins was arrested on suspicion of murdering Karen Sue Beineman, the Washtenaw County Sheriff released a more detailed, color composite drawing to the press from the description given by two wig shop ladies. This drawing was done in pastels but it came out after the handbill. The Detroit News ran the latest drawing with a psychological description of the probable murderer worked up by U of M psychiatrist, Dr. Donald J. Holmes.

"He is taunting authorities thumbing his nose at them, mocking them, daring them. Whatever else he may be, the killer is a very arrogant character. This taunting feeds his ego and supports his sense of omnipotence. He gets the idea that he is controlling the authorities."

Law enforcement was closing in on John Norman Collins. He was arrested late Thursday night, July 31st when Sheriff Douglas Harvey brought murder charges against him. Collins would sit in the Washtenaw County jail for over a year until his case came to trial where he was found guilty.