Incidentally, Miss Schell shared a rented apartment on Emmet St. with a girlfriend, directly across College Place St. from the room Collins rented at the boarding house. He could look out his window directly at Schell's apartment house.
The same evening Miss Schell disappeared, three witnesses saw Collins and Schell cross College Place at about 11:30 PM, and one of the young men in the car that picked up Miss Schell testified in open court that he was in the car with Collins that fateful night when they gave Joan a ride.
***
Some time later on another occasion in the early evening, I was waiting for a pizza at Fazi's shop on College Place St. a half block from the EMU campus. It was the local hangout in our neighborhood with a couple of pinball machines that could be set for free plays, so people liked to hang out there.
It was warm in the shop, so I went outside. Around the side of the building, I saw two guys trying to break into a car that was parked there. They tried the doors, they tried the trunk, they tried to pop the hood. What struck me most about them was that they did this with impunity. They vaguely noticed me watching but studiously ignored me.
I went into the pizza shop and asked if the car parked next to the building belonged to anyone there. It didn't. I walked out of the shop and saw the two guys walking shoulder to shoulder towards where I was standing. One of them was a lean six feet tall and the other guy was taller, heavier, and Hispanic looking.
When they were about to pass me, the lanky one raised his stiffened right arm and tried to clothesline me in the face. I dunked and swung around in a defensive position expecting a tussle. But the two of them walked on like nothing had happened.
I watched them walk half a block up College Place and then crossover to the corner house on Emmet St. I didn't connect the two experiences yet, but I saw where they went. Collins' face was now familiar to me, but I still didn't know his name.
I was pissed and went into the shop to get my pizza. A friend of mine asked what had just happened?
"Some guy just took a swing at me."
"I know. I just saw. Why?"
"They were trying to break into the car parked outside and I saw them. Do you know who they are?"
"Not really, they're just a couple of assholes who live in the neighborhood."
Great, I thought. I walk passed that house at least twice a day to get to classes. Swell!
***
 |
| My attic apartment at 127 College Place St. |
My final encounter with John Norman Collins occurred in a most unlikely place, my third story attic apartment. The large house I lived in was built in the late nineteenth century and had been subdivided into five apartments sometime over the years. It was a broken down hovel, centrally located in what we called the student ghetto. It was affordable and it was home.
Late one Saturday night, my roommate and I came home and walked up the narrow staircase leading to our attic apartment. We noticed something peculiar. Our door was locked.
Most of the people who lived in the house were freaks (hippies) and had lived there for a couple of years. Everyone knew everyone else and got along well, so there was a communal atmosphere of trust in the house. But recently, some new people had moved into the large ground floor apartment.
I fumbled in my pocket for my key and unlocked the door. I flipped on the light in the efficiency kitchen and heard some rustling in our darkened attic apartment. My twin bed was wedged inside a small alcove to the left of the main living space.
A person several inches taller than me suddenly blocked the doorway putting on his sports coat and shielding the young woman he was with. She hastily straightened up her disheveled clothing. When his jacket was on, he stepped towards me and we were face to face. Once again, I saw "the look."
It was the same guy who took a swing at me in front of Fazi's pizza shop. He stopped in his tracks when he finally saw my roommate who was six feet, three inches tall, and very powerfully built. He was a highway construction worker.
To defuse the situation, I apologized for disturbing them and explained that this was a private apartment. All he said was "sorry" as he and the embarrassed girl carrying her purse slinked out. It was suddenly clear what had happened.
The new tenants in the ground floor apartment were some fraternity guys having a house warming party. At some point after they had a couple of drinks, Collins searched for a quiet spot to take this young woman, and he settled into my vacant apartment uninvited. He locked the door for privacy.
By now, I knew this guy by sight. Several months later, like so many other people in the area, I saw his picture on the front page and finally learned his name. Little did I imagine that over forty years later, I would be writing about John Norman Collins and those frightening days.
http://fornology.blogspot.com/2013/10/facing-down-john-norman-collins-kristi.html
