The John Norman Collins Reward Money Shell Game

The third of four composite drawings.

On the day of John Norman Collins' sentencing for the murder of Karen Sue Beineman--August 28, 1970--The Ypsilanti Press reported rewards for information leading to the arrest of the killer or killers of seven women in the Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor area had reached $43,500. The rewards came from a variety of sources--each with its own conditions for pay out.

• $14,000 - The Detroit News offered $2,000 in each of the unsolved murder cases that plagued Washtenaw County from July of 1967 through July of 1969.
• $7,500 from the Ann Arbor City Council for Police Chief Walter E. Krasney’s discretionary use. Most of the money went into overtime for detectives. 
• $5,000 from the Ypsilanti City Council--which was no longer available. 
•  $5,500 raised by The Eastern Echo--Eastern Michigan University's campus newspaper--still available. 
• $1,000 offered by The Ypsilanti Press, and $1,000 donated by Ypsilanti Savings Bank, could only be claimed by persons going through The Ypsi Press. 
• The University of Michigan offered a $7,500 reward for the arrest of Alice Kalom’s killer--but not for the other victims.
• $2,000 was set aside by The Washtenaw County Board of Supervisors for the capture and conviction of the unknown killer.

Prosecutor William Delhey

When questioned by the press the day before Collins was sentenced, Prosecutor William Delhey said, “If there is one person who triggered the events which led to the arrest of Collins, it was Eastern Michigan University Police Officer Larry Mathewson. I have to give a great deal of credit to Mathewson.” High praise indeed for a rookie cop on a university police force who used an old-fashioned police technique--he followed a hunch and started knocking on doors. Delhey was clearly grateful.

Patricia Spaulding and Diane Joan Goshe

During the cross-examination of Mrs. Diane Joan Goshe, one of the two women who identified Collins driving away with Miss Beineman on the motorcycle, defense attorneys badgered her about the reward money. On the stand, Goshe said she had not given any thought to claiming the reward and "hadn’t really checked into it."

Ann Arbor News reporter William Treml wrote that the “most eligible” persons for the reward were the two wig shop ladies—Diane Joan Goshe and Patricia Spaulding—whose eyewitness accounts linked Collins with Beineman. “Without their testimony, it is doubtful the prosecution would have obtained a conviction.”

Collins defense lawyers--Neil Fink and Joseph Louisell

The defense team of Joseph Louisell and Neil Fink tried to plant the impression in the minds of the jurors that the reward money was their key motive for testifying. At one point, Fink asked Mrs. Spaulding if it was not true she and Mrs. Goshe discussed dividing up the reward. Mrs. Spaulding answered emphatically, “No!”

On December 19, 1970, The Ann Arbor News reported Mrs. Goshe had hired the law firm of Keyes, Creal, and Hurbis, to mail letters of inquiry to several public agencies offering reward money. William Delhey ordered an investigation into the status of the reward money. When it was all added up, the conviction reward was small for the Beineman murder. Most of the original offers were no longer available because of restrictions placed by each organization on the reward. Collins was not charged with the other deaths for which the money was set aside.

On February 16, 1971, the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners recommended the denial of Mrs. Goshe’s claim for the $2,000 the county offered. Writing the legal opinion for the committee, Prosecutor Delhey noted “the reward was offered June 3, 1969, for evidence leading to the conviction for any of the slaying victims of young women committed up to then. Mrs. Goshe testified on the murder of Karen Sue Beineman, and that case came about a month and a half after the reward was offered. Thus, her testimony did not result in any convictions for the still unsolved five murders that preceded the reward offer.

John Norman Collins

Delhey added, “Even if the murder of Miss Beineman was included in the reward offer, the evidence that led to the conviction of Collins came to light through the work of Eastern Michigan University Policeman Larry Mathewson.”

Ironically, the women whose testimony helped Delhey win the biggest case of his career were cut out of the reward money by his recommendation. Mathewson was also ineligible for the reward because he was a member of law enforcement and on the public payroll at the time.

Mrs. Goshe was portrayed by the press as trying to profit from the misery of the Beineman family, but she and Patricia Spaulding bravely stood up, cooperated with police, and testified in open court. Both ladies performed laudable public service and came forward when others who knew things did not.

And what was Mrs. Goshe’s reward for sticking her neck out? The defense team publicly dissected her private life revealing a family secret that had nothing to do with the trial and did nothing but hurt a mother and her twelve-year-old son. She was not married to the boy's father. No good deed goes unpunished.

The People's Gamble in the Collins Trial - 1970

The weekend before the John Norman Collins trial was to begin, news hungry reporters began writing stories about the "epic" battle that was about to occur between legal "Titans," William F. Delhey, representing The People, and Joseph W. Louisell, sometimes called "Michigan's Perry Mason," representing Collins. Each attorney had a wing man. Delhey had Booker T. Williams and Louisell had Neil Fink.

The reality of the clash was a disappointment. Jury selection took a tedious six weeks. The defense strategy was to want a white collar "college educated" jury who would be able to weigh the scientific testimony they would be hearing and to withhold judgment possibly. 

The prosecution favored a more blue collar "working class" jury who would be blinded by the blizzard of technical information and more moved by emotional arguments and appeals.

The defense kept the judge and the court clerk busy with motion after motion, until it seemed that the actual trial would never begin. Then suddenly, the defense told presiding Judge Conlin that they had a jury. 

Louisell surprised the prosecution and caught them flat-footed. Delhey and Williams were left with a handful of peremptory challenges they couldn't use. Courtroom observers scored the first round for the defense team. The press reported later in the day that this jury may be the most highly educated in Michigan state history.

By the end of the trial, the prosecution had called forty-eight witnesses in seventeen days, in marked contrast to the defense who called only eight witnesses in four days. The jury deliberated for four days before it returned a guilty verdict of murder in the first degree against John Norman Collins in the wrongful death of Karen Sue Beineman.

The prosecution's "key play" was the strategic decision by the chief prosecutor, who had the scientific background, to pass the cross-examination of scientific witnesses to his assistant prosecutor, who had no laboratory background. 

Although this might seem counter-intuitive, Delhey didn't want to "slip into laboratory language": He wanted Williams to ask questions using "layman's language" to be better understood by the layman jury, despite the high percentage of college graduates on the jury.

When the prosecution's scientific hair fiber experts were challenged and discredited by the defense's hair fiber experts, Delhey's strategy paid off. Williams took the edge off the data and focused on the testimony of the defense experts, pointing out their discrepancies and inconsistencies. In the end, the hair clipping evidence was solid enough in the minds of the jury to link Collins to his victim.

Surprisingly enough, it wasn't the scientific blood or hair evidence that convicted John Norman Collins. It was the preponderance of circumstantial evidence and the lack of a credible alibi for the critical three hour period between Karen Sue Beineman's disappearance and her strangulation death in the basement of his aunt and uncle's Ypsilanti home.

Lawyers for the Defense in the John Norman Collins Case

John Norman Collins' legal team - Neil Fink and Joseph Louisell - June 1970

Immediately after John Norman Collins was arrested on July 30, 1969, his mother Loretta retained the legal services of Robert Francis and John M. Toomey of Ann Arbor, Michigan. 

A week later on August 7 during a preliminary examination, Mr. Toomey told presiding Washtenaw County Circuit Judge Edward D. Deake that he had discussed withdrawing from the case with Collins and his mother. The reason given was lack of funds and Mrs. Collins' "inability to undertake further financial liability."

"John will benefit by a court-appointed attorney because this will give him the right to a lot of things, such as the court paying for independent blood tests, ballistic tests, and fingerprints," Toomey explained. "Mrs. Collins indicated that she might not be able to afford this type of work and wanted a court appointed attorney." 

The judge agreed, and on August 12, 1969, a three-judge Circuit Court panel appointed Richard W. Ryan to handle the case. Ryan asked Francis and Toomey (Collins' original attorneys) to stay on as co-counsels at county expense to assist him with the defense.

Ryan and his team were on the case for only a couple of months when Ryan began to have doubts about his client. He requested Collins take an off the record polygraph (lie detector) test. Collins agreed but Ryan refused to disclose the results. 

When conferring afterwards with the family in the judge's chambers, Ryan suggested a "diminished capacity" plea for an insanity defense. Mrs. Collins flew into a rage and fired him on the spot.

Then The Detroit News reported on November 25, 1969, that Joseph W. Louisell and Neil Fink from Detroit had agreed to defend Collins after conferring with Mrs. Collins and other relatives over a two week period. It was agreed that they were to take over the case on December 1st.  

When Neil Fink was asked by the press how Mrs Collins could afford the highest priced law firm in the state of Michigan, when she had plead poverty in open court only months before, he made no comment.

The Detroit Free Press reported the next day that "Mrs. Collins, who is a waitress, reportedly has received a pledge from a national magazine for a large sum of money in exchange for the exclusive rights to her son's story." No evidence of such an offer exists. 

Enter the man who has been described as "Michigan's Perry Mason," Joseph Louisell, the Detroit area's Mafia mouthpiece. In the decade before the Collins' case, he was best known for defending reputed Mafia figures including Pete Licavoli, Anthony and Vito Giacalone, and Matthew (Mike, the Enforcer) Rubino. All of these men were identified as Mafia chieftains in testimony before the U.S. Senate in 1963.

The fifty-three year old father of ten, five boys and five girls, Louisell  had a "hefty figure" with a "round jowly" face that was familiar to Detroit courtroom observers who watched him build a strong reputation as a prominent criminal lawyer.

He gained fame for his successful 1949 defense of Carl E. Bolton and Carl Renda, both charged with shooting United Auto Workers President Walter Reuther in the back.

Another notorious case was the acquittal of blond and beautiful Nelle Lassiter, who was charged with conspiring with her lover to dispose of her husband's body, used car dealer, Parvin (Bill) Lassiter.

Some of Louisell's critics have complained of his courtroom theatrics. "All trial lawyers are ham actors at heart. Especially me, I guess," he said. "Normally 65% of my practice is in civil and corporate law. That's where the money is. But criminal law has some kicks. That's for fun." 

Neil Fink was a thirty year old junior partner in the firm of Louisell and Barris. He assisted his senior partner and handled all the pre-trial examinations and defense motions. 

He stayed active in the case while his boss was recuperating from a heart attack he had on February 2, 1970. Louisell's doctor said he would permit Louisell to return to work on April 1. Fink handled the entire Collins case load for a couple of months

Rumors circulated about how a waitress at Stouffer's in downtown Detroit could afford such a high priced legal firm. Just for the record, Mrs. Loretta Collins refinanced her home in Center Line for an undisclosed amount to pay for the estimated $15,000 it would take to cover her son's legal fees. 

(Next post: The Prosecution Team for the People against John Norman Collins)