John Norman Collins Strikes a Pose

In January of 1969, John Norman Collins did three photo shoots for a pocket-sized body building magazine entitled Tomorrow's Man (1952-1971). The popular subtitle for this "beefcake" magazine was "Hunks in Trunks." Readers may recognize the names of Steve Reeves (Hercules) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (The Terminator) as people who have posed for this periodical. The pictorials and covers featured prominent bodybuilders and amateurs.

This pulp fiction relic was particularly popular in the 50s and 60s among gay men and curious newcomers. It was considered a crossover publication which could be found on newsstands in urban areas across the country, or it could be mail-ordered discreetly from home.

In those days, beefcake magazines were often the only connection closeted gay men had to their sexuality. But by the end of the Sixties, social conventions had relaxed and gay porn became legal. The market for beefcake magazines declined. The advent of home video in the Seventies struck the death knell for this pulp genre. Collectors of vintage beefcake magazines have made it next to impossible to obtain a copy of Tomorrow's Man.

***

In a prison letter written July 15, 2013, John Norman Collins tells his Canadian cousin the story of his brief involvement in the world of bodybuilding modeling. 

[The following excerpt is presented essentially unedited as written.]

"Oh my God, you found those pictures of me in that "Tomorrow's Man!" ha, ha. Those were taken when I was at Eastern Mich. University. I was a Junior I believe [January 1969]. The media tried to PLAY IT UP after my arrest and make me seem GAY. Here's the SCOOP, John [Collins' Canadian cousin]. I was a JOCK in college and loved all sports so I joined a JOCK Fraternity [Theta Chi] that had lots of football players, wrestlers, baseball players, etc. Well a couple of Brothers told me about this guy that took photo's of guys for some weight-lifting magazines and it paid really good for just 1/2 hour of work. I went to the studio with a few Brothers and I saw what they really did and I agreed to do it. I did like maybe 3 sessions and forgot all about it. I knew the photographer could use my photo's in any magazine he wanted to and he used Bill Kenyon as my name. I have no idea WHY he did that? Anyhow, he used guys from the wrestling team, swim team, etc. Anyone that was in decent shape. At the time he told me he would try to get me into modeling jobs (clothing), BUTT, that didn't happen. How many pictures were in the mag.? I'll never be an "Arnuld." ha, ha. Maybe I should have you send me a copy of the photo(s) they used in the mag.? :) Just curious! I lifted weights for football, hockey, baseball etc., NOT really to be a bodybuilder. Just want some size & strength."

Tomorrow's Man used only one of the photos from Collins three separate shoots, for which he was paid $5.00 a session. "Teenage bodybuilder" Bill Kenyon was, of course, twenty-one year old John Norman Collins. In addition to the photograph, which was placed to the right of an advertisement for wheat germ capsules, the photo's banner read "GREAT FUTURE."

Two Eastern Michigan University coeds had been murdered in Washtenaw County prior to the Collins photo sessions. Five additional unsolved murders of young women occurred in the nine months after Collins posed for Tomorrow's Man magazine. Only for the last of these brutal serial killings would John Norman Collins ever be tried and convicted. The six other cases have hung in limbo for almost fifty years.

For more examples of Tomorrow's Man covers, tap on the following link: http://www.pulpinternational.com/pulp/entry/Assorted-covers-of-Tomorrows-Man-bodybuilding-magazine.html

For more information about Beefcake magazines, tap on this link: http://www.bilerico.com/2011/02/a_short_history_of_physique_magazines.php

John Norman Collins and the Code of Silence

The most frustrating aspect of researching the Washtenaw County murders of 1967-1969 for The Rainy Day Murders is knowing that there are still people out there who are withholding information from some sort of misguided loyalty or fear of self-incrimination.

I can understand that John Norman Collins' brother and sister want to distance themselves from the actions of their younger brother to protect their families. Of these murders, they knew nothing. But they could shed light on John's childhood and help us better understand why these terrible things happened.

Their mother Loretta Marjorie Collins was the unchallenged spokesperson for John during his arrest and trial for the murder of Karen Sue Beineman in 1970. Since Mrs. Collins' death in 1983, neither brother nor sister has commented publicly about their brother. So be it. They have lived with that decision for forty-five years.

But then, there are others who have valuable knowledge about John Collins who are not as closely bound as family. A wall of silence still exists among many of Collins' Theta Chi fraternity brothers. I find it difficult to understand why, after he was kicked out of their frat house for the suspected theft of $40 from their social fund, that they still shield him. There also had been a rash of petty thefts in the W. Cross St frat house while Collins lived there.

Eastern Michigan University Theta Chi fraternity members clean up the day after the annual welcome back party attended by more than 600 people.

And after John Collins moved out of the Theta Chi house, one of his former senior fraternity brothers got his 650cc Triumph motorcycle stolen. Collins kept it under wraps until the bike's owner had graduated and moved back to Benton Harbor on the west side of the state safely out of Ypsilanti. This was the same motorcycle that Karen Sue Beineman was last seen driving away on with Collins at the controls, before her body was discovered three days later at the bottom of a shallow gully.

My researcher Ryan M. Place and I were able to obtain the names and contact information for fifteen of Collins' former Theta Chi Brothers, requesting any information about Collins, either positive or negative, that we could get. We emailed everyone and in some cases made followup phone calls. Of the fifteen Theta Chi we contacted, only three responded. Two agreed to speak with us on the phone, while another met with us in person.

The first was extremely nervous over the phone for fear that his Brothers would discover that he had broken the fraternity Code of Silence. One valuable piece of information we learned from him was the name of the third man in the red and black car that picked up Joan Schell in 1968. Her nude body was found a week later in the outskirts of Ann Arbor shoved under some roadside shrubs.

The next Theta Chi to respond to our entreaties has been acting as John Norman Collins' legal adviser and spokesperson for many years. This meeting in his law office was one of those occasions. I told him what I was hoping to accomplish by writing this book and shared a few matters with him that he agreed to pass on to Collins in Marquette Prison.

Ryan and I were both struck with how uncomfortable he was, even in his own office at his own desk. Collins' mouthpiece put forth his belief that John was innocent and that another frat brother committed the crimes. If that was the case, why wait forty-five years to break the news and spring his client from false imprisonment? There is no evidence to even remotely suggest that anyone but Collins murdered Karen Sue Beineman. Why such loyalty after forty-seven years?

The last person to contact me was a former Theta Chi Brother of John Collins, who also happened to be an Allen Park High School friend of mine. He gave me a full account of JNC's exile  from Theta Chi but asked me not to reveal his name. Apparently, nobody wants to be marked lousy for ratting out a Brother.

From him, I learned about the theft of the motorcycle, an expensive bag of golf clubs, a stereo system, a color TV, and an expensive jeweled Theta Chi pin taken from another Theta Chi member. He said most of the Thetas were glad to see Collins leave their house, though a couple of their members left with Collins where they shared a boarding house at 619 Emmet St. around the corner and up the street, only one crooked block away from the Theta Chi house.

After pledges endure "secret" and usually humiliating hazing rituals, they take an oath of allegiance to one another which entitles them to all the rights, privileges, and protections of the Brotherhood. My question is this, when does that loyalty end? At what point does a person say, I draw the line at murder and mayhem? Theta Chi was conspicuous by its silence throughout the trial.

In a recent prison letter written to his Canadian cousin, Collins justifies the nobility of silence:

John Norman Collins in 1970 and in 2014.

"All my friends I grew up with had OLDER BROTHERS (me included) and you just didn't RAT anyone out. YOU JUST DIDN'T!!! If someone needed to be taken care of, we did it amongst ourselves. I still know "THINGS" that could get people arrested today. Most of them have turned out pretty good, e.g. cops, lawyers, and even a judge. Should I ruin their lives now? I don't think so. That's the "CODE" I grew up with, be it RIGHT OR WRONG? Let God judge that."

"Then when I pledged Theta Chi with (name withheld), we took an OATH to always come to the aid of a Brother. I took that Oath seriously and to Rat Out (name withheld) wasn't "IN THE CARDS" for me at that time... I kind of believed in the SYSTEM in that they wouldn't convict an innocent man. While a few of us still believe in the Brotherhood, a few do not. You are only as good as your WORD." (sic)

There are three former Theta Chi members who are people of interest to us. One of them hasn't spoken for fear of self-incrimination. He was able to tell the prosecution just enough at the Collins' trial to be granted immunity and keep himself out of jail, before slithering away into relative obscurity.

We are certain that Collins' legal adviser knows key information also, but he is protected by lawyer/client confidentiality. Then there is the "third man" who has been pulling back his social media after we made our initial contact with him. His name has come up in connection with the first two coed murders but somehow he escaped notice and was never interviewed as a person of interest by local police. We are still trying to figure out why.

She Lived to Tell Her Tale - Don't Get in a Car with a Stranger - Part Two

Note to the Reader: In my previous blog post, a University of Michigan alumna wrote me about narrowly escaping an attack and possibly much worse in 1969 when she accepted a ride from a stranger one rainy spring afternoon in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

In Part Two, I give her my response to the details of her email, as together, we try to work out "the  who and the what" of this forty-four year-old incident.

*****

My response to [her name withheld by request],

I'm beside myself. You were very lucky indeed. The car John Norman Collins drove then was a 1968 silver Oldsmobile Cutlass, a car much like you described.

Picking up women on rainy days was his specialty.

Collins was a devout Catholic, I'm told by some of his friends at St. Clement's High School. Your religious talk with him may have saved your life. He was a confused and tormented person who must have felt like a condemned soul by then. How could he not? 

[He may have felt like she was in a "state of grace" and that may have put him off his plan, though I didn't mention this theory to her.]

The "I was going to rape you" and "Say a prayer for Dave" remarks made my eyes well up. This is a direct link to the murder of Jane Mixer (third alleged victim of John Norman Collins), which another man is in jail doing life for. Look up Gary Earl Leiterman. 

Now things get complicated. Someone used the name "David Johnson" when he answered the ride board ad in the basement of the (Michigan) Union. Jane Mixer wrote the name down on a page of her campus telephone directory. She disappeared that night and was found dead the next morning laid out neatly at Denton Cemetery in neighboring Wayne County.

[I didn't tell her that "David Johnson" was a Theta Chi fraternity brother of Collins who had "bad blood" between them. I'm thinking that Collins may have tried to implicate Johnson by throwing out a false lead.]

Your general description of the driver fits Collins. A number of people have come forward with interesting stories, but what you have written here is by far the most useful and has the ring of truth.

May I use your story in some contextual way in my book? The fictionalized version of these murders did a disservice to the memory of the girls and to the history of this era. That's why I am writing this difficult book using real names and up-to-date information.

Thank you.

*****

Here is the message chain that followed:

Greg,

I really had no idea that your reply would link my incident with Collins. I had thought all these years that it was more than likely not related at all to the famous murders.

You may indeed use my story in your writings, but I would prefer that you not use my name.

*****

 My response:

You may want to read The Red Parts, by Maggie Nelson. It is about the Gary Earl Leiterman case and what impact it had on Jane Mixer's family, thirty-five years after the fact. I have a hunch you will find it very interesting. I wrote a blog post on it. Search in the <fornology.blogspot.com> archives for it.

*****

Greg,

I found the archives and am reading the information. I read quite a lot about Leiterman yesterday. Funny that the first site I found when searching for him had his high school picture on it. It was a shock to see him just as I remember him. The more recent pictures would have been of no use to me.

I've been wondering if it would have done any good if I had reported the incident to authorities at the time. I was a terrible witness... no license plate number or make of car. I don't know what I would have told them. Maybe I could have described him.

I'm glad to know that he was convicted of Jane Mixer's murder. I only pray that somehow our close encounter had an influence on him. I really did pray for him off and on over all these years.

*****

My response:

I hate to admit this, but every big campus in America has a serious problem with rape and the abuse of young women. University authorities go to great lengths to downplay incidents, so they don't cause a panic or tarnish the reputation of the institution.

Just last summer, there was a serial rapist in Ann Arbor. Don't beat yourself up about not going to the police; the report would have been of little use to them. DNA nailed Leiterman; he was an unknown quantity at the time. I feel a sense of satisfaction at helping you solve your nagging mystery. We did it together!

*****

Greg,

And thanks for that. I am grateful to have closure and to know that he is behind bars. There is no question in my mind that he killed the girl, grandfatherly persona be damned.

*****

And so it goes.... this wasn't the outcome that I had anticipated, but as a seeker of truth, I'm very pleased and satisfied with the outcome.

If anyone has information about the Michigan murders or about John Norman Collins, please don't hesitate to contact me at www.gregoryafournier@gmail.com or mail me at: