John Norman Collins Canadian Connection

When I speak to people about the Washtenaw County murders of the late 1960s, I am usually asked, "Have you been in contact with any of John Norman Collins's family?" My answer is always, "I've made several attempts without success."

JNC's older brother and his late sister were steadfast in their silence about their notorious younger brother. Neither of John's siblings bear any responsibility for what their brother did; regardless, they both paid a heavy personal price and are victims of the collateral damage from the very public and court case. They chose not to comment--well within their rights.

John Norman Collins (13), his brother (16), and sister (15) - December 30th, 1960.

The Collins' family wall of silence is a legacy from their mother, Loretta--the family matriarch. She was the sole ruler and spokesperson for the family during her son's trial and afterward. Not even John was allowed to speak in his own defense. Now that Loretta is gone, no one speaks for the family. I had just about given up establishing contact with anyone in the Collins clan when I received an unexpected email from a surprising source.

"My name is John (Philip) Chapman; I am John Norman Collins's Canadian cousin. I've been in contact with my cousin since 1981, thirty-two years now--and I have some interesting information I would be willing to share with you pertaining to John's family history and facts he has revealed to me. 

"I normally would never get involved, however, after reading your blog post--Treading on the Grief of Others in the John Norman Collins Case--I agree a debt is owed to history that must be paid.

"My heart truly goes out to those young women and their families who had their daughters taken away from them too soon. If there is anything I can share with you to help, I would be happy to do so."

John Philip Chapman appeared exactly when we needed him most. My researcher Ryan M. Place and I had worked for three years to get someone from the Collins family to speak with us about John's early family history.

Richard Chapman in 1944 on motorcycle seen with his friend Fred Higgins who saved his life.

"John's father--my Uncle Rich--was a light-infantry officer and an explosives/demolition expert in His Majesty's Canadian Services. He lost his left leg in 1944 during the Second World War. After his injury, he spent weeks in a military hospital recovering from battle fatigue and physical complications before being shipped home to Canada. He was on medication for the rest of his life. My uncle lived until 1988.

"I want to correct a public inaccuracy. Uncle Richard was never abusive towards his children or my Aunt Marjorie (Loretta went by her middle name in Canada). He never abandoned his children and never would. My aunt divorced my uncle for alleged 'extreme mental cruelty.' Uncle Rich loved his children very much, however, due (to) the amount of lies Aunt Marjorie put in their heads, they didn't want to be bothered with him. Hoping to avoid dragging their children through a bitter divorce, my uncle gave Aunt Marjorie what she wanted--full custody. My cousin Gail learned the truth shortly before her Dad passed away."

According to Chapman, "My Aunt Marjorie's family felt Uncle Rich was not good enough for their daughter. He wasn't Catholic. Her parents didn't like their son-in-law and offered him money to disappear.... I know for a fact that my Uncle Rich never took the money."

John Philip Chapman

John Philip explained that he had been writing his cousin John (Collins) in prison since he (Chapman) was seven or eight years old. "(Collins) is twenty-five years older than me and has always been like a big brother. In our letters, he refers to me as 'Little Brother'." John Philip Chapman explained that he was an only child and found comfort in the attention from his older American cousin who became a virtual 'Big Brother' for him.

Somehow, Chapman managed to remain ignorant of his older cousin's crimes. Over the years, Chapman maintained a "Don't ask - Don't tell" policy regarding his cousin's imprisonment. After all, Collins had insisted he was innocent of the Karen Sue Beineman murder. Collins also complained in his letters that he was victimized by a rogue cop (Sheriff Douglas Harvey), an overzealous prosecutor (William Delhey), and a corrupt legal system looking for a scapegoat. Now forty-one years old, Chapman's personal search for knowledge about his cousin was making him confront his deepest fears.

John Philip Chapman asked if I would be interested in receiving some of his cousin's prison letters. Chapman had noticed a change in tone and intensity in the letters of late, and he wanted me to look at them. Then, Chapman volunteered something unexpected. He offered to see what other information he could find out from his cousin about his crimes. 

Without JNC's knowledge, over the next four months we received a total of nine prison letters from Collins to his cousin. The letters average seven pages and cover a range of subjects, but one theme became more and more prevalent as time went on. Collins was pressing for an international prisoner exchange with Canada. This was Chapman's original motivation for contacting me. He wanted to know if he and his mother had anything to fear from Collins. I told Chapman that I wouldn't feel comfortable with Collins in my house or my neighborhood.

Chapman told me that Collins tried unsuccessfully to get an international prisoner exchange with Canada in 1981. Canada has more liberal sentencing provisions than the United States, so Collins saw parole as a very real possibility. The basis for his repatriation claim was he was born in Canada and held dual citizenship. He claimed he had relatives and a support system there.

But both JNC's father and his uncle refused to offer their sponsorship to Collins after being contacted by authorities on both sides of the Detroit River informing them of the particulars of Collins's crimes. When the Detroit Free Press ran an article about the possible transfer acting on a tip from a Marquette prison inmate, the Michigan Department of Corrections summarily revoked Collins's application for the international prisoner exchange.

John Norman Collins

Thirty-two years later, Collins summoned up the courage to ask his younger cousin--his last Canadian blood relative--to sponsor him for another prisoner transfer attempt in hopes of receiving dispensation for timed served in Michigan. To Collins's way of thinking, all he needed was a relative and a place to stay; then, he could be assigned to a work release program in Canada and be free of his Michigan prison cell and his jailers. Now, it became clear to Chapman what JNC had been driving at for months--the chicken hawk wanted to come home to roost.

Link to the above mentioned blog post:
http://fornology.blogspot.com/2013/06/treading-on-grief-of-others-in-john.html

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."

Retrospective John Norman Collins Serial Killer Profile - Part Four of Four

Compiling a criminal profile after an offender has been captured is like forecasting yesterday's weather tomorrow. It takes little skill and runs counter to the purpose of profiling which is the apprehension of a prime suspect. Still, by reversing the process, I hope to develop a convincing profile of serial killer John Norman Collins (JNC).

JNC was charged and convicted of the sex slaying of Karen Sue Beineman in January of 1970. Karen was a freshman at Eastern Michigan University in July of 1969 when she willingly took a motorcycle ride from a handsome stranger who seemed harmless enough. She was never seen alive again.

Convicted of Karen's murder, JNC was believed by the court of public opinion to be responsible for the murders of at least six other women, though he was never formally charged with any of them. Washtenaw County Prosecutor William Delhey held the other cases in abeyance against the day that JNC would try to maneuver his way out of prison. He did not want to take a chance that Collins would ever get released without serving his full life sentence.

Because Collins was charged and convicted of only one murder, he is not officially considered a serial killer in accordance with FBI guidelines. His case has largely escaped public notice outside of Michigan and fallen into obscurity. That does not change the reality that he murdered more than one woman in the Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor area.

In addition to the Washtenaw County murders, JNC was indicted by a Monterey, California grand jury for the murder of seventeen year old Milwaukie, Oregon resident Roxie Ann Phillips. This murder case had hard physical evidence to link Collins to the victim. It was the strongest case against Collins, but Michigan Governor William Milliken denied California Governor Ronald Reagan his extradition request and California dropped the case.

George Bush Sr, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and William Milliken

***

Of the four FBI Behavioral Science Unit classifications for serial murderers, the Anger-Retaliatory Rape/Murderer and the Anger-Excitation Rape/Murderer classifications provide the most revealing profiling characteristics relevant to JNC. Each will be handled separately. Serial killers who represent in more than one category are called "mixed." John Norman Collins is one of those.

Anger-Retaliatory Rape/Murderer profile traits:

• Violent sexual assault with elements of "overkill." (All seven victims.)
• The fatal hostility may be directed at a mother, wife, or some dominant female who has belittled, humiliated, or rejected the subject. (JNC may have had repressed anger towards his domineering mother, or he felt anger when he was rejected by his high school sweetheart. It was recently learned that Collins' first intimate girlfriend at Eastern Michigan University turned up pregnant by another guy, and she dropped him.)
• A substitute victim is chosen who usually comes from the general area where the aggressor lives or works. (Four of the seven murdered young women lived within blocks of JNC.)
• The substitute victim is chosen while the murderer is conducting his daily routine, as when cruising his neighborhood or a public place, the aggressor may find a potential victim who reminds him of his mother or girlfriend. (Five of the seven victims were local.)
• The scapegoating retaliation does not eliminate the direct source of hate, so it needs to be episodically repeated. (Six of the seven victims.)
• Often uses a ruse to get the victim inside an enclosed place. Once inside, the victim is isolated and the killer confronts her. (The Karen Sue Beineman murder.)
• Beating around the face and mouth in response to the victim's rejection. As the assault becomes more combative, weapons of opportunity are used to brutalize the body. (All of the seven murders.)
• The body is often placed in a submissive position. (Three of the seven victims.)
• The crime scene tends to be unorganized following the aggressor's intense anger venting. (Three of seven murders.)
• The perpetrator often takes a small trinket or souvenir. (At least five of the seven but thought to be more.)
• When the sexual assault and murder is deemed a success, the perpetrator walks away feeling cleansed and refreshed. He has transferred the blame for the murder onto the victim, and he will not experience any sense of guilt or wrongdoing. (Over the forty-seven years since these events took place, JNC has yet to show any feelings of remorse for any of the victims or their families.)

Anger-Excitation Rape/Murderer profile traits:

• The sexual assault and homicide are designed to inflict pain and terror on the victim for psychological gratification. (At least six of the seven known murders.)
• Unlike other types of murderers, the luxury of sadism is found in the process of killing, not the death. Prolonged torture satisfies a lust for power and control. (At least five of the seven murders.)
• The homicide pattern is characterized by a prolonged, bizarre, ritualistic assault on the victim. (At least four of the seven murders.)
• The killer may be attracted to victims who meet certain criteria. (JNC's victims were brunette with shoulder length hair, they were small of stature, all but one had pierced ears, most lived near him, they were all young - thirteen to twenty-three years old, and all students but one.)
• When encountering a victim, these organized offenders can invoke a disarmingly charming manner that dispels the immediate fears of the victim. (Most if not all of Collins' victims appeared to go willingly with him.)
• The perpetrator uses a con or a ruse to dupe the victim from the time of contact until the victim is isolated. (The Joan Schell and Karen Sue Beineman murders for certain, the others likely.)
• Bondage and domination play a significant role in the killing process. (Four of the six murders.)
• The body may be left in a bizarre state of undress after possibly cutting the clothing off the victim. (Four of the seven victims.)
• Takes clothing items as souvenirs. (One souvenir box was destroyed by JNC and one was found under his bed. The Michigan State Police have these items in evidence boxes.)
• This type of serial killer leaves few if any signs or clues at the crime scene. (It was the fourth murder victim before a crime scene was found.)
• The murderer often moves the dead body to a different location from the crime scene and dumps it in a familiar location within his comfort zone to conceal or reveal his work. (All but one of the bodies was dumped within a ten mile radius in the sparsely populated farm country of Washtenaw County.)
• To avoid detection, this organized offender tends to commit his offenses distant from his usual activities. (JNC chose his victims from people not in his circle of known acquaintances for five of the seven murders.)
• For added stimulation, the murderer may attempt to interject himself into the criminal investigation. (JNC was known to have breakfast and/or lunch at the Bomber restaurant in Ypsilanti across the street from the Michigan State Police Post. Because he was the clean cut nephew of State Trooper David Leik, Collins traded on his uncle's name and often sat in with the local police and listened to their conversations about local police matters.)
• The subject derives great satisfaction by avoiding and taunting police creating a phantom scenario where the police are publicly criticized by the press and the public. (Leaving five of the seven bodies where they could easily be found, and dumping Karen Sue Beineman's body less than a mile from police Task Force headquarters were defiant acts.)
• In his daily habits, he is often compulsive and structurally organized. Educationally, he may have two years of college and/or have graduated. (JNC was about to begin his last year of college to earn a teaching degree.)
• These murderers can successfully segment their criminal interest into a private world of protected ritualism. (Collins still publicly denies killing anyone while smugly guarding his closely protected secrets.)
• The killer's souvenirs are often contained in a private chamber of horrors. This specialty place may be a dark closet, room, basement, or a hole in the ground. He may also use an abandoned barn, cabin, or garage. (It is known that JNC collected crime scene souvenirs in a BOLD detergent box that he disposed of, and he kept another box under his bed which Michigan State Police have in their custody.)
• Generally, the timing between murders lessens with experience. The anger-excitation rape/murderer is a predatory jackal who refines his skills at hunting and learns from his mistakes. When the satisfaction from the killing becomes brief and situational, the killing rate increases. (JNC's murder chart indicates this phenomenon which statisticians call The Devil's Staircase.)

Without a hardcore confession from John Norman Collins himself, the full truth of these matters will never be known. With JNC securely locked away, it is unlikely that he will ever be charged with any of the other six murders his name is associated with. But once what is known about these other cases is revealed, the court of public opinion will have little trouble deciding on Collins' guilt or innocence in the murders he was never charged with.

***

If you missed this four part series on profiling serial killers, here is the link to part one. http://fornology.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-fbis-violent-criminal-apprehension.html 

Why I Chose To Write About John Norman Collins

Even though it has been almost fifty years since the Washtenaw County murder cases, more than once I've been asked what my personal connection is to them and John Norman Collins. Why do I feel the need to disturb the ghosts of the past and resurrect the pain of the living? To that, I say that the seven innocent victims were real people who deserve to be remembered. 

I believe Elie Wiesel's quote from his Holocaust memoir, Night, is fitting because it addresses this attitude: "To forget them - would be like killing them twice." We don't get to choose our history, and it is up to the living to speak for those who can no longer speak for themselves.

These 1967-1969 serial murders terrorized the college towns of Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, Michigan, directly affecting the lives of thousands of Washtenaw County residents. What most people remember about those times is based on the hasty novelization by Edward Keyes, The Michigan Murders.

Besides changing the names of the victims, the witnesses, and their presumed murderer which obscured their real identities, assumptions were made about the backstory to these ugly slayings without contacting people associated with these cases. 

What Keyes should be given credit for is keeping the essential facts and circumstances of these cases intact. Were it not for his novelization, this dark chapter of Michigan history would have vanished with time.

But his work came out only six years after these things happened. He relied heavily on official reports and the copious notes of Eastern Michigan University English Professor Paul McGlynn, who attended all of the court sessions.

Decades of hindsight combined with new living history accounts makes it possible to create a more accurate picture of those times and circumstances and place those events in some meaningful historical context.

Over the years, because of ambiguities in the novel and the absence of factual information about these cases, an urban legend has grown up around John Norman Collins making him a folk hero in some circles. People who were not even born then or old enough to know any better believe the Karen Sue Beineman trial was a travesty of justice.

They show up on the internet comment threads talking about how Collins was hounded by desperate police, persecuted by vengeful prosecutors, and brought low by unfair media coverage. They contend that circumstantial evidence doesn't prove anything and that the Michigan Department of Corrections uses Collins as their poster boy for crime in Michigan. Rather than imprison an innocent man, the mantra goes, the police should be out there looking for the real murderer.

Each of these talking points comes directly from the John Norman Collins Playbook, a product of Collins' many attempts to manipulate the media and mold public opinion from behind bars. Unbelievably after forty-five years, Collins still has the power to cast an evil aura and infect people's minds.

For the above reasons, I was drawn to this subject matter. There is a vacuum in the historical record that needs to be filled. But I have other reasons for writing The Rainy Day Murders, personal reasons.

The Rainy Day Murders Progress Report

On Monday, I completed the first full draft of The Rainy Day Murders (RDM) about John Norman Collins (JNC) and the Washtenaw County sex slayings of seven defenseless young women in the late 1960s.

The dark shadow of time has obscured the facts of this once prominent case that History seems to have unwittingly forgotten. Institutional neglect has taken its toll on the truth story of this case also. The trial transcripts have been purged, and no microfilm, microfiche, or digital files were made of these Washtenaw County court documents. It is tough for me to understand that.

Invoking The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), my researcher and I requested and received many documents from the Ann Arbor City Attorney's office, the Michigan State Police, the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC), and several other governmental agencies. 

Not honoring our FOIA requests at all were the State of California and the Ypsilanti City Attorney's Office. Their refusal to comply, for whatever reasons, forced us to seek information from other sources.

Lucky for us, the Ypsilanti Historical Society, the Halle Library on the campus of Eastern Michigan University, and the Ypsilanti Public Library archives were all open and available for our use. We have carefully gleaned facts and quotes from news clippings from across the state of Michigan to faithfully reconstitute the court proceedings.

Part one of The Rainy Day Murders will discuss the facts of each of the young women's cases including new living history accounts seasoned with forty-five years of hindsight. Part two of this book will be the restored court proceedings of these murders from 1969-1970. Part three of RDM will cover an area never before written about to any great extent, JNC's prison years.

The prison years tells of Collins life and times behind bars and his attempts to legally and illegally get out of serving his full life sentence in Michigan prisons. This section also goes into his attempts to manipulate the media and shape public opinion. To round out the prison years, we have come into possession of twenty recent JNC prison letters which will add new information to the canon of this case.

At this writing, I plan to end the book with JNC's alibi defense claiming to his Canadian cousin that Collins was innocent of the murder of Karen Sue Beineman. He names the person who testified against him in court as her murderer and implicates this same person in two other murders. 

This makes for fascinating reading but my treatment of this case will be a true crime account; Collins' elaborate fantasy defense is clearly fiction. So this book will have something for everyone.

From the facts and circumstances presented, I leave it up to the reader to decide the guilt or innocence of JNC. The other six cases will never be formally brought against Collins. What's the use? He is locked down and his days are numbered.

Guest Post - John Philip Chapman - John Norman Collins' Canadian Cousin

University of Toronto graduate, John Philip Chapman

Finally, I've finished the first complete draft of The Rainy Day Murders, my true crime treatment of the Washtenaw County Murders. In the coming weeks, I need to revise and finish the supplemental material and take it to the marketplace. 

Once I get an agent and a publisher, I'll have a better idea of a publication date. My grateful thanks to those many people who helped me tell the most complete account of these cases to date. You know who you are.

John Norman Collins' Canadian cousin, John Philip Chapman wanted to explain his involvement with this project in a guest post. Here it what he had to say.

*** 

My name is John Philip Chapman, and I live in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.  I am now 41 years old, an only child and the Canadian cousin of John Norman Collins.  Thirty-two years ago, I was introduced to my cousin – John Norman Collins for the first time.  

It was in early March of 1982, just a week before my 10^th birthday.  At the time and because of my age – my parents only told me that I had a cousin who was in prison and that he wanted to correspond with me.  Given my young age and inability to comprehend the nature of his crimes, I was never told what they were nor the details of his actions.  Some would say that ignorance is bliss.  At this point, nothing was further from the truth.  

From Day One, both my cousin and I had informally adopted the “Don’t Ask..Don’t Tell” policy concerning the crime for which he was accused and found guilty of.  I was curious to know the truth, but, yet afraid of what I might find out.  

At the beginning, through our letters and phone calls back and forth, I came to know this man as a kind, considerate and thoughtful person who dispensed great advice and was very understanding of the trials and tribulations that come with being a teenager and with all the new discoveries that come with that right of passage.  

A whole new world of opportunities was opening up for me – first job, first girlfriend, first examinations, first drink, first attempt at driving. However, with all these opportunities, I found myself being comforted in talking about these things with someone who regarded me as his proverbial “little brother” and who imparted on me words of wisdom and many comical anecdotes.  As a teenager, this was someone that I respected and cared for – he was family.  

In the years that followed, however, things began to change and something seemed “off” where my cousin was concerned, but I made the mistake of ignoring those warning signs and I continued to communicate with him – if anything because I felt a familial obligation to do so, and partially because I was an introverted person with no siblings. My cousin “appeared” to be understanding and compassionate.  I would soon come to realize that my suspicions were well founded

In May of 2013, as I casually browsed through the internet, I was overcome with the innate curiosity to look up my cousin’s name via Google and see what I could discover.  After all, what harm could that do? Looking back on that day, I could not, at the time, have ever imagined what I would find.  I spent the next four hours reading information and articles concerning my cousin – nicknamed “The Co-Ed Killer”.  

However, I had come across the name of a gentleman who was writing a book called “The Rainy Day Murders” and who was looking for information concerning my cousin.  Because I was confused and perplexed with what I had read about him, I decided to send this person an e-mail; then, we decided to meet in person.

In meeting with Greg Fournier and his associate, Ryan Place, I was convinced that their work was an honorable thing to do in paying not only tribute to those women who lost their lives but to those who remained behind – those mothers and fathers, brothers, sisters, and relatives and friends who were left to pick up the pieces after their traumatic losses. 

The book they are just finishing promises to be the most accurate, detailed, and honest account concerning the circumstances surrounding the deaths of seven young women and the life of John Norman Collins. Over the next several months, I continued to write my cousin and correspond via e-mail with him in an attempt to obtain his side of the Karen Sue Beineman issue and to gain perspective into the mind of John Norman Collins – all for the benefit of this book. What I found was truly disturbing on so many levels.

Over the next several months, I learned a great deal about the crime that my cousin was charged with and found guilty of.  Never in my wildest imagination could I have ever thought that such violent, horrendous, and despicable actions could possibly be committed by someone I am related to.  Over these months, I came to understand the delusional reality that my cousin lives in and thrives on daily. 

I saw, for the first time in thirty years, that my cousin was and still is a master manipulator – a true Machiavellian in every sense of the term.  As long as the end justifies the means for John – he does it.  His attitude today towards women and womanhood are absolutely misogynistic, despicable, and clearly the words of someone who still has a great deal of anger towards women in general.  

John looks out for one person and that is himself, and he routinely uses emotional blackmail to obtain his desired result.  John shows zero remorse towards the lives of these young women and for his part in these crimes. He shows a callous disregard for his participation in these events.  

For my cousin John to admit any guilt and/or accept any responsibility for his actions would be a sign of weakness to him.  My cousin has a typical alpha-male personality that clearly shows through his many letters and e-mails over the past year.

With that in mind, I want to take this opportunity to thank both Greg Fournier and Ryan Place for helping me to realize and come to terms with the monster that is my cousin, John Norman Collins. 

The disgust and contempt that I felt for my cousin was not enough to dissuade me from communicating with him because I knew in the end that any information I would obtain, would only benefit "The Rainy Day Murders”.  

Helping them turned out to be a real pleasure for me and an experience that I feel very proud to have been a part of.  In the end, I lost a cousin but gained two friends who have shown a great deal of integrity in dealing with the sensitive nature of this book.  It is to them and this book that I wish all the best for. 

For the families of the seven young women, whose lives ended far too soon – I can only express my sincere and heartfelt sympathy and apologies for what happened to your daughters, sisters, and nieces. These women had their whole lives ahead of them, and bright futures – sadly futures that would never come to be – all because of the violent madman that is my cousin – John Norman Collins.  

To those who were left behind, I wish that I could  take away your pain and suffering, but sadly I am not able to do that.  However, my heart goes out to you all for your courage and strength in dealing with the loss of your loved ones.  It's impossible to get over such a deep loss, especially under these circumstances. It is my hope that this book will offer you some measure of peace.

Neither myself or any member of my family has ever condoned the actions of my cousin and we do not support him in any way, shape, or form.  

Speaking for myself, my cousin is a disgusting, psychologically disturbed pervert that I am, in no way, afraid of.  To be afraid of him would be to allow him to have that kind of power over me, and I simply refuse to allow that to happen.  

John Norman Collins is a monster - straight up!  Because of this, I have taken every legal avenue at my disposal to ensure that my cousin never ever will be able to transfer to a Canadian prison and thus ensure an early release.  

As of January 10, 2014, I am proud and happy to say that after three months of addressing and taking care of this important legal matter (at some personal expense to myself) the case is now closed and John Norman Collins WILL spend the rest of his natural life in Marquette Branch Prison where he belongs.  If anything, I hope this fact will offer people out there some added measure of comfort and security.

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

"A Crime to Remember" - Investigation Discovery Channel's New True Crime Show Debuts Tuesday, November 12, 2013

A Crime to Remember debuts Tuesday night on Investigation Discovery at 10 PM Eastern time. Check your local listings for channels in your area and set your DVRs to record the entire series.

Episode number five, "A New Kind of Monster" will air on Tuesday, December 10th, 2013. It will deal with the Washtenaw County Coed Murders of 1967-1969, the subject of the true crime book I'm close to completing called The Rainy Day Murders.

The six-part limited series premieres: 

Tuesday, NOVEMBER 12 at 10PM/9PM on ID.

Watch the NEW and GORGEOUS series promo:  https://vimeo.com/78664854

Or you can find it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZaCOomqaMA

Crime never looked so classy.

Link to it, tweet it, share it, post it - whatever you like!

For a review of the series and a summary of each episode, click on this link: http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news/2013/11/06/investigation-discovery-revisits-the-good-old-days-gone-bad-with-a-crime-to-remember-683204/20131106id01/