The Roxie Ann Phillips California Case. Did John Norman Collins Act Alone?

In August of 1969 after working on a recent unsolved murder case in Salinas, California for two frustrating weeks, a tired police investigator sat down to dinner in front of his television to watch the national news. 

A break had been made in the Michigan murder case of Karen Sue Beineman. An unlikely suspect by the name of John Norman Collins, a student at Eastern Michigan University had been arrested.

The story went on to say that Collins had recently returned from a short vacation in California. The network showed a picture of him taking a perp walk into the Washtenaw County Courthouse in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Mention was also made in the story that a silver Oldsmobile Cutlass was believed to have been used to dump the coed's body. 

Other circumstances of the crimes were eerily similar. Both women died of strangulation, both were sexually violated, both were dumped in secluded areas, and both were wearing only their sandals. 

The Salinas Police Department contacted the Michigan State Police to share information. When the MSP were told that the Salinas police had found an abandoned house trailer thought to be the murder site, Detective Tom Nasser and Sergeant Kennard Christensen from the Plymouth Crime Center flew out to Salinas to help with their investigation. Both men testified before the Monterey County Grand Jury inquest.

Among other damning evidence presented before the grand jury, an eyewitness placed a young man at the scene of seventeen year old Roxie Ann Phillips' abduction. She saw Roxie get into a silver-gray Olds Cutlass with Michigan plates. Then he sped away, running a red light and making a hard right turn. The witness remembered the red flowered outfit Roxie was wearing that day.

A Monterey County California Grand Jury indicted Collins for the murder of Roxy Ann Phillips, a recent visitor to California from Milwaulkie, Oregon. After some bureaucratic squabbling between each state's Attorney General, Michigan Governor Milliken rejected California Governor Ronald Reagan's request for extradition. 

Vice President George Bush, President Gerald Ford, California Governor Ronald Reagan, and Michigan Governor William Milliken

California had a stronger case than Michigan, and it was a death penalty state. But because of the community impact that the seven unsolved murders of young women had in Washtenaw County, Governor Milliken had no choice but to try Collins in Michigan for the Beineman murder. "Life" behind bars was the maximum prison sentence a Michigan judge could levy.

***

Accompanying Collins on his fateful trip to California was his Motor Wheel work buddy and housemate, Andrew Manuel. There had been six unsolved murders in the area. Police from five departments were swarming over the area, and both men were also feeling some heat for a spate of break-ins and burglaries in the city.

Andrew was from Salinas, California and thought a month away from Ypsilanti might do them both some good. Collins and Manuel fraudulently rented a 17' long house trailer in Ypsilanti and towed it behind a silver Olds Cutlass, a new car belonging to Collins' mother, Loretta.

In their investigation of Roxie Ann Phillips' murder, the Salinas police reported finding an abandoned house trailer behind the home of Andrew Manuel's grandparents, the Salinas forensic team went to work. It was discovered that every fingerprint inside and outside the trailer had been wiped clean. When Andrew's grandparents were interviewed, they complained that the boys didn't even say goodbye before they left.

The evidence against Collins for the murder of Roxie Ann Phillips was the strongest case against him. But the detailing and abandoning of a house trailer doesn't make Andrew Manuel his accomplice in her murderer. It is apparent at the very least that he was fully aware of what his buddy had done, and he helped Collins cover it up by destroying evidence.  He may also have been an accessory after the fact by helping Collins dump the body.

Why then would these guys cut their trip in half, fully detail a 17' house trailer, and then abandon it? One can only wonder what the conversation between them was on their trip back to Michigan.

***

After Collins and Manuel returned, Andrew disappeared immediately and was eventually arrested in Phoenix by the FBI. He was extradited from Arizona and returned to Michigan where he took and passed several lie detector tests clearing him of the murders of Roxy Ann Phillips and Karen Sue Beineman. 

Manuel was arrested for "theft by conversion" of the house trailer and selling stolen jewelry from an Ypsilanti break-in. He was given one year probation and a $100 fine, on the understanding that he would testify for the prosecution in the case against Collins. 

Andrew was given immunity. He violated his probation agreement and fled the area, only to be arrested to serve out his term in the Washtenaw County Jail. On the stand at the Collins trial, Manuel became "Helen Keller." He saw and heard nothing.

The John Norman Collins Mess and My Motivation For Writing About It

A small number of people have questioned my motives for writing The Rainy Day Murders about John Norman Collins. Why reopen old wounds?

The sex slaying murders of seven and possibly more local young women created an atmosphere of sustained panic and mortal fear for college coeds on two college campuses, Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti and The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. 

 ***

This tragedy left an indelible impression on me and anyone else who lived through that terrible period of Washtenaw County history. I first realized an arrest had been made in the "Coed Killer Case" when I was walking down from my apartment on College Place St. to have lunch at Roy's Grill, a diner on the corner of W. Cross and College Place. It was Friday, August 1, 1969, around 10:30 or so in the morning.

I lived only a block down the street and saw an assortment of four or five police cars surrounding the corner house on Emmet St. A small group of people had gathered across the street from the house; the police were keeping spectators away.

My first thought was that another girl's body had been found. A year before, Joan Schell, the second victim of a phantom local killer, had lived across the street from this very same Emmet St. house. Her body was found in farm country on the northern outskirts of Ann Arbor.

I approached someone I knew and asked him what was happening, "John Collins was arrested for the murder of that Beineman girl a week ago," he told me. 

My friend had occasionally ridden motorcycles through the countryside with Collins, and now and then they "exchanged" motorcycle parts, so he knew him. When I asked how he got his information, he pointed to a guy in front of the cordoned off house who was arguing with policemen. 

Arnie Davis lived across the landing from Collins on the second floor and described himself, during the court case a year later, as Collins' "best friend." Davis wanted to get his stuff out of the house, but it had already been locked down as a potential crime scene. 

I walked a scant block further to W. Cross St. and ate lunch at Roy's Grill. When I walked up the street to go home, the crowd had grown and the media had arrived by this time. I have a vivid memory of reporters questioning bystanders. 

When I saw Collins' picture in the newspaper later that evening, I was able to place the name with the face. I realized that I had several negative brushes with this guy while I was a student at Eastern Michigan. 

He tried to clothesline me once when I passed by him. Perhaps he was displeased with me because I witnessed him and his friend Manny attempt to break into a car on my street, College Place.

As I was about to walk past him, I ducked and swung around in a defensive position, but Collins and Manny continued walking down the street like nothing had happened. They headed towards the Emmet St. boarding house where they each rented rooms.

After learning of Collins' arrest, my mother called me on the phone relieved. She reluctantly told me that she had suspected I might be the murderer because I resembled the eyewitness descriptions in the newspapers. Can you believe that? Thanks, Mom.

***

When The Michigan Murders came out in 1976, I snapped it up like so many other people in Ypsilanti and anxiously read it. I was disappointed because I felt the novelization of the story took liberties with the facts and relied too heavily on official reports and the work of an Eastern Michigan University English Professor, Dr. Paul McGlynn.  He had allowed Edward Keyes to use his notes which McGlynn had gathered while attending the court proceedings doing research for his own book.

I soon discovered that many assumptions and liberties were taken with the story which made for smooth flowing fiction, but the real story is anything but smooth flowing. It is a ragged mess of complicated misinformation, shaky news reporting, and missing documentation. If this was an easy story to tell, it would have been done long ago.

The most frustrating and confusing aspect of Edward Keyes' novelization was that he chose to change the names of the victims and their alleged murderer. When another author took up the charge of this case some years later, he too changed the names of the victims and of the accused, and then referenced those names to the fictitious names which only compounded the confusion and led to the obscurity of the real victims.
  

Over forty-five years have passed since these sad events, and it is time for the record to be restored and updated. It may have been customary in the past for authors to change the names of victims to protect the families and their feelings, but those days are long gone. I would rather get the facts right than be polite. 

New Investigative Discovery Channel John Norman Collins Documentary - Fall 2013

Last April, I was interviewed for an Investigative Discovery Channel program on John Norman Collins and the coed killings of 1967-1969 in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, Michigan. 

Other people appearing on the program will be Katherine Ramsland, forensic psychologist and syndicated contributor to Psychology Today; former Washtenaw County Sheriff Douglas Harvey; and Eastern Michigan University Patrolman Larry Mathewson, credited with breaking open the Karen Sue Beineman case.

In addition to interviews, the program will include re-enactments and scripted elements. It should air sometime this autumn, the date to be arranged.

 

Investigation Discovery true crime series seeks local footage from the 1960s

By Jenn McKee Entertainment Reporter

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Posted on Wed, May 1, 2013 : 10:47 a.m.

The production team behind a six part true crime anthology series, “The Bad Old Days” - slated to air on Investigation Discovery in the fall of 2013 - are seeking archival footage and home movies shot in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area in the 1960s.

The reason? The series, which details real-life murder cases of the 1950s and ‘60s, will in one episode highlight the "Michigan Murders" (’67-’69), wherein local women were terrorized, and the police rooted out one of the nation’s first nationally known serial killers, John Norman Collins.
The series’ format combines interviews, scripted scenes and archival footage.
“Our creative team wants to strive for an authentic and intimate look at the time period and of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti,” series associate producer Rebecca Morton said in an email. “We would like to weave this material into the scripted scenes.
Those with archives or footage to share should contact Morton at rmorton@xconproductions.com.

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Jenn McKee is an entertainment reporter for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at jennmckee@annarbor.com or 734-623-2546, and follow her on Twitter @jennmckee.

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:

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

To the Reader: For the first time in this blog, I am running a post of an email I received. A former University of Michigan student wrote me several days ago in response to my call for information on the John Norman Collins' series of sex slayings in the late Sixties.

I found her story compelling reading. She was having a bad day and accepted a ride from a stranger on a rainy day at the height of the "Co-Ed Killings" in 1969. In part one of this two part post, she tells her own story. My response to her and the surprising result will appear in part two in several days.

I have her permission to run her letter.

*****

Dear Mr. Fournier,

In 1969, I was a sophomore coed living in the Alpha Chi Omega house on Washtenaw [Ave]. On a rainy spring afternoon I was walking with my umbrella up on University [Ave], a block or two from the corner of Washtenaw and University. A large, 4-door sedan (in my memory it was a Pontiac or something of that size, heavy and solid) pulled up beside me, and a man opened the passenger door and offered me a ride.

In my wildest dreams, I never imagined that I would get into a car with a stranger, but for some reason that day I did. I had some sort of boyfriend issue at the time, so insignificant that I can't remember what it was about. I had been to St. Mary's Chapel for a little prayer time and was walking home in a dejected state. I'm sure my body language marked me as a target for the driver of the car.

As I closed the door, I got a sinking feeling that I was doing the stupidest thing I would ever do in my life. He asked me why I was so down and where I was going. I said I had just come out of St. Mary's and was heading out Washtenaw. He made the turn onto Washtenaw and drove carefully. I wondered if he would stop at my corner or continue on past towards Ypsilanti. I remember thinking if he didn't stop, or if he speeded [sic] up, I would open the car door and take my chances and leap to the pavement. I would definitely have done it. It crossed my mind to take my book bag with me.

We talked for the few minutes I was in the car about my praying and how I thought God would help me with my troubles because I was close to Him and was used to going to Him for consolation and communion. To my great relief, at the corner of Cambridge and Washtenaw he slowed the car and stopped.

As I opened the door and thanked him for the lift, he turned to me and said, "I was going to rape you, but I changed my mind." I pretended to laugh, as if it was a joke, but I knew he was serious. He then said to me. "The next time you are in church, say a prayer for Dave." I promised to do so as I closed the car door behind me and breathed a deep sigh of relief.

I was really not aware of the murders in the area at the time. I didn't connect this incident with local news. I've never forgotten the exact words he said to me, or the feeling that I had narrowly escaped from a very serious situation.

"Dave" was dark haired with a slick-backed haircut that was right out of central casting for the "Sopranos". I remember a prominent Roman nose and a "city clothes" style unlike the casual jeans and flannel shirt look of the day, a contrast to student attire. I really couldn't provide any better description of him or of the car, even at the time.

I was reading your blog today, asking for any small details. I don't know if this is helpful or not. I never reported it to any authority, although I used the story to scare the crap out of my own two girls as they went off to college.

(Name withheld by request)

*****

Part Two will run in a few days.

The Media, the Police, and the Washtenaw County Murders - 1967-1969

Before law enforcement and the public realized there may be a serial killer in their midst, three local coeds were found murdered and left scattered around the rural countryside of Washtenaw County outside of Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Mary Fleszar (19) disappeared on the evening of July 9, 1967. She was an Eastern Michigan University student whose body was found a 150 yards from the road on an abandoned farm thirty-two days after she disappeared. In the absence of any real clues, police investigators surmised that she may have been killed by a transient and dumped there. The condition of her remains shocked detectives on the scene.

Just over a year later, on July 30, 1968, another EMU coed, Joan Schell (20) was hitchhiking and seen getting into a car with three young men. Her body was found a week later on the outskirts of Ann Arbor. Police determined that she had been killed elsewhere, and her nude body was dumped 12 feet from the road and covered with grass clippings. Little effort was made to conceal the body. 

A couple of investigators familiar with the Fleszar case the year before thought that these murders could possibly be related, but Schell's murder was generally regarded as an isolated incident by most investigators.

A third coed was found murdered eight months later; University of Michigan graduate student, Jane Mixer (23). Her fully clothed body was laid out on a grave site just inside the gate of Denton Cemetery; a yellow raincoat covered her up. 

Detectives on the scene felt that this murder was significantly different than the previous two, but the press ran with the story and began linking the three murders together in the public's mind.

A self-perpetuating engine of public opinion was fueled by the public's desire for the latest news and the media's commercial and competitive interests. This relationship led to the breakdown of collective solidarity in the communities of Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor. A generalized fear gripped the public psyche, suspicion ran rampant, and faith in law enforcement efforts declined. Fear fed upon itself and magnified divisions already in the community.

To provide the community with a sense of psychological comfort and help contain the threat, the police floated the story that the killer or killers were a bunch of drug crazed transients. This well-publicized fiction was based on wishful thinking and may have prevented police from recognizing the killer when he was in their custody. Their suspect was clean cut and simply didn't fit the profile.

The universities attracted lots of non-student hippie types who always seemed to be hanging around causing trouble. After all, the murdered girls were college students, so the threat may be limited to EMU and U of M and not the general populace.

Only five days after the Mixer murder, Maralyn Skelton's dead body was found horribly abused along a roadside. She was a sixteen year old who recently had dropped out of Romulus High School and was last seen hitchhiking in front of Arborland on Washtenaw Ave. 

Twenty-one days later, Dawn Basom (13), a local Ypsilanti junior high school student was snatched less than 100 yards from her house. Now the frenzied community felt no one was safe. The time between slayings was decreasing as the death toll was rising.

When the police were powerless to capture the killer, the public appealed for divine intervention. The media reported on prayer vigils held in local churches, and some religious people believed that the deaths of the victims had some sort of sacrificial purpose and spiritual significance. 

Marjorie Beineman, the mother of the last victim, believed, "God must have sent Karen to find the killer." She was convinced that her daughter's sacrifice was according to God's divine plan to save others, precious little comfort for a grieving mother.

Still, others believed that the killer was thought to have a Svengali type of hypnotic, superhuman power to spirit his victims away without a trace. If God's divine presence can take human-saintly form, then the opposite must be true, the devils' disciples exist on Earth as evil incarnate.

The public was desperate for its deliverance from evil. Faith in the local police was at an all time low, and there were too many reporters chasing too little news. Something had to be done to move this case along.

Enter the psychic - Peter Hurkos. His presence gave the media something new to report on, but the police were not happy with this interloper. Assistant Prosecutor Booker T. Williams had a more proactive attitude, "What is there to lose? Maybe he can help break the case."

John Norman Collins' Nemesis - Washtenaw Country Sheriff Douglas J. Harvey - Part Two

Sheriff Harvey with Tear Gas Launcher

On July 9, 1967, a nineteen year old Eastern Michigan University business student majoring in accounting went missing after an evening walk.

Mary Fleszar's badly decomposed body was discovered thirty days later laying in a field of shoulder high weeds on the site of an abandoned farm just north of Ypsilanti by two thirteen year old boys. They phoned the State Police post in Ypsilanti to report what they saw.

Her brutal murder, and the six that would follow, shocked the residents of Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, two university campus towns connected by Washtenaw Avenue. For two long years, the brutal sex slayings of young women took place.

The elusive serial killer appeared to have criminal intuition and easily evaded capture. In the minds of some people, the murderer seemed to have an almost "spectral" quality.

Every lawman in Washtenaw County made the capture and conviction of this deranged killer of young women their number one priority, but none more than Washtenaw County Sheriff Douglas J. Harvey.

At a Kiwanis Club "Morning Edition" breakfast in Ann Arbor on June 29, 2011, the former sheriff reminisces on this forty-five year old case. Not since Odysseus has anyone enjoyed telling his story more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK_-c1vqe8Q