John Norman Collins Mail Call - Coming Clean With My Readers

For three and a half years, I have focused most of my worldly attention on researching and writing about John Norman Collins (JNC) and the Washtenaw County murders of 1967-1969. 

I would have been finished with The Rainy Day Murders six months ago but for an unforeseen development which I have been holding back from my readers. 

My researcher, Ryan M. Place, and I have privately received over twenty prison letters and a handful of emails from two separate sources that JNC had written to from April 2013 until October 2013.

The first cache of letters we received was from a woman who had been corresponding with JNC for close to a year. Sandra contacted us when Collins agreed to answer some of our questions through a third party, his current girlfriend, Sandra. 

We had written Collins numerous times asking for an interview, but he decided to use Sandra as a virtual "human shield" to play games with us. I am sure he believed that going through her would give him some level of control over the interview, but in reality, it was merely weak dealing.

Collins believed he had a firm grasp on her, but his glib, evasive, and sometimes disturbing answers to our written questions about the young women's murders began to turn her off, and she began to internalize her feelings about the defenseless victims of his carnage. What he said and how he said it was upsetting to her.

He began making lewd remarks in his prison letters. Rather than "charming" her with his sweet talk as he had been doing, he suddenly became vulgar and suggestive which bothered her. 

Finally, Sandra wrote to us saying she was through with Collins. Then she surprised us with an offer we couldn't refuse, "Would you like me to send you some of his prison letters?"

"Yeah!"

Ryan and I couldn't believe our luck. Here was an exclusive information drop handed to us. Primary resource material is the meat of research, and now we had some prison letters from JNC himself. Sandra sent us twelve personal letters and many pages of notes she had taken from several "collect" phone calls Collins had made to her from the prison yard.

Disgusted with him, Sandra finally told Collins that she had sent us the letters he had written to her. The master manipulator had been double-dealt and he was furious. 

Some days afterwards, in a phone call to me, Sandra said that John had called her back and apologized profusely. He said he had been under a lot of stress lately and needed to talk with her face-to-face, necessitating a visit to Marquette prison. 

"It's URGENT!" he told her. 

Stock Photograph - Depicts High Security, Non-Contact Visitation

For some unspecified reason, she recanted and drove several hundred miles up to Michigan's Upper Peninsula to finally face the prison inmate she had been writing for months. Although I wasn't made privy to their entire conversation, I do know this, JNC asked Sandra to marry him.

That is the last thing we have heard from Sandra. Her phone is still connected, but she isn't answering our calls.

Then something even more remarkable happened. In May of 2013, I received an email from a person who claimed to be JNC's last living Canadian blood relative. He had been investigating the internet for information on his infamous cousin and read several of my recent blog posts about him. 

 

The Canadian emailer wanted to correct the mistaken perceptions concerning his Uncle Rich, the Canadian birth father of John Norman Collins. What had been previously printed about his uncle was blatantly inaccurate, and he wanted me to set the record straight in The Rainy Day Murders.

More about the JNC Canadian family connection in my next post.

The Grande Ballroom - Is There a Future For Detroit's Former Rock and Roll Mecca?

The Grande Ballroom as it exists in ruins today.

In the mid to late sixties, the Grande Ballroom was the place to be on the weekends in Detroit. The Motor City had no shortage of high energy, head banging garage bands competing with one another in frequent "Battle of the Bands" events. Local groups like MC5 (Motor City 5), SRC (my fav), Frost, The Stooges with Iggy Pop, The Amboy Dukes, Bob Seger, Grand Funk Railroad, and many others each had a dedicated following.

Top-shelf bands from around the country, and from England in particular, saw Detroit's Grande Ballroom as the undisputed rock
and roll Mecca of the Midwest. The Jefferson Airplane, Cream with Eric Clapton, Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, Jethro Tull, The Spirit, The Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Savoy Brown, The Moody Blues, and many others played on the Grande stage that once hosted the Glenn Miller Band, Benny Goodman, the Dorsey brothers, and other swing dance era big bands. There was a lot of music history made within these walls.

During the turbulent Sixties, the Grande Ballroom served up an uneasy mixture of high energy music and counter culture propaganda centered around Detroit's self-proclaimed hippie guru, John Sinclair. John managed some local Detroit bands and led a group called Trans Love Energies, which morphed into the White Panther Party when the group moved to Ann Arbor because of police harassment.
 
Is there a future for a restored Grande Ballroom in the new Detroit? Some people think so. Check out the link for more discussion of restoring this landmark which holds so many memories for inner-city and suburban Detroiters.

 http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/detroit/index.ssf/2013/07/rock_and_roll_hall_of_fame_off.html

For more on the Grande Ballroom: http://fornology.blogspot.com/2012/04/grande-ballroom-detroits-sixties-rock.html

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

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.

Better Safe Than Sorry - Another John Norman Collins Anecdote

John Norman Collins - 1969

Over the last couple of years doing research for my The Rainy Day Murders true crime project, I have received many anecdotal accounts from people about encounters with John Norman Collins, alleged serial killer.

I even have a couple stories of my own, having lived a block up the street from him during those frightening days.

After speaking with several of these people, I have their permission to share their stories over the next few weeks.  The original emails are slightly edited for clarity.

***  

Ypsilanti, Michigan

"At fifteen years old, which would have been 1966/67, I worked at Superior's (an ice cream place) on Cross Street. Walking home from work one summer evening, a car slowed behind St. John's parking lot and a nice, clean cut looking young man asked if I could give him directions to one of the dorms on Eastern Michigan University's campus.

"Since I had lived in the campus area most of my life at the point, I gave him the requested directions. He asked me if I could ride with him to show him the way, and he would then bring me back to my destination. He claimed he was from out of town and didn't know his way around. 

"I declined and continued my walk home. I lived on Olive Street one block over but accessed my house via an alley that sat adjacent to it. As I walked down the alley, I saw that he was driving down my street very slowly. I ran to my back door and entered my house.

"Several weeks later, this same guy came into Superior's with a group of guys from Theta Chi (an EMU campus fraternity). One of the guys looked familiar to me, and I asked if I knew him. The guy from the car asked if I remembered him and I told him 'No.'

"When they (the Michigan State Police) arrested him (Collins) and his picture was broadcast, I remembered him as the same guy who tried to pick me up. It was just a couple of weeks before the first victim was found!

"I believe my instincts and warnings to never get in a car with a stranger may have saved my life!

- Dianne Ellis -

http://fornology.blogspot.com/2013/08/through-rapists-eyes-cautionary-advice.html

The Canadian Dream of John Norman Collins

When John Norman Collins discovered in 1980 that Michigan Governor William Milliken had signed an international prisoner exchange agreement with Canada, he had an idea. 

John was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada in 1947, and moved with his mother and siblings to the Detroit area on the American side of the river in 1951 where he grew up. If he changed his adopted father's last name, Collins, and returned to his birth father's last name, Chapman, it might strengthen his claim at repatriation.

He most certainly was hoping also that the name change would help him coast under the radar of public notice and the scrutiny of the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC). On January 5, 1981, in an Oakland County courtroom, John Norman Collins legally became John Norman Chapman.

Collins' Michigan sentence called for Life without the possibility of parole. If transferred to Canada, he would be subject to their law which provides for the possibility of parole after fifteen years of a Life sentence. Additionally, a foreign conviction does not constitute a criminal record in Canada.

Including his time served in the Washtenaw County Jail prior to his prison sentence, Collins had served twelve years of his Life sentence. A transfer to a Canadian prison meant he would have been eligible for parole in 1985. 

***

Collins (Chapman) handled all of the paperwork successfully and he was transferred from Marquette Prison in the Upper Peninsula to Jackson Prison, closer to the Federal building in Detroit where the international transfer was to take place.

But on the day of the hearing, it was discovered that one signature from Ottawa was missing, so the transfer hearing was rescheduled until the paperwork caught up with the necessary signature.

Before that could happen, a fellow Marquette prison inmate familiar with Collins' plan to circumvent his full sentence blew the whistle on him. He posted a letter to the Detroit Free Press night editor, someone he had worked with on an earlier prison story.

The night editor gave the story to Marianne Rzepka who ran a story the next day called "Transfer to Canada For Killer?" That evening, Michigan's Associated Press picked up the story on their wire service, and by morning, thirty-three newspapers and eight-five radio and television stations ran with the story.

When the prosecutor of the case, William Delhey heard of the transfer request, he immediately contacted the parents of Karen Sue Beineman and they started making phone calls and writing letters.

To convince John Norman Collins' last remaining Canadian relatives not to sponsor him for eventual parole, a letter of some graphic detail about the case and other troubling details, was sent by Prosecutor Delhey to their Canadian home.

When Collins' uncle received a call from the Canadian Director of Prisons, he was told to stay away from the case due to its graphic nature and content. After reading about the details of the case, Mr. Chapman, John's paternal uncle, refused to support Collins any further. 

In a collect phone call from prison, Collins became unhinged when he was told that he didn't have the support or acknowledgement of his Canadian relatives, an essential part of the transfer agreement. 

John's Canadian cousin remembers it this way: "When my Dad realized that John was lying to him about his innocence, my Dad told him off in no uncertain terms.... There were some colorful metaphors thrown around and it was after that, that my Dad refused to take any more of John's collect phone calls from prison, but he never stopped me from writing him.... I was in the living room watching TV, so I heard everything."

"After my Dad got off the phone, he spoke with my Mom out on the balcony. When they came inside, he sat me down and spoke with me. In that conversation, he told me that some day, John might try the same thing on me, as he did with him.... My Dad was only looking out for me and wanted to let me know that this possibility might happen. And the truth is - it did!"

 ***

On another front, the MDOC was getting heat from the press, the public, and the politicians. The MDOC and Marquette's warden, T.H. Koehler, would have liked to trade off their most notorious inmate. The warden was quoted as saying, "John Norman Collins is the only inmate in this prison who has a book about him for sale in the prison gift shop."

On January 20, 1982, MDOC's Deputy Director, Robert Brown Jr., revoked approval of Collins' transfer bid on the grounds that John Norman Collins was a naturalized American citizen raised in the United States, and he has had minimal contact with his few surviving Canadian relatives over the years.

Collins was immediately shuttled by prison van back up to Marquette Branch Prison to serve out the rest of his Life sentence, only to find someone else occupying his former cell. The warden hadn't expected him to return.

For more information on this subject, check out this earlier post:
http://fornology.blogspot.com/2013/06/john-norman-collins-and-canadian-prison.html

Ann Arbor Living History Account: "Guess It Wasn't my Time"

Ann Arbor U of M Campus Area

After three years of intensive research of public documents, vintage news clippings, and living history accounts, I am close to completing the first draft of The Rainy Day Murders, my true crime account of the Washtenaw County coed murders in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor during 1967-1969. 

Students on the campuses of The University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University were living with paralyzing fear of a serial killer for two years.

Since I began this project, many people have come forward with stories about encounters and confrontations with John Norman Collins. Most don't fit tightly within the scope of my true crime account, but nonetheless, they are living history and worthy of documentation. I have the permission to transcribe some of their emails and post them in the coming weeks.

June 6, 2012:

In 1968, after two years of community college (Henry Ford CC), I decided to move to Ann Arbor to be with my best friend. Since there were no funds for me to attend University of Michigan, working was imperative. 

I was on my own so an ordinary job wouldn't do. Soon, I applied for a job at U of M Hospital as a psychiatric child care worker... I worked a split shift... two weeks afternoons... two weeks days.

It was either July 2nd or July 9th of 1969 in Ann Arbor that I had an encounter with Collins, although at the time, I didn't know it was him. On the Wednesdays that I worked afternoons, I had a routine. I would walk to Kerry Town and make a stop at Middle Earth and Circle Books on State Street and return home.

Being a hippie type during my non-working hours, I put on an outfit that I had just purchased from Saturn Clothing. The outfit was pretty and a little provocative as the top looked normal from the front, but the back was completely bare, held together by a string. The outfit is significant because of my encounter.

I was living on the corner of Hill and Tappan streets. It was 2:00 PM, and I needed to be at work by 3:30 PM. I was taking a shortcut to my carriage house through the Architectural Diag (concourse). My house was then in plain view but across the street. I started walking into the parking lot when suddenly a car cut me off. I remember this as if it was yesterday.

The first thing I noticed was the immaculate car. I would call it a muscle car (Cutlass Coupe), the driver was a frat, not my type. He had very dark hair, almost black, and his eyes were so squinted that I could hardly tell they were blue.

He said, "Do you want a ride?"

I emphatically said "No!" and pointed to my house telling him, "I live right there." Immediately, I realized how stupid that was but he caught me off-guard. He didn't want to take "No" for an answer and asked me a second time. I used the "f " word, which I don't usually use. I told him to "Fuck off and Leave me alone."

He began yelling "Cunt, Cunt, Cunt!!!" over and over. He peeled out of the parking place extremely angry. To be honest, I really didn't give it much thought at the time. 

I went to my house, changed my clothes, and walked to work. I got home around midnight and went to bed. The next morning, I looked for my clothes that I had left in a pile on the floor the afternoon  before. Now, they were gone. My halter top, shorts, my panties, and my sandals were nowhere to be found. I searched everywhere, I even picked up my box springs... they were gone! Someone had been in my apartment while I was at work.

John Norman Collins - 1969

Being from the Detroit area, I would watch WXYZ Channel 7 News with John Kelly and Marilyn Turner. That's when (three weeks later) I saw the picture of the person arrested for the murder of Karen Sue Beineman. It was the same person in the parking lot.

I've thought about that encounter many times in my life. Perhaps that's why it is still so vivid. Guess it wasn't my time.

Pamela A.