A number of people have emailed and sent me texts regarding WXYZ’s YouTube posting yesterday of a 2003 report on “dramatic developments in the OCCK case.” Twenty-three years ago: 2003. Comments to the video all ask: Why are you reposting this in 2026 with no further explanation?
I briefly mentioned this in a comment to my post yesterday about the announcement of an arrest in the 1997 murder of Southfield resident Deborah Kennedy. A lot of people miss the comments because if they are subscribed to my blog, they just read the email and don’t click on the title of the post which takes you to the writing on WordPress and provides access to the comments as well as other posts.
This warrants a separate post, I guess.
Here’s the YouTube video from yesterday:
Watching this raises a number of possible answers to the question “why are you posting this 23-year-old news coverage without an update or any observations making it relevant to today?”
One possible answer is that this segment is a sad reminder, given the statements of the Oakland County sheriff about DNA testing and genetic genealogy in this case in February and March, 2026, that we’ve been here before. Same script, same bullshit. Expect great things!
Unlike today, detectives from the MSP and state lab scientists go on camera in the 2003 segment. One detective tells Heather Catallo that “We want to use some of the state of the art methods to reorganize the entire case.” Investigators wanted to “catalog everything” after allegedly painstakingly sorting through bags of the children’s clothing and “boxes of evidence” from the body dump scenes. A lab scientist describes advances in fingerprint and palm print evaluation. Investigators claim to have waded through 20,000 tips to narrow suspects down to the 12 best suspects that they “just couldn’t clear.” Sounds exciting and promising, doesn’t it?!
Sgt. David Wurtz with the Oakland County Sheriff Department’s Special Investigations Unit goes on camera (in obscured lighting; justifiable I guess if you are in SIU) to tell Heather Catallo that they are very much on the case, seemingly focused on the priest angle. Unclear if they are coordinating with the MSP to share names and evidence. Wurtz urges anyone with knowledge or who may have inadvertently helped the killer along the way to unburden themselves of the guilt. Never mind the fact that big reward money didn’t move the needle one bit. Funny how a few “suicides” and murders in otherwise pristine Oakland County put the kibosh on any impulse to speak up and collect reward money.
So when you hear great excitement about DNA and genetic genealogy possibilities 23 years later in the OCCK case–as we did when Mark Stebbins’ case entered the half-century of unsolved/not cleared status–don’t get your hopes up. And any honest detective who has seen the status of the evidence in the OCCK case and the state of the files since that alleged foray into organization and reevaluation would tell you whatever these folks did back in 2003, that hopeful project was a complete wheel spin.
And how about the fact that their predecessors cleared so, so many suspects on the basis of polygraphs administered by even bigger idiots? Or the fact that if one of the monsters in these many tips had an alibi for any day/time of any of the abductions or body drops, they were cleared? Did the list of 12 suspects include any of these monsters who previously walked? I have looked at a lot of documents in the OCCK, and they are a small fraction of all of the documents in the case. Don’t even try to tell me any detective at any time has looked at all of those documents or attempted to organize them. One thing I can tell you is that I have never seen a tip marked “high priority.”
Another possible (and parallel) answer is that when you compare the above video to the press conference at Southfield PD yesterday in the Kennedy case, it is quite gutting. Deborah Kennedy’s case when solved was about as old as the OCCK case was when this report aired. Yet here we are another 23 years later, no further along.
Another possibility is that this old segment is a prelude to further reporting or another related project. Content creators outside newsrooms often dangle these older segments as a prelude to a monetized project that’s in the works—a sequel or even just as a reminder to circle back to a prior project—the Children of the Snow people appeared to do this as the 50th year mark rolled around in the Stebbins abduction. Maybe there is further reporting that will shed light on this. Are monetized projects withholding information based on timelines that have nothing to do with justice or transparency?
No matter the reason for the post yesterday, I think the content of the 2003 was extremely relevant and forces us to ask how in the hell we still find ourselves here 23 years later? Somebody gets it; that YouTube post was not random.
It is unclear whether there was any follow-up with any of the people who went on camera in 2003. Two or so years later, the MSP would reactivate its OCCK task force and the dialog and transparency would be completely shut down. There appeared to be no evidence that any cataloguing of the case or state of the art reorganization ever took place. After whatever DNA testing took place, the record reflects that no one organized the evidence or the results. Samples were at multiple labs and I seriously doubt any of them were properly stored after this renewed interest. That there was a scramble in the recent past to locate samples proves my point.
Personally, I can’t imagine a guy like L. Brooks Patterson being happy about that 2003 press. He was “Mr. One and Done” after the 1999 Norberg exhumation and untrue claims that there was only one hair in all that evidence. Of course he need only have one of his thugs pick up the phone and make a call to the MSP to quiet things down, but it turns out he was a pretty busy guy in 2003:
In 2003, press coverage of Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson was dominated by a high-profile traffic stop and his outspoken political commentary.
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Reckless Driving Incident: In June 2003, Patterson was pulled over by sheriff’s deputies after his Cadillac was seen weaving on the road following a golf outing. Rather than administering a sobriety test, the deputies drove him home.
- Press Reaction: The Detroit Free Press and other outlets heavily covered the incident, with the Free Press advising him to change his “party-harder ways”. Patterson eventually held a press conference on June 19, 2003, to address the situation.
- Consequences: The officers involved were suspended without pay, and Patterson was later convicted of reckless driving.
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“Taliban Wing” Comments: Patterson drew national headlines when he denounced a group of fellow Republicans, led by Tom McMillin, as the “Taliban wing of the Republican Party”. He made these comments in response to their use of graphic political ads and tactics he found extreme.
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Public Stunt: In a widely reported moment to poke fun at anti-homosexuality views, Patterson attempted to kiss McMillin at a public event during this same period.Economic Strategy: Crain’s Detroit Business covered Patterson’s management style and his efforts to promote Oakland County’s Automation Alley as a technology hub, comparing his leadership favorably to other regional executives.
No matter. History has proven, time and again, that interest in and focus on the child killer case simply blows over.