Sometimes someone relatively new to the OCCK case and my blog will write with incredulity at the missteps and the ignoring of serious red flags in the case. Like the failure to investigate (or at least the burying of records concerning) the evening visit to Manley-Bailey Funeral Home in Birmingham by a man who stopped by to view Tim’s body. To pay his respects, I’m sure.
Police asked my parents the next morning if a relative had driven from out of state, arriving well after dark, who might have come by the funeral home to ask to spend time saying goodbye to Tim. That was the story the man told the funeral director, who thankfully refused his request. No, that was not a relative. At a minimum, that was a sicko.
A few years ago I contacted the Birmingham Police Department about whether there might be a report filed there about the visit from this man to the funeral home. The funeral director, who was the parent of a son who had been friends with Tim in his younger years, would probably have called B’ham PD. This commander, unlike his lying and complicit predecessors from 1977, was very helpful. He said he thought everything in the case had been sent to the MSP, but he searched anyway. This is how we ended up with the additional notes and records in the 1992 “revisit” of suspect John Hastings. Most everything had indeed been sent to the black hole at the MSP.
The current Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office, again unlike every one of her pathetic predecessors, has shown us a series of mercies over the years. One of these was to help us view the photos taken at Tim’s funeral from the state police without paying the equivalent of two decent vacations for this luxury.
Police believed the killer (the lone killer, right??) might try to attend the funeral services of his victims. We knew about the photos from Tim’s funeral because we had to go through them and identify the people we knew in the photos. I think this was FBI.
I believe photos were taken at at least two of the other three kids’ funerals. And we know, thanks to a reader, that L. Brooks Patterson and Richard Thompson attended the vigil for Mark because they signed the guest book. Copies of the pages were right there in the FOIA documents. Now that there was some idea of the freaks who were involved in these crimes, had anyone gone back and viewed these photos?
At least some of the men involved in these killings had to be sadists. A sadist would show up at Manley-Bailey. A sadist would attend some part of the funeral rituals.
An investigator from the OCP was allowed to come to the MSP and take photos of the photos. Yes, you read that right. The MSP is described in Marney Keenan’s book as treating survivors like criminals (The Snow Killings) and I have seen no evidence that they really ever do otherwise. Fuck these siblings who want to look at the long abandoned photographs taken at their brother’s funeral.
The OCP provided us with the photos of the photos.
I did not post them at the time–they took a big chunk out of my hide. Turns out the funeral home was under surveillance–but apparently only during daylight work hours. The photographer got plenty of photos of my family arriving and leaving the funeral home.
Those poor people who walked into that building did not walk out the same. And there’s photographic evidence of that, but not of a man who walked up to that same door under cover of darkness to attempt to spend time with a corpse.
During the day they also got a few photos of men crossing the street near the funeral home. No doubt randos who were jaywalking during lunchtime. Who knows?
The photos from the surveillance of the funeral sucked. There were next to no shots from inside the church, although the entire balcony was filled with t.v. station news cameras. A sadist (or a priest) could have blended in with the packed rows of the church.
As I said, the photos sucked. Take a look for yourself:
