Snuff Films

This is a comment I received today from a reader.  I think it merits its own posting.  When I first started looking into this case in the mid-2000’s (when I got kicked in the face with the realization of how very wrong this investigation was), I spent some time looking into the world of child pornography, the first federal legislation specifically criminalizing child porn in the late 1970’s, Frank Shelden, Gerald Richards, Adam Starchild and their cronies.  In addition to brief newspaper articles, there were a number of articles written in a wide variety of magazines about the hidden world of child pornography.  Going old school with the Index of Periodicals in a couple different libraries, I read quite a few of them in bound volumes of old magazines.  Believe it or not, in many cases pages were ripped out–the beginning pages where there were redacted photos of kids who had been victimized.  I remember how dizzy and ill I felt when I read about snuff films and considered this possibility in these cases.  The reader commented as follows.  (*I need to point out that the word “queer” does not mean pedophile.  Pedophilia is criminal behavior.  Homosexuality is not.  Lots of mistakes were made in this investigation back in the day because investigators confused homosexuality and pedophelia.  Some people still make this leap in logic, which is unacceptable.  Murderers and pedophiles (most of whom are actually heterosexual) are perverts.  On that, I can agree).

“I would bet big money that the older looking creep that was seen with Chris Busch when he trying to lure your brother Timmy away. Was ARCH SLOAN! Arch Sloan worked In some capacity with cars. In auto repair or a gas station, nonetheless, he had opportunity to use different cars for pedophilic activities. It would be a really good thing if Arch Sloan would give up all of these WEIRDOS. But sicko queers do not like to turn other queers in,because they think that what they do is okay. These two perverted baby killers took all of their directions from Frank Shelden. Frank Shelden, like other pedophiles, uses everybody and everything! Arch Sloan and Chris Busch were Frank Shelden’s personal suckers. Neither one of these men made a dime off of their twisted movies or torture that they put innocent kids through. Frank Shelden took all the snuff movies that these sicko perverts made. Than he fled to Europe. What a sickening PERVERT! I cannot say that his soul will burn in Hell, because these kinds of WEIRDOS would really enjoy this. I just hope that the families of all those murdered kids find peace and justice very soon. My prayers will be with you always. Please do not disclose my name. I know exactly how you feel, as a sicko queer killed my beloved mother. I will never understand how these PERVERTS find any justification in their sick acts. Thanks loads.”

The person asked not to be identified, which of course I respect, and I extend empathy for the death of the person’s mother.  While I was in the comments folder, I found a lot of comments I had not approved and should have.  People send me comments and ask that they be kept private and I try never to make the mistake of posting in that case.  Apparently there were quite a few comments in that folder waiting for “approval” that were not designated private.  I apologize.  The other situation where a comment doesn’t get posted and finds its way into a save folder is when the comment is freak show material.  Rambling stuff that is actually quite disturbing.  Won’t go there, sorry.  As I have posted before, if you want to contact me and do not want your comment or question posted, start the comment with DO NOT POST.  If you want your comment posted but want to make sure your real name isn’t attached, let me know that, too, and I will take care of it.

The OCCK Labyrinth

In Greek mythology, Daedalus built an elaborate labyrinth to trap and hold the Minotaur, a monster-like creature with the head of a bull and the body of a man. Unlike a maze, a labyrinth has an unambiguous route to the center and is generally ultimately not difficult to navigate. It just takes patience. Misfeasance and malfeasance turned the OCCK case into a maze, with many discarded choices of path and direction that were left as dead ends. If this case were ever to be solved, which I don’t believe it ever will be, the path to the Minotaurs in this case would be so obvious. The people who took part in turning this into a maze and obscuring truth—or managing justice in their own way–must have reveled in how they were able to keep a lid on the most heinous unsolved case in America. Yes, most heinous. Kids abducted, kept alive for days or weeks, tortured and raped, then dumped like garbage on roadsides. All kinds of Dirty Harry business to “end the case” and prevent any closure. I defy you to find a Netflix series or something on Amazon that makes this pale in comparison.

I try not to blog very often any more on my brother’s case. It makes my head hurt and reminds me how fruitless an exercise this is. I’ve meant to respond to a number of posts and to address a number of other issues, but it is such a Pandora’s Box. Emails and phone calls always follow and I need to be prepared for that. To those who have sent emails I have not responded to, including Jared K., M.C.P., Jack K., Rita C. and Patrick, C, thank you for your emails and please forgive my long silence.  And please, I have a busy day tomorrow, so don’t inundate me.  There’s literally nothing I can do except post your comments here.  That takes bravery on your part.  And thank you to those that do.  But me call the cops with your information?  Seriously?  Ten years of beating my head against a wall convinces me that just getting this stuff out in the open is the only hope.  The only hope that this kind of investigation NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN.  That four kids, one after another, don’t have to die as people fuck up, and drop the ball, and don’t ask for help from other agencies, and cave to the pressure of wealthy relatives, and kill people they think are involved thinking it is a legitimate “end” to a crime spree, and lie their asses off to victims’ families.

Oakland County had and has a wicked underbelly. Truly. Lie, conceal and destroy files as much as you will, you will never shake this darkness. Especially because you never confronted it. Any time you combine pedophilia, child porn, big wealth/power and suburban police departments/officials, you are going to have a conflagration of sorts that will wipe out all kinds of evidence and all guilt surrounding what took place. Minotaur? What Minotaur?!

First, I have meant to give readers the link to my Dad’s blog he started this year. Many of you have probably already been reading it. I meant to put a post together giving the link and explaining why I don’t blog very often any more. Why I am just trying to play the shitty cards I got dealt the best way I can and often that means not thinking about this stuff very much.   Here is the link to my Dad’s blog, and I think it is important work: http://afathersstory-occk.com/chapter-40-prosecutorial-disclosures-marney-keenan/. This link will take you to the most recent blog entry and you can back track to the beginning. Please check it out.

Second, author J. Reuben Appelman has released an excerpt of a book he has written called 37 Winters: A Cold Case Memoir. https://medium.com/@J.Reuben.Appelman/blood-semen-saliva-prints-3fdab84c73d7#.4sgbx90gd.  I think it is terribly important that it is a memoir because it captures just how this case impacted people in southeast Michigan who lived through the OCCK reign of terror, especially young people. Please read the excerpt. The author pulls together a lot of complexities and turns the maze into a labyrinth. It’s worth your time. I love how Appelman describes his book as being about an “allegedly” unsolved crime. Yeah, pretty much.

I would also like to emphasize two things addressed in the excerpt. First, the involvement of retired Berkley Police Detective Ray Anger. Apparently there are lots of tears out there about his portrayal in this book. Yeah, I said he was dirty and I meant it. Something is so off about his involvement in this case, then and now. And even if you assume he had the best of intentions, his treatment of the boy, now man, described in the excerpt as Sebastian, is reprehensible. I spoke to “Sebastian” well before the author or my brother ever did. His story remained consistent. I believe every word he said. Long gone are the days where police are able to automatically dismiss the words of a child or even an adult. Nice try. I seriously don’t know how you men live with yourselves, but then again, justification and a badge go well together, don’t they?

The Berkley PD, like many police departments, did whatever they wanted back in the day. I understand the impulse and even the action to clean house—pull a Dirty Harry—but surely this case demonstrates how unjust and terribly misguided this was and how really no justice was served whatsoever. And what the Berkley PD did to Sebastian and to others in Berkley defines them as dirty. I don’t care what they did to “take care of business” in the OCCK case. Read about their fellow officer Chris Flynn and make up your own mind. It’s not 1977 anymore, boys. We know what goes on because we’ve seen it captured on video and audio in a thousand other jurisdictions over the decades. What power you had back then and how much you abused it; it is stunning in it’s egregiousness. You must miss the Good Old Days. The comfort of being able to fuck someone over and smirk and smile with the knowledge you will never get busted and that no one will believe a word the other person says.  To put a kid through that is unforgivable.

Second, the book addresses why my brother Chris and I believe the case will never be solved. Chris says it best, so again, please read the excerpt. Basically, it goes something like this—somebody, probably cops, kills the men they think are involved in these brutal crimes. Then, oh shit!!!, Tim King gets abducted. Fuck, we didn’t get everybody! Then in September of 1977, John McKinney gets offed—one more loose end tied up. Whew! Don’t worry about that photo montage in the Birmingham Eccentric in December 1977 where McKinney’s photo is right next to that of a smiling sixth-grader, Tim King, in the “Year’s Stories” segment. Nobody else will die, right? Birmingham is once again safe! Thank god you moved to the suburbs! Others, like John Hastings, flee town. By now he and people like James Vincent Gunnels, Ted Lamborgine and Arch Sloan know to keep their mouths shut. Forever.  They would rather rot in prison.  They are cowards.

But then the big piece of moneyed shit, pedophile Chris Busch, has to go and wreck everything in his attorney-client privileged pre-polygraph interview and talk about his involvement in the OCCK crimes. Then, go figure, he and Berkley PD officer Chris Flynn wind up dead within days of each other in November 1978. Somebody sets up Busch’s suicide scene to nail him as the OCCK—but oh shit! Turns out we can’t go there because (1) his daddy is a big GM CFO and more importantly, (2) the Michigan State Police polygraphed and cleared him in this case two weeks before Tim King was abducted and good old L. Brooks Patterson, Oakland County Prosecutor, told the news Busch was in the clear. Task force closes down within a few weeks—sorry, public. We tried and failed. At least no other kids (we know of) have died.  Pay your taxes and be glad you don’t live in Detroit, dumbasses.  What you don’t know, won’t hurt you.

Do you know that neither L. Brooks Patterson or his #2, Richard Thompson, EVER contacted my parents in the immediate wake of these crimes? Never, not once; not a single update. My Dad did not speak to either of them until after the case was “rejuvenated” (I love that bullshit term) in 2005. Thompson avoided my Dad like the plague. I bet they both took phone calls from H. Lee Busch back in the day.   When Patterson says he if he were still prosecutor, he would gladly give my Dad free access to the OCCK files, I just laugh. Right. Those sanitized files contain nothing worthwhile and you know it.

Here is a comment I received today on an earlier post that reminded me I needed to post:

“Hi Cathy,

I was a teenager in Detroit at the time and my father had a stamp and coin store at Eastland Shopping Center. One of his customers was E. Harwood Rydholm, a big executive at Chrysler. Mr. Rydholm told my dad that the OCCK was the son of a powerful GM exec and that the police were protecting GM’s reputation so he probably wouldn’t be arrested. Mr. Rydholm passed away in 1987. The ghastly part is that Mr. Rydholm told my father this shortly after Kristine Mihelich went missing.”

************

So, there you have it. And thank you to the poster for that comment. Police will say: Anybody could say that shit. But you know what? A lot of “anybodys” have said this shit. And the fact that the ball kept getting dropped as each child was abducted, tortured, raped, murdered and dumped on a roadside, gave even more reason to take care of justice on the side and serve up a “too bad, so sad,” ending to this unforgiveable mark on Oakland County. And sadly, we all ate it.