Ok, here is more from my vault–the six giant bins of documents I saved and hoped to never have to access again. The shit I keep out in my garage and cover with a sheet so I don’t have to absorb it when I park my car and that I keep out of my house unless I need to loosen small portions to consult, because I don’t want the bad juju in my living space. I will eventually scan it all into my computer, but it will take more effort that it is to train for a marathon. Think I’m kidding? I’m not. Get ready, because I’m going to unload this shit because no one else will in the near future.
Here is a short amalgamation of an email exchange in 2009 between me and the smartest person I know concerning our friendly, upstanding, suburban citizen pedophile, Chris Busch. If you recognize the person I am emailing back and forth with , please do not post with a comment patting yourself on the back for figuring it out. This person does not wish to be recognized. I am just going on the record that the following is not all from my brain and is melded together. Here is an important point–AGAIN, THE YEAR OF THIS EMAIL EXCHANGE IS 2009. I will follow the exchange with one of many, many disturbing emails I received from someone way outside my immediate circle who was brave enough to reach out.
This first email exchange references an online forum discussing the OCCK case, and is dated July 27, 2009 Responses are melded together, you will get the picture.
First of all, you know Busch had to have been in trouble with the B’ham PD before and it got swept under the rug (pre-OCCK). Second, Helen [Dagner] has always tried to figure out why and under what circumstances Tobin left the B’ham PD. I think Tobias or somebody close to the cop shop may have intimated to her that there was some financial messing around or something like that, but of course no one Helen has spoken to would talk about it. And Tobias croaked a few years ago.
You know the Buschs tossed that fucker into some loony bin after all of this went down. I wonder how that could be traced down. I’m sure it was Europe, too. He had spent practically his entire childhood in Switzerland, for god’s sake.
Here’s one for you–March 22, 1978, The Daily Tribune: “[Krease] also says some persons believe the killer may be in a mental hospital committed there by wealthy family members. ‘Perhaps someone knows about it, but feels that because he is being treated, there is no reason to come forward.'”
And another–Eccentric [Birmingham Observer and Eccentric], June 15, 1978: Discusses theories on why the killer has not struck again: “The killer is in a mental institution: The theory is that the killer’s family had him committed and never notified authorities because they believed this would prevent him from killing again.” [Um, sorry, but most of the cops I have met (there are very few exceptions), especially from back in the day, are not this bright and would not have pulled this out of their asses. Nice try, and actually way to expose your bullshit and what actually happened, stupid asses!]
And again–Detroit News, December 11, 1978 (two weeks or so after Busch offed himself or was killed by someone): Discussing how task force will be reactivated if necessary and how killer could have stopped killing: “If I had to pin it down, I would guess that he’s in an institution or that he’s dead,’ [Lt. Robert] Roberson said, ‘but I wouldn’t bet 10 cents on it and I can’t support it [the fuck you can’t, I’ll take your bet and raise you $10K]. Anything’s a possibility.’ What disturbs the 23-year State Police the most is his suspicion that his investigators never came close to the killer [your instincts blow, pal] and the conviction that someone could help identify the man [ya think?!]. ‘Either someone has absolute direct knowledge or at least suspicions that a friend or a relative is the killer, and has not come forward with it,’ Robertson said. ‘If the right person would call us, hopefully he’d be caught before the day is out.'” [Right, motherfucker.]
Related is the December 1977 article in People [Magazine]–“Others believe the man may be in a mental institution. As one police detective points out Timmy King’s body was dumped on Gill Road just a few miles from Northville State Hospital. The killer had to travel down a badly torn-up section of Eight Mile Road to reach the Gill [Road] dump site [where my brother’s body was tossed]–a route someone unfamiliar with the area would tend to avoid because of the construction. The detective speculates that the killer knew the area well and might even be an outpatient at the hospital” At the end of the article: “The score is Killer–4, Police–0. If it ends here, in all likelihood the Oakland County child killer wi; never be caught. ‘Probably not,’ even Lt. Roberson admits.” [Nice optimism from a guy who is soon promoted, as they do at the MSP, and who never touches this case again. And thanks for nothing, pal.]
And check this bad boy out–Detroit News, March 16, 1980: “The task force still operates, but with only one Michigan State Police detective assigned full time to check out new tips coming in at the rate of 10 per week. State Police Lt. Joe Koenig, who took over Jan. 1 as task force coordinator, is optimistic the killer can still be found. ‘If the case is broken, it will be through some relatively news investigative technique like hypnosis,’ he said. [Like the hypnosis you fuckers and the FBI conducted on Doug Wilson who told you great details about the LeMans and the two men he saw in the parking lot with my brother right before he was abducted?! The results you pieces of shit never made public?] While emphasizing that the the task force ‘did one helluva job,’ Koenig is seriously considering another review of ‘high priority tips’ by a special group of retired police officers. [Who, trust me, would have blown these stupid fucks out of the water.] ‘We’re not being critical of the work already done,’ said Koenig. ‘But maybe, just maybe, they overlooked something because of all the pressure.’ Koenig says he hasn’t ruled out the possibility that more than one person was involved in the killings. Michigan State Police Capt. Robert Robertson, who headed the task force until a recent promotion, plays down the value of reexamining tips. [Seriously?!] ‘We went over those tips so many times,’ said Robertson. ‘I don’t think it will do any good. But they can do what they want.” [Do what you want; we got The Thin Blue Line, bitches; we know better than all of you do, and you will never cross The Line.] But Koenig has a new theory–a long shot [in 1980!], he admits [right, pal], on what happened to the killer. ‘What if the killer is from a very wealthy family,’ he said. ‘Suppose the parents discover their son is the killer and send him off to Europe for psychiatric treatment. The family name is spared, their son is receiving treatment, and they are sure no one else can be killed. They can live with that.’ [Ah, if you have dealt with anyone from the MSP, do you see one of them pulling this shit out of their hat, then or now?!] . . . Capt. Robertson said he feels the killer was somehow [fucking ‘somehow’????] ‘taken from us,’ either through death [Busch] or imprisonment [Greene].
*********
Definitely that cover up started before he offed himself for reasons you point out. Had to have. On top of Busch wielding all kinds of power and clout, there was that fucking polygraph that Busch “passed.” Everyone treated that like absolution by God. [How about it, Ralph Cabot/God?]
There were two tip lossages, I believe. One was relatively early on (I’m almost 100% sure this was pre-suicide) and a tip line was accidentally erased at Bham PD. I can find that mention in the newspapers. Then, down the road there was some loss when the task force tip line got “overloaded” and something like 277 tips were deleted to make room for more shit. [Fuck suburban, traffic enforcement, property crime police departments!] The cops tried to say that it was no big deal because of course they had these tips on paper, too, but you know they were wiping their asses with those tip sheets by that point.
As you say, it’s hard to know when the ditching of CB’s files started with Bham and other PD started happening. As we know, some incidents never even made it to the reporting stage and some victims were bought off. The ditching could have been occurring from the get-go, and I can certainly see Bham ditching what little they probably had after Busch offed himself.
The cover up and mental institution things have to be true–Busch didn’t kill himself until November 20, 1978–that’s 19 months after Tim was murdered. They had to have him stashed somewhere. He lives for 19 months and THEN decides to off himself? Lends more weight to the somebody offed himself scenario. The animal probably didn’t have the guts to kill himself.
It’s pretty damn hard to read those quotes from the pigs and not believe they didn’t know about Busch (and probably Greene). None of that shit makes any sense otherwise.
*****
No matter how it went down, I believe that there was a kind of “willful not-knowing’ on the part of many people in LE. There were those few people who knew it was Chris Busch and covered it up, but most cops probably didn’t want to admit they fucked up so bad that they just didn’t look into it very hard. They looked for any excuse to believe it wasn’t Busch, and easily found one in the polygraph. [Thanks again, Ralph Cabot of the MSP.] The vast majority of cops could thus claim they did the best they could.
You and I know it’s bullshit, but even some of the well-meaning cops probably did hang their hat on that fucked-up polygraph result [thanks again for the Voodoo, Cabot]. It was easier to do that than admit they had him on the Stebbins murder and let him go on to kill Tim (not to mention that he should’ve been serving life for multiple CSC with minors offenses).
The key for me is when the cover-up began. I keep going back to that. Did it begin in 1977, soon after Tim’s murder, or in 1978, after Busch offed himself?
If the cover-up is put into motion in 1978 after Busch’s “suicide,’ then the kind of intellectual dishonesty described above is more plausible. (“Wow, he couldn’t have done it, could he? We never would’ve cleared him if he was guilty. And, oh well, he’s dead now.”) In this scenario it looks more like they fucked up but never really realized it (or admitted it). This is what the cops will claim if some version of the truth comes out.
If the cover-up began in 1977, that’s a whole different kettle of fish. If H. Lee [Busch] told the cops, “Look, may son didn’t do it (Greene did). You can’t prove it’s him, you cleared him before the last murder, and furthermore, he’s in a mental hospital in Europe and can never harm anyone else,” and then HE COMES BACK AND MOLESTS MORE KIDS, you have complicity by police on an entirely different level. They would be busted actively aiding and abetting a serial child killer. Exposure of incompetence would be bad enough, but that kind of complicity would certainly inspire some motivated and ruthless ass-covering of the highest order. With that type of cover-up, the threat of demotions and firings would silence almost anyone in the know–especially anyone in this type of case, where no one cop had very much to go on. Those cops who were out of the loop could simply latch on to the same thinking outlined above.
I really don’t have any idea what Tobias or Tobin were like or what their roles were. I bet someone at B’ham PD knows who Busch was friends with. It would be great to find that complaint from the girl, now woman, who lived on Mohegan [near the home of Charles Busch, brother of Chris Busch], and figure out who made that go away.
***********
I read at least one person’s entry on Helen [Dagner’s] site that indicated when they went forward with information to the cops, the cops said the families did not want to have the cases dredged up in the media.
****** said something similar–that since the cops were so dismissive of her lead, she figured they had to know who it was.
It’s ghastly to think the cops would play the families off against the public, but I believe that’s what happened. It’s like the *** ****** incident–the impression is the families know [about this rich fuck who offed himself] and want it on the down low, so everyone goes away. It would take a lot of pushing to get any play, and we know from the Lemans stuff that the cops got the media to play ball. Even a vindictive and highly motivated person like Helen [Dagner] couldn’t do anything in the mainstream media or through normal LE or government channels.
There must be some really embarrassing shit in those files. I hope it all comes out, but they are probably ditching the last of it now.
That was an email exchange from 2009. I just kept thinking this fucking case would get solved. It won’t. So stay tuned. I’m posting every fucking thing I have on this case, except what will wreck the life of someone who is decent. That I will not do. I kept holding back–don’t fuck up the investigation, Cathy! The shit I have is all public information–FOIA documents–and the opinions of others. None of us have police powers. Thank god I don’t live in, and rarely visit Oakland County. But this shit goes on all over the country. Don’t kid yourselves. It needs to be on the record. No one gets to hide their head in the sand.
Finally, if you don’t believe me (and I frankly don’t care one way or the other), consider this email I received on or before 2013:
First–I seem to recall seeing a TV news story, perhaps in late 1978 or 1979, top the effect that police officials announced that they were either ending, or at least winding down, the OCCK investigation. I can’t remember exactly. I do remember it being probably about a couple of years after Tim’s death (and for what it’s worth, I seem to recall that I saw it on Channel 7.) But what I remember more than anything else was that the police were quoted as stated [sic] that they believed that the killer –and this is virtually as direct a quote as I can provide 35 years later–that the killer ‘was either dead or in a mental hospital.’ Again, I was very young when I saw this, but I remember it quite well, and more to the point–this may be the only instance of a case where the the police publicly announced, not an arrest, but that they believed that the killer was dead or in a mental hospital.
Other thoughts . . . when the former Busch residence and its possible tie to the murders, was made public, my mother discovered that she had been in the house–my parents apparently knew the people who bought the house from Busch’s parents. They have since sold the house again, but apparently the new owner, visited it roughly around the time of the closing, to find the father–apparently the bigshot GM executive–in the garage hosing down the walls. I know that this sounds like some crazy friend-of-a-friend folk legend where somebody told somebody something, but again–my mom was familiar with this house–it had an odd layout where the garage somehow entered into the basement or something like that. Again, she leaned this one recently–I don’t think those other people (who bought the house) were at all aware of the OCCK connection.
Thank you for confirming something that I’d long wondered if I’d somehow completely misunderstood as a kid–it was only from the perspective of adulthood that I was able to reflect on that ‘dead or in a mental institution’ statement and realize how queer (I’m using that word in the original dictionary sense) that type of statement, issued by law enforcement in an official capacity, really was.
Why do you think this person, clearly younger than I am, remembers this all “quite well”? Because it was so bizarre and so incongruous. I was lucky; I got to leave town in June of 1977 and basically never returned. One of my younger brothers remembers this oddity in the news, as well as the strange way the cops and the media treated the murder of John McKinney in September 1977. Apparently most people in Oakland County just wanted it all to go away. Head down; thank god it wasn’t my kid, my brother, my nephew, my grandson, my friend, my kid’s friend. Worry about switching out your wallpaper, tending your garden or planning your next vacation. Don’t give thought to who you have in office as prosecutor or who your police chief is. Odds are, you won’t get fucked.
Reading that makes me think the person who killed busch was one of the cops from Birmingham pd. They either then quit or were made to quit.
No way busch offed himself. Mckinley was involved somehow too. Perhaps he was a portal to the child porn and was a connection to the cop knowing and killing busch and needed to be offed to cut that tie to the murder.
What i found interesting is right before busch was named, helen asked me to look up old records of homeownership on a property in Birmingham. (I was a realtor at the time) this was the busch home. She was looking for who owned homes back then on that block. She had gotten a lead on busch but didnt know exactly which home it was just which street it was on.
I still wonder if theres a connection between chris busch and former genesee co prosecutor arthur busch. That they have same last name and the crimes that happened in flint must not be a coincidence.
It seems very unlikely that Arthur Busch is connected. In 1977-78, he was working in Gibsonburg, Ohio as a Personnel and Safety Supervisor for the National Gypsum Company. He wasn’t even a law school grad until 1982.
He couldn’t have had any influence with the Flint P.D. back in 1977 when Chris Busch and Greg Greene were mysteriously released after being “cleared” by the MSP polygraph operator.
http://www.artbusch.com/attorneys/
Thats not what i was angling for. More interested if they were related as in relatives
I’m glad I read this ,I had the same ?
I spent the more miserable part of the last 8 weeks looking at all of my information and emails concerning Busch and Greene: the police reports, the pictures, news articles including references to the same LE mentioned here :
What disturbs the 23-year State Police the most is his suspicion that his investigators never came close to the killer [your instincts blow, pal] and the conviction that someone could help identify the man [ya think?!]. ‘Either someone has absolute direct knowledge or at least suspicions that a friend or a relative is the killer, and has not come forward with it,’ Robertson said. ‘If the right person would call us, hopefully he’d be caught before the day is out.'” [Right, motherfucker.]
NEVER CAME CLOSE TO THE KILLER???? Good God! The right person call? What is the criteria for “right”? Because I know of at least FOUR different tip callers who were immediate and direct. Action should have been swift.
I need to up my blood pressure medication.
I don’t know of any situation anywhere that has more corruption worm holes in it that OCCK. But the thing that stops me in my tracks is this: why would dozens of people (LE and others) still be keeping quiet 40 years later?
Part of it could be that the people who offed Busch and others who were involved in child sex abuse and pornography, were and are being protected. They took care of business and did society a favor, so they can live with that. This could explain why these old pedophiles in prison won’t talk about anything they might know. But this explanation doesn’t answer everything, and certainly doesn’t address the preferential treatment Busch received in all of his CSC cases, which kept him on the street so he could rape more kids.
I would love to know when Busch took that polygraph with Larry Wasser. Some people might have believed, with some justification, that Busch would never be successfully prosecuted in the OCCK case, so another route was taken. At the time, no one foresees a time decades later when this all starts bubbling to the surface and takes yet another ugly turn.
Hey Cathy, My thing is, peripheral people, i.e. relatives and friends and co workers of those who covered up, took bribes, killed Busch, HAVE to know. Somebodies (plural) have to know.
Oh, absolutely. As I have said, it will be shocking when we learn just how many people knew. Think of the recent revelations in the Emmett Till case. The white woman accuser did not admit her lies–lies that resulted in the most heinous murder of a black teen–for over 60 years. She lived with herself, with knowledge of what she said and what the result of her lies was.
In the case of OCCK it is SO huge. How can ALL people in the know keep quiet? Especially since most of the people (LE involved etc) are DEAD by now?
That is the million dollar question.
I hope Appelman’s book wakes some people out of their drowsy slumber.
Me, too.
What happened to the movie that was being made about this case?
I am aware of a couple irons in the fire. When l learn more, I will post.
I’ve been reading this blog for awhile now, and it is stunning what has been revealed. It’s digusting, scary and makes you question basic principles you thought you knew to be true, about people and society in general. This is all like a suspense/horror movie, only it’s worse. It’s all true.
Cathy and everyone who has put their heart and souls into this…keep pouring it on and DON’T EVER STOP!!! Eveything that gets revealed, every post, discovery, etc., no matter how small or tangential, is building towards the lid being blown off of this horrific case and time in history.
The Oakland County entitlement and lack of consciouness…which is a huge part of the crusty filth underneath everything…is slowly being revealed for what it is. People there in power, certain citiczens, LE are definitely all complicit in some capacity. And the simple fact that they feel they can and have gotten away with the lies after all these years, absolutely burns me and anybody that has some shred of humanity in them.
Keep making these people sweat. Keep being that pain in the ass. I can never begin to know what Cathy and all family members have gone through and is still going through after all these years. But I try to empathize the best I possibly can and give my full support to all as they keep the fight for the truth going.
Cathy, you are a bad-ass and I admire your courage and strength through all this. It sucks that you have to, but it need to be done. The memory of all the victims deserve nothing less.
Thank you, Matt.
In addition, it can’t be understated how much this case has affected so many people here in Metro Detroit and even the country.
I was born in 1981, after all the known incidents and I selfishly feel thankful I was not around or old enough to experience and know the fear that everybody felt then, be it a kid or parent. But even so, this case affected how I grew up in the 80s and what my parents let my siblings and I do as kids, or where we went. It was in the forefront of their minds as parents, along with my friends prents as well. The fallout from all this has reached far and wide and still does to this day.
This case was also the first real warning to me in life, that there are bad people in this world and that the world is not always safe. I was about 5 years old watching the old Kelly & Company Morning Show in Detroit and they were discussing OCCK on that particular episode. I remember my mom sitting with me and giving me the “talk” about strangers. It has always stuck with me.
I know everybody gives their own personal stories in relation to this horrific case and mine is insignificant compared to all the people closest, but it was apart of my life as a childhood and it is just mind-blowing and surreal that this case has never been “solved” and HOW the case was and still is being handled.
Thanks for what you’re doing, Cathy.
Matt, your words are tremendously important. Here’s why: This is the possibly the most fucked up psychological event a community or area could experience. So much fear and collective sadness. And what did law enforcement, the prosecutor, community leaders do? Basically nothing. The newspapers describe some community meetings held at churches and Common Ground. That’s it. Yes, the fallout was immense. Which makes it even more crazy that for the fast forty years Oakland County and the Michigan State Police have merely doubled-down, time and again, in trying to control the narrative and at the same time, never giving any information. Of course it affected everyone in Michigan. And I cannot tell you how many people have told me over the years how this case affected their parenting. A man who was interviewing me and one of my brothers for an article about this case and the investigation a couple years ago asked if there was any silver lining in what has happened in the last decade (learning what we have). Both of us immediately; almost simultaneously, said “NO.” I know the guy wanted to wrap up the story with a bow–our family is closer now, etc. Except that maybe there is the tiniest silver lining. No one talked to us, we were isolated and felt like we had brought this down on shiny Birmingham. We had no idea there were people like Jason Appelman who had a near-miss abduction attempt in Oakland County and lived to tell the story. We had no idea, until people started reaching out to us about their own stories from that era and the deep impact those crimes had on them, that we were not alone. We never understood the impact on the community because no one spoke of it to us. Ever. The Birmingham School District told employees (including our counselors, for god’s sake!) not to discuss this case. We saw classmates who lost parents get hugs from counselors and support from teachers, and we got ignored. It was horrifying on every level. To have seen this festering wound revealed for what it is, and to acknowledge how many people and organizations failed these dead kids and their families on every level, as well as the entire county, is totally traumatizing. To know that others question and are appalled helps us feel less crazy. These goddamn gaslighting people who were supposed to protect society, betrayed all of us and those four little kids. The fact that these people got to control the narrative and no one questioned this shit is so horrible. It is my sincere hope that the Michigan State Police and the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office are exposed and that they will be forced to change how they do business because their reputations will be forever soiled.
Cathy! I’m so FURIOUS to hear that you were not comforted with a hug and counseling at school! Were they thinking your parents did it?!?
I’m one generation older than Matt and I’m about 6 years older than you. I grew up lower middle class but went to the now-torn-down (that’s fucking Detroit for you) Cass Tech and got a college scholarship. That’s the only reason why I know how it was in Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills. At college I met boyfriends who came from such places.
Then I got the hell out when I was cornered/rape threatened/promised scholarship cancellation if I didn’t…..yeah to save my neck I gave up the scholarship (who was going to believe me?) and left town. See ya.
Yeah, lovely Detroit. So in one way I can’t believe LE has gotten away with this total arrogant cover up for 40 years but then again, what a dump.
Here’s what I really want to say: Cathy, there are more people than you can even imagine who are just like me: bugged about this case on a permanent basis, just fired up, not letting go, wanting to get it solved.
Cathy, I read the post on how you and your family were treated by “support staff” (Heh!) in school. It pisses me off that anybody could treat family member of a victim, the way some treated you and your brothers. The lack of caring, petty self-preservation and selfishness is mind numbing to say the least. The incident your brother had with that disgusting excuse for a teacher and person, literally made me gasp “WHAT THE F***!?!” when I read it. Sadly, this entire case has given me and all of us too many legitimate WTF moments.
As others have said, you and your family are not alone. The Oakland County cocktail circuit and boys clubs may want to bury their head in the sand and continue with the fascade of their rich little oasis, but people with a conscious in Metro Detroit and the country have been and are horrified and beyond pissed. And this is one situation where basic human decency and compassion cannot and will not be stopped. You have the power in numbers and I think I speak for most in saying people will do whatever they can to help you get SOME measure of justice.
Cathy,
I didn’t know that Berkley Detective Sgt. Ray Anger actually knew the Stebbins family, and was close enough to visit Ruth Stebbins on her death bed. And told her that “I can’t promise you I’ll ever solve it, but I’ll never stop trying.”
Mark Stebbins, of course, was abducted by someone while returning home from the Berkley VFW Hall on Livernois, just south of Nine Mile Rd in Ferndale. The big mystery, of course, is how a stranger could have persuaded Mark to get into their vehicle. If, on the other hand, he got into the car of adult acquaintance whom he trusted . . .
Det. Sgt. Anger also took the initial missing child report on Kristine Mihelich.
http://www.theoaklandpress.com/article/OP/20050219/NEWS/302199986
Why did they get into the vehicles? Tim in particular had had a conversation with a family member and clearly understood not to get into any vehicle just because somebody promised something or told a cool story etc. But he did. This is one of the main reasons why I’ve always been extremely suspicious of parish priests or guys dressing up as such. Only somebody who looked very trustworthy could have pulled this off.
It is known that Busch and Greene used at least one kid (who was often with them) to lure kids to the car . The “kid” stated as much. It is hard to believe any of the kids would readily approach a car with sketchy men sitting in it, a kid is much less threatening.
Yes, the kid lure, the bike/car “accident,” the “I saw you shoplifting”–so many ruses. As someone was brave enough to post a few weeks ago, when he was followed in a car (and this was after Tim was murdered), he panicked and forgot everything he was told. All those hundreds and hundreds of near misses that came to light during the cop’s “Operation Lure,” with schools after Tim was dead–some of those are near misses in the most life-threatening way. Can you think of better hunting grounds than these suburbs back in the day (before missing kids’ photos were on milk cartons? And to have one of suburbia’s most privileged people committing CSCs with minors for years? It doesn’t get much sicker than that.
Those of us who were NOT lured into a stranger’s car have only God to thank. I do suppose, knowing myself pretty well, that if a “priest” drove up to me when I was just 8 or 9, and said “you need to come with us right now. Your mother’s had an accident” I would have probably gotten into the car. I have to admit it.
When I WAS lured at the age of 15, which was instantaneously horrifying (I still remember the dress I was wearing, the car color, the guy’s face, the time of day, the month etc) I ran like hell. Because by that time I had grown up enough to know a scam when I saw one.
Matt and Cecelia-
The climate in Birmingham immediately after Tim was abducted and killed was exactly as Cathy described. In the days that Tim was missing and the King kids were not in school it was addressed in low tones between kids but the teachers NEVER SAID A WORD or more than an cursory acknowledgement. We were scared, confused; the Kings were our friends and they were shackled to a national horror (this was news on my uncle’s California news as well) and we were expected to go to school, carry on with our lives and live under the impression that the police will surely find Tim and then later, the killer. It was Birmingham, after all – cover that shit up so it doesn’t stink so bad.
Guess what, shit bubbled up. Mad and confused as kids and teenagers, we are livid now. No, we won’t ever forget what this did to the families, their friends, a community, the state of Michigan. It changed the way the next generation was raised – less trust, more fear.
This case must never be forgotten. Key people have died in the last 40 years but those of us who were denied the opportunity to discuss our feelings and fears in the “safe” environment of school have a voice now and we need to keep these cases in front of the collective public along with pinging on the investigators. . . where are they on this “open and ongoing” investigation? What and where are the updates?
Hi, Thanks for the comment. Will disgust never end? I can’t believe the way you say it was handled in school. Horrific.
I moseyed around Birmingham in 1969 and 1970. I was 20ish. I was introduced to MacInerney’s. This was high cuisine for me, the kid from Detroit. I went to a garage sale and bought an astonishing “formal” dress from the 40s. I had a boyfriend who lived on Suffield. I still remember the address. His mother hated me because I came from the wrong side of the tracks and I encouraged “him” to get out of Detroit. He ended up working in a drugstore. I ended up in Hollywood. These are the memories I have of Birmingham. I can hardly wrap my mind around the things you are talking about. Birmingham was the safest place in the world just a couple years before IT happened.
I like to tell Cathy over and over. There are more people out here than you think, that are permanently disgusted with what happened. We see the two mysteries: who did this to the kids, why didn’t LE solve this.
I really hope Appelman’s book becomes a social can opener. Just be prepared for what’s inside. BTW I’m reading you book now. Thanks again.
Hello do u know what gm plant bush worked at ???
H. Lee Busch, father of Chris Busch, was a CFO for GM International. I would guess that if Chris Busch worked for a time a GM, it would have been the corporate offices.
If Busch was sent to Northville it wouldn’t have helped. Northville was known for inappropriate relationships between staff and patients. There are numerous articles on the place. Here’s one that involved the years 1976-1977. http://www.psychsearch.net/jose-tombo-psychiatrist/
Police in four Oakland County communities said they are reviewing their files from the so-called “Oakland County child killings” in 1976 and 1977, although probate court records show that Bailey was a patient at Northville state hospital during that period. https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/99085931/
Tombo takes Bailey on a daytrip to Windsor in 1977. After Baileys arresst he asks Bailey’s father to keep it quiet. What else were they doing? How many times was Bailey out of the hospital? Unless he’s been ruled out through DNA already he might be a suspect. https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/99074296/
He has been looked at time and again.
Oh? This Bailey guy has been looked at? There’s so much we still never hear about.
No kidding.
But seriously, I don’t think I’ve come across the Bailey story on your blog here. This makes me nervous because now I’m thinking, there might be a good suspect somewhere who is casually “known”, that “we” have never heard of out here.
I don’t put everything on my blog.
Hi, I tried twice today to get to that article associated with the link you provide but the dang thing wants me to “sign up” for The Free Press. It says there’s a Free period but when I went for it I couldn’t find the article! Frustrating. but thanks for the info.
Ick. That was disheartening. I had an uncle with schizophrenia and he was “incarcerated” in Northville from the early 50s to his death in the 90s. That’s how they did it then. Let ma say a little prayer to him. I am pretty sure he encountered some “stuff”.
Cecilia just scroll down a bit to find the OCR drop down. It will be a little mixed up but you can read the story free.
Hey Kat, thanks for the instructions. I did “everything” but now I get multiple choice boxes such as PDF, Doc to PDF and more. They each want some type of ID. I’m 66, boy do I hate technology.
When I click your blue link it doesn’t go to the article. I goes to a page that says “You’re already Installed!” but there’s no way to the article.
This is interesting. Danto worked at Northville. https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/polqua3&div=15&id=&page=
Yes, it sure is. Whoever wrote the bizarre and mysterious 1980 book “The Oakland County Child Killer” knew that the police suspected that death of the suspect (Chris Busch, under a pseudonym) was actually a misdirection – the real killer was someone else.
Back in 1980, the public never heard anything about Chris Busch’s “suicide” and his seeming connection to the OCCK case. But this author knew.
Whoever the author was (and others, including me, believe that he was Bruce Danto, under a penname), he was an insider with confidential information available only to those in law enforcement at the time.
I agree that the dumping of Tim’s body on Gill Road is significant and I agree that the dumper was probably familiar with the old Northville Psychiatric Hospital, either as an outpatient (or as an employee?)
Otherwise, we are left with a remarkable coincidence: one of the most visible law enforcement figures, Bruce Danto, just happened to work within two miles of the site where Tim’s body was found, along the precise route (8 Mile) that one would take to get to that psychiatric hospital from Oakland County.
Especially since, as Cathy’s extended email correspondent noted, 8 Mile was under heavy construction at the time. It seems plausible to me that a driver en route to the Northville Psychiatric Hospital heading west on 8 Mile might well have turned south on Gill Road to avoid the jam. Gill runs south to 7 Mile and from there it was a straight shot west to the hospital.
And Dr. Jose Tombo’s name was turned in more than once in connection with the OCCK case. Here is just the tip of the iceberg: https://outlet.historicimages.com/products/dfpa34719. You don’t have to pay $9 for the article, a simple read of the one paragraph description will tell you all you need to know. This monster was fired from Northville in 1985. It looks like he’s dead because his “nonprofit” legal defense fund was dissolved in 2019. I’m not spending any more time online researching this POS. He has a file at the MSP “task force” and you should see what others have provided directly to me about this man. He is/was a very sick person and a criminal.
Danto is dead. Busch’s shrink from B’ham is dead. The state made sure none of these avenues of inquiry would be pursued back when it could have made a difference. Law enforcement who participated in this cover-up are the bad actors now.
Yes, Paul, that book really burns me as do a few others from that era. They all sucked, but clearly the authors had inside information or insight, one author in particular got it directly from a high-up at B’ham PD.
I think it is you, Paul, along with one of my brothers who have claimed for years that Busch had to have been an informant for the FBI or some other LE agency. That makes the most sense. It explains the bullshit investigation of his “suicide,” the pact to keep his name hidden forever (thank Wasser for ruining your little plan, old cops), and the quick shut down of the task force, allowing them to keep the case “open” forever and thus protected from any scrutiny. These people and all who were a party to it or kept silent are on the wrong side of this thing. The still-living need to be exposed.
Well this is the first whiff I’ve gotten that Busch may have been an informant and that accounts, maybe, for fealty in LE lasting two lifetimes. I have never been able to figure out the reason for the Solidarity of Silence but maybe that’s it. But still, everybody’s dead now. So????
Where can this mysterious book The Oakland County Child Killer, circa 1980, be found? I’ve read Sheep’s Clothing and the amazing Keenan book but I don’t think I’ve seen this one.
And in the continuing coincidence file that is the OCCK case, John Hastings’ sister Mary was the Program Director at the Northville State Hospital from September 1974-August 1980.
What is the name of the author of the book mentioned here.? I’m trying to figure out if I ve read it. Thanks, Cathy
Sent from my iPad
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Michael Parrot. Appears to still live in MI.
Cecilia i believe if you do a search for the article you’ll be able to get it. Try this: Detroit Free Press Sunday, October 6, 1985 Page 10
Tombo disputed testimony from other witnesses, including a nurse who said Tombo giggled about the erection of a patient restrained to a bed, and an aide who said Tombo took Bailey off the ward one Sunday for a picture-taking trip. https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/99801422/
Northville Regional Psychiatric Hospital records “completely contradict” Ronald Lloyd Bailey’s claim that Dr. Jose Tombo threatened to restrict Bailey’s freedom if he didn’t submit to Tombo’s sexual advances, Tombo testified Tuesday. https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/99774505/
By the 70’s Northville was understaffed and over populated. Bailey probably left the grounds numerous times. http://www.detroiturbex.com/content/healthandsafety/northville/index.html
Smudged fingerprints? https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1978/01/18/children-in-a-shroud-of-terror/b7997cc5-ce0a-4285-996e-7a8fa32ae148/?utm_term=.106450f11cd5&noredirect=on
Northville. https://www.nailhed.com/p/index-of-locations.html?m=1
I re-read this entire post today, 12/6/2020. It is a complex one. I just noticed the sentence that appears near the beginning which states that Busch may have been a DECOY. That the real killer might have been in the hospital in Northville. Did I get that right? If so, it’s time to say WHO that was.