How interesting this will be in comparison/contrast to the footage on WDIV’s look into the child killings. Glad people went on the record.
Primetime Special “Child Killer”
Last night WDIV/Local 4 Detroit aired a primetime special called “Child Killer,” examining the history of the Oakland County child killer case. You can access the special here:
The five-part docuseries is also available. Access this link and then scroll down and click on the individual chapters.
Thank you to Senior Producer Jeremy Allen and his staff, as well as to Investigative Reporter Kevin Dietz, for your obvious hard work. You didn’t go down any rabbit holes and you presented important parts of this story. The public needs to know. Hopefully someone comes forward and the tips are scrupulously investigated. I also thank all who participated by being interviewed. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for anybody. But there is something important about being honest about the past. That in itself is a tribute to the child victims who never had a voice in what happened to them or how the story has been told. The film from back in the day was extremely powerful. Don’t look away.
COURAGE
Tonight this segment aired on the 6 o’clock news on WDIV Channel 4-Detroit:
The courage it took for these two men to speak, on camera no less, about their victimization by Frank (Francis) Shelden and Jerry (Gerald) Richards is unbelievable. I’ve written about Frank Shelden and his cronies and the N. Fox Island “boys nature camp” a few times on my blog. See, for example, https://catherinebroad.blog/2013/03/12/north-fox-island-circa-1975-76/. Author M.F. Cribari discusses this and more in Portraits in the Snow: The Oakland County Child Killings . . . Scandals and Small Conspiracies (2011), https://www.amazon.com/Portraits-Snow-Killings-Scandals-Conspiracies/dp/1432768026. J. Reuben Appelman writes about it all in The Kill Jar, Obsession, Descent, and a Hunt for Detroit’s Most Notorious Serial Killer (2018), https://www.amazon.com/Kill-Jar-Obsession-Detroits-Notorious/dp/1507204027/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=MWBZ9YZ9EA6DDP042NPK.
Every 98 seconds a person is sexually assaulted in this county. https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence. According to RAINN (Rape Abuse Incest National Network), 1 in 10 children will be abused before their 18th birthday. They say 1 in 7 girls and 1 in 25 boys. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center reports childhood sexual abuse before the age of 17 at closer to 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys. https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc_factsheet_media-packet_statistics-about-sexual-violence_0.pdf.
According to the website Darkness to Light, End Childhood Sexual Abuse, “[c]hild sexual abuse is likely the most prevalent health problem children face with the most serious array of consequences. https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc_factsheet_media-packet_statistics-about-sexual-violence_0.pdf. According to this site, only about 38% of child victims disclose; some never, ever disclose. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center states that only 12% of child sexual abuse is reported to authorities. According to Child USA, studies show that the average age to disclose is 52, with the median age 48. https://www.childusa.org/sol/. According to Darkness to Light, there are at least 42 million survivors of childhood sexual abuse in the United States today.
That’s a lot of people carrying a tremendous amount of pain for many decades. Thank you to these two brave men for shining a light on the monsters out there who look normal but are anything but. Frank Shelden should have been writing checks to all of his victims via civil suits. In fact, I think his heirs should write big, fat checks to nonprofits like RAINN, Darkness to Light, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center and Child USA. You got more than blood money; you got horror money.
I am assuming there will be more of these interviews on tonight when WDIV airs the hour-long show about the child killings. Thanks again for your courage gentlemen.