Before I move on to Volume 2 of the FOIA response from the MSP, I wanted you to understand how it came to this. This is just a rough overview with accompanying documents. Many of you have heard this background before. Bear with me as I try to demonstrate how we learned in real time that something was very wrong with this investigation and why the actions of the MSP meant we had to file a FOIA request.
In October 2006 we were all at my Dad’s house to go through the last of my Mom’s belongings after her death in 2004. While there, my Dad showed us a letter with accompanying documents he had received from retired Lieutenant Jack Kalbfleisch about the reactivation of the OCCK task force in 2005. Jack worked on the OCCK task force back in the day and was with Birmingham PD. He worked very hard on Tim’s case as well as the murders of Mark, Jill and Kristine. 2020-03-31_194111
Long story short, Jack reluctantly reached out to my Dad because his attempts to reach out to Det. Ray Anger and Sgt. Garry Gray of the rejuvenated task force were being rebuffed. These guys NEVER went back to talk to cops who actually worked in the trenches when they started up another cold case review of this case. Anger, who had also worked on the initial OCCK task force and was from Berkley PD, blew him off so Kalbfleisch contacted a Detroit News police beat reporter from with a long history with this case (Mike Martindale) to try to get someone to move on the LeMans information. Gray then was forced to respond to Jack and then the reporter. See some of the documents I read that evening in October 2006 below:
I asked my Dad if I could call Jack, and Jack agreed to speak with me and my two brothers via conference call. This letter memorializes the conversation:
This is the letter I sent my Dad subsequent to our discussions. It is heavily redacted, and unfortunately a page went missing and this was a couple of computers ago. You will still get the gist. I had redacted because I shared the letter with a detective from another agency and later a reporter and I was trying not to throw LE outside of the MSP under the bus with them.
Almost a year later (November 2007), the name of Christopher Busch surfaced after investigation of information private polygrapher Larry Wasser gave to polygrapher Patrick Coffey. Damn near a year after that, Busch’s house on Morningview Terrace was searched (October 2008). This was reported in the news. And keep in mind that our family was aware of the Busch lead because I gave the information about Wasser to Det. Williams of Livonia PD. I knew better by then to go to the MSP.
So my Dad starts calling Garry Gray with the MSP to ask for a meeting to discuss the status of the investigation. Here is an email he sent to us about setting up this meeting after a few failed attempts. None of the email addresses are good anymore, so I have left them as is.
I respond to my family.
The meeting keeps getting bounced.
The cops keep blowing my Dad off so he calls an editor at The Detroit News and reporter Marney Keenan blows the lid off of the MSP foot-dragging with an epic news story that October.
In the wake of this, the meeting takes place. The meeting where Tim and Kristine’s relatives sit in a conference room equipped with a listening device for 45 minutes waiting for the meeting. (That is from a very reliable source.)
I “love” that quote from then Captain Harold Love: “We are hoping there will come a point and time to bring this together and have everybody come together and present a conclusion to the public and to everybody else so we can put this thing to bed,” he said. You needed 6 weeks of delay to put that statement together? Eleven years later we are still waiting for bedtime.
In the meantime, reporter Marney Keenan writes this story for the News:
This is an awesome column. She gets it. “[The families] now say they look upon those in charge of delivering justice with grave distrust.”
My Dad sent this letter to Captain Love on January 4, 2010.
Of course there was no reply, no phone call. The FOIA request to the MSP followed within the week.
The cops were all pissed that we went to the media. They have never recovered from that, as far as I can tell. The MSP “doesn’t talk to families,” and the families sure as hell better not go to the press. I guess we were just supposed to eat their bullshit for the rest of our lives. Just like they tried to shut down Jack Kalbfleisch. And all kinds of witnesses who came forward over the years. They were on the verge of losing control of the narrative when Jack Kalbfleisch pushed Gray to release information about the car bumper information at the Mihelich crime scene. They ultimately lost control of the narrative when Larry Wasser spilled about Busch. Because we later learned about the information witness Doug Wilson supplied to the FBI and MSP about a LeMans seen near Tim before he was abducted and that this was also squelched, there was really only one conclusion. Our grave concerns were more than justified. To this day, the MSP continues to keep a lid on this case. Just wait and it will blow over. They know that from the 1977 playbook and I have to say, it’s been very effective.
While I was searching through these documents, I found a document someone sent me in the days leading up to the FOIA request. Not everyone forgot about these crimes and I’m sorry to say, I enjoyed reading this:
Volume 2 starts tomorrow.