Last Saturday, August 22, I went to bed deeply troubled over the information provided by Jane Doe about Bloomfield Township PD Corporal Richard J. McNamee and the month-long failure of law enforcement to at least reach out to, or acknowledge her. I emailed the MSP detective for a third time on August 22, explaining that if I did not get a response, I would begin posting generally about McNamee on Wednesday, August 26th. Little did I know that Marney Keenan would receive the FOIA response from Bloomfield Township PD on Thursday, August 27, and there would be a lot more to say.
I did not sleep well that Saturday night, but I woke up to the following email from a young man who was nearly abducted in Bloomfield Township in 2007. It brought me to tears. This blatant, outrageous abduction attempt took place 30 years after the reign of the OCCK, in a neighborhood anyone would consider “nice.” In early 2007 my Dad and my brother Chris were meeting with MSP Det/Sgt Garry Gray, proposing the two of them go to the media to ask for anyone with information about the OCCK crimes to come forward because it was the 30th anniversary of Tim’s abduction and murder. He blew them off, NO MEDIA, pipe down, shut up, we’ve got this, get lost, go away. By the end of 2007, the horrifying incident outlined in the below email took place in Bloomfield Township.
You need to carefully read this email. It took me more than a few days to respond because I needed a clear head and some time to adequately respond. I responded and asked if the author would allow me to share the email. He agreed.
I forwarded the email to myself and then redacted and edited it for privacy purposes and because I know first-hand how vindictive law enforcement agencies in Michigan are.
The author’s message will not be lost on you and those from Oakland County should read especially carefully. Remember, I received this email three days before I ever posted the words “Bloomfield Township P.D. Corporal Richard J. McNamee.”
How does L Brooks Patterson fit into all of this?
I’m sorry I know Brooks definitely did a lot of stupid s*** and all of it but quit pretending like he’s the only one and also you should really be looking at Jessica Cooper who still in office who’s been refusing to cooperate with the victim’s family. There is too many bad actors 2 count. I Think what you see here is people wanting to make it political just like in the occk Facebook group. Take the political b******* out of this and you will see both sides of politics failed these families. Every single prosecutor from Brooks L Patterson and on his failed these families. Every Attorney General of the state of Michigan. Every FBI director has failed these families. If you look at Kathy’s previous post the ones who kevduit this family the most is the state police. You shouldn’t also forget that this was also a state investigation as well as an FBI investigation into all of this. Law enforcement on all levels failed. I am by no means defending Brooks L Patterson but it just annoys me when people don’t want to call out all the other people who were Bad actors in all of this and there were a lot of them. Also wasn’t the evidence in these cases damaged at FBI evidence storage facilities? They waited decades to test the DNA. Massive amounts of evidence lost. Smh no like the previous post mentioned this was the result of the shittest police work ever. No Corey Williams work was amazing he was just about four decades too late
Outside of Miss labeling the wrong car and waiting decades to correct it even after 3 of the reports mentioned a pontiac LeMans. One of the biggest failures in this case had to have been the Oakland County Medical Examiner. Then you have a dumbass cop who puts a blanket over Mark Stebbins body which could have f***** up any evidence that was on him. The massive amount of evidence lost. Then you have the fact that the police never went further with green statements made up against Bush odds are if they would have kept questioning green they would have had every single one of these bastards taken out in 1977. Again this was more than just 1 persons fault. This is the result of sloppy police work 100%. I mean mitochondrial DNA testing came out I think in the 80s possibly even the late 70s they waited decades to test would should have deen done within just 1 decade. This case seriously annoys me and the family is right they could have solved this case with ease if they didn’t make such slapped ass decisions for 40 years
I would argue the ME Robert Sillery and MSP polygrapher Ralph Cabot both have my brother’s blood on their hands.
They never wanted to do serious evidence testing because they never wanted the case solved. The manner in which the evidence was stored and the tips “filed” proves this point. The story was always “hey, no evidence, too hard to solve, smart killer, we just didn’t luck out.”
Cathy,
Your criticisms about Oakland County Medical Examiner Robert Sillery were shared by the author of the quasi-fictional “The Oakland County Child Killer” in 1980. This author, whoever he was, had access to the innermost thoughts of at least some members of the investigators.
From page 51, a conversation between two cops, “Davis” and “Bowers”:
“Talked to the examiner again this morning.”
“That camel jockey with the shakes?” (!)
“Yeah,” said Davis. “He said there’s no connection between kid that was killed last month (i.e. Mark Stebbins) and the Payne girl (i.e. Jill Robinson).”
“What the fuck does he know?” (!!)
“Well he says it’s possible the same person could have killed both kids, but there’s no evidence to indicate that.”
“Yeah, well, I say the same guy did it.”
This passage from 1980 was written five years before the 1985 decision by the Michigan Court of Appeals to reverse a Wayne County Circuit Court decision to overturn the Michigan Department of Regulation Board of Medicine’s judgment to suspend Robert Sillery’s license to practice medicine.
So, ultimately, in real life, even the courts agreed that Sillery was a terrible ME, just as the (fictional?) cops in this excerpt had said, five years earlier.
https://casetext.com/case/sillery-v-board-of-medicine
Paul, more later, so much shit in the air-but off the top of my head. Michael L. Parrott (have to check the spelling) was the author. Recently checked online and I think this guy is 68, lives in Michigan, wife Lisa (book is dedicated to “Lisa.” As I recall, the killer ends up being a priest but he has ties to an art gallery owner. So fucked up. He clearly had an inside line, as did most of the authors along the way. But that one is very curious.
Michael L. Parrott had an inside line on this case, no doubt about it. Right down to “Lieutenant Davis, Sergeant Bowers and Officer Shultz” eliminating the possibility of a suspect ever murdering another kid by getting him drunk and killing him by carbon monoxide poisoning in his own car on a closed road. “In a day or two, we’ll send a scout car out in the area and they’ll stumble across him.”
“This way it’s nice and clean. Just another suicide no one gives a shit about. There won’t be anymore killings and the public will just forget about it. Like always. . . . We just go on as we have been for a month or two. Then one day when everybody starts to forget, and believe me, it won’t take long, we announce that the Task Force is costing taxpayers too much money. No more kids will be missing. Nobody will care. And that’s the end of it.”
Parrott book, p. 156-161.
L. Brooks Patterson never stopped gaslighting the King family, the families of the other victims or the community in regards to the OCCK. Patterson, long after he left the prosecutors office, continued to closely associate and assist with several aspects of the OCCK “investigation”. He was always there in some fashion. Always.
One incident in particular stands out and shines light on the confluence of corruption and power rampant in metro Detroit – corruption well documented on this blog and ties directly back to this case.
In September of 1999, when the Norberg lead was being investigated out west in Wyoming, Patterson personally intervened. Patterson, it was reported in the Free Press “convinced Detroit businessman Anthony Soave to lend investigators his corporate jet, and Patterson will cover some of the expenses himself.”
On the surface, this item is almost a throwaway, a little tidbit to paint Brooks in a good light. What a guy – spending his own money to try and crack this case!
But the name Anthony Soave should set off alarm bells. Tony Soave is a well connected, mobbed-up Grosse Pointe scrap metal/sanitation “billionaire” who mingled with eager lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. According to reports from Detroit media, Soave admitted to bribing former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for water department contracts, and was the linchpin of the government’s case against the so called Hip-Hop Mayor.
In fact, Soave was Kilpatrick’s most lavish briber, doling out flights on his private jet worth $300,000, multiple Manhattan shopping trips, five-figure Pistons court side seats for championship games, etc.
In court when he testified against Kilpatrick, Soave was quoted as saying “It’s good to be friends with the mayor of the city where you are working.”
Soave testified he was friends with Former Governor John Engler, Supreme Court Judge and former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer, former Mayor Coleman Young and Kilpatrick. And, for good measure he added lastly, “Brooks Patterson as well.”
So in 1999, why is the Oakland County Executive calling on a mob-tied, thug tycoon and briber for a favor? When did this relationship begin, who owed what to whom and WHY?
When the Busch lead and apparent cover up was exposed by your family, Patterson was by then into full blown damage control. He did everything he could to counter the incriminating information with a subtle slight of hand. He downplayed everything.
In an August 2010 Oakland Press article about Mr. Kings lawsuit against the State Police for the Busch file, Patterson was quoted as saying “he doesn’t think it’s possible Busch would have been able to evade them as a suspect because of his family’s influence.” Given the new developments in the case, these comments strike as a dead giveaway, a psychological tick where Patterson is basically telling us what happened!
“I’m sure somewhere in this criminal justice system, that kind of influence may have worked, but I don’t remember him being a suspect at the time,” he says in another interview around the same time. “I’m confident in the integrity of the criminal justice system, the state police … the departments were working feverishly.” Chasing gremlins.
“I just don’t think that is possible” he said.
Then, more gaslighting. Patterson repeatedly claimed to believe the four Oakland County homicides were the work of a single person. This again is a clever deflection of evidence known to Brooks, including the State Police records in 1977 indicating that “in their analysis, officers noted certain similarities in the crimes that supported the theory that they were committed by a single killer or small group of killers”.
Patterson, when looking at the media record through the decades, never missed an opportunity to throw cold water on any new developments in the case. He routinely questioned if the mystery would ever be solved, saying: “Busch, with all of the other physical evidence is probably the best lead we have,” he said. “I know for the families it’s been an open wound. I understand (King’s) continuing frustration and how much he wants it resolved in his lifetime and I hope it is. We’ve been through this since the ’70s and I’m just not optimistic.”
This kind of “cautioning” is the narrative that Marney Keenan also touches on.
The political infighting in the office was also laid bare. Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper was more than happy to throw Patterson and “No Deals” Dick Thompson under the bus. “I can’t answer why (there was a deal) and I suspect that, why he (Busch) was given that break, we have that file, there is only perhaps one person who can answer that. And that’s not me.” Whoops.
Cooper’s comments of course prompted a statement from Patterson. As reported in the media, Patterson (through a spokesperson) again feigned complete cluelessness as to what could have ever happened, but then gives an example of what might have happened – (that tick again). The article quotes Patterson as saying “It is difficult to speculate why the chief assistant prosecutor (Thompson) approved a plea agreement in the 1977 Christopher Busch sex assault case. Brooks pointed to “documents” – the victim said on the stand, ‘I lie to everybody.’ It is possible the victim’s testimony adversely impacted the case against Busch. Nevertheless, the chief assistant prosecutor agreed to a guilty plea of a 10-year felony. However, the sentencing judge, based on his view of the facts of the case, gave Busch probation. It is regrettable the sitting prosecutor 35 years later would attempt to politicize a case she knows nothing about.”
It gets crystal clear as to how the people in power, the circled around each other in a pool of secrets they are crippled to keep.
And the betrayals continued. In May of 2011, comes the biggest evidence based lead to date. Mitochondrial DNA is linked back to Vince Gunnels. It links a known associate of Busch’s to a victim in the case. Boom!
And it isn’t enough for Patterson to be considered consequential.
As noted in earlier documents and in “The Snow Killings”, in late May of 2011 The Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office convened a citizen’s grand jury to help authorities with 30 unsolved homicides, including the Oakland County child slayings. The DNA match connected recently paroled James Vincent Gunnels to Kristine Mihelich. Guess who’s cocktail glass comes clinking onto the scene? Brooks. In news reports at the time, Patterson said he agreed to fund the investigation that led to the grand jury being impaneled. Patterson said the grand jury would hear information related to one of the child slayings of the 1970s, but “as far as I know, there is no new information or hot leads (in the case).
Why would he blatantly lie about this? Who (or what) is he covering for?
Patterson said he would like to see closure in the cases, but couldn’t talk more about them because the law mandates secrecy. How convenient.
The Detroit News also quoted Patterson on the Grand Jury. He was quoted as saying he “expected the (King) homicide case to be one of 30 on the table for the Oakland County Grand Jury to review. And that’s when the gaslighting starts. The article goes on to say “Patterson urges that the move should not be misinterpreted as an indication that an arrest is imminent.” “I don’t consider this to be a major breakthrough on the child killer case, Patterson said. “I’m sure it’s going to be one of the cases reviewed. “We’ve been down so many dead end streets with this case. So I’m hopeful, but I’m not overly optimistic at this point.” Later in the article Patterson tried to get back into the good graces of Jessica Cooper, another “holder of the secrets”. He commended Cooper for convening the grand jury and reviewing the case. He said the the jury “should provide people a measure of hope that a killer might someday be found.” Patterson insisted in the interview that when it came to the families, “I want them to be cautiously hopeful. “I know several of the families.” he stated. “I want more than anything for those families to have some closure.”
I’m taking heart in what I see as slow momentum building here. Obviously this new development with the BH cop deserves attention. Michigan AG Dana Nessel just tapped a police captain from Lansing named Tom Fabus in a new role leading something called the Criminal Investigations Division on a wide range of topics that include cold case homicides.
Investigative efforts led by people outside of Oakland County might be a good start.
Brian, you once again hit the mark and pull in so many important threads. I have so much to say and probably can’t pull it all together until this weekend. In the meantime, you are so right. Patterson–and Ray Anger from Berkley PD were ALWAYS lurking in the background of this case. I maintain that, aside from totally loving the power, Patterson kept control of Oakland County as county exec for the rest of his life because he needed to keep a lot of shit quiet. That trip to Recluse, Wyoming was the most cynical ploy ever and I have a lot to say about that.
And of course it was more than just Patterson. It was Robert Robertson, Joe Krease, the MSP, the FBI, suburban cops alive and some dead, Jessica Cooper and Paul Walton. And others had to have known, too. But Patterson was the worst. As you point out, he was in full blown damage control and it is entirely obvious to you and to me and anyone else who pays attention. That fucker was sweating. Then he pulled a Joe Paterno. I was hoping someone would come forward after he died, but there are still people alive who played along. Now I wish he was alive so he could be confronted with his lies. He kept power to avoid having to answer to anyone. He was a bully and I’m sure quite vindictive, as every dirty player in this shit show is. They got to control the narrative, live their lives, with no repercussions and no effect on their reputations or their agencies. No apologies, no answers. Fuck them all. This story needs to be revealed and be a permanent mark on Oakland County.
And part of the silence is no doubt due to the Dirty Harry nature of the “solution” to Oakland County’s child killer problem.
All I am saying is look at MSP in this case through out the years. Jessica Cooper….. The FBI mishandling of evidence……. Tbh whether Patterson signs off on Bush or not you have to wonder how many hand fulls of cops assisted in all of that. You can’t pretend the state police or the FBI never looked at those tip files either. This was a multi jurisdictional case. Just like some would say dead men don’t speak about these pedophile rings. You could say the damn thing about the police. There is no way Brooks would have been the only one to know. Impossible! In this case it seemed difficult to tell who was really calling the shots. I hate to break to you but unless Patterson was a prosecutor after he left office he would have had little to no influence at all. That is why the King family was glad to have a new prosecutor until they realized how much of a POS Jessica Cooper is. Either way Brooks is dead and Jessica Cooper still has not done shit and MSP is still giving the king family a hard time
As I have written many, many, many times, they all suck and are complicit in mis and malfeasance. When we find out the level of the cover-up here the only shocking part will be how many people knew or caught wind of it.
I have been writing about this for almost a decade. Check out my blog, read Jason Appelman’s book The Kill Jar, and Marney Keenan’s book The Snow Killings.
And also read M.F. Cribari’s book, Portraits in the Snow (2011).
Wow. Crazy and messed up. You and family are still in my thoughts (daily). Not only losing one of my childhood friends, but the shit your family is enduring really pisses me off. Just know I’m still praying for justice here somehow. Take care man Let me know if you ever want to chat.
Joe
Thanks, Joe. I always appreciate your comments.
wow
Hi Cathy,
I’ve tried to figure the mathematical odds that the very cop on duty who responded to the Chris Busch death scene was himself a pedophile. If it was he who then called the task force, then he was part of the set up to shut down the OCCK task force by design, given the belief back then this was a sole perpetrator. Do we know if that officer had been to fox island, or who his other pedo buddies were. ?
Patrick
Sent from my iPhone
>
Working on it, Patrick. Yes, what are the odds????!
Yes indeed. What are the odds?
What strikes me is that according to the author of the 1980 book “The Oakland County Child Killer” (a quasi – novella about the case), the police suspected immediately at the (Busch) death scene that it was a set-up, a ruse to point investigators in the wrong direction.
What is so important about that revelation is that back in 1980, no one had ever heard of Christopher Busch, and no one outside of a very small circle of law enforcement officers had any reason to connect him with the OCCK.
Yet the author knew!
Since the Busch scene was almost certainly a set-up, then McNamee was working on behalf of those determined to throw off the investigation. And if, as I and others have been arguing for years, Busch was indeed an informant on the Fox Islands Ring (and other metro Detroit/Flint rings), then McNamee’s superiors may have guessed that pointing the finger at Busch would shut down any further investigation.
Which it did.
Paul, first of all, the early authors of all the fictionalized accounts of this case had inside information of one sort or another–help from police who were weighing in with these authors, or maybe in the case of The Oakland County Child Killer (1980), someone from inside the investigation. But help me out here–and I am not being facetious, why not just kill Busch? Why bother to set up the murder scene they way they did? Busch had clearly spilled to Larry Wasser at the meeting for the private polygraph and I believe word got out about that. So had the FBI told local law enforcement, “you can’t touch this guy,” and local cops kill Busch and make sure the scene screams child killer? Do you think Busch was involved in these crimes? Who shuts down any discussion of the Busch “suicide” and the death scene?
^ ^ ^ This!
Ok so I was looking over the photo of Bush’s closet in close detail where the ligatures were found. There were a few things that stood out to me that no body probably picked up yet.
1. There is either a porn picture or magazine that is partially sticking out. You can make out the shape of a a woman’s torso.
2. It looks like there may be a photo sitting on another stack of books.
3. The changing of color of the carpet. Toward the wall it is dark and in the center it is patchy with white spots. 1 especially noticeable white spot off to the side by the door
4. There are 4 different ligatures.
5. There are some stains at the lower left bottom corner that almost look like feces smeared in a carpet
6. Out of place briefcase that is pretty beat up with a baby blue strap wrapped around it? This stood out to me mainly because it does not look like something you would take to work with you or for travel. It looks pretty beat up.
7. Just barely noticeable red tint spot on the carpets just above the ligatures by the brief case.
I’m going through some of the old stuff again. Trying to pay attention to closer detail to things. It’s a bit tricky zooming in on these things or playing with the contrast or brightness of the photo. The one thing that stood out to me was the different colors of the carpet. If you have difficulty seeing what I am seeing let me know and i can send it to you via email. The thing that has me the most curious though is whether or not that is a photo on those books and whether this image could be digitally enhanced to see who or what is in that photo