Police in Battle Creek, Michigan solved the murder of a Michigan woman more than 30 years later, after a newly discovered blood sample connected a man to the fatal stabbing. The killer is long dead.
The family of Gayle Barrus expressed relief and her son said: “It won’t change the past, but it takes a weight off our shoulders to get this answered.”
Nice work, Battle Creek PD Det. Scott Marshall and Calhoun County Sheriff’s Sgt. Chris Bacik.
Thanks to a reader for sending.
That is featured in today’s Detroit Free Press page A 21.
Thanks to another reader for pointing out that the full article in the Battle Creek newspaper adds more context: https://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/story/news/2021/01/28/cold-case-murder-battle-creek-woman-solved-after-32-years/4275849001/
Solving the cold case has meaning, [the detective] said.
“It means no matter how much time passes, these cases are solvable,” he said. “It takes the ability to do it, reexamining them, looking at the clues and putting time and effort into it.
“It may be as simple at reexamining DNA or finding witnesses who were reluctant back in the day to come forward and provide those little bits of information that we can ultimately close these cases and if the suspects are alive, submit for charges.”
Imagine that…..making a call to check in on the case,
speaking to an individual LE who actually does his job and follows it through to solve the case. After 30 years.
OCCK case may be complex, but shame on Jessica Cooper and MSP for continuing to lie to the public and the victims families. The opportunity to solve the case when Patrick Coffey brought the Wasser information to light, should have been “all hands on deck” to get answers that would solve the case. Instead there was the Jessica Cooper “red herring” blood sample press conference. Then LIES
to the press and public, throwing Barry King (who did everything by the book) under the bus. What a sham.
They have not served the public, nor kept children out of harms way.
Just read about how the Barrus case got solved, and learned that the rapist got killed just two days before the woman’s body was found. Well, this was a rare case of swift justice.
I’m not sure if I left this comment/idea here or somewhere else, but I was thinking about OCCK and I remember that the kids were all killed in the winter. Then I was thinking about Fox Island, as a summer camp. I used to live in Michigan and I know what the winters are like. Could it be that the kids were killed farther south, in and near Detroit, because it was too difficult to fly into Fox Island in the winter?
And here is another example, police are still working this 31 year old case against a child in Ohio, why arent they here in Michigan https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/amy-mihaljevic-murder/exclusive-court-documents-reveal-startling-new-developments-in-amy-mihaljevic-murder-investigation