I recently wrote about a package I received from a woman who had cold called OCCK Task Force Commander Robert Robertson in 1993 to ask if he would share any insights or information to help her with a “pitch” she was making for a t.v. script based on the child killing cases.
At the end of the post I included a download of all the materials Robertson sent this woman. They are original documents. He had explained to the woman that he had many files from the case in his garage. Robertson included a “cover letter” of sorts–no salutation, no date. He ends with “I trust you will return this material when you have no use for it.” She never returned it and he never asked for it back.
He includes a transcription of his final tape recording for the OCCK file, with an explanation that he made many tapes covering many topics and had asked other task force members to put their thoughts on tape.
If you didn’t read the 10-page transcription of the final tape, consider it now. Rather than editorialize and provoke the predictable handful of readers who would go crazy over my cruelty and my cop-disdain, I will just say this thing speaks for itself in so many ways. As the man himself concludes, “Does the killer know how screwed-up we are in law enforcement, or was that just luck?”
Instead of paying money for FOIA reports, maybe you should just send letters to former LE and they will send you files from their garage. What the hell? What a joke, and I wanted to throw up reading the part about Brooks running for Senate. I did appreciate his honesty about how screwed up things were though.
I just can’t get over how different ‘my’ reality was during that time versus what was really going on. I was a terrified 10 year old girl who thought the police really wanted to catch this guy/guys/people. How sad to read about all the fighting between the departments and that it was felt some depts didn’t even care. Egos were way more important than catching pedophiles/kidnappers/killers.
You must just feel so nauseous when you see these things Cathy. I don’t know what you do with all the anger, frustration and sadness. And to think that these bastards that won’t talk are protected by the legal system/LE way better than the children in the 70s were.
Was it Robertson’s son that was in the documentary stating that his dad would bring home OCCK tips for him to review? It’s insane that he would say that in front of the camera but it sure sounds like the truth. One has to really wonder about Robertson senior, OK it’s this bad around me, that’s it, what’s the use? Might as well be just as bad. Maybe there was a trend set off for the others to follow. Kind of like a circus expanding on itself. Very sickening to know how much tax money wasted. Big egos over nothing! It sure does speak for itself.
That was his son.
It appears that Robertson put a lot of his energy into presenting a false narrative to the public. Was he the LE officer that participated in the Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing book by McIntyre? Don’t forget the repeated “theory” of the killer having been a son of a rich family who sent him to Europe for treatment. Robertson took every opportunity to spread this message. Too bad we don’t have access to his 1976/1977 bank records. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had a huge deposit of money during that time. I place him at the top of the list of cover-up suspects!
Yes, Robertson commissioned the hagiography about his masterful work on the OCCK Task Force, penned by Tommy McIntyre. Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing (1988). Fails big time, takes his file notes and records with him (public records prepared in the course of an investigation he was being paid by the state to perform that belong to his employer, not to him), gets promoted, has McIntyre write a shitty book about how heartbroken the task force was not to solve any of the cases. Can communicate with script writers but not the public and not family members. Robertson, Krease, Patterson and Thompson all in on creating the narrative. Deflected true inquiry and covered their asses for failing and probably worse. $$$$$ would be no surprise. That includes Ralph Cabot, MSP polygrapher and Robert Sillery, OC medical examiner, although they both sucked so badly at their jobs it could have just been incompetence. Others, too, who got promotions and their pensions for keeping mouths shut. Would be no surprise there, either.
Was Det. Williams able to eliminate Ronald Bailey as a suspect? Pretty disturbing, he was able to come & go from the facility in exchange for sex with Tombo.
I’ve been wondering for awhile now, if some juvenile sex offenders in Michigan could have been running their own version of a “pedophile ring”, there. They have many advantages over adult perps; they can be their own ‘lure’, with respect to younger children’s willingness to trust them as “one of us”, they don’t draw attention when accompanied by a younger child – less likely anyone would think a teen driver with another juvenile in the vehicle looks “suspicious”, they could probably even bring a child they were ‘abducting’ by threats, into their own residence without raising any alarms – “hi! this is my friend, we’re going to the garage now…”
They might need a sympathetic adult to facilitate some things, like lending them a vehicle from time to time, but if they are also prostituting themselves to adult pedophiles, that’s not likely to be a problem for them.
So Northville Regional Psychiatric Hospital being ‘corrupted’ by sex predator staff, is known.
What about University Center, a residential psychiatric-treatment center (for juveniles) in Ann Arbor, Mich, from the same era, 1970’s?
University Center was cited by Senate investigators as having similar problems to those alleged in the disastrous Green Valley School of Daytona Florida, which included; “children are subjected to cruel and depraved punishment, including being chained and shackled, locked for days at a time in an enclosure known as “the bomb shelter” and poked with an electric cattle prod called “the hull shocker”…and “Students enrolled at Green Valley School are living in a controlled environment where sexual relations by and between said children are openly condoned and permitted to take place without prevention or interference,”
University Center is an information blackhole, for me. Do you have anything on it? I don’t suppose Francis Shelden might have been on it’s board, or been a volunteer taking kids off campus?
I don’t have anything on University Center, but the question about a possible connection with Shelden is very interesting.
I bet Bloomfield Township Officer Richard McNamee knew everything going on with the task force and probably had knowledge of suspects. I wouldn’t doubt it if he knew about the Bruce Danto “Squirrel” road set up ahead of time.
And yet, the MSP continues to want to have it both ways. Open investigation so we can’t comment on anything or provide documents. But they won’t move on any tips. Det. Sean Street never got back to me or the victim who reported McNamee last summer. Their fake tip line is now officially dead. The Oakland County sheriff teamed up with Jessica Cooper and Paul Walton to interfere with this investigation. The OC prosecutor continues to maintain that they are not an investigating agency (then why do you have investigators?). When people ask Marney Keenan at the conclusion of Zoom book talks about the Snow Killings who to call with information, she has to tell them to contact her or me. Jesus. People watch Children of the Snow around the world and it may trigger a recollection or a guilty conscience. In most cases a jurisdiction would at least pretend to handle such tips/information. Not in Michigan. No one is working on this case. Close it and release all of the case file information on DVD at a nominal cost as was done in the Adam Walsh case decades ago. You can’t pretend any more and fall back on “we feel so bad about this case.” No, you don’t. You won’t make time for it and it is time for someone to account for all of the bullshit that has gone on in this case.