Beginning tomorrow, there are online presentations and a celebration of people who stood up and spoke out against corruption. You can RSVP at the end of this page: https://whistleblowersblog.org/nwd/schedule/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=bec62455-4b47-4d4b-b779-9173030d485a#day-3.
A little over a year ago, Marney Keenan’s book The Snow Killings, Inside the Oakland County Child Killer Investigation was published. https://www.thesnowkillings.com/. Immediately a woman who read the book came forward and said she had been sexually assaulted as a child by pedophile cop, and first responder to the Chris Busch death scene, Bloomfield Township PD Officer Richard McNamee. https://catherinebroad.blog/2020/09/02/tell-me-the-universe-doesnt-want-this-case-solved/. I posted quite a bit about this tip–read my blog entries from last summer. What has been done about this information? Jack shit.
A number of survivors have come forward to speak about their abuse by men in a child sex ring operating with impunity in Oakland County during the 1970s and 1980s. Only Wayne County seems even remotely interested in these horrifying facts.
Numerous “near misses” have come forward in the wake of The Snow Killings, J. Reuben Appelman’s book The Kill Jar (https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Kill-Jar/J-Reuben-Appelman/9781501190001), and the documentary Children of the Snow https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/id-shows/oakland-child-killer-children-of-the-snow, to describe how dangerous it was to be a kid in Oakland County in 1976-1980. We have also learned that the witness who said he saw Kristine Mihelich walking away from the 7-11 in Berkley, the witness Berkley cop Ray Anger used to discredit then 8-year-old “Sebastian” who said he saw Kristine leave with a cop who had on a cop hat with a plastic rain guard, was 12-year-old Wade Cooper, whose word should have been taken with “a grain of salt,” and apparently not just because of his age.
But do you know who hasn’t come forward? People who know who with certainty who was involved in these terrible crimes. People who know what went down at law enforcement agencies in Oakland County to make sure the investigation got derailed and no one looked too closely. Nothing to see here.
Imagine if no one spoke up about Harvey Weinstein and if Ronan Farrow had not pushed back against Weinstein’s security and pressure/threat machine and fought to have his reporting published. https://www.hbo.com/catch-and-kill-the-podcast-tapes.
Imagine if victims had not come forward in the Jeffrey Epstein case and if journalist Julie K. Brown had backed down in the face of Epstein’s “machine.” https://www.harpercollins.com/products/perversion-of-justice-julie-k-brown?variant=32269378027554. Brown explained “When I became a journalist, I learned that the most rewarding part of my work was in righting injustices for those who could not fight for themselves.”
Imagine what it has taken to keep the lid so tight on the OCCK investigation for nearly 45 years. Imagine a counteroffensive by Oakland County and the Michigan State Police against anyone who would ask questions in this case (including an investigator who was on the right track) that escalated in 2012. Imagine a public in one of the nation’s wealthiest counties that looks away because it happened so long ago that almost everybody with dirty hands in this has won their gamble and took their shit to the grave. Apparently now it doesn’t matter.
Imagine a world without whistleblowers and those who have the courage and the power to defend them. The truth matters. Even in Oakland County, Michigan.