Born in 1934, here is a 1958 photo of Josiah Tazelaar. Of course he is with a bunch of 10-year-old boys.

Thank you to a reader for providing the link.

Read about the notorious STRESS (“Stop the robberies enjoy safe streets”) unit of the Detroit Police Department, circa 1971) in todays Detroit Free Press. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2021/09/05/detroit-police-stress-unit-ricardo-buck-craig-mitchell/5656626001/. The unit of the then white-controlled DPD came under fire in the days before cell phone and body cameras after two black teens were shot in the back by a white officer who claimed they attacked him. Forensic evidence showed the killings could not have happened as police described. The tragic murder of these two teens marked the beginning of the end of the STRESS unit, which upon examination looked more like a murder squad that was being assisted with cursory and conclusory investigations, planting of evidence and failure to prosecute.

This is the 50th anniversary of the teens’ murders. The DPD discredited and intimidated witnesses to these 1971 murders, making them afraid to come forward publicly but their statements were found in the Homicide Bureau’s investigative file, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Detroit Under Fire website. https://policing.umhistorylabs.lsa.umich.edu/s/detroitunderfire/page/home.

DPD can find a fifty year old file when Detroit Under Fire comes knocking, but they can’t find any files whatsoever concerning a joint investigation conducted by DPD, the FBI, and other federal agencies into three to five child pornography rings operating in the Detroit area and involving “at least 100 youngsters.” The investigation spanned over several months beginning in November 1984 and focused both on adults who were filming kids engaged in sexual activities as well as adults responsible for importing “kiddie porn” into Michigan. The investigation uncovered an estimated 20 adults who participated and/or facilitated the production of these films using children ranging in age from four years old to early teens.  Why? Undigitized files, no man power to sort through their shitty warehouse filing “system,” basically–too hard to even attempt to locate.

Child porn? Child sex ring? Joint investigation with the FBI? Can’t find it. Shameful STRESS unit murder case file from 1971–oh yeah, we got it.

930 Knox Street, Birmingham, Michigan, was built and sold in 1996 to the late Senator Jack Faxon. I can’t remember if that was an empty lot back in 1977 or if perhaps there was a home there that was torn down for this build. I do remember Knox Street very well. It would have been the last street my brother Tim walked on before he was abducted. It was a short, quiet, dark street.

We’ve discussed Jack Faxon, whose name appears in investigative notes concerning the investigation into pedophiles Ted Lamborgine and Richard Lawson. https://catherinebroad.blog/2020/08/24/ex-michigan-senator-jack-faxon/. An April 11, 1979 article in The Decatur Herald (Decatur, IL) opens with “”Somehow, when you’re talking to Jack Faxon, you can never be quite sure which Jack Faxon will answer.” The reporter was referring to Faxon as state senator, school headmaster, or artist-performer. We wouldn’t know for decades after that there was yet another side. Faxon’s side where he was friends with convicted pedophiles Kent Shultz (“best friends” according to Shultz, see https://www.hebrewmemorial.org/obituaries/Jack-Faxon/#!/TributeWall) and Josiah Tazelaar (https://catherinebroad.blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/ex-michigan-senator-jack-faxon.pdf).

While it is unclear whether the late Faxon ever lived on Knox before 1996, it appears he did have a home in Birmingham while he was still in the Michigan senate. Faxon retired from the senate in 1994, two years before this home was built. See memory posted on obituary page from a man who was caretaker at Faxon’s home in Birmingham while Faxon went back and forth to serve in Lansing. https://www.hebrewmemorial.org/obituaries/Jack-Faxon/#!/TributeWall.

Faxon, “something of an arts doyen” (see Hugh McDiarmid’s column in The Detroit Free Press, April 6, 1996, p. 3A, discussing a lawsuit filed by a dentist who purchased art from Faxon and later claimed he had been duped and the subsequent defamation action Faxon filed against the GOP for mentioning this lawsuit in campaign materials), managed to amass quite the art collection. As a reader pointed out, it is curious how Faxon began collecting art in his 30s while a school teacher.

DuMouchelles and Sotheby’s have already been through Faxon’s home. An estate sale is in progress.

I thought you might like to see some of the art that is left for sale:

And this classic book:

Dr. Richard Golden, the Southfield dentist who sued Faxon over the 1981 art sale, told McDiarmid in 1996 that the lawsuit was settled when Faxon bought back all but two of the items–two paintings by Faxon himself. Dr. Golden said Faxon did not want them back and that Golden “still [had] ’em. I think they are in a closet.”

Feels like there is a lot in the closet here.