A reader raised some questions about wealthy pedophile Francis (Frank) Shelden and his connections to groups in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I don’t know the answers, but another reader responded with some interesting and valuable insights:
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“Ann Arbor definitely needs a much stronger flashlight shown on it, including in regard to the OCCK crimes.
I don’t have any insight into your inquiry, but it will allow me to expound upon something that’s been on my mind for a while.
The most common geographic profiling error made (myself included) when investigating Frank Shelden is to refer to his operations as the N. Fox Island gang.
It gives the false impression that he was always operating in a remote part of NW Michigan, far removed from Oakland and Wayne Counties.
In reality, N. Fox Island was merely his film set, which could only be used 3-4 months out of the year for those nefarious purposes.
The lair of the snake was actually his condo in Ann Arbor. It was the corporate headquarters location for his “Child Pornography, Inc.” Shelden’s operations would be more rightly referred to as the “Ann Arbor Pornography” ring.
It was also the location of his extensive child pornography client list, which I suspect contained the name(s) of the person or persons who payed him to organize and direct the abduction and murder of Mark Stebbins.
Unlike N, Fox Island, Ann Arbor was ideally situated for him to carry out his numerous crimes against children in the neighboring municipalities and counties.
When reviewing some of Shelden’s writings, it is clear that he had thoroughly scoped out places where there were likely to be many of his “Fellow Traveller” pedophiles.
His longtime presence and post graduate work in Ann Arbor lead me to believe that U-M was likely a hub of Academic Pedophilia.
With this in mind, it should not surprise that a serial child rapist like Robert Anderson could operate for 40 years as an employee of U-M. How many like him were there?
These things don’t occur in a vacuum.”
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I was going through “pending” comments last night and found an interesting link sent by a reader who had previously asked that I not post their comment (so I inadvertently diverted two comments instead of just the one). Check out this article from The Ann Arbor News, dated July 10, 1977:
Unfortunately I don’t have page 2A. After I finally posted this reader’s link (belated thanks), I reread the comments from the November 2019 post. Many of the comments on this blog are more instructive than my posts:
The reader is right about the very real possibility that someone could well have paid Shelden to organize the abduction of Mark Stebbins. Shelden was still in the U.S. in February 1976. A credible survivor told me a few years ago that he was raped by Shelden in a church which, by description and location was probably Christ Church Cranbrook and that he saw another boy that day who looked like Mark. Shelden was on the board at Cranbrook School. Of course he was; this guy didn’t miss a trick. https://catherinebroad.blog/2019/11/24/cranbrook-institute-bloomfield-hills-mi/
Another credible survivor told me he saw Arch Sloan at a service station with a scared boy who looked like Mark. Recall that Sloan’s name was turned in to police right after Mark went missing and this resulted in the police searching his Pontiac Bonneville (the source of “the Pontiac debris” evidence what would not be looked at for another 30-plus years). Sloan had ties to the Ess Lake area of northern Michigan, where Chris Busch liked to take boys from downstate when he had use of his parents’ cabin. The concentric circles are there.
By the time the other abductions take place, starting again 10 months later when Jill is abducted, Shelden is long gone. I’m quite sure that he kept his connections with the child porn operation in Wayne and Oakland Counties. As noted in M.F. Cribari’s book, Portraits in the Snow . . . Scandals and Small Conspiracies (2011), the fun and games were now over at N. Fox Island after pedophile Shelden had to flee the country, and other measures had to be taken for “clients” who wanted to victimize children.
That is why any DNA evidence pointing to sexual contact with one of these kids (e.g., a Y-str DNA sample or hair found near groin area of child)–if the state police ever let a competent, cutting-edge, first-rate lab to take a crack at this evidence–might well just match up with the “client(s)” who ordered up child victims. Then the real work will begin, to establish the concentric circles of evil that resulted in at least four murders. These children were disposable, they were easily accessed in Oakland County and no one has ever been arrested for these crimes.
Two living men might have direct insight into this (Sloan and Lamborgine are animals, not men, and will never talk). John Hastings and Vince Gunnels. The clock is ticking.