As anyone even vaguely familiar with public records laws knows, a response from a public agency is really just whatever they decide to give to you. The Michigan State Police provided over 3000 documents a decade ago and beginning in the spring of 2020, I posted them all on my blog. They charged my dad over $11,000 for these documents. In addition to the $11K, there were attorney fees, as the MSP initially fought production of any documents and he had to take them to court.
Former Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper also fought production of any documents in 2012. The Michigan courts agreed with her, all the way up to the Michigan Supreme Court. More attorney fees. Then, she would produce a few hundred pages of case file pages to a t.v. reporter and to the Detroit Free Press. Documents she withheld from my dad and fought over in court for months. So, she was required to hand those over to my dad and I posted them on my blog as well.
Birmingham PD allowed my brother to review the documents and files still in their possession as of last year. He took notes but no copies. The current Oakland County Prosecutor responded to my FOIA request earlier this year with the documents that had been stashed at the Oakland County Sheriff’s office for “safekeeping.” (I.E., to avoid having to produce them in response to FOIA requests.). They did not charge me for this document production. I have posted these documents on my blog, too.
I have been posting the final documents I have in this case, file notes prepared by Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Investigator Insp. Cory Williams (2010-2019). They did not charge me for these documents. Because this information was basically all addressed in Marney Keenan’s book, The Snow Killings: Inside the Oakland County Child Killer Investigation (2020), I did not post the 230 pages. However, I have since concluded that these pages explain “in real time” important issues concerning evidence in the case and started posting them last month. I think whatever transparency is possible concerning this investigation is important. It’s all we may ever have.
Pages 1-155 are posted in these four links:
https://catherinebroad.blog/2022/07/ (pages 128-155)
Final pages, not previously posted (pages 156-230) (any handwritten notes or highlights are mine):