Quite some time ago I contacted the Birmingham Police Department to ask if they had copies of the photos taken of the Manley Bailey Funeral Home while my brother’s body was there. The place was under surveillance and the photos were taken from a parking structure across the street. While the parking structure may still be there, the funeral home is long gone. (I have not lived in Michigan in many decades and the streets and locations mean very little to me now. The funeral home was in the business district of Birmingham and it was close to our home.)

The death notice in the newspapers listed Manley Bailey and stated “No visitation at the funeral home.” But police asked us if a relative had driven to town for the funeral because a younger man showed up at Manley Bailey after hours, explained that he had driven all day/night to attend the funeral, was a relative, and could he please see the body?

No, this was not one of our relatives. But surely there was a description given to police by the funeral director who spoke with this man. Maybe even a surveillance photo of him (although I believe the incident took place at night).

As an aside, this could have been just another sick person from metro Detroit.

There had been a man who admitted he attended Kristine Mihelich’s funeral because he had “nothing else to do that day.”

Police took photos of the people at my brother’s funeral. There were hundreds of photos. I know because I saw them. We had to go through them and identify anyone we didn’t recognize. Knowing what we know now, we should be able to go through those photos again. But it’s the MSP. God only knows where those photos are or how long it would take for them to locate them if they still exist. Which is why, when it came to the surveillance photos of Manley Bailey, I took a chance with Birmingham PD rather than the MSP.

The PD did not have copies of these photos–they would have gone to the Michigan State Police. But, amazingly enough, I received a phone call from BPD later that same day. They had searched and found some OCCK records. They offered that we could come in and take a look. One of my brothers took them up on that offer. More in the next post.