Another thing that struck me again as I rewatched Children of the Snow on Hulu was the old footage showing how many cops were working this case at a feverish pace. I want to be very clear that I have come to the conclusion that the source of the rot in this investigation is the Oakland County Prosecutor’s office of 1977, specifically L. Brooks Patterson, Richard Thompson and Gary Hawkins. As but one more example, remember that no records of interviews of Greg Greene conducted in the presence of Thompson and Hawkins in Flint were ever produced in response to FOIA requests to the MSP and the OCP. There are purposeful holes and illegal redactions that supplement the “no comment on an ongoing investigation” bullshit in this case.
I would characterize the OCP’s history in this case as corruption. When the work of cops on the street was handed off to the MSP, it went to an agency quite capable of obstinance and later indifference, which would serve to compound the underlying corruption.
There were intelligent people near the center of this investigation early on who surely suspected something was amiss, but who were apparently not in a position to question or speak up. They stayed silent not only in the face of four unsolved homicides, but the real possibility that these serial killings could continue. Perhaps these same folks knew “the problem” had been taken care of.
Some day when I have the time I am going to look back at when the state police task force received the federal grant money (in today’s dollars some $3 million), where it was from and how it was expended. What do you mean you were out of money? Were the various PDs reimbursed for overtime costs after-the-fact? Once my brother was murdered there was not the immediate need for around-the-clock policing, but wouldn’t a very scaled-down group at the MSP still be prepared to deal with the possibility of a future abduction and wouldn’t an assistant prosecutor be assigned to monitor the case to be ready to work with the MSP if an arrest was made? Why wasn’t the public told who to contact after December 1978 if someone learned relevant information? The case was clearly staying with the MSP. If someone contacted the Oakland County sheriff or a local PD, was the information even communicated to the MSP? When the winter of 1979 rolled around was anyone concerned that the killer(s) might strike again? It doesn’t appear so.
You might argue that Chris Busch was not a viable OCCK suspect and merely received special dispensation in his treatment as a CSC defendant in 1977 and 1978 because of his daddy, a highly-placed GM executive and resident of Bloomfield Village in Oakland County. It was not because he had fabulous legal representation. I believe that treatment began before the CSC cases and before he had an attorney, starting with how he was “handled” in Flint in January 1977 when he was arrested after Greg Greene dimed him for the murder of Mark Stebbins. We’ve been over this many times.
Whether you consider Chris Busch a viable suspect in the OCCK murders or simply a fall guy (suicide scene screaming “CHILD KILLER”); whether you consider his death a suicide or a murder, consider the following and offer any explanation you can conjure.
First consider the Oakland County “investigation” of the CSC charge filed against Busch in OC in 1977 following his little powwow with Thompson and Hawkins at Flint PD. Not a single witness was interviewed. Not a single lead pursued. Not the Big Brothers organization that Busch freely admitted when interviewed in Flint in late January 1977 he exploited for young victims. Busch’s co-defendant Greg Greene was never bound over in this case and, despite the judge asking about this on the record, no explanation was ever given. The entire OC investigation was a cut and paste job of the Flint investigation and the single victim Patterson could not avoid because the victim pointed to a map on January 27, 1977 and unequivocally stated that he was molested in Oakland County. Oh, they were so hoping all these assaults on minors were only in Genesee County; this doesn’t happen in Oakland County!
Next consider that the only reason Chris Busch’s name resurfaced as an OCCK suspect in 2007 was through the efforts of Patrick Coffey and my family. The OCP and the MSP were in possession of his records for 29 years at that point, yet neither said or did anything. The OCP had Chris Busch’s name and instead of immediately disclosing it so that it would appear to have been an oversight of which then OCP David Gorcyca was not aware, Busch’s name was withheld and the OCP engaged in a proxy war through private polygrapher Larry Wasser to block the release of Busch’s name. The OCP knew exactly who Chris Busch was when Wasser accidentally referred to him in July 2006, but Wasser was used to drag out the disclosure of Busch’s name for some 18 months.
In late October 2008, while Gorcyca was still in office, the Busch home in Bloomfield Village was searched 30 years too late. The baton of corruption was soon handed off to Jessica Cooper who went on to file 21 motions to suppress the affidavit that accompanied the search warrant.
When Cooper and her assistant Paul Walton realized the damning evidence that was found at the Busch death scene, they went to great pains to locate and extract a disingenuous affidavit from a retired forensic scientist to supplement the report he submitted 34 years earlier with ridiculous information that was not included in his original report. Information he supposedly forgot to include when the evidence was fresh in his mind and right in front of him. He was somehow able to remember this information without the evidence in front of him such that he could aver to this all in a sworn affidavit. That they would talk to the press about.
When Jessica Cooper convened a Grand Jury and my dad received a subpoena, he was hopeful the OCP was finally taking an active interest in this case. When my dad appeared to testify he learned the true purpose of the Grand Jury was to abuse the confidentiality requirements to impose an improper “gag order” on everyone involved in the investigation. My dad was not subpoenaed to provide testimony; he was called so he could improperly be accused of leaking information. A felony.
The Grand Jury served no investigative purpose. No new evidence was explored. No indictments were issued. The only ostensible purpose of this proceeding was to include the OCCK case among other cold cases in order to further victimize the families of the victims who were merely seeking whatever passes for closure in these circumstances.
Cooper’s approach to the OCCK case was nothing but resistance and threats. Patterson and Thompson had kept their heads down and their mouths shut, the old gangsters. Gorcyca was on his way out the door and there was no need to “educate” him further on the need for silence and resistance. Cooper’s office defined “investigating” the OCCK case as undermining the investigation and threatening and disparaging the victims’ families. Their efforts were devoted solely to avoiding liability.
These previous prosecutors have saddled the current prosecutor, Karen McDonald with enormous exposure. Somehow the crimes of her predecessors must be acknowledged. There must be a push and follow-through to have a third-party lab test/retest all of the evidence in this case. Explanations will be required about the handing and storage of this evidence, especially after all involved became aware of DNA testing becoming common in the late 1980s.
The case files must be digitized, as has been done in other Michigan cold cases. If you watched Children of the Snow you saw the file cabinets and the bankers boxes stacked up to the ceiling. How the fuck do they find anything in that morass?
And this brings me right back to the thoughts I had about police involvement in these cases from 1976-1978. Machinations at the prosecutor’s office in 1977 screwed over hard working cops in addition to those four kids. Explain to me how the way the Chris Busch lead and his CSC cases were handled did not impact the trajectory of the OCCK investigation.
Because of the way the evidence was handled, advanced DNA testing may not yield any answers. We all know the case will probably never be “solved.” But failure to treat this case like any other cold case means the baton of corruption has been accepted and embraced by the latest generation of law enforcement and lab scientists. When even the Boulder PD is forced to play ball with third-party lab evaluation of DNA evidence in the JonBenet Ramsey case, you know your time is coming Michigan. STEP. UP.