48 years ago tonight–four of his 12-year-old lifetimes–Mark Stebbins still was not home after leaving the American Legion Hall in Ferndale, Michigan in the early afternoon to walk home so he could watch a movie. February 15, 1976 was a Sunday. He had been at the hall where his mother Ruth was working and people were watching a pool tournament.
Missing posters were distributed in Oakland County, using a drawing of Mark. His mom did not have school photos from that year, as she didn’t have money to spare for them. On the morning of February 19, Mark’s body was found at the Fairfax Plaza parking lot in Southfield, about four miles from where he was last seen.
Eleven months later (and two other child murders later), on January 25, 1977, violent pedophile Greg Greene was arrested in Flint for raping and molesting boys from a baseball team he helped “coach.” During his interview, Greene told Flint Det. Tom Waldron that “Chris Busch killed Stebbins.” To shorten the story very considerably, this was the basis for Busch’s arrest in Alma on January 28. Nothing ultimately comes of this arrest, except for the biggest bunch of fuckery ever perpetuated in a serial killer investigation. No one would hear the names Busch, Greene, or Arch Sloan or John Crosbie for 30 more years.
And of course no one was to ever know of the drawing of a screaming boy who closely resembled Mark, found hanging on the wall in the Bloomfield Village bedroom of rotting monster, Chris Busch, at his “suicide” scene at his parents’ home in late November 1978.
Here are some file documents to review on the 48th anniversary of Mark’s first night in captivity.
Anyone with half a heart has to realize both how extremely evil this crime was and how dark and fucked up this investigation was and is. No one came forward to call “foul,” and it was very, very foul.
Arch Sloan, named early in the investigation into Mark’s murder, is still very much alive. The 82-year-old pedophile POS has been serving a life sentence for the rapes of boys in 1983. https://mdocweb.state.mi.us/OTIS2/otis2profile.aspx?mdocNumber=100765 . He has been interrogated, interviewed, offered deals post-2007, but he’s offering up nothing.
Mark’s mother Ruth died in 1998. Mark’s brother Mike died at age 60 in 2021. Light a candle for the three of them in the next few days if you can, as an acknowledgment of Mark’s young life and potential cut short, and for the pain his mom and brother endured with no answers.
You don’t get to forget, Oakland County. You had a 30-year run keeping the lid on. And even with the lid off, nothing will happen in these cases, much to the relief of not only people like Arch Sloan, but people who know how this investigation got derailed. What a cesspool.
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I put out corn for Mark.
Prayers for all victims of violence <3
I will light a candle for Mark his mother and his brother. We must never forget and I pray this will be solved someday.
Jeremy
And remember , there is zero in the Detroit media about any of these cases.
Take a listen to this episode of The Nick Bryant Podcast, discussing the mis and malfeasance of the mainstream press in cases like the Franklin Scandal and the Jeffery Epstein mess. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sandi-caradori-discusses-life-before-and-after-the/id1622069105?i=1000645609676. It’s literally shocking how the press often “plays ball” for the wrong team.
The OCCK case, which shares concentric circles of wealthy and well-placed men who raped kids, the pedophile son of a GM executive who helped film child sex abuse material (CSAM), and the CSAM King of the Entire World at that time, Frank Shelden, is much the same. Add in a prosecutor who betrayed the investigation and his need to control/threaten/manhandle the press to cover his flabby ass and it is even worse. These fuckers literally willed the case to go away and the community and the press allowed it/went along.
It’s more than just a case of having to downplay the massive “failure” in what was, at the time, horrific national news. It literally just. Went. Away. How does that happen? Law enforcement stopped working on it. No one would talk to the press. In most cases of this vintage, with such horrific facts, law enforcement throws open the doors and speaks honestly on the record. No comment or lies was all anybody was ever going to get in the OCCK case. “We don’t talk to victims’ families.” “We don’t let the tail wag the dog.” What you do is continue the cover up and then accuse those of us looking for answers as conspiracy theorists.
This is not a case where a kid was abducted, molested or raped and then quickly killed and dumped. This case involves at least four cases where kids 12 and under were abducted, held captive for days, tortured, raped and probably filmed. They were suffocated, probably with plastic bags over their heads. That is a longer and more painful death than a bullet to the chest. No one wants to acknowledge any of that, let alone push for answers in this case. Oakland County is still a very dirty, corrupt place. The media gives up too easily and just buys the “company” line.
Jack The Ripper was 1888. The London police are still trying to solve the case with DNA evidence.
I wonder where Robert Van Hengel was at this time. I don’t know why but my gut tells me this guy was involved in these killings somehow. I wish a deeper investigation would take place on Van Hengel