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In between lies and twisted statements, Gerald Richards explained to a Chicago Tribune reporter investigating child pornography that around 1968 he left the porno shop he was working at and started his own mail order child pornography business. This surely supplemented the income from the first “nonprofit” this monster created in 1970 to gain access to children.

By 1970, Richards, his wife, and Mr. and Mrs. Richard Mugridge had formed a nonprofit to bring safety instruction and religious studies to area schools using the “media of magic.” In an article that reads like a prescient roadmap for much darker schemes, Richards explains he came up with the idea for school outreach after he “was contacted by several area businessmen to provide such a service.” I just bet you were, Jerry.

In 1976, Richards and his friend Frank Shelden were indicted for raping a young boy from Port Huron. Richards, who did not have a private plane, was arrested in July 1976 and pleaded guilty. Shelden, who did own a private plane, fled the country, evaded justice and I’m sure continued to offend until his dying breath.

We don’t know that anyone has been able to definitively link Brother Paul’s Boys Nature Camp on North Fox Island with Oakland County. If they have, they are keeping that information for their own purposes. However, it is indisputable that N. Fox was never thoroughly investigated. Francis Duffield Shelden’s blue blood lineage (Shelden/Alger families) certainly meant strings could be pulled and legal problems disappear.

M.F. Cribari describes Shelden’s lineage and the obviousness of a “staunch wall of cemented protective power” for this black sheep of blue bloods in her book, Portraits in the Snow, The Oakland County Child Killings . . . Scandals and Small Conspiracies (Outskirts Press Inc., 2011, p. 178-200). This cement wall would extend to any of Shelden’s patrons of the upper-crust/heavy-hitter variety or anyone who overlapped with Oakland County, and would be cause for treading lightly and making sure that the client/patron list went MIA.

But a mid-level freak like Gerald Richards was totally expendable. He was described in the Chicago Tribune as “one of the Midwest’s leading child pornographers and the worst kind of pimp”–a “flesh peddler who fed off the young,” who filmed, processed and sold child pornography and sold his models to pedophiles. Chicago Tribune, May 15, 1977, p. 20.

He served the low end of his 2-10 year sentence at Jackson Prison and unbelievably enough, was back in The Times Herald with his now father-son magic act. No mention of his prior “employment” or his stint at Jackson.

By 1988, Richards was arrested again, this time for selling child porn through the mail. I guess he really couldn’t conjure up sufficient income through magic. He told investigators that he had merely been setting up a sting to entrap purchasers. Although the Wikipedia page on N. Fox Island states Richards killed himself in 1998 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Islands_(Lake_Michigan) –see Criminal History section), a reader consulted Richards’ death certificate which states he died of “upper gastrointestinal bleeding” due to “portal hypertension” after a lengthy hospital stay.

I thought the researcher’s (see yesterday’s post) description of Gerald Richards was spot on:

I am on to Gerald Richards.  He was a little man with big aspirations and a voracious need for attention, so he left a long trail in the local media (as his father had before him).  He complicated everything because he needed a structure to operate in and, as is evident in his Senate testimony, he intellectualized and rationalized to the point of delusion.  He must have loved cavorting with the “big rich predators” but he was way in over his head and they used him and threw him away.  It’s a tale worthy of Shakespeare!

From a reader

That he was a manipulative, delusional liar was evident from his comments to the Chicago Tribune in 1977, as well as his later testimony in Washington, D.C. Manipulative liar was the least of his heinous traits. The Tragic and Most Heinous Tale of the Double Life of The Great and Evil Richeli.

Now that you have some sense of how Richards portrayed himself to the press and the “Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency” (WTF? How about the Subcommittee to Investigate Men Who Rape Children and Film It?)–as a poor schlep who needed a side gig and then couldn’t walk away–take a look at what was really going on.

A reader found copies of Better Life Monthly and the Hermes Newsletter at the Joseph A. Labadie Collection of “printed ephemera” at the Hatcher Graduate Library at the University of Michigan. Richards testified that he met his “partner” in the N. Fox Island “boys camp” scheme via Better Life Monthly.

Here is what the reader discovered:

Better Life Monthly had a relatively short life as a newsletter—and that is what it was, a newsletter and not a magazine.  Its first volume was March 1974 and it had monthly issues throughout that year; the second volume had a single issue that was published in June 1975; the third volume had a single issue in May/June 1976, and then nothing more.  Each issue is about 8-12 pages.  Attached is the cover page of the very first issue (BL 1(1) March 1974 Cover).  I’ve put a star next to the “What Not To Expect” warning to readers. . .yeah, right. That first issue was the only one that posted personal ads in its own section (BL 1(1) March 1974 Ads p. 5).  In subsequent issues, a few personal ads are scattered here and there.   

In the following issues there is always a combination of media reviews (the interest in boy television actors is incredible), book reviews, poetry and short essays on pedophile organizations such as the Rene Guyon Society and the Childhood Sensuality Circle.  The authors of most of the content are not named.  A list of international pedophile organizations and newsletters was also provided (BL 3(4), May/June 1976 Org’s/news p.9). 

A masthead appears in only one issue (BL 1(9) Staff p. 2), but there are occasional references to staff in all of the issues.    

There was an average of 2 photos of boys/issue and none was explicit, i.e. showing nudity, genitalia and/or sexual acts.  There was an average of 2 drawings/issue; these were more explicit in that they showed nudity and/or genitalia.  It’s subjective, of course, but my impression was that the language throughout the issues was generally quite tame; the descriptions of the attraction to boys and the nature of sexual desire was really more sophomoric than lurid—even by mid-1970s standards. 

Jerry Richards told the Senate investigating committee that his BL number was #147.  That number does not show up in personal ads or in photo contributions.  He had told the police when he was arrested in 1976 that he had met Frank Shelden two years before through Better Life Monthly; he claimed he had advertised his magic show and Shelden had responded to the ad.  I did not find such an ad in any of the issues, but the newsletter opened up other opportunities for “boy-lovers” to communicate with each other, so their contact may have occurred through one of those.  Although the sources of some of the photos in the issues were not always cited, Richards was not a contributor of any that were.   

There is nothing in the issues about North Fox Island, Brother Paul’s, or more vaguely about nature camps for boys.  There is no solicitation of support or sponsorship. There is no Michigan presence at all.  I can’t say that none of the few photos is of a Michigan boy, but I have no proof or even suspicion that any one is. 

I also reviewed the Hermes newsletter that Richards told police he advertised in.  There are no personal ads in the newsletter.  It is a much more sophisticated publication than Better Life – better designed and the articles are much better written (although authors are never cited).  Its language is much more explicit, as are its drawings.  The photos , however, are not explicit.  I’ve attached a photo of its cover (Hermes 2(2) May 1975 cover).  

From a reader/researcher

A warning that the images from these “newsletters” are disturbing and potentially triggering.

(The circled paragraph on the right shows the privatization of the ads and contacts, presumably to build a network.  It may have been through this that Richards and Shelden met.)

Much appreciation to this reader for taking the time to send this material to me. THIS is what was going on. Not “modeling sessions.” Now consider how easy it is for these monsters to join forces on the internet.