It’s unique all right. Come for the fishing and stay for the bad Karma. If only that airstrip could talk.
Oh wait. It kind of can:
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The Oakland County Child Killer
What the Hell is the Deal with the Oakland County Child Killer Investigation?
It’s unique all right. Come for the fishing and stay for the bad Karma. If only that airstrip could talk.
Oh wait. It kind of can:
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Don’t think the Michigan tourist bureau will help on this one.
The governor of Michigan at the time of N. Fox Island and the OCCK murders was William Miliken, born 1922 in Traverse City, Michigan. I am not suggesting that he was involved in any of this, but do you think for one minute he was going to let his hometown/northern Michigan suffer for long with what should have been a permanent black eye? That there would ever be any kind of accountability? No, instead there were no repercussions aside from a little sanitized Congressional testimony by Shelden’s disposable partner, Gerald Richards of Port Huron. Richards served a TWO-YEAR sentence for child rape, got out out and was busted for using the US mail to send/receive child sexual abuse materials.
And no one ever heard a peep out of the Eternal General, AG Frank Kelley, who had his own scandal to deal with after L.B. Patterson was kind enough to “leak” that he and then Wayne County Prosecutor William Cahalan’s names were on the list of a prominent madam who had been arrested in Oakland County. Don’t believe me? Check it out on newspapers.com.
Everyone kept their head down. It’s the Michigan way. Fuck the Michigan tourist bureau.
Does anyone know how the ownership of this island played out ?
How can they make this sound like a luxury retreat, when it was an island of horrors for many children. Unfortunately people choose to rewrite history, instead of learning from it.
It is an outrage. As another reader observed, there has never been a public acknowledgement by the State of Michigan of this horrific pedophile ring that existed from Detroit, to Oakland County, to Port Huron, to Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor, Flint, to Roger City, Ess Lake, the Traverse City/Charlevoix area, and Ontanogan in the UP. And everywhere Frank Shelden and Chris Busch ever lived or visited in Michigan. No acknowledgment of all of the children harmed, exploited and some murdered. Shelden taught at Wayne State, lived in Ann Arbor, was on the board at Cranbrook boys school. His tentacles were everywhere. As J. Reuben Appelman points out in the second video, this was a man who knew how to manipulate the system to bring boys to him. He didn’t need to abduct kids off the street. The state fucking paid him to take boys to the “nature camp.”
While some want to keep that airstrip well-maintained so people can allegedly go fishing or hike (seriously???) on this evil and soulless island in Lake Michigan, it took three outsiders–young adults–to again expose this evil secret–this massive injustice–still festering 50 years later. The documentarians did a good job. The contrast between the two videos couldn’t be more stark.
I thought the comments of the boat captain were especially important. Why are you wasting your time and money going out to the island? We (residents of Leland) knew (or knew of) Frank Shelden. Talk to us. Contrast with the reception the documentarians got in Charlevoix. All of the people who expressed shock over the exposure of Frank Shelden–sounds like some were not shocked. It is common knowledge that drugs were being run out of those small airports in northern Michigan back in the day. It should be common knowledge that kids were being run as well–all over Michigan, thanks in large part to “philanthropist” and man-about-town, Francis Duffield Shelden. Nice legacy, Frank.
That island is a part of Hell. The Hell Chamber of Commerce will not ever erase this sick legacy. Nice try.
Hi Cathy:
So JRA said that there is matching DNA from the case to a current incarcerated prisoner whose name they will not release. (Hopefully that’s to preserve the integrity of the case so there is not another Jessica Cooper/Arch Sloan fiasco. ) To your knowledge is that true? Do you happen to know if Wayne County is still actively working the case since Corey’s retirement?
You are asking the wrong person on both counts, Crime Buffy. Is there an actual match? While I would like to think someone pushed further examination of the DNA evidence, I have no idea if there has been an actual match. If the DNA had involved my brother’s case, I would like to think Wayne County would have pressed the matter. The DNA is in Kristine’s case, which is an Oakland County case. I think you know where you would have to direct your questions. Accurate answers? I seriously doubt it and, as you point out, there is the little matter of case integrity.
I think it is more than safe to say that, whether or not the OC child killers were linked to the N. Fox operation in any way, the men who went to this pedophile island in the 1970s are a big part of the reason why the case was never “solved.” The state of Michigan, the FBI–no one would go near the list of men who were N. Fox Island “players.” They couldn’t go near it; they couldn’t risk exposing these suits passing as normal citizens. Someone had their thumb(s) on the scale.
I emailed a few months ago with Dr. Michael Arntfield, a criminologist with more than a passing familiarity with the OCCK case. It is his opinion that it would take more than an H. Lee Busch to make this investigation go away. It would more likely be that clients would be exposed and/or someone closely associated with law enforcement was involved with the OCCK group killings.
I believe Chris Busch was given an orchestrated “pass” courtesy of L. Brooks Patterson and Richard Thompson of the Oakland County prosecutor’s office, but this does not preclude the solid conclusion of Dr. Arntfield.
Either way, some people in public office/service ensured investigation into N. Fox and the OCCK would go nowhere and that we would be left only with scraps of FOIA documents and hearsay. This is not daily, garden-variety cop incompetence.
I believe Michigan and the FBI protected child rapists from upper echelons of society in the wake of N. Fox and the OCCK crimes. Unlike Epstein’s pedophile island, there has been no acknowledgement of this dark history. Four dead kids were just collateral damage as far as the OCP, the MSP and the FBI were concerned. If you visit N. Fox, it is on the backs of dead kids. Find another place to fish or hike.
Cathy, As far as current people using this island . There is zero in the Detroit media about the OCCK case. I live by your old house and have met numerous adults, some of them in their 50s and 60s who know nothing about this case, let alone the Fox Islands.
Like with the bad police officer post, I wanted to be a smart ass and beg the question about what would occur if average men committed these crimes. However, they too get off with light sentences.
That movie is a disgrace in my view. Of course all publicity is good publicity to keep the case alive but this is a sick approach.
This is a gratuitous rehash of existing footage and information someone is making money by sensationalising a tragic crime series. I have studied this case for years and I think there’s about two minutes of new concepts discussed. Two very important minutes but nobody cares anyway. Three hours of gratuitous speculation and sensationalism.
Appelman contributed the only relevant remarks among a lot of his own jargon. It is obvious that a group of people, a ring of paedophiles connected to Frank Shelden, committed these sadistic murders and probably filmed them. I believe there was a worldwide paedophile network connected to North Fox Island, especially involving Frank Shelden and his sick friend Brongersma. Frank did not flee the country simply because he was connected to an investigation on North Fox Island. A man does not abandon his whole life when he has so much wealth and influence that he could have used to minimise or avoid the consequences of his paedophile behaviour in that era. His accomplice only got two years jail and Shelden with his wealth would have easily dealt with these charges to minimise or dismiss them.
No, he fled from his close involvement in the federal crime of murder. He may not have been a murderer but he was heavily implicated. He fled from what he knew he was guilty of.
I should add that he fled not only to Amsterdam but he went to India where he sexually abused countless children as the close friend of Reverend father John Robert Thwaytes. I believe Thwaytes was probably involved in the Detroit paedophile group. He had a fake passport which gave him opportunity and he was a paedophile and a sadist which gave him motive, And I have evidence that he was already a killer. Yes a Catholic priest was a paedophile murderer.
We can only speculate but I believe a group of paedophiles who were connected closely to Shelden and probably visited his island, murdered these kids. Michael Farquhar has stated he, as a victim of North Fox Island, was taken to a place in Detroit where, before he was abused on that day, he saw another boy.
He says that he realised later that he saw Mark STEBBINS! That means one victim who was a survivor from the island paedophile network is stating that he was a witness to Mark STEBBINS being held, alive, before he was murdered, by the same paedophile group but in Detroit, not on the island.
This film is produced with the intention of making money and cashing in – it contributes little new.
I watched it all and recognised endless cut and pasted clips from countless past sources, and the introduction of “spiritualist” hocus pocus and pseudo detective work is just despicable.
The intellectual level of the self styled investigation team is laughable. If they were actually exposing any new information it is probably some credibility to be afraid that one’s plane might be booby-trapped. But there is no new information and they are not important enough to throw a bucket of water much less a stick of dynamite. I found it a despicable and gratuitous rehash gauged only for gratuitous financial and status purposes. Look at me I’m a great investigator. I am a paranormal detective. This is totally disrespectful to the families of the victims and to the intelligence of any normal human being. Play your games with haunted houses but don’t make money out of the death of innocent children.
It was a rehash, to be sure, and next to nobody touches this case now without some grandiose ideas about financial return. Lots of delay happens in the release of potentially helpful information in this case in the interest of monetizing it ahead of time. Anyone working on a “project” who says they only care about the victims of these murders is a liar. I’m long used to it.
Although it is a quilt of prior news clips and sources, I thought they did a good job pulling them together, having them make more sense in the big narrative in a visual way. I thought the contrast between the Cass and Busch’s neighborhood was powerful. I thought the comments of the boat captain were really important. I thought landing on the island by boat after getting shut down by air and the impact of the isolation of the island was important.
The paranormal stuff doesn’t do anything for me. Apparently this group has never done anything like it in a murder case, but uses the devices in other settings. That is how they roll. In some ways it is better than the usual psychic/paranormal response “from the other side” where the message is: I’m fine, don’t worry about me. Stop searching for answers.
The reason that there is no new information is because law enforcement will never answer a question. It’s either “no comment” or some word salad about how “we’d like to communicate with the families, but we just can’t. We might disrupt this active investigation.” It’s the same playbook they’ve employed since Brooks Patterson offloaded this case to the MSP. Nothing to see here. Nothing to say.
Of course the state lab is sitting on evidence. They always have. These people answer to no one.
Financial return and hoped-for status is always behind these types of projects. At least these people got most of the facts right. For me, those news reels spoke volumes when sewn together. The reaction of the boat captain and the footage from that hellish island were, I thought, important considerations.
Take the rest for what it’s worth, I guess.
What disturbs me is that “the town that Frank built “ (on Gerald Richards map of the paedophile network) is very likely “Boys Town Malbazar “ in India to which he rapidly gravitated for access to boys.
His old pal Rev Father John Robert Thwayes had a large collection of boys for his fellow paedophile guests from Netherlands UK Belgium etc
I add that Gerald Richard’s “map” also included “Teddy Bear Club”
John Robert Thwaytes was obsessed with his teddy bear from childhood until the day he died. All of the children in his sexual victim group were given privileges and Power and they were known as the teddy bear group at the orphanage
I think it is highly likely that John Roberts Waits influenced the American paedophile group and the teddy bear club refers to either an American version or it may indeed refer to the India children who were on tap for any paedophile who was friends with the Catholic priest
Sexual tourism was a piece of cake
John Robert Thwaytes had a fake passport – Let me rephrase that. He had a completely genuine passport which was issued to him in a fake identity by the Indian authorities
So he had the opportunity to fly out Of India and be in Detroit while his own English passport showed that he was still at the orphanage in India
I believe he was a murderer and I believe he was connected to the Oakland County child killings
I believe these killings were carried out by a group of paedophiles
Hey Kevin: I took your comment down because I don’t want your name associated with my blog. I still remember how you treated Judi. How you treated me when I first learned about John Hastings and police betrayal. When that horror was fresh and mind blowing. If you actively read my blog, you know about my attempts to get answers about the status of the evidence as it currently stands. They are going to make me jump through all the hoops, which I am in the process of doing–FOIA, letter writing, grinding of teeth. They don’t tell me jack shit. You could file a FOIA request if you were so inclined and it would probably be handled faster and more appropriately than mine.
They don’t have the common decency to be up front about where testing stands. Whether and what third-party labs have been consulted and rejected participation and on what basis. Because it will reveal their mis and malfeasance in the handling of the evidence in four murders. In what was at the time the biggest manhunt in the entire country.
L. Brooks Patterson and his associates at the OCP and the MSP never saw DNA testing coming down the pike. Lucky for them, the evidence was so mishandled, misfiled and poorly stored that by the time this technology started evolving, odds were nothing further would be revealed. Add in numerous attempts by the state lab and the FBI in the past 20 years to test/retest after these many failures, and what’s left? Oh, sorry, everything is extinguished. No one will explain to me why there are dozens of cases around the country every year where, after failed testing by state and FBI labs and a third-party lab gets a hit, but the OCCK case can’t go there. There is an explanation. They just won’t give it to me.
L. Brooks Patterson and Richard Thompson had two heart-stopping moments in this case. Not when kids kept turning up dead in their jurisdiction. No, their blood ran cold when Chris Busch was found dead in that child killer diorama scene on Morningview Terrace in Bloomfield Village. It happened again when the Michigan legislature was evaluating DNA technology in 1999. What then? Oh, let’s jump on a plane and go dig up David Norberg in Recluse Wyoming. As I have detailed in this blog many times, the company line at the time of this exhumation was that there was ONE hair in evidence. That’s it. Nothing else. Det. Ray Anger couldn’t keep his facts straight, what with having to piece together some bullshit affidavit and all, and first said it was a hair from the body of Kristine Mihelich. Later, as discussed in the press, it was ONE hair from my brother’s body. No match to Norberg (shocker): Case closed.
We know now what they knew then. There was a hair from Mark’s autopsy. There was a hair on Kristine’s jacket. There were TWO hairs on Tim, one in his nasal cavity and one near his groin. There were vaginal and anal swabs from both girls. One, we now know, contained male DNA. We’ve known that since the release of Marney Keenan’s book four years ago and the police knew it long before that. Male DNA does not just show up in a child’s vagina. Who has advocated for Kristine, knowing what we know now? I can’t answer that. I suspect know no one fucking pushed for this evidence to be evaluated the second they learned of it. Jessica Cooper used this discovery to obtain DNA samples from male relatives of Kristine and my dad (perhaps to rule out cross-contamination but more likely to further attempt to intimidate my dad). Hmm. What else did you do, Jessica? Not a goddamn thing.
It is clear to me that chain of custody issues existed from the early days of this investigation–outrageous failures that are indefensible even decades before DNA technology. I believe steps were taken no later than 1999, on the eve and in the wake of the exhumation of David Norberg, to ensure that the evidence in this case would be as worthless as possible. LBP behind the scenes, making sure his ass was covered at all times.
Here are some happy pilots who flew to N. Fox Island last summer and had the whole island to themselves! Can you believe it?!
I grew up around someone in Northern Michigan during this time period (70-77ish) who ultimately went on to be listed in the scoutmaster pedophile registry. After several stints in prison for molesting young boys. His father was also a scoutmaster and a chronic alcoholic that died from a car crash. He was rumored to be a molester of two, if not, all four of his children. The family had great wealth from a family construction business that built interstate during the 40s and 50s. From being aware of the children of the snow story, it’s made me wonder ever since if my friend and his father had connections to it. I based this thought on the one plane trip I ever went on with my friend where we flew from Bellaire to Charlevoix and back. There was nothing said that stood out. Other than him pointing out the residential home to Castle Farms on Lake Charlevoix. There are further nuances of my seven or so years of experiences and observations, but nothing substantive though I’ve wondered ever since.