I have never been an “expert” in the case of pedophile Francis Duffield (Frank) Shelden, owner of the first “Pedophile Island,” North Fox Island. North Fox Island is in Lake Michigan, and about 10 miles southwest of Beaver Island. In fact, those two islands form part of an archipelago, or chain of islands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Islands_(Lake_Michigan). North Fox Island’s Wikipedia page even contains a section on “Criminal History.” Quite the achievement.

I posted FOIA documents obtained from the Michigan State Police files on Frank Shelden many years ago. In 1976 Shelden was being investigated, along with Gerald Richards, for raping a very young Port Huron boy. The case file “dabbles in” N. Fox Island and interconnected pedophile rings around the country.

In November 2022, the FBI replied, out of the blue, to a FOIA request filed two years earlier by journalist/author Marney Keenan concerning Shelden. https://catherinebroad.blog/2022/11/. See also, https://vault.fbi.gov/francis-shelden/francis-shelden-part-01/view.

You can use the search function (right side of blog pages) to find more posts about Frank Shelden. The comment to this post is especially poignant: https://catherinebroad.blog/2021/09/23/another-photo-of-frank-shelden/.

In the wake of books and the documentary Children of the Snow, there have been a number of very interesting articles, blog posts and videos about N. Fox Island, Shelden and his crew. A man who knows Shelden’s long criminal history post-Michigan communicates with me on occasion, and I have posted his information and his comments on my blog.

I noticed that since before Christmas, there have been heavy searches on my blog concerning these N. Fox freaks. Here is a partial summary of stats for the last 90 days (the first 2 of 20 pages). (Old favorites Chris Busch and John Hastings also figure prominently.)

In fact, three of the five all-time most viewed posts concern Shelden (2 of 19 pages):

So I took a close look at an email I received from a reader today who asked some good questions about Frank Shelden and made some extremely valuable points, which I will outline below.

He asked if there was concrete evidence that Frank Shelden actually fled the country before my brother was murdered on March 22, 1977. In the absence of such evidence, he argued (and I agree), it is a mistake to automatically assume he was already in the Netherlands when the murders of Jill, Kristine and Tim occurred.

The reader pointed out that “Ghislane Maxwell had half the cops around the world looking for her. It took them a full year to find that she was actually in New England the whole time. As for Shelden, he had a small army of pedophile clients who could help him hang low, out of sight of LE.” He continued:

If there is no definite proof that Shelden had fled before the last three murders, he could possibly be the source of the hairs found on Mark, Tim and the back of Arch Sloan’s car.

I think he was the last man to assault the 2 boys, but I don’t think he was the actual physical killer. I suspect that was Ted Lamborgine.

One of the biggest holes in the OCCK case is not having Shelden’s DNA.

I responded that it looked to me like Shelden flew his private plane out of Ann Arbor airport on July 26, 1976, and was never interviewed or touched by the cops before or after that.  I recalled that his whereabouts were discussed generally by the court in notes to the opinion in National Bank of Detroit v. Francis Shelden, et al., 730 F.2d 421 (6th Cir. 1984), https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/730/421/345229/. 

But I took a closer look at the the MSP documents concerning Shelden and they contain a notation on 1-8-78 from Lt. Gorzen to Sgt. Keeler “that SHELDON [sic] may be staying with a subject named Gary Blankenship in W. Palm Beach, Florida.  This has been given to FBI and they are checking.”  

The reader responded as follows:

As far as the FBI investigation went, it didn’t start until a federal warrant was issued for Shelden in late February of 1977 about 3 weeks before your brother’s abduction and was only concerned with Shelden’s crimes in Port Huron and N. Fox Island.

That investigation ended in the summer of 1978. By that time Shelden was long gone and in the Netherlands.

Shelden reappeared in February of 1978 when he authored his first article in P.A.N. which was the publication of P.I.E. He was definitely in the Netherlands at that point which was 11 months after Tim’s murder.

One thing quite clear from the FBI notes. even tho heavily redacted, is that they or anyone else they interviewed really knew where he was.

The West Palm Beach lead is very interesting because Shelden mailed 2 different letters in late October of 1976 that were post marked from Miami.

My suspicion is if Shelden was there at the end of the OCCK crimes, he would have fled the country very soon after.

Although Frank Shelden seems to have vanished forever, there actually a way to get a related DNA sample from none other than his brother Alger Shelden Jr.

He died several years ago. His grave site can be found on the internet.

Elmwood Cemetary, Detroit Michigan

Plot Section A, Lot S, Space 42

Memorial ID 215363790

If I were given dictatorial powers to investigate this case, that would be one of the first things I did. Even if there was no match to the hairs found on the boys, at least a pretty big box would be checked.

This is the kind of evaluation that only a human being, paying close attention, can achieve. I appreciate it and wish there was actually a human being with law enforcement powers who would check off this box.

FORTY-NINE years ago today, 12-year-old Mark Stebbins, a kid who wanted to be a marine when he grew up, left the American Legion Hall in Ferndale, Michigan in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. His family never saw him alive again. His body was found four days later in a Southfield parking lot. He had been raped and his wrists and ankles showed signs of being bound. No one has ever been charged with this crime. No one has even come close.

Mark’s mother and brother have since died, never knowing any truth about what happened to their son and brother. Despite light-year type advances in DNA testing and forensic genetic genealogy, Mark’s case sits in file cabinets and storage rooms at the state police and the Oakland County sheriff’s department, along with the cases of Jill Robinson, Kristine Mihelich and Tim King. Collecting dust and degrading.

Two survivors of Ann Arbor/Grosse Pointe/N. Fox Island pedophile Frank Shelden have told me over the years that they saw a boy they believe was Mark in the presence of Frank Shelden during the period Mark was being held captive. One was a survivor of sexual abuse by Shelden and said he is sure he saw Mark at Christ Church Cranbrook–in the church–in the presence of Shelden and his “buddy,” pedophile and child pornographer Gerald Richards. They were alone in the church; Shelden was on the board of Cranbrook boy’s school.

The second man told me he realized Shelden was grooming him when he was a boy and had one outing with him that thankfully (and remarkably) did not turn into an assault. Shelden stopped at the gas station pedophile Arch Sloan worked at in Oakland County. This man said that there was a boy being kept in the bathroom of the service station and that he now believes it was Mark Stebbins.

There is no way of knowing if either of these recollections are accurate, but they are incredibly distressing. And most readers will recall that 11 months after Mark’s murder, violent and prolific pedophile Greg Greene told Flint detectives that his old pal Chris Busch had killed Mark Stebbins. This resulted in a call to the OCCK task force and a flurry of activity law enforcement in Oakland County hoped would never see the light of day. See Chapter 9 in the free preview of Guarded by Jackals, Predators, the Public Officials Who Protected Them and Resolution of Michigan’s Most Notorious Cold Case, which you can access via a link listed here: https://guardedbyjackals.com/.

When Greg Greene and Chris Busch’s name “resurfaced” in 2007, we–including Mark’s brother Michael–were hopeful the case might be solved or at least advanced. That was almost 18 years ago. No such “luck.”

This possible connection with Frank Shelden and Gerald Richards, in Mark’s case based on the above recollections, and in Tim’s case in investigative notes from the investigation into Ted Lamborgine and Richard Lawson that he was murdered on film–a film allegedly commissioned by Frank Shelden; has never been carefully investigated. Nor has the connection between Shelden and Chris Busch. Or the connections between an alleged pedophile ring operating in the corporate offices at General Motors in Detroit.

More on some of this in the next post.