This from an astute reader, who pulled together some interesting information.

I’m going to start with a short video chapter from Decades of Deceit, A True Story of the King Family Search for the Oakland County Child Killer. It was filmed in April, May and July of 2013. It was my dad’s attempt to memorialize what we had learned about the child killings and the investigation to that point. At that point, what we had learned was chilling and pointed to serious injustice. Now we know it was serious injustice due to public corruption.

This segment is Chapter 21, and it is a little over six minutes long. In it my dad describes a tip from a woman who came forward after seeing Chris Busch’s mug shot in the media coverage of 2012.

Most notably, my dad observes:
–“To my knowledge, that’s the first time any suspect was seen with any of the victims”.  
–“This lady was upset that nobody wanted to listen to her”.
–“I’d like to know why they wanted her to be quiet” (as to higher ups at MSP telling her MSP son to tell her to be quiet about this tip).

Our family exchanged emails about this woman’s call, beginning on April 20, 2012. Note that my dad’s email, sent immediately after the phone call, lists the date of the sighting and the call to Birmingham PD as March 22, 1977, while in the video my dad says March 21. While it is really neither here nor there, it makes more sense that Tim would be driven back toward Oakland County on March 22 (probably told he was going to be released) and then murdered later that day/early evening before his body was found around 11 p.m.

Emails:

Before continuing with the timeline of this tip, it is common knowledge and common sense that the first hours of an investigation will yield critical information and the time period between March 17, when Tim’s abduction became public and March 22, when his body was found late in the evening, would be especially critical. A spokesman for Birmingham PD said police were getting more than 60 calls an hour; so many that they had to assign a new phone number for tips on the child killer case.

As pointed out in the 1988 book Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, The Search for a Child Killer (McIntyre, Tommy, Wayne State University Press), “[y]ou never know when new information could give a whole new meaning to a conversation with a tipster.” However–

So guess where Carolyn’s tip went???

The notes of Detective Cory William’s notes reflect no entries between February 20, 2012 and June 1, 2012. I’m guessing this is because of the massive murder case filed by Wayne County against Bob Bashara and the lengthy trial that started during that time period. There were some 300 witnesses and approximately 5000 pages of documents. The investigation was conducted in Michigan and in Iowa, Illinois, Florida, Kentucky, Oregon and Texas. https://www.waynecounty.com/elected/prosecutor/robert-bashara-convicted-as-charged.aspx. The worthless POS was sentenced to life and had the good sense to die in prison at age 62 in August 2020.

Cory got the tip on 4/22/2012, and spoke to Carolyn almost 14 months later.  His notes reflect that he spoke with Carolyn on June 2, 2013.

Two days later, on June 4, 2013, Carolyn Beuge died unexpectedly at home at the age of 63.

https://www.millsfuneral.com/obituaries/Carolyn-June-Gregory-Buege?obId=23784692

Carolyn was like so many others who came forward in 1977 and many times afterward, only to have been ignored by law enforcement. Imagine the hundreds of people who called Birmingham PD in the early days of Tim’s abduction and after his body was found, who thought they had done their civic duty and that surely the police carefully considered their information.

I had no idea until this reader contacted me and connected some dots that Carolyn had died in 2013. I’m glad my dad didn’t learn of this–it would have been another thing that would have eaten him alive.

Carolyn’s son is still with the MSP, First Lieutenant Brian Beuge.  I am informed he began with MSP in December of 2010 after serving in other public safety roles earlier.  Interestingly, Greg Greene’s nephew, Andrew Jeffrey, recently retired as a Sergeant with MSP, and also teaches criminal justice at Ferris State University.

Thanks to this reader for the information and the dot-connecting.