Substack articles have given some idea of what close examination of FOIA documents provided in the Epstein file contain. These documents are a fraction of the file, of course. For example:
This document reminded me of what readers of this blog found upon close examination of the FOIA documents in the OCCK case. Keep in mind that these documents are merely the tip of the iceberg of the documents in these murder cases and that because they have never been digitized no one in law enforcement has ever been able to search the documents in any semblance of an actual complete cold case review.
Not that they would have wanted the evidence of two instances of obstruction of justice made public, or would have pursued either avenue in search of answers. But for the record, here is the first instance of obstruction.
A. Obstruction of Justice by failing to follow up on the polygraphs administered to suspect John Hastings in 2009.
In 2020, long after we had received the 3,411 pages of FOIA documents provided by the Michigan State Police, I started putting all of the FOIA documents and other related case documents I had on my blog. A reader then sent me the following:
Holy fuck, right? I wrote about it in September 2020:
To newer readers I will point out that I have written about my attempts to get all related information–notes, DVDs, reports about these Georgia polygraphs via FOIA requests to the MSP and the Georgia Department of Safety, all to no avail. I have also written about how I documented my subsequent attempts to contact the polygrapher directly and forwarded the information to the current Oakland County Prosecutor.
Nothing. Happened.
In my limited defense, after my dad paid over $11,000 for these documents, he made the penny-wise and pound-foolish decision not to make two more sets of copies for me and one of my brothers to work off of. He would send me a couple of volumes at a time and when I returned them, he would send more. Meanwhile, he was letting journalists, authors and documentarians take the volumes to copy them and return them to his house. He pulled significant documents from the response to work from and did not put them back in sequence. I moved twice during this process and never did get the entire set for quite some time.
I believe this was also in response to the fact that my brother and I did not disclose to him the information from Patrick Coffey about Larry Wasser’s revelations at a 2006 polygraph conference until we had things more locked down late into 2007. We were working with Patrick to try to get Wasser to step up and to prevent Wasser from trying to destroy Patrick’s reputation. And true to predictions, he tried, because that’s who he is and what he is used to doing.
Furthermore, we knew my dad would run right to Det/Sgt Garry Gray at the MSP, who along with Dave Robertson, would have dismissed this lead about Chris Busch as “worthless” and buried it as quickly as possible during one of their stupid dog and pony shows at their offices. He still trusted them at that point. So cringeworthy, the thought still makes my skin crawl. That’s why I contacted Det. Cory Williams, then with Livonia PD, and not the state police with this information.
While my dad later acknowledged we took the right steps, he wanted the first look at those documents and that was fine with me. But this finding about Hastings shows why more eyes on these FOIA responses is much better. As acknowledged in Guarded by Jackals, this FOIA response was a purposeful and strategic mess and as I will address in Part II B, someone had taken some real pains to make illegal redactions. But whoever that someone was, they were not focused on Mr. Hastings and we now know that he should have been shaken down hard after the information the Georgia polygrapher provided Garry Gray.
No one ever circled back on this obviously important information. It was beyond laziness or incompetence. This information was buried, a prime opportunity missed and it was obstruction of justice. I don’t care why it was done. It seriously hindered this cold case investigation. Hastings was a fucking neighbor of Chris Busch, among other alarming red flags, all ignored time and again.
That this manifestly confirmed my strong suspicions about taking the Chris Busch lead to the MSP was of little consolation.
This is why all of the documents in the Epstein case released in partial segments over the past few years should be compiled in one database so the public can look carefully at what has been released. I suspect not much more will ever be released, but do I trust CNN reporters to pick up on the nuances in the documents that have been released? No, I do not.
And while Chris Busch has been whispered over the years to be an FBI informant as an explanation for the ultimate of sweetheart deals around the entire State of Michigan, there is no evidence of this in the FOIA records concerning this prolific pedophile. I have seen two documents that mention him in possible connection with the investigation into N. Fox Island. The dots, if they were ever connected, were buried somehow.
If Busch was a confidential informant to the FBI, I would argue that disclosure of this would not necessarily be prevented by exemption 7(D) or the broader informant exception, but would be addressed on a case-by-case basis. Because he is long dead; any investigation by the FBI into N. Fox was a complete nothing burger; investigations into the other related pedophile rings around the country were over 50 years ago; knowledge of Busch’s status is potentially key to understanding how the OCCK case went sideways; and potential CIs some 50 years later will not be dissuaded by release of Busch’s status, I would argue this is not information that can legitimately be withheld. However, it has probably all been destroyed or at the very least submerged in flood waters.
Can you imagine the FBI response if their boy was involved in killing kids while receiving the benefits of confidential informant status? The pains the Oakland County Prosecutor took in 1977 to make sure there was no connection between Bloomfield Village pedophile Chris Busch and Flint pedophile Greg Greene would pale in comparison. I know it didn’t bother Detroit PD much to have Richard Lawson raping kids as part of his CI status in the 1970s, but the FBI might take a different view if they were relying on Chris Busch to try to take down anybody connected with N. Fox Island.
Stinks, doesn’t it?
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One of your readers and me conversed over this for sometime before we asked you about it. It was like WTF is this? I just wish we would have found this sooner and wonder what your dad’s reaction would have been to it. After all of these years now and still no official explanation from authorities to your family is pathetic!
This is going to be hard to articulate, but the way this shit all went down is hard to outline, let alone describe in real time and then with hindsight reactions to all of it. Over the decades we had been subjected to the same manipulative narrative as the rest of society–that the killer left no evidence, was very diabolical and the case will probably never be solved. The poor police! They tried everything!! So sorry; quite the loss.
There was the occasional mention of a dead priest and did we ever know him? But that’s basically it. I believe my dad was “managed” by Birmingham PD and that those officers must have consoled themselves with the thoughts that nothing would bring back Tim, the killings stopped, and they knew no way this case was getting “solved.” The poor police; they felt almost as bad as we did, right? These assholes drank with my dad at the local bar for decades afterward.
But then the evidence starts mounting after 2006 that this investigation is seriously fucked. It happens a little at a time. After Ted Lamborgine is investigated and arrested and a new task force established, police tell my dad to keep his mouth shut because they are all over it and his actions will interfere. We watch as there is delay after delay in investigating the Busch lead–a year to search the Morningview Terrace house 30 years too late; no search of the Ess Lake cottage, which is then promptly torn down by the new owners. Meetings are scheduled and cancelled time and again. My dad has to file FOIA lawsuits to get these fuckers to budge. After our struggles are written about in The Detroit News by Marney Keenan, hundreds of people contact my dad and then me. Hundreds. Most had contacted the police over the years. Marney Keenan essentially embeds with Wayne County after this and goes on to write an illuminating book that published in 2019. But there is no more reporting in real time by the News.
David Ashenfelter writes a two-part series for the Detroit Free Press a few years later. He then promptly retires. No real time reporting by the Free Press now, either. Of course no one in LE will talk to the press anyway or give even the vaguest of updates because ONGOING INVESTIGATION, which ultimately provides less than dick. Nothing. All that secrecy for . . . nothing.
In the meantime all the concerned people who have also been ignored by police are hitting up my dad. Who sends a lot of them my way. We were processing this unquantifiable but very real sense of betrayal and an avalanche of information from people. And I was naively being manipulated by people like Helen Dagner. It takes a while to figure out people don’t have the best intentions even in a case involving your dead brother. It was an incredibly dark time. People still circle back to me and say “I reached out to your dad,” or “I emailed you”–yeah, you and hundreds of other people. It was impossible to wrap our arms around all of it. Sorry if I couldn’t do the job police should have done over the decades.
My dad truly believed the police had the best interests of these child victims at heart. Did they? He thought each time–with the Busch information via Wasser; with information from people back in the day who were told the OCCK was the son of a GM executive; with the unwavering and I believe entirely true story from a survivor of a child sex and CSAM ring that overlapped with H. Lee Busch and who was supported by her psychotherapist and by counsel–that surely this would be the thing that cracked the case open. Dream on.
We see now that nothing will crack this case open. The latest proof of that is the state’s position on the DNA evidence. My dad was operating on overdrive to process this despicable situation and met with a brick wall and bullshit. Books, articles, documentaries, his own story being told in front of citizens of Oakland County–nothing has budged this case. It is a testament to the unbelievable corruption in the OCCK and related cases against children in Oakland County. I’m sorry, that is the only explanation.
What would he have thought? He would have asked one of the police on the task force to investigate Hastings further. And they would have told him they were on it and just waited it out and bullshitted him until he got too sick to continue the fight. Or lied to him and said Hastings is just a lying freak.
How is it that this burden was transferred entirely to us? It’s insane.
Cathy I have to ask an off the wall question over curiosity. Was there anything particular how Tim ate chicken? I ask this because it was found that he had specific ‘chicken bones’ in his autopsy report which seems odd. We know that it was common knowledge that he was served a chicken dinner but still to see ‘chicken bones’ in his report raises the question. Because Hastings did bring up chicken bone as inside knowledge in regards to leaving it in Tim’s pocket with his testimony story to Helen there may be a reason. This was confirmed to be heard by Alpena Witness as well of something he remembers him saying in his interview you had on your blog. Certainly was not a 100% match but still seems eerie. If one adds this to the Hastings bucket along with his missing polygraph and everything else, one has to really wonder about this.
Not that I recall.