May, 38 and a married father to two young kids, could face between five and 20 years in prison for each of the five accounts to which he pleaded guilty.
— Read on scdailygazette.com/2025/09/29/former-rep-rj-may-pleads-guilty-to-sending-disgusting-and-depraved-child-sex-abuse-videos/
The press conference to announce the solving of the 1991 Yogurt Shop Murders.
“All we ever wanted for this case is the truth.”
–Barbara Wilson, mother of sisters Jennifer and Sarah Harbison
“I know now what happened and that does ease my suffering.”
–Sonora Thomas, sister of Eliza Thomas
I just finished watching the long press conference this morning announcing and explaining that DNA and shell casing comparisons were a match to serial killer Robert Euguene Brashers who killed himself in January 1999. Police believe he was the sole killer of the four girls murdered in 1991. It is a long video, but worthwhile as this (both the solve and the press conference) is unprecedented at almost every level.
I have so much to say. I might bounce around. It was both uplifting and upsetting to watch this press conference. I won’t be able to make every point I want to. There’s just a lot to process.
First I just want to point out how amazing it was to see the straightforward, honest dignity displayed by all of the speakers, including truly wonderful, but gutting, remarks from family members of the victims who were Amy Ayers (13), Eliza Thomas (17), and sisters Jennifer Harbison (17) and Sarah Harbison (15).
The speakers on behalf of the city, county and state, as well as scientists, walked through the steps taken that finally led them to Brashers before family members spoke. Officials honest-to-god took questions at the end of the press conference.
The district attorney acknowledged the mistakes of his predecessors as well as the coerced confessions of three of the four men originally charged in these murders. He said they are still in the process of reviewing Austin PD’s conclusions but that he fully expected he would be issuing an apology to the men wrongfully accused. During questions near the end of the press conference he said he would then be working with two of them to connect with state officials who handle reparations for wrongful convictions. I’m sure civil suits will also follow.
Now I hate to rain on this impressive press conference, but you know I am going to go there because you will never see such a press conference in the OCCK case. Not even if they get a hit on some piece of DNA evidence that links to one of the people who touched one or more of these kids’ bodies. FOUR murder victims whose bodies and clothing were not burned, were not doused by firehoses, and on three of four of whom unknown hairs were found and with a vaginal swab from one victim with a partial Y-str DNA sample from an unknown male. Even typing out that contrast between the cases staggers the mind.
I will continue with some of my comparisons and it’s not going to be pretty.
The district attorney opened his remarks with the statement that the D.A.’s office had never forgotten about Amy, Eliza, Jennifer and Sarah.
L. Brooks Patterson, Richard Thompson, Jessica Cooper, Paul Walton and for the most part, David Gorcyca, made it their jobs to forget Mark, Jill, Kristine and Tim. Especially Patterson and Thompson. They, with the help of police who investigated these crimes up until December 1978, then made it your job to forget as well.
The killer was so diabolical! We have no evidence to go on! We have worked so hard; we are so sad; but by the way can we get some grant money to pay for overtime for our officers and we’ll call it good? Hey, the killings stopped, get over it. Check in with the families? Be honest with the press? No fucking way.
“The case will never be solved unless there is a deathbed confession and even then I wouldn’t believe it unless there were Polaroids. Maybe even if there were photos. [Sigh].” Whatever you have to tell yourself to avoid the cognitive dissonance, public servants. We know now how much you lied to us and how much you kept us in the dark. I hope it helped you get through the past 48-plus years. I want you to understand someday what it did to us.
Karen McDonald’s office has not had this case out-of-mind, although I’m sure some of the long-term APAs there (from prior administrations) have done their best to shove the cases to the part of the brain that doesn’t have to make sense of things. Like the APA who took OCCK files from Cooper’s office to Sheriff Bouchard’s office to hide them from further FOIA requests. Or the staff members of Jessica Cooper who helped shred documents (some may have been from the OCCK case) late in the week of November 3, 2020, when Karen McDonald won the election.
A number of speakers at the press conference in Austin mentioned the involvement and help of the Texas Attorney General’s Office. On March 11, 2021 (my dad’s birthday, but he had passed away soon after McDonald had been elected) Marney Keenan and I had a Zoom call with Michigan Assistant AGs Danielle Hagaman-Clark, Danielle Bennetts and one of their paralegals to discuss the “loose ends” (understatement) in the OCCK case, as well as the ignoring of child survivors with relevant information who had come forward as adults in recent years. It was probably 90 minutes. Hagaman-Clark promised to run it by AG Dana Nessel, made no promises concerning what the AG may decide about involvement, and promised to get back to us. SHE NEVER DID. SHE GHOSTED US. Not even an email “hey sorry, we can’t get involved.”
Members of the Austin PD and the crime lab had the foresight to safeguard the evidence in these murders. They didn’t lose the shell casing or fingernail clippings. They didn’t use the evidence for training their new recruits because “the case is never going to be solved anyway.” They didn’t monkey around with it or misfile it after a call from a nervous prosecutor who had moved on to higher office.
Austin PD suspected sexual assault and preserved the swabs taken as part of the investigation. Brasher’s DNA was found on a vaginal swab as well as on other evidence. Keep in mind that this was after the scene had been torched by the killer to destroy evidence and the fire put out with thousands of gallons of water.
As I suspected on Friday, someone leaked information about the solve to the media. I don’t give a fuck what a good guy one of the original detectives on the case is and was. Or that some reporter has covered this case in good faith from the very beginning. I’m not saying they are the source of the leak, but they jumped on the chance to video about the solve on Friday like they somehow owned the case by virtue of a long-term connection to the case. They wanted to get on the record ahead of Monday. This had consequences.
Shawn Ayers, brother to Amy Ayers, explained that this leak on Friday meant that some of the girls’ parents were contacted by the media before they got the chance to have their meeting with Austin P.D. It meant the press conference had to be moved to this morning, rushing family members who wanted to prepare statements and attend the press conference.
Shawn Ayers went on to thank Detective Dan Jackson, who picked up this cold case in 2022, vigorously pursued testing and comparing the evidence, and said at the end of the recent HBO Max documentary on this case, “We are going to solve this case someday. I want the public to know that.”
Ayers said Jackson had “no ego,” and “does what he says with no excuses.” Like I said: Unprecedented.
Ayers said attorney Mindy Montford, who had worked as an assistant D.A. in Austin before becoming the senior counsel at the Texas AG’s cold case unit, gave them hope–not with words but with her actions. Montford had assured the family years prior that expense would not be a barrier to getting to the truth. I never heard Austin PD bitching about overtime for detectives working the case or about the cost of testing DNA.
Ayers acknowledged the army of people working together for the victims and the families.
There is not, nor has there ever really been, an army of people working together on behalf of Mark, Jill, Kristine or Tim and their families. The initial investigations in the four OCCK murders, while they involved hundreds of detectives, were certainly not a model for “working together.” Almost 50 years later, that has not changed.
The office of L. Brooks Patterson fucked us behind the scenes in 1977 and 1978 and made sure we could never get answers. Decades later Jessica Cooper heaped her scorn, vindictiveness and fear of litigation on my family in particular. Her ass sat in that office while tips about Chris Busch, Greg Greene, Arch Sloan and others bubbled up from the depths and her pal Larry Wasser had his tit in the wringer after his excited utterance in Vegas. She made sure it was all smoke and mirrors and accusing the father of a murdered child of leaking grand jury information. She liked fucking us out in the open, and she enjoyed it. Apparently her constituents did as well, as she was in office much longer than she should have been.
The Michigan State Police actively gaslit my dad from 2005 forward–Detectives Garry Gary, the late Dave Robertson and their boss, Harold Love. Gray, when told by Detective Cory Williams that the MSP had to stop bullshitting us because the Kings “were smart people,” said “they can’t be smart–they’re attorneys.” (Very funny, Garry; hey, how about that 2009 information you deep-sixed on John Hastings’ polygraphs in Georgia?)
Years ago, when asked by the late brother of Mark Stebbins, Michael, if he should attend a meeting at the MSP with my dad, Gray told him the purpose of the meeting was just to rip the Kings a new asshole, and not to bother. Is the agency still filled with men like this?
After my dad died, MSP Det. Eric Young, told the OCP he would not deal with me because he “heard I was difficult.” I then had to go through Karen McDonald’s office, who then had to go to the state police. I never did speak with Eric Young, who has since moved on from the case. I spoke with his predecessor Sean Street and I never raised my voice or gave him a hard time when we spoke. When he stopped responding to my emails about recently learned information concerning the pedophile cop who responded to the Chris Busch “suicide” scene, my emails were not exactly friendly but they were not outside the realm of understandable frustration. He went dark and later moved on, but not without telling his successor that I was difficult. I don’t even know who has the case now. It doesn’t really matter anymore; I have to go through Oakland County.
I continue to believe that the Oakland County office of the FBI is obstructing in this case under the “guidance” of their SA who was previously an APA at the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office. In my opinion, the man has been nothing but trouble in this case since he signed on. That trouble amounts to obstruction if you ask me. However, the FBI’s questionable involvement in this case dates back to the Doug Wilson interview in the early summer of 1977 and the burying of eye witness information he provided them. They always default to saying they are not the lead agency on the case–ok, great, then back the fuck off if you aren’t going to help.
I continue to believe that there are leaks in the system that could further thwart any semblance of justice in this case. Retired LE at a number of agencies who shouldn’t be anywhere near this case, and you know who you are.
You are not entitled to any information or participation if you are one of the cops who worked this case and cowered before the great and powerful L. Brooks Patterson and his goon squad. Same goes if you kept your mouth shut because you were involved with or know about various pedophiles who were murdered during 1977 and 1978 as some kind of “resolution.” Or kissed Jessica Cooper’s ass or are with the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department. The OCSD claims to have not a single document in the OCCK case according to their FOIA response to me. Must mean you haven’t been working on the case for a long time. Stand aside.
Same goes if your true interest is in selling your life-rights or a screen play on top of getting your pension. Same goes if you worked on this case after 2018 and didn’t push for further DNA testing after technology evolved at a record pace and agencies around the nation were stepping up. You are not entitled to information if you are one of the people one of these men decides to leak info to. I don’t care how fucking long you have been covering this case. Quit pulling shit in this case. None of you are special. You lost sight of these four dead kids a long, long time ago.
You know what cases are going to be next, right? Amy Mihaljevich (1989, Bay Village, Ohio) and then JonBenet Ramsey (1996, Boulder, Colorado). And what happens then when the old, old OCCK case is still sitting inexplicably under/untested for additional DNA after all of these other high profile cold cases are cleared from the books? Maybe then you will read and believe what is written in Guarded by Jackals?
ALL of the evidence in the OCCK case needs to be tested and/or retested. And then we’re going to need an explanation about how and why this evidence was handled the way it was over these past almost five decades. You can start with the fact it was 1976 and 1977 and times were different then, but it’s more than that and anyone even remotely acquainted with this case knows it.
The truth would help. I don’t trust the MSP or the FBI. That leaves the current OCP. It’s our only hope. If there are ever answers in the OCCK case it’s not going to take an 1.75 hours to thank the army of people who helped. It’s going to take about 10 minutes, including time for questions.
Statements made this morning by family members of the four murdered girls:
Update on South Carolina Magistrate Judge James B. “Skip”Gosnell, Jr.
And to round out kind of a god-awful week, here is an extremely disturbing update on this sick fuck, 68-year-old jurist from the great State of South Carolina who was arrested nine days ago for possession of CSAM.
Remember when his attorney, Lionel Lofton, was pissing and moaning about the bond hearing? Your job just got a lot bigger, pal. Buckle up.
The U.S. Attorney for South Carolina has asked for the public’s help in identifying possible victims, stating:
“If your child, or a child you know, was ever alone with, or held by James Gosnell, please notify [Homeland Security Investigation’s Charlotte office].
This monstrous POS sat in judgment of other human beings for almost THREE DECADES. Enjoy the jury pick from the defendant’s table, Skippy.