A reader raised some interesting questions about Arch Sloan and his beloved 1965/66 Bonneville. After Mark’s murder, detectives search this car in February 1976. This yields the “Pontiac debris” which was found 34 years later to contain human hairs. Sloan’s hair is not in the mix. But it is Sloan’s car and he must have driven it. Leaving aside the abilities of the detective(s) who searched the car, this would indicate Sloan kept his car very clean.
Just as we know from many survivors over the years that these pedophile freaks made kids shower or bathe after their little “parties,” these guys made some attempt to cover their tracks. No semen, no blood. That was routine for these monsters, even without any study of the more limited forensics of the time.
The reader asks if they were actually supposed to believe that hairs found on two different boy victims (found 13 months apart in 1976 and 1977) are suddenly found in 2010 (and announced in 2012) and link back to Sloan’s ride. That is the reaction I had as well, but what do I know?
The issue of possible evidence cross-contamination was addressed and dismissed in the following report. This report will also refresh your recollection about the late Arch Sloan’s reappearance on the task force radar in 2010.
Rereading this 2010 report is breathtaking in the gut-punch kind of way. Including this gem:
During the examination of both fiber slides, [state lab scientist] Lori Bruski stated she observed human hair evidence on each of the slides belonging to Stebbins and King. Lori further advised that she was fairly certain that these newly discovered human hairs have never been mitochondrially examined and is in fact newly discovered evidence. Lori stated this was a significant discovery due to the minimal amount of evidence currently on record with the Child Killer Investigation, (Only Q-19 and Q-29 (hairs) to date). Lori stated she will send the newly discovered hair evidence into the FBI Crime Laboratory located in Quantico for evidence processing, and mitochondrial DNA testing.
Nobody thought to organize, centralize or go through the evidence periodically, even in advance of digging up David Norberg’s corpse in 1999? No, it takes until three years after Chris Busch’s name is back on the radar for the decades-old saw about the complete lack of evidence in these cases to begin to unravel as utter and indefensible bullshit.
The report does not address numerous latent prints taken from Sloan’s car, which were MIA. Reports indicate the latents were compared against the victims, with no match.
Nothing found at Southfield PD, MSP lab in Sterling Heights, the Detroit FBI office or the Latent Print Unit of the MSP. In 2018 it was discovered that the MSP lab in Lansing had only two latents (out of 17 or 35, depending on the report) and a tracing of a fingerprint in an old file. Unknown if these two latents discovered in 2018 were ever run through AFIS.
Is that how any of you pictured the biggest manhunt in Michigan history at the time in a serial child murder case would be handled? How the evidence would be handled and stored? How the case files would be left? Just walk away and forget about it was the general theme until 2005. In 1978–less than three years after the first murder–the public and families were apparently owed no answer other than “we did our best and we didn’t get our man.” Don’t talk to strangers. Is that what was owed to Mark, Jill, Kristine and Tim?
It was a mess no one would be able to untangle down the road. How convenient. It is a strange, sad, indefensible legacy. We circle back every time a guy like Sloan leaves this earth or anniversary date rolls around. We have documents that show the fits and starts and that’s it.
Here’s the report and some background on Sloan.
2010
Here’s the January 8, 2010 report on the mtDNA in the case, for what it’s worth.
FBI Lab Report
There are other questions about who owned the Bonneville before and after Sloan. There was a brief investigation into those people, and I am not addressing it in this post.
The record also reflects that Sloan was close personal friends with former Detroit PD Sgt Richard Clayton, who was alleged to have used his influence to shield Sloan when he was on the run for the CSC charges that resulted in him going away for life. Clayton is alleged to have provided Sloan a key to the Clayton family compound “El-Rancho” in Montmorency County (near Ess Lake) so he could go “up north” until the heat died down.
In late 2017, Sloan told investigators he remembered and named two hitchhikers who had been in his Bonneville and that his brother Joe Sloan used his car periodically. The record reflects that Joe successfully evaded investigators in 2018, and therefore never explained his use of the Bonneville or who rode with him.
1976. 1977. 2010. 2017. 2026.