This powerful conclusion is that of Rita Williams, founder and editor-in-chief of Clutch Justice, an independent Michigan-focused investigative accountability journalism platform. It covers judicial misconduct, prosecutorial conduct, and public institutional failures. I referenced her website this past July, specifically noting her N. Fox Island reference library and evaluation of the OCCK case.
Check out this OCCK & North Fox Island Research Reference Library
A reader wrote yesterday about Williams’ website and work and said it is nice to see someone else writing in 2026 about the problems never explained in the OCCK case.
I urge you to read this piece, entitled “The Oakland County Child Killer Case Did Not Go Cold Because the Killer Was Untouchable. It Went Cold Because Michigan Institutions Were Fractured, Self-Protective, and Built to Fail at Exactly This.”
https://clutchjustice.com/2026/05/08/rre-occk-oakland-county-child-killer-institutional-failure/
Here’s the bottom line, but I urge you to read the entire piece and the other two links.
Multiple compounding failures: no shared investigative database, jurisdictional fragmentation across municipal and county lines, a botched polygraph clearance of a documented prime suspect, and institutional self-protection that prioritized reputation over accountability. The killer was never identified. The failure was not mysterious.
See also
https://clutchjustice.com/2026/05/25/occk-newblatt-bond-reduction-christopher-busch/ [Context is not evidence of corruption, but the context is pretty goddamn depressing.]
https://clutchjustice.com/2026/05/26/occk-christopher-busch-staged-suicide-forensic-evidence/ [“The state questioned Busch and released him; the state’s forensic lab produced results inconsistent with the suicide ruling; the state disbanded its task force weeks after Busch’s death; the state withheld Busch’s identity from the victims’ families for 28 years; and the state fought Barry King’s FOIA requests through three lawsuits. Whether those facts support a civil claim is a question for lawyers. The question of why the state has fought this hard, for this long, against the families of four murdered children, is a question anyone can ask.”]
Thank you for your work, Rita Williams. It helps to see things from another perspective and it’s pretty boiled down and undeniable at Clutch Justice. And thanks to the reader for reminding me to circle back.
Discover more from The Oakland County Child Killer
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Another example from Western Michigan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyBQi0M-T6I
Check out the comments, too.
Well my hypothesis is the deep involvement of the Catholic Church Seminarians from Maryglade Seminary.
The suspicious sudden closure of that establishment just a relatively short time before the high profile murders adds to my concerns.
The holy stink must be covered up at all costs but there is a solid line of connection able to be drawn between Frank Shelden and North Fox paedophiles, and local priestly beasts predating for boy sex.
The sick abuse of girls has religious fingerprints all over it metaphorically.
I believe Catholics in authority in law enforcement and government have carefully buried these investigations to protect their beloved church.
I have a friend who has done a deep and impressive dive on this. The Church was playing some big time musical chairs with these priests in Detroit and the suburbs, bordering on panic, after my brother’s funeral at Holy Name. Quite literally the only tip I have ever seen that was marked “High Priority” was that of a priest who had served at St. James Catholic Church and at Holy Name during the 1970s. Like many suspects, I don’t think he was ever “cleared.” Even Chris Busch wasn’t “high priority,” but I guess we know the reasons behind that.
I didn’t do the work on the Church angle and don’t have permission to publish it. There is obviously still concern about what the Church–all the way to the Vatican–would still do as concerns this case.
I think this is the kind of inquiry that could be built upon or ruled out once and for all if the documents in this case are made public after they are digitized. Anyone who fights this, openly or behind the scenes, will have some explaining to do. And hopefully they will lose any such battle after thwarting justice in this case for 50 years.
St. James–The Stebbins family. Holy Name–The King family.