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Presented here is the description of a serial homicide investigation in the 1960s that involved the sexually motivated murders of seven mostly college-aged women in Michigan. The discussion provided here draws primarily on Edward Keyes’s, The Michigan Murders.1 The case is longer and more detailed than the other From the Case File chapter introductions. It can serve as a capstone discussion of many of the issues covered in Criminal Investigation, including the basic problems of criminal investigation, the value of eyewitness identifica- tions, the value of other evidence, the potential value of DNA evidence, how proof can be established, and the impact of technology on investigations. Questions for discussion and review are presented at the conclusion of the case.

Appendix Capstone Case

Capstone CASE The Coed Murders

The nightmare began on the evening of July 10, 1967, when nineteen-year-old Mary Fleszar did not return to her apartment, which was located just a few blocks from the Eastern Michigan University (EMU) campus in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Mary was a student at the university. As is the case in most missing person investigations, the first task for investigators was to determine when and where she was last seen. In reconstructing the last known whereabouts of Mary, an EMU police officer recalled seeing a girl matching her description walking near campus at about 8:45 p.m. the night before she was reported missing. She was alone. Another witness reported he had seen the girl at about 9:00 p.m. that same night in the same area, walking on the sidewalk. The witness reported that a car had driven up next to her and stopped. According to report the witness gave, the only person in the vehicle was a young man, and the vehicle was bluish-gray in color, possibly a Chevy. The witness said it appeared that the young man inside the car said

something to Mary, she shook her head, and the car drove off. Shortly thereafter, the same car passed the witness’s house again and pulled into a driveway in front of Mary, blocking her path. Mary walked around the back of the car and continued down the sidewalk. The car pulled out of the driveway and, tires squealing, drove down the street. At this point the witness lost sight of Mary and the vehicle. Mary was never again seen alive.

On August 7, 1967, a heavily decomposed nude body was found on farmland two miles north of Ypsilanti. The body was identified as Mary Fleszar through dental records. It was clear to investigators that the cause of death was certainly not natural, accidental, or suicide, given the area in which the body was found (an open field) and the circumstances of her disappearance. In addition, given the location of the body and the fact that no clothes were found in the vicinity, in all probability she had not been killed

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where she was found. Her body had probably been dumped there. With the identity of the decedent determined and the crime established as a homicide, the investigators turned their attention to who had killed Mary, and where. Matted grass around the body and the positioning of the body suggested the corpse had been moved several times. Did the killer return to the scene, or was the body moved by animals? The autopsy revealed Mary had been stabbed approximately thirty times and severely beaten. It could not be determined if she had been sexually assaulted. Most puzzling was that the girl’s feet were missing and her lower leg bones appeared to have been smashed. Wild animals may have been able to carry away the feet, but only the killer could have crushed her leg bones.

Two days before the funeral for Mary, one of the maintenance men at the funeral home reported to the police that a man in a bluish-gray Chevy had come to the funeral home and asked to take pictures of the corpse, but he had not been carrying a camera. This was certainly of extraordinary interest to investigators, but the worker could only describe this man as sort of young and ordinary in appearance. Investigators had no good leads into who caused Mary’s death. The description of the vehicle possibly involved in the crime was the most promising lead, but even that was nearly worthless.

To the relief of residents, students, parents, and the police, throughout the spring of 1968 there were no more murders. It appeared that the murder of Mary was an isolated event. How wrong this was. On Monday, July 1, 1968, a second EMU student, twenty- two-year-old Joan Schell, was reported missing. Police determined from several eyewitnesses, one of whom was her friend, that she had last been seen at a bus stop when a car with three men stopped and talked to her. The car was described as a late model two- door with a red body and a black vinyl top. One of the men in the car was described as being in his twenties, about 6’ tall, clean-cut, good-looking, and dark-haired. He was wearing a green T-shirt. After what appeared to be a brief conversation between Joan and the men, Joan had gotten into the car and the car drove off. One of the witnesses told the police he saw one of the men in the car in the EMU Union at about 11:00 p.m. that evening, after the building was closed. In checking this possible lead, the police found no signs of forced entry into the union, indicating that whoever this was must have had a key.

The disappearance was, of course, front-page news. Joan’s boyfriend, Dickie Shantz, who had been absent without leave from his army base at the time of Joan’s disappearance, was questioned by investigators but eventually cleared. Other friends and acquaintances of Joan were also questioned but dismissed as possible suspects. On Friday, four days after she was reported missing, the body of Joan Schell was found at a nearby construction site. The body was nude and covered with dried blood, although no blood was found in the area around her body. Most unusual about the body was that the top one-third was in an advanced state of decomposition but the bottom two-thirds were well preserved. In addition, the grass around the corpse was trampled, perhaps indicating that the body had been recently disposed of. Where was she killed? And where was the body kept until it was disposed of? The autopsy provided few answers. It revealed that Joan had been stabbed twenty-five times, including once into the side of her head, with a knife about four inches long. Due to the presence of semen and related injuries, it was determined that she had also been sexually assaulted.

At this point a task force was created to coordinate the activities of the five police agencies involved in the investigation, and a reward for information relating to the arrest of the killer was established. With few good leads to pursue, a major goal on the part of investigators was to find where Joan’s body had been kept prior to being dumped at the construction site. Investigators needed a crime scene—one that would provide them with evidence. A sketch of the individual with whom Joan was last seen was prepared and disseminated through the media. Two EMU students came forward to the police and said they had seen Joan with an individual by the name of John Collins the night she disappeared. Interestingly, John was a student at EMU and held a part-time job at the union (Joan also worked part time at the union). The information provided by these witnesses did not match the information provided by the other witnesses, but, determined not to leave any stone unturned, police found and interviewed John. Investigators learned he drove a DeSoto that was neither red nor black. John told the detectives that he had not been in the city when Joan disappeared and that he was the nephew of a Michigan State Police officer. Another apparent dead-end.