MI MI - Oakland County Child Killer, "The Babysitter Murders" , 1976-77 #2

D. Lightfoot said:

I stumbled upon this case at work on Monday—I'm an editor for a publishing house that publishes true crime books, among other thing—and realized that I was, I'm fairly certain, almost one of the victims of OCCK.


When I was 5 or 6, I was with my dad at Oakland University one day while he was meeting with a professor at an office in Vandenburg Hall. (This was either fall of 1976 or spring of 77, probably the former, still trying to nail it down.) I was waiting in a little lounge down the hall—I was probably being too disruptive—when this strange guy walked in, shaggy black or dark hair, sideburns, bulky army-type or maybe dungaree jacket. He comes over and sits very close to me on the couch—we were the only people in the room. I was immediately uncomfortable and got up and left the room, and went and sat just outside the open door of the office. After a minute or two, the guy appeared at the end of the hallway, maybe 50 feet from me, feet slightly apart, hands in his jacket pockets, and gestures with his head, nodding toward his shoulder, for me to come with him. Scared the hell out of me. I shook my head "no." He never spoke, nor did I. My dad either saw me shaking my head at someone or sensed something was off and stuck his head out the door, and the guy split pretty quick. (I talked to my dad about this today—for many years I thought I was the only one who saw the guy, but he remembers seeing him too.) As we left the building, I remember looking around for him in the hallways, and stepping outside, turning back to see if he was hiding behind a tree or something, but I didn't see him again.


My memory of this is incident is pretty vivid, even after 40 years—he just exuded this dark, malignant vibe. Some weeks or maybe months later, I was at the Perry Drug store near our house in Pontiac and saw a police composite sketch on the cover of the paper and knew I was looking at his face.


I've told this story to family and friends perhaps a dozen-odd times over the years, with no other context than that of a scary childhood memory. Fast forward four decades, and I'm reading about the case at my desk a few days ago—had never hear the phrase OCCK, I just remember all the "stranger danger" talks at school and at home around this time. Clicking on a few links, I full-screen this mugshot of Greg Green(e), one of the prime suspects, and it turned by blood to ice water. I'm as certain as I can be that this is the guy—shaggy hair, sideburns, and those eyes. I also remember that his head tilted slightly to one side, and all three mugshots I have seen his head is slightly inclined in the same way. Another mugshot showed him in a bulky jacket like the one I remember, affirming that detail.


It's all rattled me a bit—learning what happened to these other kids, that their last days were unimaginable terrifying and painful and to take in the fact that I maybe was almost one of them. Anyway, I don't think these details will break the case or anything, but they might as well be part of the record, maybe might corroborate some other fact or timeline (waiting on OCSD to call me back).

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Yukarin said:

Some daring investigator or schlock writer really needs to come forth and tackle this case with a thoroughly researched book. One that would have an outsider perspective with the nerve to both put the LE on blast and ignore all the existing conspiracy and pet theories on the web and really get down to it.

This has to be one of the most fascinating and disturbing ( aka. money as far as writing about murder goes ) cases in history, and it is astounding that there hasn't already been book upon book and a Hollywood film with two remakes out by now. Is it a scarcity of information that has caused it? Is everything still locked up in filing cabinets and every effort to underneath this information actively sabotaged by LE, city gubment or Xenu? It's hard not to resort to conspiracy theories because this story has best seller sensation written all over it, and yet all that happens is that the bloody Gremlin pops up in local news every now and then for like two minutes of air time. Ic it has started to gain some friction lately; there is that rubbish TV show Dark Minds that had an episode, and all the terrible podcasts that just recite wikipedia articles for illiterate gore hounds have featured it. What I want is a proper, thorough, +300 page dossier on the ins and outs and it boggles the mind how it hasn't happened yet.

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Omori said:

Why did the killer take Stebbins in February of ’76 rather than ’77? One possible answer is that the coupling of those two years represents something of a rarity. The months of Gregorian calendar follow a rather complex pattern that enables us to assemble a perpetual calendar. The following link shows the calendars used in the 20th century. Notice that 1976 and 1977 used the calendars #11 and #6 respectively:

http://vpcalendar.net/Correlations/20th_Century.html

Only three such conjunctions of these two months occur in the 20th century—each of them 28 years apart. I notice also that this conjunction occurs only on leap years. Not all leap years use this conjunction, though. Generally only every seventh leap year. This makes us cognizant of the fact that Mark Stebbins was taken the final leap year of that decade which was also the last conjunction of the 11 and 6 months of the perpetual calendar for the 20th century.

Leap years occur every four years--2012 is a leap year--and on that year, February has 29 days instead of the usual 28. This is because the solar year is approximately 365.25 days long and so every four years the calendar falls a day behind unless a day is added to the year. Hence an extra day is added to February. Was Mark Stebbins taken in February 1976 instead of 1977 because it was the rarest of leap months?

Even if we concede that the killer did not stop killing with these four victims, we must still also concede that this person wanted these four set off from any other of his/her possible victims. They served a special purpose. Has LE failed to catch this individual because they have looked at the wrong type of predator all these years?

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Pettibon Junction said:

There's a book coming out this fall by J. Reuben Appleman. It was excerpted on Medium last year and looks fantastic.

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BetteDavisEyes said:

Oakland County Child Killer case: Court denies victim's father's 3rd appeal for more information
Timothy King among 4 Metro Detroit children killed by unknown suspect in 1970s

DETROIT - The Michigan Supreme Court has denied Barry King's latest appeal to have the Oakland County Prosecutor Office release more evidence from the Oakland County Child Killer Case.*

King's son, Timothy King, was one of four*children between the ages of 10 and 12 who were abducted and held for days before being killed during a 13-month period from February 1976 to March 1977. The unknown killer became known as the "Oakland County Child Killer."

There have been hundreds of suspects over the years, but the killer remains unknown to this day...

https://www.clickondetroit.com/news...ctims-fathers-3rd-appeal-for-more-information

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Yukarin said:

Alright, finally! I'm linking the amazon page for it in case someone else wants to see ( I believe this is the one )

https://www.amazon.com/Kill-Jar-Obs...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1500135718&sr=1-1

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harmonica said:

[FONT=&amp]Does anyone know the scoop on this suspected victim, one wonders if he may hold some answers, his blurb keeps getting deleted from wikipedia.(see below)

"James Davison, 13, was abducted June 22, 1974, around Morris Ave and Porter Ave in Allen Park “Wayne County” Michigan, and was missing for several days; he was strangled and left in an alley face down in Oakland County. He was found on June 26 in the same clothes that he went missing in. He was on his way to a friend’s house when he was abducted and his bike was found three blocks away from his home. He survived the attack and it is believed that he may have been a victim of the Oakland County Child Killer.”[/FONT]

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AndyB said:

Also - I had the chance to interview Barry King at this home. What an incredibly resilient man, still seeking justice for Tim (Barry is in his 80s now).

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