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

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Investigators are hoping DNA evidence from another case will hold clues to the 1976 slayings of four children in Oakland County.

The investigation began when Michigan State Police detectives reopened a cold-case file on the 1972 homicides of two Bay County teenagers whose bodies were left in ditches, Local 4 reported. Officers flew to Texas Tuesday to interview a suspect in the case, Todd Warzecha and take DNA samples, according to the report.

Once in Texas, officers found the 53-year-old man hanging from the ceiling of a storage shed in an apparent suicide, Local 4 reported.

Investigators are now taking DNA samples from Warzecha's body to determine if there is a match in the Oakland County homicides.

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/4620716/detail.html
 
Interesting article!!!!!!!!
http://www.theoaklandpress.com/stories/081405/loc_200508140010.shtml

"
Gray will travel to an Indiana prison soon to interview a convicted child killer in connection with the case. He's also hoping to get a DNA sample from the man. And, acting on a tip, Gray and Berkley Police Detective Ray Anger - who took the original missing child report from the Mihelich family - searched a Macomb County home after someone called in a tip about a man who used to live there.

According to the tipster, the man, whom Gray said committed suicide - might have been connected to the case.

"We haven't found anything yet," Gray said. "It was a good tip, though."

Through the years, there has been a series of strong leads. In 1999, the body of autoworker David Norberg was exhumed from his Wyoming grave so his DNA could be compared with the hair. It wasn't a match, but Norberg remains under suspicion.

Earlier this year, investigators collected blood samples from 53-year-old Todd Warzecha, who committed suicide by hanging himself in a Texas storage shed.

Warzecha, a known child molester, was a suspect in the 1972 slayings of two teenage boys in Bay City. He was also a suspect in the Oakland County case and was interviewed by detectives. He passed a polygraph test.

Warzecha's DNA, along with DNA from a man who died in prison, is being tested. Gray said DNA from another man, who is still alive, was also sent for tests last week.

Samples from the prisoner in Indiana and another suspect will be sought and tested, he said.

"There's a lot riding on this case," he said."


......... sad to think that these children might not be the only ones this guy killed. :(
 
A serial killer accused in a 1974 stabbing death in Kalamazoo and convicted in a 1979 murder in Ferndale has denied involvement in the Michigan killings in a letter to The Detroit News.

In a five-page, handwritten letter from Ionia Maximum Correctional Facility, Coral Watts maintains his innocence in the two killings. The letter, which rails against authorities, was in response to an Aug. 8 request by the newspaper for an interview
http://www.kristv.com/Global/story.asp?S=3759936
 
Every day I drive by the area where Jill Robinson's body was found, so I often study the area. That area is busy, very well lit, full of curves so you need to pay attention to how you're driving, and at that exit, there is the Troy police station.

Putting her body here seem to me to be an 'in your face' action - Certainly a move by someone who's confident they are going to get away with it. My old car had broken down twice in this same area (except heading south), and both times I've had strangers stop to help me. I would think that any vehicle at the side of the road in this area would draw attention.
 
Doesn't it just make you want to cry for this poor guy, when the courts and the press are so prejudiced against him? He says he didn't do it. Shouldn't that be enough to convince anybody? The injustice of it all.
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In a five-page, handwritten letter from Ionia Maximum Correctional Facility, Coral Watts maintains his innocence in the two killings. The letter, which rails against authorities, was in response to an Aug. 8 request by the newspaper for an interview.


"If they have deceived the public into believing I did something I did not do and then went about convicting an innocent man, they should receiv(e) no less punishment then they would impose on me," Watts wrote in the letter, parts of which were published Wednesday by the newspaper.



Watts, 51, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 19-year-old Gloria Steele. She was stabbed 33 times in the chest on Oct. 30, 1974, in the apartment she shared with her 3-year-old daughter.



An Oakland County judge sentenced Watts to life in prison in December for the 1979 murder of Helen Dutcher in the Detroit suburb of Ferndale. At his sentencing, Watts denied that he killed Dutcher.



Before that, Watts had been scheduled for release from a Texas pri6son after getting immunity for 12 killings to which he had confessed 11 in Texas and one in Michigan as part of a 1982 plea deal with Texas prosecutors.
 
The Michigan State Police crime lab is reexamining nearly 30-year-old evidence -- including clothing, a bicycle and a skateboard -- in hopes that modern technology will identify the person who killed four children in the 1970s and close one of Oakland County's most notorious unsolved cases.

DNA samples from three potential suspects -- all of whom are dead -- have been sent to a crime lab for testing, Gray said. The samples will be compared with a hair found on one of the children and thought to belong to the killer. Results are expected in about six months.

Forensic specialists also are combing evidence collected by police after the bodies were found -- including the clothing the children were found in, Robinson's bicycle and King's skateboard -- in hopes of finding a clue.

The suspects are:

•David Norberg, a Warren autoworker at the time of the killings. Norberg moved to the state of Wyoming in 1980 and died a year later. His body was exhumed in 1999, and DNA was examined. It did not match the hair that was found on one of the bodies. But, Gray said, that does not rule him out as a suspect because the hair might not have belonged to the killer.

•Todd Warzecha, of Austin, Texas. Warzecha was suspected of killing two teens in 1972 -- Norbert Peck, 14, and Oscar Garcia, 18 -- in Saginaw County. He was interviewed by detectives and passed a polygraph test shortly after the killings, but is still a suspect because polygraphs are not foolproof, police said. Warzecha committed suicide in Texas.

•John McRae, who died in a Jackson prison in June. He was convicted of killing two boys in Michigan and was a suspect in the disappearance of three Florida boys. Gray did not mention anything that would specifically link McRae to this case, but said he is a suspect because of the two other killings.

•A prisoner in Indiana who was convicted of killing a child. Gray said he plans to interview the prisoner, who he would not identify, as well as test his DNA.
freep.com/news/locoak/childkiller7e_20051007.htm
 
I read about this case for the first time this weekend. Does anyone know the outcome of the DNA testing that was conducted?

From what I read, Sheila Shrock was raped and sodomized, and a neighbor saw the whole thing. He was apparently on the roof of his house, shoveling snow, when the attack took place.

That strikes me as very odd - why didn't he yell or do something to stop the attack on Sheila? And why wasn't he able to provide a description of the man?

That just seems very strange to me.
 
meggilyweggily said:
If it was a long hair, that might be an indication that it's a female hair. Or maybe if there was the root there, they could get DNA out of it or something.
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They got DNA, but it didn't match the suspects. But since they don't know where the hair came from, or who, or how it got there that means it doesn't rule out the suspects it just means that isn't proof against the suspects.
 
I think that a possible answer to who this guy is might be found in old police files. Considering all the children that the killer was able to successfully abduct, I would think it possible that other attempts were made which were foiled or aborted. For instance, is there a report or reports from the Oakland County area before, during, or shortly after this string of related murders it might contain a description of the man and his methods?
 
In August 1985, shortly after I graduated from university, I participated in a writing conference at Cranbrook, near Detroit. I was in the creative writing section of the conference, but in the evenings all the participants were together for general sessions. One of these sessions was led by a Detroit journalist (TV, I believe) who had extensively covered the OCCK while they were happening. She had a lot of interesting things to say, but the most important, IMO, was that LE believed the murders were committted by a local church pastor who had access to a cottage up north (though he didn't own it himself) and also had access to a blue sub-compact car. The car was at least tentatively linked to the murders. The cottage was important because it was thought he kept the kids there before he bought them back to the Detroit area were they were then killed. The journalist also said this pastor committed suicide 9 months after the last murder.

So there you have it, "it" being what I heard, not from LE but from a source that was very close to LE.

One more story about that: the journalist told us quite a few stories about how the media cooperated with LE to try to catch the killer. For example, LE held regular (daily?) press conferences that appeared to be "real," including pleas from victims' families, assurances that LE was doing all it could, etc. These were the press conferences that were broadcast. But then all the recording devices were turned off and LE told the journalists what was actually happening on the case. During the press conferences that appeared to be real, LE might talk, for example, and make numerous references to squirrels, e.g. "Squirrelly things are happening in this case" or "It's going to be cold out tonight and all the squirrels will be huddled in their nests," in an effort to lure the killer out to Squirrel Road.

The journalist told other stories like that (which I don't remember, so don't ask!) about the crazy extent to which LE and the media cooperated in order to solve the case. It sounded like LE was quite open with the media as long as the media didn't print certain sensitive info.

Because of what this journalist said, I wasn't surprised to find that the DNA from the hair found on the victim didn't match any of the suspects. My best guess is that the hair didn't belong to the killer. Otherwise they'd be able to match the hair to the suspect I mentioned above.

I wonder if anyone is interested in searching throught Detroit-area obituaries from the period of about 9 months after the last murder. I have no idea how to do that. Of course, there might not be an obit.

I wonder if I can dig up the journalist's name. Hmm.

You're welcome to ask me questions to jog my memory, but remember I heard all this twenty years ago!

Hoppy
 
hoppyfrog said:
In August 1985, shortly after I graduated from university, I participated in a writing conference at Cranbrook, near Detroit. I was in the creative writing section of the conference, but in the evenings all the participants were together for general sessions. One of these sessions was led by a Detroit journalist (TV, I believe) who had extensively covered the OCCK while they were happening. She had a lot of interesting things to say, but the most important, IMO, was that LE believed the murders were committted by a local church pastor who had access to a cottage up north (though he didn't own it himself) and also had access to a blue sub-compact car. The car was at least tentatively linked to the murders. The cottage was important because it was thought he kept the kids there before he bought them back to the Detroit area were they were then killed. The journalist also said this pastor committed suicide 9 months after the last murder....

I wonder if anyone is interested in searching throught Detroit-area obituaries from the period of about 9 months after the last murder. I have no idea how to do that. Of course, there might not be an obit.

I wonder if I can dig up the journalist's name. Hmm.... Hoppy
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This is very interesting and might be worth pursuing, even so many years later. As to finding out the Journalist's name, that might be fairly easy, if you were to contact the Cranbrook Institute and see if they have a file or program of that conference. With more information from her, such as a possible name or the pastor or his church, etc, it will make follow up searching possible.

Lacking such a program, it might be possible to check Detroit News/Free Press microfilm files for that time frame to see who covered the case. The Detroit News/Freepress has an on-line data base of obituaries, but it is a day by day thing, and I do not think that there is a master index for it. Besides, I don't think that it goes back that far.

It is more likely that a search of microfilm copies would be required. An interim step might be to get a list of possible pastors, or name of this particular pastor, then check the Social Security Death Index for more information, such as specific date. An obit or funeral notice will provide more info such as funeral home, cemetery, and possibly relatives.

If there was a place where all the children were taken before being killed, then it would be quite possible and likely that a hair on one victim may have come from another victim.

If the location of such a cottage was known, it might be possible to check the basement and grounds for other possible victims or evidence.

If a specific car was associated with the abductions and murders, then possibly there was a description of the driver somewhere as well.
 
Richard said:
This is very interesting and might be worth pursuing, even so many years later. As to finding out the Journalist's name, that might be fairly easy, if you were to contact the Cranbrook Institute and see if they have a file or program of that conference. With more information from her, such as a possible name or the pastor or his church, etc, it will make follow up searching possible.

Lacking such a program, it might be possible to check Detroit News/Free Press microfilm files for that time frame to see who covered the case. The Detroit News/Freepress has an on-line data base of obituaries, but it is a day by day thing, and I do not think that there is a master index for it. Besides, I don't think that it goes back that far.

It is more likely that a search of microfilm copies would be required. An interim step might be to get a list of possible pastors, or name of this particular pastor, then check the Social Security Death Index for more information, such as specific date. An obit or funeral notice will provide more info such as funeral home, cemetery, and possibly relatives.

If there was a place where all the children were taken before being killed, then it would be quite possible and likely that a hair on one victim may have come from another victim.

If the location of such a cottage was known, it might be possible to check the basement and grounds for other possible victims or evidence.

If a specific car was associated with the abductions and murders, then possibly there was a description of the driver somewhere as well.
Click to expand...
I'm going to start by looking through my files to see if I have the name of the journalist or a contact person for the conference. I doubt the Detroit newspapers would mention a TV journalist who was also covering the case, don't you think?

My best guess is that LE would have thoroughly searched the cottage and car the pastor had access to, but didn't find any evidence.

Suicide would certainly explain why this particular MO and serial killing stopped. After I posted last night I also recalled that the journalist said that as of 1985, this particular MO had not been duplicated/continued anywhere else in the world.

She also said that as of 1985 the Michigan State Police still had one officer assigned full-time to the case.

I'll try to get to my files soon to find that journalist's name, but with the holidays and all....argh!

Hoppy
 
hoppyfrog said:
My best guess is that LE would have thoroughly searched the cottage and car the pastor had access to, but didn't find any evidence.

Hoppy
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Never assume that---Without probable cause for a warrant they would have searched nothing! Strong anecdotal evidence will rarely sway any judge, especially in a homicide case.
 
hoppyfrog said:
I'm going to start by looking through my files to see if I have the name of the journalist or a contact person for the conference. I doubt the Detroit newspapers would mention a TV journalist who was also covering the case, don't you think?...
...I'll try to get to my files soon to find that journalist's name, but with the holidays and all....argh! Hoppy
Click to expand...
Usually Newspapers would not mention names of TV reporters or their stories, but often TV channels will advertise their programs, including news, in newspapers. Now that you have thought about this person, the answer will probably come to you in the next few days at a time when you least expect it. It happens like that to me sometimes.
 
Richard said:
Usually Newspapers would not mention names of TV reporters or their stories, but often TV channels will advertise their programs, including news, in newspapers. Now that you have thought about this person, the answer will probably come to you in the next few days at a time when you least expect it. It happens like that to me sometimes.
Click to expand...
Right, like you don't have instant recall of all things. We believe that, Richard. ;)
 
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