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Post by Helen Dagner on Oct 14, 2012 0:23:09 GMT -5
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Post by Helen Dagner on Oct 14, 2012 0:29:25 GMT -5
Part 8
Wanted Poster of OCCK with details, three OCCK composite sketch drawings and history, comparison between Helen's suspect John from 1967 and the 1st OCCK sketch, Lt Robert Robertson senior frustrations with the case, Oakland County Sheriff Johannes F. Spreen's opinions of the police investigation of the OCCK, Brooks Patterson debates against the sheriff's claims.
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Post by Helen Dagner on Oct 14, 2012 20:32:27 GMT -5
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Post by Helen Dagner on Oct 14, 2012 20:52:41 GMT -5
In the summer of 1977, Oakland County Sheriff Johannes Spreen gave a speech about the OCCK investigation to the Southern Police Retraining Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Spreen had been a critic of the police work on the OCCK from the outset and was an advocate of a single county police department, rather than individual city police departments. The speech was released to the press and was covered by The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press on August 2, 1977. The task force apparently refused comment, so what follows are basically unchallenged excerpts from Spreen's speech.
From The Detroit News:
"Fragmentation of police agencies made 'a vivid horror story in the investigation of the child murders in Oakland County,' Sheriff Johannes F. Spreen has charged. . . . 'I want to talk to you about the problems we encountered, the shortcomings of our solutions and how we should plan for future occurences,' he told the conference. 'I must tell you from the outset that the events will sadden you as parents, and infuriate you as professional police officers.'"
Spreen's comments about Mark Stebbin's case: "'Although the State Police maintain two relatively close crime labs and the Oakland County Sheriff's Department also has an excellent crime lab available, none were called to process the scene. By the time the investigator from the Oakland County Medical Examiner's Office had arrived, the body had been removed to the Southfield Police Department. When the body finally arrived at the morgue, it was devoid of all clothes. . . . No one really knows what might have been found at the scene had proper crime scene procedures been followed and a crime lab present.'"
The Troy Police failed to call a crime lab to process the scene where the body of Jill Robinson was found. "'Noting the similarities in the two cases, it was suggested that a coordinated effort involving the State Police, Sheriff's Department and the local authorities involved be implemented in an attempt to solve the crimes,' Spreen said. 'The suggestion was submitted to the local agencies by the State Police, and the offer was declined.'"
"Berkley police refused the offer of assistance of the State Police and Sheriff's Department after the dissapearence [sic] of 10-year-old Kristine Mihelich of Berkley and only after her body was found in Franklin . . . did the Franklin chief turn the investigation over to the state police, Spreen said."
The News reported that according to Spreen, "[t]hat afternoon, 30 investigators committed themselves to find the murderer of Kristine Mihelich" and "[t]he Oakland County Task Force was implemented. The work of the task force was hampered from the start by many problems. It was discovered that one jurisdiction charged with the investigation had virtually no report and in another jurisdiction, evidence had been misplaced and mishandled. The investigative team was forced to investigate one of the slayings from the very beginning. Another agency was reluctant to submit their report to the task force."
Discussing the murder of Tim King, Spreen "criticized the task force for allowing 300 tri-county investigators to flood the area [where the body was dropped off]." The Detroit Free Press quoted Spreen as saying "[d]uring the King homicide (March 1977) numerous bits of information were lost forever due to inadequate reporting procedures and unfamiliarity with the case."
The News article went on to explain that with "posted rewards totaling $70,000, Spreen said, people began 'to use the case as a lottery. Parents turned in sons, brothers turned in brothers, and church members turned in their pastors. To date [August 2, 1977] the task force has 12,000 tips on suspects, with 5,500 closed and over 6,000 have not been checked.'" Spreen went on to state that "'ome departments were virtually using the task force as a training experience for their personnel. Chiefs were committing rookie detectives and patrol officers to investigate the homicides and were rotating their personnel periodically to allow everyone to participate in the investigation.'"
The Freepress article quoted Spreen describing the major problem "'initially was a lack of coordination between the agencies involved. Information was not shared, offers of assistance (from other police agencies) were refused, each investigator jealously guarded the identity of his suspects in order to be the one to crack the case.'"
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Post by Helen Dagner on Oct 15, 2012 1:12:18 GMT -5
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