Post by Helen Dagner on Jul 27, 2012 1:23:10 GMT -5
Jerry Tobias, left, with Oakland County Sheriff's Detective Mark Newman, calls finding the Oakland child killer "my obsession." Tobias, a former police officer, was a member of the original task force 27 years ago.
Police hold out hope of finding '70s child killer
Technology, forensic tools may lead to break in case
By Mike Martindale / The Detroit New-2-18-2003
SOUTHFIELD -- Jerry Tobias has this dream in which his telephone rings and when he answers, it's the Oakland County Child Killer on the other end of the line.
"I guess you could call it my fantasy, my obsession," said Tobias, a licensed counselor and ex-police officer who was part of the original task force looking into the unsolved slayings of four children 27 years ago.
"But anyone who was involved back then or since would like to resolve what happened," said Tobias, 73, who has never really stopped working on the case. "We owe it to their families, the children, and to the community."
New technology and forensic tools may help solve the deaths of two boys and two girls, aged 10 to 12 years old, which have haunted Oakland County for nearly three decades.
It began back in 1976. At about 1:30 p.m. Feb. 15 that year, 12-year-old Mark Douglas Stebbins said goodbye to his mother at an American Legion Hall in Ferndale and walked home to watch a movie on TV. That was the last she ever saw him alive.
Stebbins' body was found four days later in a Southfield shopping mall parking lot along 10 Mile. An autopsy determined the boy had been smothered to death, sexually assaulted and likely was bound at the wrists and ankles.
Stebbins' death was the first of four between 1976 and 1977. Children disappeared, one by one, from their suburban neighborhoods and their bodies were discovered days later, miles away from their homes. Three were suffocated and one girl was killed by a shotgun blast.
There was no indication that the girls had been sexually molested, but both boys were.
In the months following each new death, paranoia grew. Cars lined up for blocks outside school yards to escort children home. Children were told not to go anywhere alone and to report anything suspicious.
An unprecedented task force made up of several Oakland County police agencies and state police was formed and began the laborious process of collecting and running down an estimated 20,000 tips that poured in on the case. A $100,000 reward was offered and everyone, it seemed, knew who the killer was -- or at least thought they did.
There were a number of unusual similarities in the cases, some made public, others kept secret.
Detective Sgt. David Wurtz of the Oakland County Sheriff's Department said the public needs to know this is not a reopening of the high-profile cases. But all homicides, he said, are never closed until the guilty person is found.
"There isn't a week that goes by that we don't get a call from somebody," Wurtz said. "We know there is somebody out there who knows something that goes beyond speculation -- maybe a friend or family member who has kept quiet."
Wurtz said all evidence, stored for years by the department, has been turned over to the state police lab for examination.
"They're re-evaluating evidence with our new technology," Wurtz said. "We're doing stuff now that was unheard of when I was a young patrolman."
Automatic fingerprint identification, DNA, electronic databases and even e-mail are tools that could be used in the case, he said.
Wurtz noted that every investigator who has ever worked the case has his own theory about the killer and why he stopped.
"He's dead, incarcerated or removed from public exposure in some way," Wurtz said. "Or, he's left the country. The most widely held belief is the person has left the area because we don't believe this is the type of the crime someone would quit on their own unless they were incapacitated in some way."
For years a composite drawing and description of a blue American Motors Gremlin seen near the scene of the last disappearance -- that of Timothy King, 11, of Birmingham -- has stuck in the public mind.
Wurtz notes how news reports of the unsolved murders generate dozens of new tips and he doesn't believe in just one suspect.
"I think if you get too carried away on one thing or one operating theory then you try to put square pegs in round holes," he said.
Lt. Ive Edwards of the Michigan State Police's Northville post agrees. Edwards stressed that the ongoing investigation will not focus on a small number of strong suspects, but rather on all the police reports and interviews that were conducted over the year and summarily filed away.
"We're going back to the very start," Edwards said. "We want to put all records, all reports into a common database which we can then examine for commonalities. I don't care if someone was cleared or not, we're going to take another look at them. If only to determine why they were cleared. Or in some cases, why not."
That is under way with the help of two clerks from the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office, he said, adding "it's going to take some time."
Wayne County became involved because King's body was dumped along a road in Livonia. All the other victims' bodies were found near or along roads in Oakland County.
Advancements in forensic technology in 2003 will play a large role in the investigation, Edwards said.
"We have also transferred a large amount of evidence to our Michigan State Police labs in Lansing to undergo extensive forensic testing. DNA, fingerprints, and more."
That work will be headed by Charles Barna, whose investigators will isolate DNA from semen, blood and hair.
"This serves two purposes: examination now of what we have and preservation of evidence for the future in hopes that technology, and our ability to use it, increases even more in the future," Edwards said.
Edwards noted that when the investigation of the deaths began 27 years ago, the work was done piecemeal by various departments.
"It was all pre-computer and we have boxes of records and reports that will benefit from being put onto a common computer data base."
Computer sorting could conceivably compare thousands of names, descriptions, places, events that would be humanly impossible to do.
And while all hold out hope that science will be able to do what task force could not, some like Tobias, believes it will finally come down to old-fashioned police work and perhaps that one phone call.
You can reach Mike Martindale at (248) 647-7226 or mmartindale@detnews.com.
New technology and forensic tools may help solve the deaths of two boys and two girls, aged 10 to 12 years old, which have haunted Oakland County for nearly three decades.
Police hold out hope of finding '70s child killer
Technology, forensic tools may lead to break in case
By Mike Martindale / The Detroit New-2-18-2003
SOUTHFIELD -- Jerry Tobias has this dream in which his telephone rings and when he answers, it's the Oakland County Child Killer on the other end of the line.
"I guess you could call it my fantasy, my obsession," said Tobias, a licensed counselor and ex-police officer who was part of the original task force looking into the unsolved slayings of four children 27 years ago.
"But anyone who was involved back then or since would like to resolve what happened," said Tobias, 73, who has never really stopped working on the case. "We owe it to their families, the children, and to the community."
New technology and forensic tools may help solve the deaths of two boys and two girls, aged 10 to 12 years old, which have haunted Oakland County for nearly three decades.
It began back in 1976. At about 1:30 p.m. Feb. 15 that year, 12-year-old Mark Douglas Stebbins said goodbye to his mother at an American Legion Hall in Ferndale and walked home to watch a movie on TV. That was the last she ever saw him alive.
Stebbins' body was found four days later in a Southfield shopping mall parking lot along 10 Mile. An autopsy determined the boy had been smothered to death, sexually assaulted and likely was bound at the wrists and ankles.
Stebbins' death was the first of four between 1976 and 1977. Children disappeared, one by one, from their suburban neighborhoods and their bodies were discovered days later, miles away from their homes. Three were suffocated and one girl was killed by a shotgun blast.
There was no indication that the girls had been sexually molested, but both boys were.
In the months following each new death, paranoia grew. Cars lined up for blocks outside school yards to escort children home. Children were told not to go anywhere alone and to report anything suspicious.
An unprecedented task force made up of several Oakland County police agencies and state police was formed and began the laborious process of collecting and running down an estimated 20,000 tips that poured in on the case. A $100,000 reward was offered and everyone, it seemed, knew who the killer was -- or at least thought they did.
There were a number of unusual similarities in the cases, some made public, others kept secret.
Detective Sgt. David Wurtz of the Oakland County Sheriff's Department said the public needs to know this is not a reopening of the high-profile cases. But all homicides, he said, are never closed until the guilty person is found.
"There isn't a week that goes by that we don't get a call from somebody," Wurtz said. "We know there is somebody out there who knows something that goes beyond speculation -- maybe a friend or family member who has kept quiet."
Wurtz said all evidence, stored for years by the department, has been turned over to the state police lab for examination.
"They're re-evaluating evidence with our new technology," Wurtz said. "We're doing stuff now that was unheard of when I was a young patrolman."
Automatic fingerprint identification, DNA, electronic databases and even e-mail are tools that could be used in the case, he said.
Wurtz noted that every investigator who has ever worked the case has his own theory about the killer and why he stopped.
"He's dead, incarcerated or removed from public exposure in some way," Wurtz said. "Or, he's left the country. The most widely held belief is the person has left the area because we don't believe this is the type of the crime someone would quit on their own unless they were incapacitated in some way."
For years a composite drawing and description of a blue American Motors Gremlin seen near the scene of the last disappearance -- that of Timothy King, 11, of Birmingham -- has stuck in the public mind.
Wurtz notes how news reports of the unsolved murders generate dozens of new tips and he doesn't believe in just one suspect.
"I think if you get too carried away on one thing or one operating theory then you try to put square pegs in round holes," he said.
Lt. Ive Edwards of the Michigan State Police's Northville post agrees. Edwards stressed that the ongoing investigation will not focus on a small number of strong suspects, but rather on all the police reports and interviews that were conducted over the year and summarily filed away.
"We're going back to the very start," Edwards said. "We want to put all records, all reports into a common database which we can then examine for commonalities. I don't care if someone was cleared or not, we're going to take another look at them. If only to determine why they were cleared. Or in some cases, why not."
That is under way with the help of two clerks from the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office, he said, adding "it's going to take some time."
Wayne County became involved because King's body was dumped along a road in Livonia. All the other victims' bodies were found near or along roads in Oakland County.
Advancements in forensic technology in 2003 will play a large role in the investigation, Edwards said.
"We have also transferred a large amount of evidence to our Michigan State Police labs in Lansing to undergo extensive forensic testing. DNA, fingerprints, and more."
That work will be headed by Charles Barna, whose investigators will isolate DNA from semen, blood and hair.
"This serves two purposes: examination now of what we have and preservation of evidence for the future in hopes that technology, and our ability to use it, increases even more in the future," Edwards said.
Edwards noted that when the investigation of the deaths began 27 years ago, the work was done piecemeal by various departments.
"It was all pre-computer and we have boxes of records and reports that will benefit from being put onto a common computer data base."
Computer sorting could conceivably compare thousands of names, descriptions, places, events that would be humanly impossible to do.
And while all hold out hope that science will be able to do what task force could not, some like Tobias, believes it will finally come down to old-fashioned police work and perhaps that one phone call.
You can reach Mike Martindale at (248) 647-7226 or mmartindale@detnews.com.
New technology and forensic tools may help solve the deaths of two boys and two girls, aged 10 to 12 years old, which have haunted Oakland County for nearly three decades.