And yet, much of the psychology of pedophilia is misunderstood. “People don’t choose what arouses them,” said Dr. Fred Berlin, director of the Johns Hopkins Sex and Gender Clinic told the Times. “They discover it. No one grows up wanting to be a pedophile.”
According to the most recent science, there is “growing consensus” that the origins of pedophilia are biological, rather than environmental, casting doubt on the common presumption that pedophiles themselves were abused as children. Scientists say most pedophiles discover, typically in their teens, that “their sexual preferences have not matured like everyone else’s. Most get stuck on the same-age boys or girls who first attracted them at the start of puberty.”10
Jack Kalbfleisch, the chief of detectives for the Birmingham Police Department in the seventies, had long endeared himself to the King family. He was at the Wayne County Morgue that grim morning in March of 1977 when Marion King identified her deceased son. And it was Kalbfleisch who later suggested to the family that a tour of the Task Force headquarters might be of some help in the healing process. “Of course, we had no questions, and we were basically mute,” Cathy Broad remembered. “But he gave us some information, and offered to answer any of our questions. I still distinctly remember the pain in his eyes as he gave us the tour, but he looked us straight in the eyes and treated us with respect…. I will never forget how he treated us.”
Thus it was with special interest that Cathy, on a visit home to Birmingham in October 2006 (during which the family disinterred Tim and moved him to be next to his mother’s grave in Holly), happened to read a letter Kalbfleisch had recently written her father. He was asking Barry King for help in getting the Task Force to look seriously at some evidence he had developed on the identity of the killer’s vehicle. Kalbfleisch had determined the car they should have been looking for was not the notorious blue Gremlin, but a General Motors vehicle.
As far as the Kings were concerned, the Gremlin had long been a red herring because Chris King had seen the car still parked at the pharmacy hours after Tim had been abducted. Sixteen at the time, frantic and feeling utterly helpless, he had grabbed a baseball bat and went searching for his brother’s kidnappers that night. When he arrived at the parking lot, the blue Gremlin, as described by a witness earlier that evening, was still there. When police informed the public they were looking for the Gremlin, Chris tried to tell them about his sighting and explained that it couldn’t be the kidnapper’s vehicle. But an account from a 16-year-old family member apparently did not carry the same weight as the statement from the woman in the drug store.
Kalbfleisch was on the scene when Kristine Mihelich’s body was discovered and noted a vehicle had backed into a snowbank and left imprints in the snow. “There were imprints of tire tracks that showed that when a vehicle reached a crest in the road where the homes on Bruce Lane became visible, it turned sharply to the left,” Kalbfleisch’s report reads. “This maneuver caused the car to strike the left snowbank with its left front bumper. The vehicle backed sharply across the road, striking the other snowbank with the full back of the car leaving a clear imprint of the vehicle. Although measurements were not taken by the MSP crime lab, they did take photographs.”11
Those photographs were enlarged with the help of researchers from the University of Michigan and an expert in photo interpretation was able to give Kalbfleisch and FBI agent Mort Nickel the measurements within half an inch.
In September 1977, a packet was compiled, identifying the various tracks and impressions left by the car, noting their dimensions and distances from each other, with copies of the enlarged photos. The packet was sent by OCCK Task Force Commander Robert Robertson to Ford, Chrysler, GM and AMC, with a plea that engineers check the specifications against vehicles manufactured in the last 10 years. The process took over a year.
Ever-present in Kalbfleisch’s mind was the vehicle sighting reported by a witness at Jill Robinson’s drop site. In the days following her disappearance, a motorist reported to the Troy PD that he had been traveling northbound in I-75 in the early morning hours of December 26, 1976. He observed
… a light blue [1967] Pontiac Tempest parked on the shoulder of I-75 north of 12 Mile Road. He observed two people in the car, but could give no further description. As he passed the vehicle, it pulled back on to I-75 and continued northbound until just north of Big Beaver Road in the area where the victim was found. The Tempest pulled on to the shoulder of the road and stopped. The motorist advised that he continued on his way and could give no further information. He did state that he was certain of the year of the car as he had owned one previously and that the paint on the car was faded and the right tail lens was broken in the corner emitting a white light.”12
(To their credit, the Michigan State Police obtained a complete list of all 1967 Pontiac Tempests in the tri-county area. Officers canvassed over 75 of these vehicles looking for a light blue Tempest with a broken rear taillight lens. As of January 10, 1977, two weeks after Jill’s body had been found and a full week into Kristine’s disappearance, none of the vehicles or their owners raised any red flags.13)
Not surprisingly, the blue Gremlin was ruled out almost immediately. Even a cursory review of the rear imprint of the car shows a two-inch exhaust pipe located on the right side—the Gremlin had the exhaust on the left, and the diameter was approximately one inch.
Ford said that none of their vehicles matched the impressions even given a margin of error of one and a half inches. Chrysler also reported negative results and AMC said none of their models had similar measurements.
But GM came through. Engineers said in their report that the “frame, gas tank and tire tread, as well as exhaust pipe are compatible to a ’64 to ’67 intermediate General Motors products. These products would be a Chevrolet Chevelle, Pontiac Tempest and GTO, Oldsmobile F85 Cutlass and Buick Skylark.”14
Furthermore, the interpreter, Charles Olsen at the University of Michigan, “ventured a theory that the vehicle could have been in an accident which would have caused the variation between the frame or spring or tank. This theory was based on the fact that there appeared to be a trailer hitch on the vehicle which does not center with the measurements….”15
Kalbfleisch added: “Based upon the vehicle seen at the body drop of [Jill Robinson] that of the ’67 Pontiac Tempest blue in color, with damage to the left rear … which appeared to have been partially repaired but showed gray primer on the rear quarter and that the trim was missing off the fender it would seem that this vehicle could also be compatible.”16
But somewhere after 1988—when Kalbfleisch retired after 33 years with the Birmingham Police and moved with his wife, Ruth, to Florida—his memory of the vehicle faltered. Hence, for decades, he reported that the photo measurements were consistent with a 1971–1972 Pontiac LeMans with an eight-cylinder engine. This snowballed into a number of press accounts naming the LeMans as the vehicle involved, not a 1967 Pontiac Tempest. In 2017, WXYZ-TV ran an interview with Kalbfleisch, “Did Oakland County Child Killer case focus on wrong car for decades?” identifying the LeMans.17 Multiple media reports citing the LeMans followed suit.
In December 2018, when I sent him the records of his vehicle investigation (received via a FOIA request), Kalbfleisch conceded: “At this point I must consider that I was in error. The problem that I’ve had is that my report to the task force on the vehicle impression has reportedly disappeared and I’ve been using a forty-year-old memory of facts. Unfortunately, I must accept that I probably have been responsible for the error in the vehicle identification and the witness at the Jill scene was correct.”18
Indeed, Kalbfleisch added that he had recently discovered via a Google search, “a (1971) LeMans has two exhaust pipes and the (1967 Pontiac) Tempest has one located on the right side.” (The impression in the snow showed only one exhaust.)
While Kalbfleisch’s wrong-model-year LeMans later became the second red herring vehi
cle in the case, his persistence in developing the lead was based on a methodical study of physical evidence and was responsible for directing focus away from the AMC Gremlin to a General Motors product. And it was his work that led Robert Robertson to issue a press release on September 7, 1978, advising the public that, in addition to the ubiquitous Gremlin, police were on the lookout for “a 1964–1967 Pontiac Tempest or [Buick] Skylark.”19
This was consistent with reports of vehicles spotted at three of the sites where victims’ bodies were dropped. In Jill Robinson and Kristine Mihelich’s cases, witnesses reported seeing a Tempest at or near the scene; a similar GM model was targeted in Mark Stebbins’ case. A woman living in an apartment with a large picture window facing Ten Mile Road, where Mark’s body was dropped, reported that on the morning of February 19, 1976, she saw a “green smaller vehicle, possibly a Pontiac or Buick parked in the Fairfax Office Plaza near the northeast side of the building. Vehicle exited onto Ten Mile Road approximately 9:30–10 a.m.”20
A witness to Tim King’s abduction came forward in 2012 and became the fourth person to name a General Motors make as the vehicle involved. Triggered by a memory resurfacing, Janice King, Barry King’s wife, began to hunt for a friend of her first husband, who was hypnotized by the Task Force after Tim disappeared. After a lengthy search, she identified the man as Doug Wilson, now living in La Jolla, California.
Wilson was a young car designer for Chrysler living in Birmingham when he pulled into the Chatham Grocery store parking lot on his way home from work the night Tim was abducted. After Tim went missing, he reported to police what he had seen there. FBI agents hypnotized him twice and he had provided invaluable information, including a description of a man he saw talking to Tim, and a second man, presumably an accomplice, sitting in a vehicle.
When Barry called him in the summer of 2012, Wilson was 65 and recently retired. He had moved to California in 1982 and was shocked to discover this was the first Barry was hearing about his involvement. Wilson had assumed police followed up on his information and, more importantly, that the families of the victims had been informed of all aspects of the case—especially details provided by an eyewitness to Tim’s abductors.
Barry asked Wilson to put into writing his recollections of the events; Wilson said he would do anything to help. A few days later Barry received the following statement.21
On my way home from work I decided to stop at the supermarket and pick up some breakfast groceries (milk, eggs, etc.) for the following morning. As I pulled my new (Alfa Romeo) Alfetta GT into the parking lot, I immediately noticed a young boy on an orange skateboard. He was using the natural slope of the parking lot to build up speed as he headed downward toward the market. At the last minute he would jump off the board and the board would continue on into the bricks of the building. Fearing that the flying skateboard might damage my new car, I decided to use one of the parking spaces farthest from the store.
After locking my car, I noticed that the boy on the skateboard was talking to a young man by the side of the building. My immediate impression was of a father talking to his son. The young man was about 25–30 years old. He was wearing a plaid shirt jacket and jeans. He was also wearing a baseball cap over his shoulder length hair.
As I started walking towards the market entrance, I glanced at an older man sitting in a car. He had backed his car into the parking place now opposite my parking place, but closer to the building. He was facing me as I walked towards his car and the market. He fixed his gaze on mine and continued to stare at me intently. There was something unnerving about this man and I remember thinking that he might be a car thief. He looked to be about 55–65 years of age. He had totally grey hair and looked about 20–30 pounds overweight. He had a very round face.
As I walked by him I glanced back at his car and tried to commit his license number to memory. The numbers were easy, three twos, and I made up a quick phrase to try to remember the letters. Unfortunately, to this day, I cannot remember the phrase I used to remember the letter make-up of the license plate. The make of the car was a 1973 Pontiac Le Mans 2/door coupe.
I continued into the store where I did my shopping and came out about 15–20 minutes later. All three persons were gone: the boy, the young man and the older man in the car.
I had not been paying attention at the time to the news about the abduction of kids in the area. Had I done so I may have been more suspicious of the situation involving the boy and the 2 men. As it was, I was only concerned about possible damage or theft to my new car. All I had seen was totally forgotten when I got into my Alfa and returned home.
I would only remember these events about two weeks later when my best friend and colleague Steve Bollinger was talking to me about a kidnapping in our area with another designer. It was a little boy named Timmy King. As I listened they mentioned about a boy and a skateboard. At this point I asked if the skateboard was orange in color. They answered yes. I then asked where the kidnapping was supposed to have happened and was told it was the supermarket by Steve’s house. This made me recall the evening I was at the market, and I asked if the night in question was the really warm evening about two weeks earlier. He said yes, and asked me if I had seen something.
At this point I told him my story about seeing a young boy with an orange skateboard in the market parking lot. Steve immediately implored me to go to the authorities. I told him that I really could not remember any more than that, and that I could probably add nothing new to what the police already knew.
A few days later my ex-wife called and asked me to sign some papers to complete our divorce. She asked about how I was doing and I said fine, and then told her about maybe seeing the missing Timmy King in the supermarket parking lot on, maybe, the evening he disappeared. Her reaction was the same as Steve’s. I still resisted, saying I could remember nothing else and would be of no help to the police.
As chance would have it, my ex attended a party that following weekend where she was introduced to a young man. This man turned out to be one of the FBI investigators assigned to missing children cases.
Well, bright and early, the following Monday morning at work, I was paged over the studio PA system. I was asked to come to the corporate security offices. The FBI wanted to talk to me. I looked at Steve and he pleaded innocence. He said he had nothing to do with this.
I left my desk and went to the security offices. There were two agents there and one of them explained that he had met my ex-wife at a party and she had told him about our conversation of the past week, and about what I had witnessed. I explained that what I told my ex was the extent of my recollection. They then asked if I would be willing to go under hypnosis to help with my recall. I replied that I was skeptical, but was willing to help in any way I could.
The hypnosis session was conducted at the University of Michigan campus. In attendance were the two agents, a sketch artist, and the psychiatrist who would hypnotize me. While under hypnosis I remember wondering if I was really hypnotized. I only remember feeling extremely relaxed, but still aware of what was around me. Or so I thought.
When the session ended I had thought maybe only 15–20 minutes had elapsed, but when I looked at my watch I was shocked to see that 4 hours had passed. The agents were very excited about my observations. I was able to confirm the possibility that two men were involved. This information was some that the FBI had only speculated on. From my description, the sketch artist was able to get a pretty good likeness of each man. But, the most important information was my identification of the car that the older man was sitting in. It was a 1973 Pontiac Le Mans 2/door coupe.
It turns out they already knew about the make of the car. When the previous victim had been dropped off, the car had backed into a snowbank and left a perfect impression of the car’s rear bumper. As for the car’s license number, I could only remember the last three numbers: the three 2’s. For some reason the phrase I had made to remember t
he preceding 3 letters was not retrievable. To this day I still cannot remember it. I can only surmise that numbers are stored in a different part of the brain than the phrase would be.
I was able to show the agents the exact spot on the wall where the boy’s skateboard had impacted the bricks of the supermarket building. They took small samples of the brick and discovered pieces of the orange neoprene material that the skateboard was made of.
Years later, I saw a picture of John Wayne Gacy after he was arrested for his crimes. I felt that this man might have been the older man I saw in the Le Mans that long ago evening. I learned later watching a TV program about his crimes, that he had a younger sidekick that roughly fit the description of the other man I had seen talking to the boy. It is something I have pondered all these years.—Doug Wilson
Records retrieved via a FOIA request revealed that Wilson was first hypnotized on June 1, 1977, and underwent hypnosis a second time on June 9, 1977, so that a police artist could render a drawing of the suspects identified by Wilson. Jack Kalbfleisch transported Wilson to the hypnotist and wrote the report. Indeed, Wilson recalled seeing a young boy riding his skateboard and “an individual sitting in the car watching.” A second man was described as “approximately 30 years of age, 5'10" to 6'0" with dark hair going to the nap [sic] of the neck and partially covering the ears with dark eyebrows, wearing casual clothes.” No mention of a cap worn on the head. Also under hypnosis: “he stated the car was not a Chrysler product, it was American made, that he got the impression it was a Cutlass, that being the intermediate Oldsmobile that it was one color and he could not (redacted).”
“Under hypnosis,” the report continued, “Wilson gave two possible license plates: indicated would be GERBER 222 would be the jingle to remember that number. Upon further interrogation he came up with the license number GJR-222.”22
The Snow Killings Page 29