The Snow Killings

by Marney Rich Keenan

  In September of 2017, Williams pored through McKinney’s files at the Birmingham Police Department. After reading them, he determined: “McKinney was a homicide waiting to happen.”

  Police records revealed McKinney was cheating on his wife, having affairs with both men and woman. He was involved in some shady art dealings, was in possession of some very expensive pieces at his gallery and was possibly involved in drug dealing. “There were a lot of people that had it out for McKinney,” Williams said. Williams cross indexed about 60 names from McKinney’s original investigation with the OCCK tip files and got no hits. Moreover, he said: “I saw absolutely nothing to suggest that McKinney had any interest in children.”

  By mid–2015, Williams and Assistant Prosecutor Rob Moran had convinced Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy that the only way Sloan was going to talk was if he were offered release from prison in exchange for information. Worthy secured permission from Sloan’s original sentencing judge, Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Michael Talbot, to offer the convict a lifeline in exchange for his cooperation.

  The team decided Task Force Director Lt. Denise Powell should be the one to float the offer. Sloan liked Powell; she was infinitely easier on him than Williams. With Powell, he could let down his guard a bit, be more thoughtful, perhaps even honest.

  On a May afternoon, Powell sat at a table in a small cement-block conference room at Gus Harrison Prison in Adrian, Michigan, waiting for Sloan to be escorted in. They exchanged their usual flat pleasantries and the no-nonsense Powell began to explain the offer in detail. The freedom to live the rest of his days on the outside, with a tether, was a serious concession on their part. Powell impressed upon Sloan how rare it was that the original sentencing judge would reconsider a life sentence.

  “Do you understand what we expect you to bring to the table?” she asked Sloan.

  “I know it would have to satisfy you folks and close the case.”

  “That’s correct.” Powell said. “We are still fine-tuning the legalities, but this is something you should think long and hard about. It’s a one-time offer.”23

  Once Powell had floated the balloon, Williams monitored Sloan’s phone calls to gauge how seriously he was taking the offer. One conversation, with his truck driver buddy, Robert Voss, led investigators to believe Sloan was finally going to talk. He wanted to get out.

  Sloan: Our favorite people were here yesterday to see me.

  Voss: Oh no, not them.

  Sloan: Well, this is a different scenario this time. … She [Powell] told me that she’s cutting the red tape when I get out so I can live with you and that will be no problem, though I might have to wear a tether, but I don’t give a shit about that.

  Voss: I can’t wait to spank that ass just for lookin.’ (Laugh.)

  Sloan: They didn’t buy the stuff about a transfer (hairs/DNA). … And they didn’t buy the stuff about hitchhikers. But my problem is that a hair out of my car matches hairs on two of the victims. They know I’m not involved though. … They think that I can’t remember who was in my car.

  Voss: Well, I hope this gets resolved now so you can get out of there.

  Sloan: Me too, partner.”24

  On June 30, 2015, more than four weeks after the orginal offer was made, Williams, Powell, Moran, and MSP Det. Sgt. Becky Macarthur drove to Adrian with their final offer, on paper and in hand. While Moran and Powell met with Sloan, Macarthur and Williams searched Sloan’s cell inside and out, finding nothing.

  Moran explained the situation to Sloan thoroughly, emphasizing that his full cooperation would be the only “potential possibility of him ever seeing the light of day again.” Moran explained that if Sloan’s information allowed detectives to close the OCCK case, even if it did involve him personally, his sentencing judge would then “assist in his controlled release” from prison.25

  Sloan seemed to be listening carefully to the terms of the agreement. When asked if he understood, he shook his head, “yes,” but he was unusually quiet. Moran and Powell again went over all the evidence they had on Sloan. They brought out the photos of Mark, Jill, Kristine and Tim; they talked about how long the families had waited for answers.

  Sloan sighed deeply and then shook his head. “Believe me,” he said. “I would help myself if I could. But I do not know what happened to those kids.”

  Angry and exhausted, Powell summoned the guards to return Sloan to his cell. Taking one last look at Sloan, she said: “We are done here.”

  Whatever happened between the time Sloan was boasting to Robert Voss that he was getting out and his deciding he would rather live out the rest of his days in prison is not known. But on this point, everyone agreed: Sloan knows something, he just can’t figure how not to implicate himself. If that’s true, the degree of his culpability must imply a worse sentence than the one he is now serving. If Sloan were to be identified as the Oakland County Child Killer, it wouldn’t matter whether or not he is behind bars. Either way, he is a dead man.

  * * *

  1. Cheryl McCall, “A Shadowy Child Killer Claims Four Victims and Holds Detroit's Suburbs in a Grip of Fear,” People Magazine, December 05, 1977.

  2. MSP Det. Sgt. Rebecca MacArthur, Original Incident Report # 020–0000573–15, March 10, 2015.

  3. Pauline Kenner Interview with Det. Cory Williams, Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Investigation: The homicide of Timothy King, August 16, 2011.

  4. Janelle Sadecki, interview with author, September 2011.

  5. Chris Sadecki, interview with me, September 2011.

  6. Certificate of Death #0386822, “Cause of Death Asphyxia Due to Carbon Monoxide Intoxication as a Consequence of Auto Exhaust,” DOD: October 6, 1983.

  7. Certificate of Death #0903860, “Cause of death: Carbon Monoxide Intoxication as a Consequence of Auto Exhaust,” DOD: May 21, 1986.

  8. Certificate of Death #298055, “Cause of Death: Carbon Monoxide Intoxication: Inhaled Fumes from a Running Gas Lawn Mower,” DOD: August 29, 1994.

  9. Ray Anger, interview with author, September 2013.

  10. Det. Cory Williams, Narrative Report, Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Investigation: The Homicide of Timothy King. Body Found in Livonia in 1977, March 18, 2015.

  11. Lt. Robert Stephenson, “Found Suicide Incident Report,” City of Berkley Police Department, Complaint Number 83625, November 14, 1978.

  12. Thomas J. Pentinga, M.D., Oakland County Medical Examiner Autopsy Protocol, Christopher Flynn, Case #78–2170, November 14, 1978.

  13. Department of Public Safety Chief Rick Eshman, interview with author, October 2011.

  14. Cathy Broad blog, “Predatory Crime,” February 9, 2013, ttps://catherinebroad.blog/2013/02/09/predatory-crime/.

  15. Det. Cory Williams, Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Investigation: The Homicide of Timothy King, November 9, 2015.

  16. Det. Cory Williams, Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Investigation: The Homicide of Timothy King, November 9, 2015.

  17. Carol Flynn, interview with Det. Cory Williams, Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Investigation: The Homicide of Timothy King, October 27, 2015.

  18. Christy Flynn, interview with Det. Cory Williams, Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Investigation: The Homicide of Timothy King, October 28, 2015.

  19. Subject interview with Det. Cory Williams, Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Investigation: The Homicide of Timothy King, November 2015.

  20. Sue Krussel interview with Det. Cory Williams Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Investigation: The Homicide of Timothy King, November 23, 2015

  21. John A. Basch, “Police Seek ‘Mystery Woman’ in Probe,” The Daily Tribune (Royal Oak), November 14, 1977.

  22. Mary Connelly Sczesny, “Mystery Clouds
Gallery Owner’s Slaying,” The Eccentric, September 22, 1977.

  23. MSP Det. Lt. Denise Powell to Sloan, from Narrative Report: Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Investigation: The Homicide of Timothy King, May 22, 2015.

  24. Transcripts of Sloan’s prison calls to his friend Robert Voss, after he was offered a potential deal. June 6–8th 2015.

  25. APA Robert Moran to Sloan. From Narrative Report: Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Investigation: The Homicide of Timothy King, June 13, 2015.

  21

  Last Resorts

  By the end of 2018, there was little investigative ground Williams hadn’t already covered. He had ruled out countless suspects both famous and infamous, from serial killer John Wayne Gacy to a seemingly endless cesspool of pedophiles.

  Only three people likely involved in the Oakland County Child Killings were still living.

  All three had been fully probed, secretly recorded, their every utterance monitored and examined such that Williams knew their next move before they did. All three harbored knowledge that could solve the case and all three were steadfast in their silence. Ted Lamborgine, Arch Sloan and Vince Gunnels would not crack.

  Behind bars and far beyond any approximation of remorse or empathy, they saw nothing to gain by telling the truth. Since convicts rank child molesters at the bottom of the prison social order, they refused to wittingly put a bulls-eye on their backs. (Boston’s serial child molester Father John Geoghan lasted less than 24 months before a fellow inmate strangled him to death in 2004.1)

  Although he failed a polygraph on Timothy King, Arch Sloan still maintained he did not know whose hair was found in his car. Vince Gunnels failed a polygraph on Kristine Mihelich and a hair found on her sweater linked him to her. Even so, he clung to his claim of his amnesia. (In December 2019, Gunnels absconded from parole on a three to 23-year sentence for selling methamphetamine.) Ted Lamborgine—who so definitively failed a polygraph on all four murders, the examiner told Williams, “This is your boy”—had refused to cooperate from the beginning. Now, 13 years into his sentence and 79 years old, no one expects him to change his mind anytime soon.

  Williams retraced his steps, checking once again for something he might have missed. In Gunnels case, an interview with Vince’s younger brother Paul—his “shadow,” as Vince described their relationship as adolescents—perhaps promised to shed light on why Vince had always been so cagey with detectives.

  In January 2019, Williams and Denise Powell flew to Butte, Montana, to interview Paul Gunnels. At the time, he was living in a halfway house, having racked up an extensive criminal history for drugs, assaults and traffic offenses. The two detectives hoped to tease out what his brother may be hiding and why.

  From the outset, they stressed to Paul that they had no intention of framing his brother for the OCCK murders. Still, they were convinced Vince was harboring valuable information that could greatly assist in the case.

  Over the course of the two-and-a-half-hour meeting, Paul was cooperative, explaining that Vince “doesn’t trust anyone, especially law enforcement,” in part, because, “he was pretty much on his own when his parents were divorcing in ’76 and 77.” During that time, Vince went into the foster system and “was constantly in trouble with police.”

  Paul recalled the times he and Vince would visit Chris Busch’s cottage on Ess Lake to go snowmobiling. He said they would drink and smoke pot, and that Busch would always try to separate the boys so that one of them would sleep on the couch. Paul said he was never molested, but he knew Vince was.

  He also told the detectives he felt it was “kind of strange how abruptly” Chris’ nephews, Scott and Brent, moved to western Michigan in the spring of 1977—around the time Tim King was murdered—when H. Lee Busch bought Chris’ brother, John, the party store in Whitehall. It happened so fast, Paul recalled, Scott and Brent never announced that they were moving, never even said goodbye.

  Paul said Vince gets upset whenever the subject of the OCCK case comes up. He confirmed that Vince fears the cops are trying to pin the homicides on him, especially since Greene and Busch are dead. When the detectives told Paul about the hair on Kristine Mihelich’s coat and his brother’s failing the polygraph concerning her death, Paul said he believes Vince may have seen or had sex with Kristine, but is too afraid to admit to any association with the case at all. The detectives told Paul law enforcement would hound Vince forever unless he cooperated. Paul agreed to relay that information to his brother. Thereafter, the calls between the brothers were monitored by police.

  As soon as Williams and Powell returned home, Williams proposed to Kym Worthy that they offer an incentive to Vince Gunnels to finally come clean and talk. With her approval, a proffer agreement would be drawn up which would allow for Gunnels to be safe from prosecution in exchange for delivering credible information about his involvement in the case (unless he killed one of the children).

  In early June 2019, Vince Gunnels was summoned from his prison cell at Parnall Correctional Facility in Jackson, Michigan, by two state troopers and put in the back seat of a squad car. When told he was on his way to a meeting with detectives in Wayne County concerning the OCCK case, Gunnels was livid. He was at the tail end of a three-year sentence, scheduled to be paroled in less than a week. This could only mean his parole was going to be jeopardized once again. He fumed the entire hour-and-a-half drive to Detroit. When escorted into an interview room on the 12th floor of the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office, Gunnels took a seat in a far chair, crossed his arms, and refused to say a word. Not hello. Not his name. Nothing.

  After a good 20 minutes of silence, Gunnels requested to visit the bathroom. Williams walked with him down the hall trying to loosen him up. It seemed to help that Gunnels did not recognize his nemesis, the detective who, 11 years earlier, had grilled him about the OCCK case at Camp Ojibway.

  “Look,” Williams said to him. “You are not here to be charged with a crime. You are here only to be questioned as a witness. So, ease up. Help us so we can help you.”

  Back in the interview room, Assistant Prosecutor Lisa Lindsey took the reins and began building a nice rapport with Gunnels. She explained to him if he were to cooperate and supply them with information about his and others’ involvement in the OCCK case, it was possible he could receive all the benefits of the Federal Witness Protection program, he could be given a new identity and resources to start a new life.

  Vince Gunnels would have loved nothing more than to be free of police harassing him and threatening his pending parole. But on this, he was firm: “I’ve already told detectives everything I remember,” Gunnels said. “No matter how many times I’m asked, it’s not going to make me suddenly remember!”

  Lindsey said she understood how detectives can be unrelenting, as if pounding suspects with the same question over and over would somehow elicit a memory of something that never even happened. She encouraged Gunnels to “think outside the box.” Maybe this was something he had pushed to the far back of his brain, blocked out.

  Gunnels considered this thoughtfully. “What if…” he said taking everyone by surprise, “What if I was taken to a hypnotist? Maybe that would help me remember?”

  Stunned, Lindsey looked at Williams. Williams looked at the two state troopers. Before Gunnels could walk back the offer, one of the troopers piped up: “Well, that could be arranged. We can set that up.”

  Lindsey was effusive in her praise of Gunnels. All agreed this was a great approach. Gunnels left on infinitely better terms than he had arrived. Lindsey wished him well on his transition to parole and the two agreed they keep in touch to follow up on the hypnosis suggestion.

  What to make of the hypnosis offer? Williams looked at it two ways. Gunnels could be trying to save face and finally figured out a way to tell what he knows without fear of being locked up again. And, were he to reveal important evidence under hypnosis, he could
possibly escape being nailed as a snitch. Or it was a stall tactic, a quick way to get out of the interrogation. Six months later, Williams had his answer. Gunnels failed to report to his parole officer a week before Christmas and was on the run. As of June 2020, he has not been apprehended.

  In March of 2018, while on a flight home after skiing with friends in Utah, Williams was rereading the original lab reports in the Mark Stebbins case. Forensics technician Mel Paunovich had lifted 33 latent fingerprints from the interiors of Arch Sloan’s and John Crosbie’s cars. In all probability, those prints had never been submitted for comparison to the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), because the system wasn’t in place until 1999. Created by the FBI, IAFIS stores the fingerprints and criminal histories of over 70 million persons. All Williams had to do was locate the prints.

  Williams searched the Southfield Police Department where the cars were originally processed. Then the lab at the Michigan State Police Sterling Heights Post, followed by the evidence room at the MSP post in Oak Park, the Detroit FBI lab, and finally the lab at MSP headquarters in Lansing. The most he could find was a report that showed 17 of the latent prints from Sloan’s car had been compared to the four OCCK victims’ back in 1977, with no match. After a four-month intense search, Williams had to accept defeat. The fingerprints had long since disappeared. He was beyond frustrated. “How can they lose these prints!” he wrote in his notes. “Really pisses me off!”

  In perhaps the understatement of his career, he added: “Just can’t catch a break in this case!”

  A month later, hope was rekindled when the cold case of a notorious California serial killer culminated in an arrest with the help of a little-known online genealogy database. Between 1974 and 1986, the Golden State Killer committed close to 50 rapes and killed 12 people. He had never been caught. Although he had left behind DNA in the form of semen, criminal databases produced no hits. Paul Holes, a cold case investigator for Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office, had spent decades tracking the killer, desperate to crack his biggest case before he retired. Holes hit upon an extraordinary tool in GEDmatch, a website that allows users to upload their genetic information and search its database to find distant relatives with similar genetic profiles.2