In the early summer of 2018, sitting for an interview in a library near his home in Grand Rapids, Koenig told me he doesn’t even remember the suicide, much less the party line. Reading his quote, Koenig shakes his head, evidently trying to discern hindsight from what exactly he knew as a newly minted commander 38 years prior. “I can see where you are going with this,” he said. “But, look, I had no idea. I didn’t even know about Busch in 1980. I can see where people would ask why haven’t you caught this guy and we would say well he might be dead or he’s incarcerated. We certainly must have discussed [the mental institution] among us. But it’s a theory.”8
Koenig suggested the likely origin of the wealthy family institutionalizing their son was innocently bandied about over the water cooler and the story stuck. “I’m sure my statement was a piggyback on somebody else telling me something like this. But I don’t think anything nefarious was going on.”
When I asked Jack Kalbfleisch who would have been the one most likely to spin that story, he did not skip a beat. “That sounds like [Task Force Commander Robert] Robbie Robertson,” he said. Robertson ran the Task Force for just short of two years, closing down its offices in 1978. He passed away in 2006. According to Kalbfleisch, “Robertson was one of these people who were, like, ‘I’m in charge and I am God.’ My personal theory was, number one: he had to solve the case and he couldn’t walk out and say that [to his Task Force officers]. So, instead, he said: ‘we solved it. This is the guy and he’s dead. And here is how we’re going to frame it.’”
Indeed, consider the timing of Robertson’s announcement. On Monday, November 20, 1978, Chris Busch was found dead in his home. The following day, Tuesday, November 21, 1978, Robertson announced to the Detroit media he would be shutting down the Task Force as of December 15. Robertson’s quote is chilling: “This has been an extremely difficult case. We can ask questions all day long and not get any answers. Obviously, if he kept killing we could catch him, but no one wants to sacrifice another child.”9
Whether Robertson was incentivized by someone or by an institution to control the narrative of the case is not known, but he did ensure that public record of the case never so much as hinted at a suspect remotely similar to Christopher Busch. For decades after the crimes, author Tommy McIntrye’s Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: The Search for a Child Killer was the only non-fiction book published on the case. Yet by McIntyre’s own admission, it was hardly an objective, rigorously reported account: “In the fall of 1984, retiring Michigan State Police Captain Robert H. Robertson, the coordinator of the investigation, asked me if I would be interested in writing a book on the case. …Robertson would edit each chapter as it was completed for accuracy of fact of police procedure.”
In early 2018, Williams interviewed Don Studt, the rookie officer who stood security detail at the King home when Tim went missing. Williams’ interview largely served to cement Studt’s reputation as a seasoned politician rather than a criminal investigator. He denied knowing about complaints from parents who wanted to press charges against a flasher, but were turned away when it was discovered the perpetrator was being protected by his GM executive father. And he denied, as he had for years, that he know anything about Chris Busch before Williams named him as a suspect in 2008.
“It got a bit confrontational,” Williams said. “I said: ‘Don, you were there for forty years and you became the chief. I find it so hard to believe that when Chris Busch killed himself and they found the drawing and the ropes and everybody thought he was the guy, you don’t remember anything about it.’ And he said he didn’t. Claimed he knew nothing. I just kept on saying, ‘I find it so hard to believe, Don.’ But he never wavered.”
As far back as 2006, Chris King had paid a visit to Don Studt to try and ferret out Busch’s name. At the time, the only people who knew that a suspect had confessed to a polygrapher—and that the suspect was dead and his attorney was dead—were Pat Coffey, Larry Wasser and the King family.
Sadly, Chris’ memories of that encounter, sent to me in an email, were very prescient.
The plan was I would approach Don Studt and tell him the facts of Patrick’s story without divulging his name. (I did divulge Wasser’s.) Patrick had the idea that given the few facts we did know—that the suspect was dead, that his attorney was dead, that he had been privately polygraphed by Larry Wasser—the police might be able to trim the suspects down to a handful…
I set up a meeting with Don at his office in the early fall of 2006. Don very politely blew me off. He said that even with those parameters, the list of suspects that fit that criteria would be “as big as a phone book.” He said not to expect too much from this lead and that lie detectors were notorious bullshitters. However, Don volunteered to talk to “my friend” anytime over the phone or if he came to town and that if Patrick were ever to get the name, he would look into it.10
Williams’ next step was to determine, if he could, the identity of the retired Birmingham cop who talked to Tim Nummer in 1992. Nummer told Barry King the cop had related the same story: “It was a prominent family in Bloomfield Hills and he is a General Motors executive and in exchange for the department not pursuing it, they would be willing to institutionalize him on their own dime for life so that he can never commit any more crimes.”
Williams showed Nummer a few photos of Birmingham cops who would have been retired by the nineties. Nummer studied the photos and then pointed to one of them. It was Jack Kalbfleisch.
It was a disconcerting notion: that a cop, so devoted to the case he was still working it at age 86 from his condo in Fort Myers, had not been forthcoming about quashing the Chris Busch files 40 years earlier. Williams felt conflicted about approaching him. As luck would have it, Kalbfleisch was in Detroit being interviewed for a documentary on the case in late spring 2018. The two cops, young and old, went out for drinks. When Williams brought up Nummer, Kalbfleisch told him: “Cory, I was retired in the early nineties, and Ruth and I had moved to Florida by that time. I couldn’t have been the one to talk to that kid.”
Perhaps his conscience got the better or something in his memory was jogged. Within days of returning to Fort Myers, Kalbfleisch phoned Williams. “I don’t want you chasing ghosts,” he said. Kalbfleisch admitted it was he who spoke to Nummer that day.
Months later, I went to see Kalbfleisch at his home. Sitting in his small kitchen with a pot of coffee brewing, he was far more comfortable expounding on his research into suspects’ vehicles than answering questions about what he knew about regarding Chris Busch’s suicide, and when he knew it. But he explained his faulty recall this way: “At first, I thought I couldn’t have been the guy (who talked to Nummer) because I was retired and we had moved down here by then. But then I remembered that we would often return to Michigan to visit and my wife, Ruth, liked to shop at Somerset. And then I did remember talking to that kid.”
But on this point, Kalbfleisch was adamant: “I never said, ‘it was taken care of.’ I never said that. If I believed that, I wouldn’t have spent the last forty years working on the case.”11
That’s as far as he would go. Whenever the conversation circled back to the cover-up, Kalbfleisch would not comment further. Perhaps he had said too much already. And if he does rue the day he ever spoke to Nummer, perhaps that regret accounts for why he will never let go of the case.
To be sure, Williams told the King family when they met that September day in 2017, the most egregious decision was to keep the families in the dark about Christopher Busch. But from their perspective, Williams’ condemnation of the misdeeds of his predecessors was little consolation. There was no sense of vindication, no comfort in the recognition that they had been victimized twice, first by a predator, then by a system that played them like fools all while denying justice for four murdered children and their families. “At least there won’t be more children killed” rings hollow when your own child is treated as collateral damage.
; When Williams was done, the room was quiet for a few seconds. Then Cathy said: “None of this is any surprise.”
Chris King bent forward, his elbows on his knees, his head hung low. “This will be exposed,” he said. “And when it is, it will be clear that they did such a masterful job of manipulating the public. But there will never be an apology. They will never walk back on how they completely dishonored these kids.”12
For someone who had every right to chasten and berate Williams, even if he was just the messenger, Barry King lifted his chin, glanced at his children and then turned to Williams, saying simply and in earnest: “Thank you very much for coming.”
Over the four decades since their child was murdered, neither of Jill Robinson’s parents, Karol Self and Tom Robinson, closely followed the investigation. They also steered clear of any media attention: it was just too painful.
After Jill died, Karol Self kept herself busy raising Jill’s two younger sisters, Alene and Heather, teaching court reporting and working on her college degree. In the late seventies, she met Jerry Self, a clinical psychologist in private practice at a party. They immediately connected and married 10 months later. Karol went on to get her master’s degree in humanistic and clinical psychology. She wrote her thesis on the experience of synchronicity, based, in part on Jill’s premonition of her own death. In 2003, the couple retired and moved to Northern Michigan. They now spend their summers in Suttons Bay, living next door to their daughter Alene. During the winters they escape to their home in Florida, north of Fort Myers.
Karol Robinson in her home in Suttons Bay, Michigan, reflecting on her daughter Jill’s memorabilia, August 2018 (photograph by Chris Keenan, courtesy Karol Robinson).
On an early September morning in 2018, Karol and Jerry were sorting through a storage bin of Jill’s belongings. It had not been opened in decades. Inside were Jill’s handmade Mother’s Day cards, her younger sister’s diary entries (“Wednesday 12-22-1976. Jill left at 6:30 and didn’t come back. I miss Jill so much. I wish she would come back.”), photos of her having ice cream cones with her sisters, Jill cooking in the kitchen with her mother, Jill blowing out birthday candles. The experience was both poignant and cathartic. Karol’s tears flowed for the enormity of the loss, but there was solace, too. The Kodak snapshots and hair ribbons and gilded elbow macaroni were tangible proof that Jill knew, for the duration of her brief life, that she was deeply loved.
Jill Robinson’s baby book photographs. Upon first seeing his infant daughter, her father Tom Robinson said: “Suddenly, I was captivated” (courtesy Tom and Marla Robinson).
It took years, Karol said, but she learned to live with what life had handed her—dwelling on the tragedy would have destroyed her. “I have always hoped that one day I will know what happened,” she said. “But I’ve let go of the negative,” she said. “I don’t have anger in my heart. I don’t blame anyone or want anyone to suffer.”13
She does want to correct the narrative that Jill ran away. “I don’t want the argument story to be what people remember. I don’t want the memory of Jill to be a sullen or rebellious girl. Because she wasn’t. She was a smart, kind, sweet little girl. She enjoyed reading, watching TV with her sisters, going to Girl Scouts, spending time with her cousins and with her Dad on Wednesdays and on the weekends.”
As for Jill’s father, Tom Robinson stayed in the area and taught English literature at Oakland Community College. But he too, steered clear of reporters. Over the years, Tom said, he both followed the story and avoided it. In July 2018, Tom and his wife, Marla, met for lunch at a restaurant in Royal Oak with Det. Cory Williams so they could be brought up to speed on the investigation. He appreciated Williams’ briefing, but after all this time and at this stage in his life, closure is overrated.
Crystal clear in his memory is the day Jill was born. “I first saw her looking through the window and the nurse was holding her,” he said. “And it was an electric moment. I know all parents remember the first time, but it shook me up. She was three when our next daughter was born so I had a lot of time alone with her and we grew very, very close. Funny, I’d never been a fan of little kids and then suddenly, I was captivated.
“After Jill’s death, I was devastated. I can’t say I wanted to die because I had two other kids. But it took the spark out of my life.”14
These days, he relishes his books, his grandchildren and his wife, Marla.
For her part, Kristine Mihelich’s mother Debbie Jarvis, removed herself from the investigation, particularly after the ill-fated “Bob” lawsuit. From her comfortable swivel chair in her two-story home in Petoskey in Northern Michigan, Debbie told me she knows she was a pawn. But her aim was to find justice for her daughter. “Was I suckered in? Yes,” she says. “But our only objective was to try and get the investigation out of Oakland County’s control. And I was told nobody will ever pay attention unless you put an outrageous sum of money on it.”
To this day, Debbie takes great comfort in her belief that the reason Kristine was held so long—nineteen agonizing days—is because she was “so delightful.”
Her eyes lighting up at the memory, Debbie said: “She really was that enjoyable. She was a good baby, a good toddler, just a very pleasant child.”
Kristine Mihelich’s grade school photographs. Her mother, Deb Jarvis believes the reason Kris was held so long—19 days—is because she was “so delightful” (photograph by author, courtesy Deborah Jarvis).
But a second later, the pleasant memories were gone and her eyes flooded. “There isn’t a day where I don’t think I failed her,” she said, her voice catching. “My most important job as a parent. I didn’t protect her.”15
After Kristine’s death, Debbie and her husband, Glen Jarvis, tried to stay in metro Detroit but “it was just too hard.” They sold their house in 1980, moved to Macomb County and later moved to Northern Michigan in 1995. (Kristine’s biological father Dan Mihelich passed away in February 2017.) Glen passed away in 2008. While she misses him terribly, she keeps herself busy in her sewing room with several quilting projects, and tends to her mother, now in her nineties, who lives very close by. She takes pride in all three of her adult children’s successes and adores her five grandchildren.
Mike Stebbins’ 58th birthday landed on Thanksgiving Day in 2018. A congenial and good-hearted soul, he answered the door at his house in Hazel Park with a toothless big smile and gave me a warm embrace. He said he was being fed turkey and all the fixings by his housemates. The sole steward of his brother’s legacy—his parents had been long divorced when Mark went missing and his mother Ruth died in 1998 in her early sixties—Mike has always been on hand for press interviews or when police need to interview him.
While he readily admits to a lifetime of hard living, he makes no apologies for himself.
“My brother’s death was very hard on me,” he told me. “We did not have much to begin with. Mark and me slept in bunk beds in a one-bedroom apartment and my Mom slept on a fold out couch. After Mark died, it got bad. I got real defiant.” Never married, he has two adult sons, Mark and Gary.16
For the last 18 years, Mike has worked as a delivery driver for a local automotive parts store. Suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, he struggles to put weight on and considers himself blessed if the scale approaches 100. Thankfully, in 2018, Mike was approved for social security disability, so money is less of a worry. Over the years, Cory Williams checks in on him regularly. Mike calls him his best friend. He says he longs for the day when the case will be solved. “But if Cory can’t solve it,” he said, “nobody can.”
As 2018 came to a close, Barry King was still fighting the good fight. Despite two hospitalizations—one after a fall, the other for complications from his diabetes—he gave a presentation on the case in the ballroom of the Community House in downtown Birmingham. About 70 members of the Birmingham Women’s Club (in 2014 the word “Senior” was omitted from the c
lub’s name) lunched on chopped chicken cobb salad and iced tea as Barry, unable to stand for long periods at a time, outlined the case while seated at a small table. Holding a microphone in one hand and his notes in the other, he looked diminished—by age, certainly, but more so by the endless battle for justice for his youngest child. And yet that deep baritone voice was strong and steadfast, resolute as ever.
After 38 years in law enforcement, the last 13 on the OCCK case, Det. Cory Williams was looking forward to retiring at the end of 2019. And yet, whatever solace he took in the knowledge that he’d done his best work, there was still the nagging sense that his best work did not cross the finish line, that the case may not be his to solve. When I asked him how it felt to be passing the mantle, he sighed. Rarely a man of few words, he said only: “It’s difficult.”
On Christmas Day 2019, the Williams family, including Cory’s 93-year-old mother Lucy, gathered around to watch old home movies. One was of a New Year’s Eve party Lee and Lucy Williams held at the white bungalow on Cummings Street, the house so small all three boys shared one bedroom with bunkbeds. The camera panned to a couple, drinking and acting silly for the camera. It was Audrey and Bob Bell, Kristine Mihelich’s grandma and grandpa. There was no sound, but Cory swore he could hear laughter.
It was before evil incarnate would forever alter their lives, their children’s lives, their grandchildren’s lives, and on and on, a vast inherited sorrow, a legacy of violent loss and torment of the unknown. It never ceases.
* * *
1. Richard Willing, “Oakland County Link Probed in Sexual Exploiting of Boys,” The Detroit News, February 22, 1977. No byline, “County Man Faces Sex Charge,” The Oakland Press, March 3, 1977. No byline, “New Sex Charges Filed in Oakland,” Detroit Free Press, March 1, 1977.
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