The divorce ended with Neville being required to pay three dollars a week for support of James and to pay the costs of James’s treatments at the University of Michigan hospital to attempt to correct his birthmark. Like many divorces, Daisy’s did not end cleanly. Neville was entitled to visitations on Sundays and on key holidays. When he showed up on Sundays, however, the Holmes family simply wasn’t at home. When he confronted Daisy’s father, his former father-in-law threatened to “lick” him. Neville had to go back to court to enforce his rights to see his son.
Daisy did not simply stay at her parents’ farm to raise her son; she went to work to provide for him. In 1936, Daisy took a job at the Nabisco Biscuit Company in Battle Creek. At that time, Battle Creek had over a dozen cereal companies attempting to seize a piece of the business that Post and Kellogg’s were carving out of the breakfast market. When she started at Nabisco, Daisy began commuting from the farm to work. While it was only a twelve-mile commute each way, in 1936, some of the roads were still dirt and those that were paved were often rough. Such a commute put a lot of wear and tear on a vehicle.
Daisy’s sister, Dorothy, worked at the competing Western Biscuit Company in Battle Creek. The two girls decided that it would save them money to simply get an apartment in the city. For Daisy, this forced a decision in regard to her son, James. Having him live in the apartment was impractical given that he was still young and needed supervision. The agreement arranged with her parents was that they would take care of James during the week, and on the weekends, Daisy would return to the farm to spend time with him. When the weekend was over, Daisy would drive back to Battle Creek for another week of work. It was a pattern that lasted through the 1940s.
One can only imagine the strain that Daisy felt being away from her son five days at a time, though she sometimes made trips home during the week as well. Daisy eventually changed jobs to work at Kellogg’s on the night shift. At the time, the cereal maker ran four shifts, six hours each. Payday at Kellogg’s was every Thursday. Without fail, she would cash her paycheck and purchase a little toy for Jim before driving out to the family farm. When he woke up on Friday mornings, there was always a present from his mother waiting for him. Daisy, like many of the workers at Kellogg’s, also managed to secure the free prizes and toys that were packaged in the cereal boxes. In Battle Creek, employees often brought home the toys packaged with the cereal for their children. Daisy would always leave these small prizes for Jim, who would take them to school and hand them out, making him a popular kid.
When World War II erupted, Battle Creek became a hub of wartime activity. The cereal industry became packagers of prepared foods for soldiers. Numerous other businesses focused on wartime production emerged. Fort Custer became an active training base, bringing thousands of service personnel through Battle Creek as well as the businesses (bars) that pried the pay from these new soldiers. Overnight the seemingly quiet city of Battle Creek was transformed to a bustling city.
Daisy and her son Jim during World War II. Courtesy of James King.
It was during this period that a different Daisy emerged. Daisy became a “party gal,” according to her son, Jim. She had been dating a man steadily from Hastings, but he had been called up for military service and left. Her time alone was short-lived. The war brought thousands of men into Battle Creek and broadened her opportunities to meet other men. Dances became popular in the city, and Daisy became a regular at such events. Daisy dated a number of men at the start of the war. In an environment in which the number of men dramatically outnumbered the women, there were a number of wartime romances.
It was in this environment that she met Floyd Zick.
Floyd Zick was born in Denzer, Wisconsin. He was enlisted in the army in late 1941, and his training brought him to Fort Custer in Battle Creek. Floyd and Daisy began to date after being regulars at dances. They fell in love and prepared to get married, and both of them wanted to do what was right for her son, Jim. When they announced that they were getting married, they sat down with him and discussed his options. He could remain on the farm that had been his boyhood home with his grandparents and with his mother visiting him; or he could move in with Floyd and Daisy. He made the choice to stay on the farm.
After the war, Floyd was employed as a “meat manager,” more commonly known as a butcher, at Fales’ Market. He had started out working for Al Fales when Fales opened the East End Market in Post Edition and had stayed with him when the market moved to the Main Street location. He was a playful and friendly man, though it was well known that Floyd was a heavy drinker. Marie Fales, the young daughter of the owner, would go into the market Saturdays to listen to the Big John and Sparky radio program that he played on the radio in the meat department. Her strongest memory of Floyd was that he loved to make people laugh. By most accounts, he was engaging and outgoing.
Jim remained close to his mother even after her marriage. On Saturdays, his grandmother would give him $1.50, and he would hitchhike into Battle Creek to go to the shows. There were seven theaters in town, and he would hit all of them before going to spend the rest of the day with his mom, staying at her apartment on Kingman Avenue. Daisy would then drive him home on Sunday and spend the day with the family.
Floyd and Daisy Zick during happier times, around 1945. Courtesy of James King.
Daisy and Floyd were very social and liked to go out dancing. They went to St. Mary’s Lake, White Rabbit and Fine Lake, where dance clubs and halls hosted local bands. Sometimes they took Jim with them, and he would hang with the other kids there while his mother and stepfather danced.
Floyd, Jim and Daisy together. Courtesy of James King.
Her years with Floyd were among some of the happiest of her life. She had a stable home life and had seemed to put some of her past behind her. Floyd went fishing with Jim on several occasions, though they never became close. Jim became the first member of his family to graduate high school in Hastings and got a job as a surveyor’s helper. Jim met his future wife, Ruth Ann (“Ruthie”), who lived in his neighborhood. Daisy was really excited to help plan their wedding in 1957, holding the rehearsal dinner at the Wagon Wheel Restaurant near her home in Battle Creek.
Ruthie became pregnant in 1959, and Daisy was not excited at the prospect at first. At the age of forty, Daisy felt that she was too young to become a grandmother. She eventually warmed up to the idea, and when her granddaughter Lori was born, Daisy quickly embraced her new role in life.
Daisy with her son, Jim, and her granddaughter, Lori. Courtesy of James King.
Things were not all sunshine and roses at the Zick home however. Floyd’s drinking increased. He was not a dysfunctional alcoholic, but he was known to drink often. As the 1950s wore on, Daisy began to have affairs with other men. As one investigator on her case put it, “Daisy’s always portrayed as being a loose woman, but our digging into the case indicated that she dated one man steady before moving on to the next.” From what the police found in their research, her relationships seemed to be longer term—at least a month or two at time—and monogamous. Jim’s own recollection was that Daisy had a lot of boyfriends. He caught her several times with them, passing them in his car or seeing her with a man who was not her husband at a bar.
Of course, with the passage of time, more of Daisy’s affairs have become known, driven and fed by the publicity of her death. One person told me the story of how her mother went to a bar a month before Daisy’s murder to confront her about the affair her husband was allegedly having with the vivacious redhead. While not pertinent to the case, it does cast doubt on the police theory that Daisy was only dating one man at a time. It is conceivable that she had a number of suitors. As one neighbor put it, “There’s always cars over at the Zick home.” Battle Creek, while a small city, was not small enough to keep such affairs secret. Per Jim’s recollection, “I don’t know if Floyd knew or not. I have to believe he did.”
Daisy fishing and enjoying life, 1949. Courtesy of James King.
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bsp; The investigators who are still alive tend to agree that Floyd had to have known about his wife’s affairs. She was not secretive. Her car was parked at bars when she was on the town, not hidden a few blocks away. Her flirtations were common knowledge to her co-workers and with others in town. People talked behind her back about her affairs, but if this bothered her, she didn’t let on. Daisy was a free spirit and didn’t let other people govern her actions. By 1963 standards, this was shocking, but given the free love culture of the late 1960s, Daisy was simply a trailblazer.
At the same time, officers knew that Daisy was not the only person in the house having an affair: Floyd was suspected of at least one as well. One former Battle Creek police officer stated it this way: “Floyd was seeing a girl over on Calhoun Street. I saw him going to visit her several times, and it was well known in town.”
Daisy’s lifestyle became the focus of the investigation into her death. A scorned lover or jealous wife might just hold enough resentment to commit murder. The discovery of the knife with a hint of blood on it that most likely came from Kellogg’s steered investigators to Kellogg’s, specifically Daisy’s lover at the time of her death, Raymond Mercer. As the investigators put it: “It has been ascertained that victim has been a woman of questioned reputation for a long period of time and possibly has jilted suitors or jealous suitors in her background. Considerable time will be spent on developing information from the Kellogg factory.”
While teams of investigators combed Kellogg’s for more information, others were still attempting to search for the murder weapon. Though the examiner had ruled out the Spoilage knife during the autopsy, most investigators felt it was the murder weapon. Nevertheless, when Jim King, Daisy’s son, arrived from New York, he was pressed into helping Trooper Ralph Kartheu search the rafters in the garage for a potential weapon.
Back at the factory, the thirty-nine-year-old Mercer had been dating Daisy for almost two years. He himself was married. As her current love interest, Mercer went under an immense amount of immediate scrutiny from investigators. Mercer claimed that he had been working at the time of the murder and had no reason whatsoever to kill Daisy. His timecard could validate where he was, but as anyone in Battle Creek knew, timecard fraud was rampant at the cereal factory. Friends and co-workers often punched in people who were late, and employees sometimes didn’t punch out for lunch.
Investigators met with Earl Latimer, David Armstrong and Joe Noga, all of whom worked on the conveyor line with Mercer on the day of the murder. David Armstrong said that the group broke for lunch at 10:40 a.m. but that he hadn’t seen Mercer in the cafeteria. He had assumed that Mercer had gone to the Soda Bar for lunch. By 11:20 a.m., Mercer was back on the job, though Joe noticed that he seemed nervous. Investigators asked how his clothing appeared, and Armstrong said that Mercer was wearing the same attire that he had in the morning.
Earl Latimer and his brother were at the Soda Bar for lunch and didn’t see Mercer there. At 10:40 a.m., Joe Noga had seen Mercer taking an elevator headed up in the plant. Dale Mapes, Mercer’s supervisor, stated that he was not always present where his crew was working but that he had seen Mercer during the lunch break.
To the investigators this seemed disappointing. Mercer would not have had enough time to leave the plant, park some distance from the Zick home, walk to it, kill Daisy, walk back to his car and get back to work without being noticed. While it was possible to leave the plant and commit the crime, the 10:40 a.m. timing did not match up with the timing that Mrs. DeFrance gave of seeing the murderer at the breezeway of the Zick home.
Mercer was cooperative with the investigators. He had called Daisy at 9:00 a.m. the morning she had been killed. His break had been short, and he estimated that they had spoken for around twelve minutes. There was nothing out of the ordinary in her behavior or tone. She had told him that she was going to meet with Audrey Heminger at 10:30 a.m. and that she was just getting ready to take her bath. In order to help the investigators, Mercer agreed to take a polygraph test and provide his fingerprints. One of his prints was found on the mirror in Daisy’s car, but given that he had been dating Daisy, this alone was not enough to consider him a suspect. The results of his polygraph indicated that he did not have any involvement with the murder.
Raymond Mercer’s phone call actually helped out Floyd Zick as well. In such a case, it was natural to consider the husband as a potential suspect. Daisy was sleeping around on him. Perhaps Floyd had murdered his wife and had faked surprise when discovering her body. But the fact that Mercer made a phone call to her proved that Daisy was still alive after her husband had left the house. Furthermore the employees of Fales’ Market all could account for his time during the morning. Just to be sure, Floyd Zick took a polygraph test and passed, indicating that he did not have any involvement in her murder.
The tension between the prosecutor and the state police did not abate. Besides complaining to the police that they had not included him immediately upon validating that a murder had taken place, Moore carried a chip on his shoulder in regard to the state police post commander in Battle Creek, Joe Svoke. The matter reached a head early in the investigation and got the Michigan State Police commissioner involved. His solution was eloquent. He ordered one of his top-notch detectives, Lieutenant Pat Detzler, to go to Battle Creek to smooth things over with Moore.
Patrick N. Detzler was close to retirement after a stellar career in the Michigan State Police. He had joined the force in 1937 and had served in Reed City, Rockwood and Center Line before making detective. Like most officers during the period, his occupation was one that called on him to constantly relocate to duty posts. During World War II, he had been exempt from service in the military but had served in a special investigation squad, a prestigious assignment during wartime. He was also one of a handful of state police troopers picked to act as a guard detail for President Harry Truman’s visit to Michigan after the war. Later in life in 1948, he married Caroline Smith. They had two children.
Lieutenant Detzler was no slouch. He had earned two citations in his career. One was for a case in Paw Paw, Michigan, in which a man and his daughter had been swindled by a gypsy for $8,000 to have a hex removed from them. The second was for his work in a case where a teacher had been accused of sending an obscene letter. While there had been a rush to prosecute the teacher, Detzler had dug in and determined that the letter had actually been written by two high school students who were attempting to frame the teacher.
What Detzler brought to the Zick case was an air of professionalism and new perspective. His assignment seemed to calm Noble Moore, which made the cooperation between the state police and the prosecutor’s office easier. One of his first actions was to integrate the investigators from the Calhoun County Sheriff’s Department and the state police. Officers were paired up with one another, one from each department. This would provide complete transparency and demonstrate a willingness to work together. The two lead investigators were identified as Detective Charlie Conn and Undersheriff Wayne Fitch.
Prosecutor Noble Moore still felt that Audrey Heminger knew more than she was telling police. According to two sources, rumors had reached officers that Audrey and Daisy were involved in some sort of competition tied to the men they were allegedly sleeping with at the plant. To authorities, it seemed possible that Audrey may have been involved with the crime.
Three days after the murder, Moore had Audrey picked up by police at Kellogg’s and brought to the state police post for a more intensive interview. The sudden pick up and the interview being done at the police post were techniques to intimidate a suspect and put him on unfamiliar ground. Detective Conn and Lieutenant Detzler were present, along with a court recorder. While Audrey was there of her own consent, the interview went badly. Moore was convinced that Audrey knew more and drilled her heavily about Daisy. She became so infuriated with the abrasive questions that she charged out. Ralph Kartheu, who was in the hallway at the time, recalled the event: “You could hear Moore’
s voice, it was pretty loud. Audrey came running out of the room crying. She ran down the steps and out the front door of the post. It was dark, she didn’t have a car or anything, she just took off.” Her cooperation in the case came to an abrupt end as the result of Moore’s zeal. At the same time, she had managed to get out of the rest of the interrogation.
Almost a week after the murder, a pair of state troopers was dispatched down to Elkhart, Indiana, to locate Neville King, Daisy’s first husband. Since 1944, he had been living in Elkhart, working at the Excel Company. King had heard of the murder when someone from Battle Creek had sent him an article on the killing. Neville was very cooperative with the troopers. According to him, Daisy was “noted to visit various male suspects.” He also said that “the victim liked to live it up.” The troopers confirmed that King was at work the entire day of the crime and was not likely to have been involved given that his contact with Daisy had diminished to nothing more than paying child support. The only person who had threatened to kill Daisy had an airtight alibi.
A rumor began circulating that Daisy had been raped in 1937, allegedly on government property. A check of the records did not reveal such a crime. The rumor does, however, correspond closely to a legal issue her ex-husband was embroiled with. In 1940, King had been involved with an assault on one Octavia Reese. The woman in question was under fifteen years of age, and King, who apparently had a penchant for younger women, had intercourse with the girl. Octavia became pregnant but miscarried, and despite the fact that King had expressed a desire to marry her, he ended up claiming that some other man was the father of the child. The court disagreed, though it admitted that the lack of control that Reese’s mother had exhibited was a contributing factor to her situation. King spent time in Jackson State Penitentiary for six months for his crime. It is most likely that someone confused the crime involving King, and it became a rumor of rape involving Daisy.
Murder in Battle Creek Page 8