The Michigan Murders: Ypsilanti Ripper (John Norman Collins) Part I

The Michigan Murders was a series of highly publicized killings of young women committed between 1967 and 1969 in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area of Southeastern Michigan by an an individual known as the Ypsilanti Ripper, the Michigan Murderer, and the Co-Ed Killer.

All the victims of the Michigan Murderer were young women between the ages of 13 and 21 who were abducted, raped, beaten and murdered—typically by stabbing or strangulation—with their bodies occasionally mutilated after death before being discarded within a 15-mile radius of Washtenaw County. The perpetrator, John Norman Chapman (then known as John Norman Collins) was arrested one week after the final murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for this final murder attributed to the Michigan Murderer on August 19, 1970, and is currently incarcerated at Marquette Branch Prison.

Although never tried for the remaining five murders attributed to the Michigan Murderer, or the murder of a sixth girl killed in California whose death has been linked to the series, investigators believe Chapman to be responsible for all seven murders linked to the same perpetrator.

Murders

First known victim

The first known victim linked to the Michigan Murderer was a 19-year-old Eastern Michigan University accounting student named Mary Terese Fleszar, who was last seen alive on the evening of July 9, 1967, by a neighbor walking towards her Ypsilanti apartment. This neighbor twice observed a young man in a blue-grey Chevrolet slow to a halt beside Fleszar and begins talking to her: each time, Fleszar had shaken her head and walked away from the car.  Her nude body was found by two 15-year-old boys on an abandoned farm at Superior Township on August 7, and was formally identified via dental records the following day.

The corpse was badly decomposed, although the pathologist who examined Fleszar's remains was able to determine she had been stabbed approximately 30 times in the chest and abdomen with a knife or other sharp object, that her feet had been severed just above the ankle, the thumb and sections of the fingers of one hand were missing, and that one forearm had been severed from her body (these severed appendages were never found). Despite the advanced state of decomposition, the pathologist was also able to locate multiple lineal abrasions upon the victim's chest and torso, indicating that Fleszar had been extensively beaten before her death. Although police theorized that Fleszar had been raped, the advanced state of decomposition of the corpse had erased any conclusive evidence of sexual assault.

A detailed examination of the crime scene revealed that the body had been moved three times throughout the month it had lain undiscovered:   initially, the body had lain upon a pile of bottles and cans obscured from view by elder trees, before being dragged five feet from this location into a field, where it had remained exposed throughout much of the time it had lain undiscovered. Shortly before the body was discovered, the murderer had again returned to the body and moved the body a further three feet.

Two days after the remains had been identified as those of Mary Fleszar, a young man claiming to be a friend of the Fleszar family arrived at the funeral home holding Fleszar's body prior to her scheduled burial. This individual had asked for permission to take a photograph of the body as it lay in the coffin as a keepsake for her parents. When informed his request was impossible, the young man had replied: "You mean you can't fix her up enough so I could just get one picture of her?"  Sternly informed a second time he would not be allowed to view the body, the young man had wordlessly exited the funeral home.

The receptionist could not offer any clear description of the man beyond that he was a handsome young white male with dark hair, that he had driven a blue-grey Chevrolet, and that he had not been carrying a camera.

Subsequent murders

Almost one year later, on July 5, 1968, the partially decomposed, mutilated body of a 20-year-old art student named Joan Elspeth Schell was found by construction workers on an Ann Arbor roadside. She had been raped and then stabbed 25 times with a knife estimated to have measured four inches in length. Several of these wounds had punctured her lungs, liver, and carotid artery, with one additional wound inflicted behind her left ear fracturing her skull.  In addition, her throat had been slashed, and her miniskirt then tied around her neck.  Although Schell had been dead for several days, her entire lower body was in a remarkably preserved condition, whereas her head, shoulders and breasts were in an advanced state of decomposition, leading the pathologist to conclude her body had been stored in a naturally cool environment, but with the upper third of her body exposed to natural heat.

The lack of blood beneath or near the corpse, plus the testimony of eyewitnesses led investigators to determine Schell's body had lain in its present location for less than 24 hours. Her murderer had likely driven to the location to dispose of her body, before making rudimentary efforts to conceal the body with clumps of grass. In addition, the "outstanding similarities" between the wounds inflicted upon her body and those inflicted upon Fleszar the previous year led investigators to establish a definite connection between both murders and four detectives were assigned to work full-time on both cases.

Schell hailed from Plymouth and had recently moved into a house on Emmet Street in Ypsilanti; she was last seen by her roommate, Susan Kolbe, at a Washtenaw Avenue bus stop on the evening of June 30. Schell had intended to travel to Ann Arbor to visit her boyfriend, and her roommate had accompanied her to the bus stop.  Kolbe later informed investigators that Schell had informed her of her intentions to hitchhike when it became apparent she had missed the last bus, and that one of the first vehicles to pass when Schell had begun hitchhiking was a red-and-black Pontiac Bonneville containing three young white men. This vehicle had slowed to a stop before the driver had asked her, "Want a ride?" The driver had been aged around 20 with short, dark, side-parted hair.

Kolbe later stated she had attempted to dissuade Schell from entering this vehicle, but that Schell had opted to accept the driver's offer, promising to call her roommate to assure her of her safety once she reached her boyfriend's Ann Arbor residence. Less than three hours later, Kolbe reported her roommate missing after failing to receive any contact.

Despite tracing and eliminating more than 150 registered owners of red-and-black vehicles in the state of Michigan, and establishing the alibis of numerous individuals whose physical features bore a likeness to the composite drawing of the driver the police had obtained from Kolbe, all investigative lines of inquiry into the murder of Joan Schell failed to bear fruition. On August 18, investigators announced that all significant leads had been exhausted, and that the number of officers assigned to investigate the case had been reduced.  Nonetheless, the inquiry into both murders remained active, and a reward then-totaling $7,800 for information leading to the conviction of the perpetrator of both homicides remained.

Two months after Schell's murder, police inquiries produced two further eyewitnesses who stated they had observed Schell walking with a young man along Emmet Street on the evening she disappeared. Although neither eyewitness was certain, both believed this student to be John Norman Collins: a student at Eastern Michigan University majoring in elementary education, who lived directly across the street from Schell at 619 Emmet, and whose physical features bore a likeness to the composite drawing police had generated of the driver of the vehicle, Schell had entered.

Questioned by police, Collins flatly denied even knowing Schell, and insisted he had spent the weekend of June 29–30 with his mother at her house in the Detroit suburb of Center Line, and had not returned to Ypsilanti until the morning of July 1. Initially, the police took him at his word and did not seek to verify his alibi.

Spring 1969

On March 20, 1969, a 23-year-old University of Michigan law student named Jane Louise Mixer disappeared after posting a note on a college bulletin board seeking a lift across the state to her hometown of Muskegon, where she had intended to inform her family of her engagement and imminent move to New York City. Her fully clothed body, covered with her own raincoat and with a copy of the novel Catch-22 placed by her side, was found the following morning atop a grave in Denton Cemetery in Van Buren Township. An autopsy revealed Mixer had been shot twice in the head with a .22-caliber pistol, then garroted with a nylon stocking which, the pathologist noted, had not belonged to her.  The pathologist also stated that Mixer had not been sexually assaulted, that death had occurred at approximately 3 a.m. on March 21, and that she had not been killed at the location where her body had been discovered.

Despite the fact Mixer had not been subjected to a sexual assault, the fact her tights had been lowered to expose her thighs and sanitary napkin suggested a sexual motive behind the murder, and although the victim had not been beaten, stabbed or mutilated, her student status, the tying of a garment around her neck and the proximity of her abduction and murder led investigators to tentatively link her murder to those of Fleszar and Schell.

Four days after the discovery of Mixer's body, on March 25, a surveyor discovered the nude, mutilated body of a teenage girl behind a a vacant house on a remote, rural section of Earhart Road, just a few hundred yards from where the body of Joan Schell had been discovered eight months previously.  Investigators called to the crime scene noted a dramatic increase in the savagery exhibited against the victim, with one investigator describing the injuries inflicted upon the victim as being the worst he had seen in 30 years of police work.  A subsequent autopsy revealed the victim had died of numerous fractures covering one-third of her skull and one side of her face, all of which had been inflicted with a heavy blunt instrument.

These injuries had been inflicted after the victim had been extensively beaten and tortured: her killer had placed a section of her own shirt into her trachea to muffle her screams as she received extensive blunt force trauma to the face, head, and body, including several deep lacerations believed to have been inflicted with a leather strap. Welt marks upon the chest and shoulders indicated the killer had also used restraints to hold the victim prone as he whipped her torso and upper legs with a leather belt before tearing a branch from a nearby tree and inserting this instrument eight inches into her vagina.  Blood spatterings and churned soil close to the crime scene indicated she had been beaten close to where her body was discovered, and that she may have attempted to escape her attacker.

The victim was identified as a 16-year-old Romulus high school student named Maralynn Skelton, who had disappeared while hitchhiking in Ann Arbor. She was last seen alive outside a drive-in restaurant on Washtenaw Avenue two days before her body was discovered (although autopsy reports indicated Skelton had died between 24 and 36 hours before her body was discovered). Investigators noted strong similarities between this murder and previous killings attributed to the Michigan Murderer, including the fact that a garter belt had been tied around Skelton's neck and her clothes and shoes had been neatly placed beside her body.  However, the dramatic increase in savagery exhibited against the victim and the fact that Skelton was a known drug user and dealer as opposed to a university student-led some junior investigators to speculate her murder may have been drug-related.  Nonetheless, Ann Arbor Police Chief Walter Krasny formally linked Skelton's murder to the series.

Formation of coordinated task force

Following the March 24 murder of Maralynn Skelton, police from the five separate jurisdictions where the murderer had abducted or disposed of the bodies of his victims formally combined resources in an effort to compare information and identify the perpetrator. Although investigators had informally exchanged information with agencies from other jurisdictions on an irregular basis since the previous summer, no coordination to combine efforts and resources had ensued until the discovery of the third victim definitely linked to the series.  By early April, each of these law enforcement agencies had collectively assigned 20 investigators to work exclusively upon the four homicides.

Little physical evidence existed beyond eyewitness descriptions and forensic reports. Police had noted (and would continue to note) common denominators in the physical characteristics of the victims, and the manner in which they died: all of the victims had been brunette Caucasians; each (excluding Mixer) had been the recipient of extensive violence inflicted with a blunt and/or bladed instrument prior to her murder; each of the victims' bodies had been found within a 15-mile radius of Washtenaw County; and each victim (excluding Mixer) had received knife wounds to the neck. Furthermore, each victim had been found with an item of clothing tied around her neck, and each woman had been menstruating at the time of her death.   These factors led police to publicly conclude the same perpetrator was responsible for at least three of the murders thus far committed.

Fifth and sixth murders

At 6:30 a.m. on April 16, the body of a 13-year-old schoolgirl named Dawn Louise Basom was found discarded beside a desolate road in Ypsilanti. Clothed only in a white blouse and bra, which had been pushed around her neck, she had been repeatedly stabbed in the chest and genitals had received multiple slash wounds across the breasts, buttocks and stomach, then strangled to death with a two-foot length electrical flex still knotted around her neck.  A handkerchief found stuffed in her mouth had likely been placed there to muffle her cries throughout her torture, and her murderer had placed her body in a location where rapid discovery was assured.

Investigators found no definite evidence Basom had been subjected to a sexual assault prior to her murder.

Basom had last been seen alive at 7:30 p.m. the previous evening, walking home from a friend's house located barely a mile from her own home.   She had been accompanied part of the way by a friend named Earl Kidd, who informed police he and Basom had parted company at a desolate road just five blocks from her home, where Basom had begun walking alone alongside railroad tracks toward her home. One eyewitness reported seeing the girl minutes thereafter, at approximately 7:35, although her movements thereafter were never verified.

The orange mohair sweater belonging to Basom was found in a deserted farmhouse just 100 yards from the desolate road on which her body had been placed after her murder. Glass particles found within this basement were of a similar consistency to those found upon the soles of Basom's shoes. Upon conducting a search of the basement of this farmhouse, investigators discovered a further garment of her clothing, a length of electrical flex of the same type used to strangle the victim, and fresh human bloodstains, indicating this location as being the site of Basom's murder.

One week after the murder of Dawn Basom, a detective conducting a routine examination of this farmhouse basement discovered a scrap of cloth from Basom's blouse, plus an earring later determined to belong to Maralynn Skelton. Each item had been deliberately placed in this location, indicating that the murderer had returned to the scene of the crime and that the two homicides were definitely linked.  (The farmhouse itself was destroyed in an act of arson on May 13; when the fire was extinguished, five clipped lilacs were found arranged in an even row across the driveway to the building, leading investigators to theorize they had been placed there by the murderer to symbolize each victim.)

Less than two months after the murder of Basom, on June 9, three teenage boys discovered a partially nude body of a young woman in a field close to an abandoned farmhouse on North Territorial Road. The victim had received multiple slash and stab wounds to the body (including two stab wounds which had pierced her heart), and a gunshot wound to the forehead before her neck had been cut through to the spine. The victim's right thumb had also received a gunshot wound, suggesting the woman had instinctively raised her hand to protect herself before her killer had fired the gun at point-blank range.  She had also been raped, although the pathologist was unable to determine whether this activity had occurred before or after death.  Sections of her clothing were scattered around her body, although one of her shoes was missing.

The victim was identified the following day as a 21-year-old University of Michigan graduate student named Alice Elizabeth Kalom, who had disappeared shortly after midnight on the morning of June 8?  She was last seen walking home towards her apartment on Thompson Street, having attended a friend's party. The discovery of several dried bloodstains and two buttons missing from the victim's raincoat at a Northfield Township commercial gravel pit on June 10 indicated the victim had been murdered at this location.  Investigators had publicly claimed prior to Kalom's murder they were satisfied that the third victim initially linked to the Michigan Murderer, Jane Mixer, had been killed by a separate perpetrator; the fact Kalom had also received a gunshot wound to the head led investigators to reconsider the possibility Mixer may have been murdered by the same perpetrator.

Public unrest

By the spring of 1969, public outcry regarding the murders committed by the individual dubbed by the press as the Michigan Murderer and the Co-Ed Killer was increasing, particularly among the student population of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. The increase in frequency in which the killer was striking throughout the spring and summer of 1969—coupled with the fact most victims had been connected to the University of Michigan or Eastern Michigan University, suggesting the killer may be a fellow student—further compounded the concerns of female students.  Many female students opted to arm themselves with knives, with others adopting a "buddy system" whereby they would refuse to walk anywhere unless in the company of a trusted male friend or at least three other girls. Sales of tear gas, knives, and security locks increased, hitchhiking became a rarity among students, and the reward offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the murderer increased to $42,000.

By July 1969, as a result of the coordinated investigation into the killings, more than 1,000 convicted sex offenders had been investigated and eliminated as suspects; over 800 tips from informants had been actively investigated, and several thousand individuals routinely interviewed. Although Washtenaw County Sheriff Douglas Harvey conceded at a press conference that same month that investigators had little physical evidence to act upon and that the perpetrator had yet to make a serious error, he was adamant the fact the murderer was still at large was due to pure luck, and not for lack of police effort.

At the request of an Ann Arbor citizen's community, a Dutch psychic named Peter Hurkos traveled to Washtenaw County on July 21, to generate a psychic profile of the murderer. Hurkos accurately predicted that the murderer was a strongly built white male under 25 years of age, who had been born outside the United States, and who rode a motorcycle.   Having led investigators to the precise location where each of the victims' bodies had been discovered, Hurkos also revealed details of the murders to investigators which had not been released to the press.  Although this information proved to be of little help throughout the actual manhunt, Hurkos also predicted that this individual would shortly strike one final time.

Final murder

The final murder attributed to the killer was that of 18-year-old Karen Sue Beineman, an Eastern Michigan University student who was last seen alive on July 23, 1969. She was reported missing by her roommate, Sherri Green, when she failed to return to her dormitory after curfew.  Upon questioning both of Beineman's roommates, police were informed that she (Beineman) had last been seen shortly after noon on her way to a downtown wig shop.

Three days after the disappearance of Beineman, her nude body was discovered face-down in a wooded gully alongside the Huron River parkway. A medical examination revealed Beineman had been extensively beaten about the face and body, with some lacerations inflicted being so severe sections of skin had been removed, exposing subcutaneous tissues. She had received extensive skull and brain injuries which had been inflicted with a blunt instrument, had been forced to ingest a caustic substance, and her neck, shoulders, nipples, and breasts had been burned with the same caustic agent.  As had been the case with previous victims, her killer had placed a section of cloth in her throat to muffle her screams throughout her torture.

Beineman had died of strangulation, although the pathologist noted the blunt force injuries inflicted to her skull and brain had been so extensive they would likely have proven fatal.  (The blunt instrument used to inflict these injuries to Beineman's skull and brain was never found.)

The forensic examination of Beineman's body further revealed she had been raped prior to her murder, and that her torn panties had been forcefully placed inside her vagina; these panties revealed the presence of human semen and 509 human hair clippings measuring less than three-eighths of an inch upon the material.  These hair clippings were predominantly blond, and as such did not belong to the victim, whose own hair color had been dark brown.

Mindful of the fact the killer had evidently returned to sites of his previous murders to move the bodies, possibly in a sexual ritual, police theorized he may also attempt to return to this latest crime scene. Although earlier attempts to enforce news blackouts as to the discovery of Basom and Kalom had proven unsuccessful, on this occasion, police successfully ordered a news blackout relating to the discovery of this latest victim. Beineman's body was replaced with that of a tailor's mannequin, and the gully surrounding this mannequin monitored by undercover officers.

At approximately 2 a.m. the following morning, in the midst of a heavy, humid storm, one officer observed a young man running from the gully; the heavy rain and insect irritation had prevented the officer from observing the young man actually approaching the gully. Although this officer attempted to radio this sighting to his colleagues, the rain had rendered his radio inoperable.