Probe of Slayings In A Quiet Phase

Probe Of Slayings In A Quiet Phase
 

By Dennis Chase

(News Staff Reporter)

A high-ranking police official said that “nothing spectacular’’ happened over the weekend in the investigation of murders of six Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti girls since August, 1967, but the Washtenaw County undersheriff had some reactions to comments from Grand Rapids.

Curtis Stadtfeld, Eastern Michigan University information director, and police spokesman in the murder investigations, returned from a one-week vacation and received a briefing from police this morning. He said he may call a press conference later today.

“I am very displeased and unhappy about inferences that the Michigan State Police came in here and solved these murders,” said Undersheriff Harold Owings Jr.

He was responding to Mrs. Roland Beineman, mother of an 18-year-old Eastern Michigan University freshman whose body was found in Ann Arbor Township on July 26—the eighth girl found dead. Arrests have been made in two of the murders.

Mrs. Beineman said the Sheriff’s Department did not cooperate with the State Police and that a trap to catch the killer would have succeeded with state police involvement.

Gov. William Milliken put Col. Fredrick Davids in charge of the investigations on July 30, and John Norman Collins was arrested on July 31 and charged with murdering Karen Sue Beineman. He has been bound over to Washtenaw County Circuit Court for trial on Sept. 5. Collins had been a suspect for one week before the arrest.

“I wish she would direct her complaints to the agency involved, rather than to reporters,” Owings said. “Some of the things she said were misleading and untrue.

“There has been full cooperation between five police agencies and the prosecutor’s office ever since the investigation started. We have had daily briefings, exchange of information and investigating partnerships with officers from different agencies.

“Two of the unsolved murders have been state police cases, one for over two years (Mary Fleszar, found August 7, 1967, and Jane Mixer, March 21, 1969.)

Mrs. Beineman’s inferences that plans to trap the killer by substituting a maniken for the dead girl’s body would have succeeded under state police direction are “grossly unfair,” Owings said. He said the incident of a suspect eluding police officers at the scene would be explained after Collins’ case is adjudicated.

“There are six agencies involved in this, and it is unfair to tatoo one source with all the blame or credit,” Owings said.