Buoyed by his victory, Voelker turned the case into a blockbuster novel, Anatomy of a Murder. It was made into a movie in 1959 starring Jimmy Stewart. Most of the movie was filmed in the Marquette area.
IN JUNE 1991, FAMILY MAN AND CHURCHGOER David Allan Goodreau was the last person anyone would suspect in the murders of two young women in Houghton. Yet, he was what we’d call an “inconspicuous predator.” He lived a double life. People liked this well educated, mild-mannered social worker. He put up a good front. Fortunately he was stopped before he could victimize more women.
On June 26, the body of Kathy Nankervis was found in the Portage Canal, near Lake Superior. It had been submerged for about two weeks. She had two children and was known to be depressed, so officials wondered if she’d committed suicide, especially since it was difficult to determine how she’d died.
Six months later, in January 1992, another victim turned up. Michigan Tech coed Jodi Watts, 19, had been raped and stabbed to death in a parking ramp in Houghton. She’d crawled 150 feet to seek help. Someone found her, but she soon died before she could identify her attacker. There were no leads and no witnesses.
Since this was the second murder in the general area, the FBI sent a profiler to assist local law enforcement. The special agent believed that the two incidents were related, but added little to the investigation. He said the man would be strong and angry, facts that were plain to any homicide detective.
On June 24, 1993, a Hancock resident reported someone trying to break in to her apartment in the middle of the night. The police arrived quickly and saw Goodreau nearby. They took him in to ask him what he was doing there and he quickly confessed to both unsolved murders. He offered details.
Goodreau had seen Nankervis in her home when he peeked through a window, and had abducted her for rape. He bound her and took her to the canal. After raping her, he decided to kill her. He drowned her and submerged the body, but it resurfaced. He repeatedly stabbed it in an effort to release air so it would sink, but he didn’t puncture the stomach. That was his error. The body eventually floated and a fisherman spotted it.
Goodreau had abducted Watts when she was jogging. He’d dragged her into the parking structure to rape her. He didn’t realize he hadn’t killed her on the spot.
At a bench trial, Goodreau insisted that satanic forces had influenced him. No one took him seriously and he was convicted.
SLAUGHTER IN JACKSON
JACKSON WAS A MUCH SMALLER TOWN in lower central Michigan in 1883 than it is today, but by any standards the assault on the Jacob Crouch family was extreme. On the night of November 21, there was a violent storm. The thunder that rolled through buffered gunfire that killed four people in their sleep. Jacob, 74, was a victim, along with his eight-months-pregnant daughter, Eunice White, her husband, and a visitor from Pennsylvania named Moses Polley.
George Bolles, a 16-year-old black farmhand, had been a man outside during the storm holding a lantern. Then he’d heard a terrible scream that sent him scampering for a hiding place. The next day, he’d entered the house and discovered the bodies.
Local law enforcement found that Jacob had been shot in the head, as was Moses Polley, while Eunice had taken four bullets and her husband two. A photographer was asked to get a likeness of Eunice White’s eyes, in the hope of seeing the killer’s image reflected in them (a common notion in those days). Apparently, it wasn’t, as no suspect was identified from this method.
Then in a bizarre aftermath two months later, Jacob’s other daughter, Susan Holcomb, was found dead in her home. She’d been poisoned. Then Crouch’s former hired hand, James Fay, died. Despite the evidence of murder, his death was declared a suicide (perhaps with the idea of closing the case by casting blame on him for all the murders). With six people dead (seven, with the unborn child), the local residents were pretty rattled.
One theory held that Jacob, a wealthy wheat farmer who owned 1,000 acres, had planned to leave his fortune to Eunice’s unborn child and cut out his grown children, Susan, Judd and Byron. Rumors arose that Byron had hired a band of Texas cowboys to kill his father and the others. Yet even with the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency on the case, nothing of merit turned up.
Nevertheless, in March 1884, Judd Crouch and Daniel Holcomb, Susan’s husband, were charged with the murders. Daniel’s trial started on Nov. 8, 1884. Prosecutor Frank Hewlett, who was in poor health, died before it was over. (A witness was also killed during the trial by her ax-wielding husband.) All evidence offered was circumstantial. There were no witnesses to the actual shooting and the lone witness outside had not seen the male figure very closely, so the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. Judd was never brought to trial.
In 1886, three bloody shirts were found buried inside the stump of a tree on the Holcomb property. Some believed they were associated with the slaughter, but to whom they belonged remained as much a mystery as the other incidents.
STRANGENESS AS EVIDENCE
ON THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 25, 1913, Mary Nordham went over to her neighbor’s house in Chelsea. Mrs. Elizabeth Stapish, 78, failed to answer her knock. She tried again. Same result.
Thinking she was out, Mary came back later. There was still no response. Then she found the door unlocked. This was uncharacteristic. With growing concern, Mary let herself in. On the kitchen table she saw a package of meat, still wrapped but smelling as if it had been sitting in the open too long. Elizabeth’s purse sat next to it and her walking skirt, hat and cape were hanging up. It appeared as if she’d been interrupted while unpacking purchases.
Elizabeth’s husband was long dead, so she lived alone. She supported herself by selling chickens, eggs, and produce from her garden. Because she had a delusional mental illness for which she’d once been hospitalized for three years, and was probably quite eccentric, she attracted attention. She often wore odd colors and mismatched clothes. She also had mood swings, especially depression, and she was always afraid, even of people she knew. She was also fanatical about religion and money. After her husband’s death, her brother had been appointed her guardian. Yet, she lived on her own.
When Mary determined that Elizabeth was not home, despite all the signs that she should be, she asked other neighbors to help her search. Someone mentioned having seen Elizabeth walking out to the barn earlier that day, where she often husked corn from her garden. Someone else suggested that she might have killed herself.
Deputy sheriff J. Edward McKune arrived and went through the house before going out to the outhouse and barn. Around 5:30 PM, he found the barn door latched on the outside. He had to push it over a stone impediment before getting inside. It was dark in the barn, but he could make out a pile of cornstalks in the center. He brushed at them and found Elizabeth’s mangled body.
She was lying on her back. Her hands were folded over her chest. Her face was discolored and her eyes and tongue were protruding. At first appearance, it looked like a clear case of murder by strangulation. A trunk strap was pulled so tight around her neck it was embedded in her flesh. The belt buckle was at the back. Her legs were bound with a cord typically meant for tying corn. Her bruised head was covered by blood-drenched newspaper. It appeared that silo refuse was used as a gag and there was reason to believe she’d been sexually assaulted.
McKune reported to his superiors. They arrived in Chelsea shortly after an acting coroner removed the body to a funeral parlor on Main Street. The officials prepared for an inquest.
Investigators searched the barn for possible clues, and others went over the ground to look for footprints. Dr. S. G. Bush examined the body. He knew he had to be careful, lest fragile evidence might be inadvertently destroyed in the examination. He wasn’t sure whether the abrasions had occurred before the death, in an unrelated event, or during the death struggle. The physician couldn’t establish whether a sexual assault had preceded the death, but it was clear that she’d been strangled. Still, he couldn’t rule out suicide. The sheriff wanted the doctor to analyze the stomach co
ntents to check for poisoning, but he said it wasn’t possible because the body was oddly saturated in embalming fluid, which had entered the stomach. (This seemed like an odd statement in the narrative I found, and I think the sheriff’s request must have occurred after she’d been prepared for her funeral.)
The death was a mystery. Those who suggested suicide said that Elizabeth could have suspended the strap from a rafter in the barn and placed it around her neck. During the death struggle she’d pulled down the cornstalks that covered her body from an overhead loft. She was just strange enough to have impulsively interrupted her chores in the house, like putting away meat, to spontaneously kill herself.
Yet, against suicide as the manner of death was the fact that she was dressed in many garments, which “one bent on suicide would have shed.” Her legs were tied with twine, which was considered more consistent with homicide. Experienced investigators were certain her legs had been tied to keep her from kicking her killer as she was being strangled. Also, the latch was closed on the outside, and it was necessary to lift the door over a stone door block in order to open it.
Investigators did discover something in the house that surprised them. Not only was the dead woman a hoarder but she also hoarded rather expensive items. The house was one of the oldest in Chelsea, and looked rundown, but they found numerous colorful hats, shoes never worn, new silk underwear, and many fine blankets. The clothing was quite expensive, despite the decedent’s apparently poor financial circumstances. She also had an assortment of baby bibs and a collection of silver coins, found hidden in a salt bag.
With this discovery, Sheriff Stark thought that robbery had been a motive. There was a belief among neighbors that Elizabeth kept money hidden in the house. It was clear that she’d taken many precautions against theft. She had burglar alarms on all windows and doors, and she’d devised a system of securing her trunks on wooden blocks, which would have alerted her if someone had tried to move one. A likely suspect was someone who knew about her paranoia and/or her money.
Investigators reconstructed the crime thus: Elizabeth had returned from the butcher shop, and after changing, checked her hiding places. Someone had followed her and seen her looking, and then hit her in the head. Tying her legs, he’d used his belt to strangle her. He then carried her body to the barn. He hid her under the corn stalks and locked the barn door to delay discovery. (This actually seems like odd behavior in the middle of the day when neighbors could see someone carrying a body to the barn. It also doesn’t explain why Elizabeth wouldn’t have put the meat away before checking her hiding places.)
In terms of suspects, about 150 railroad workers were camped in shacks not far from the Stapish house. The back of her property adjoined the railroad property. They knew of her and often bought her chickens and produce. She was known to haggle over the price, which might have made some enemies. An observant person could have learned her habits, and in fact, some of these workers had exploited a hole in her fence to steal from her garden. The belt around her neck was consistent with that used by the men on the crew.
Numerous workers were questioned, but no suspect was established. The coroner’s jury heard the various notions that people offered and came to the conclusion that the death was a homicide. It was never solved.
MALIGNANT RESENTMENT
SCHOOL SHOOTINGS GOT THE NATION’S ATTENTION during the 1990s, but few people realize that one of the deadliest occurred over half a century earlier in Bath. At the time, this town was a small community of about 300 people. Everyone knew everyone else, and they all knew Andrew P. Kehoe, an irascible man who’d bought a 185-acre farm in 1919. He complained a lot, kept to himself, and was reportedly cruel to his animals.
The Bath Consolidated School opened in 1922, bringing together children from the general area under one roof. This raised the taxes but kept the children safer and standardized their education. Kehoe was unhappy, because he had so much land for taxation assessment, so he took a seat on the school board to try to keep spending under control. When he lost that battle, he made deadlier plans. For him, it was all over.
On May 18, 1927, M. R. Ellsworth was planting melons on property that adjoined Kehoe’s. He was half a mile from the school and could see its chimney over the tree line. Around 9:45 AM, he heard a terrible explosion. Unsure where it came from, he looked around and saw smoke and flames at Kehoe’s property, seemingly from a barn. Just as Ellsworth hollered for help, he saw the other buildings go up in flames. But then he realized that the school had exploded. A plume of smoke erupted in that direction.
Ellsworth and his wife got in the car to race into town to find their son, who was in the second grade. They could hear children screaming. Upon arriving, they learned that their son was safe, but many other children had perished. Ellsworth saw a pile of small bodies under a crumbled wall, with dust, pieces of plaster and blood mixed together. He ran to get rope and saw Kehoe driving into town. Kehoe waved at him with a smile. It made no sense… unless… Kehoe had done this.
Ellsworth’s suspicions were sound. About half an hour later, Kehoe blew up his own truck, killing himself.
Thirteen ambulances arrived to remove the dead and a coroner’s jury was hastily assembled. The charred body of Kehoe’s wife was discovered behind his empty sheep barn, now burned to the ground. His two horses were also dead, hobbled with wire to prevent them escaping the fire. A picture emerged that Kehoe had planned all of this to punish everyone before taking his own life. Perhaps it should have come as no surprise.
When he was younger, Kehoe had been suspected in an “accident” that had fatally burned his stepmother, whom he despised. Apparently, if he didn’t like a situation, he set about to change it, no matter what the cost to others. He was perpetually resentful, holding grudges when people wouldn’t abide by his wishes. He once shot his neighbor’s dog just because the animal annoyed him.
Over a period of months, Kehoe had purchased dynamite and an explosive called Pyrotol, a WWI surplus product. Inside the school, he worked on “repairs,” but officials discovered after the explosion that he’d actually wired charges all over the building – over 1,000 pounds of explosives. At the same time, he’d wired his own home with firebombs. Then he’d bided his time until the target date.
“On Monday evening of May 16, 1927, two days before the tragedy,” Ellsworth wrote in his book, “Mrs. Blanche Harte, fifth grade teacher, called Mr. Kehoe over the telephone and asked him if she could bring her class to his woods on Thursday for a picnic. He told her that would be all right and after asking her a few questions about some school records, they hung up. A short time afterwards Kehoe called her over the telephone and asked her if she couldn't just as well have her picnic on Tuesday, as it might rain Thursday. I suppose he wanted the children to have a little fun before he killed them.”
That same Monday evening, Kehoe bludgeoned his wife to death after bringing her home from an extended hospital stay (which had cost him a lot of money). He also wired his fruit trees and sawed the grapevines, leaving them to stand on their stumps as if still intact. He also bound the legs of his horses.
The next day, as the children arrived for school, Kehoe set his barn on fire and detonated the bombs at his home. Then he went down to town and detonated the school. The entire town was in chaos, not knowing to which incident they should respond.
As the day was reconstructed, it became clear that Kehoe had abandoned his burning property and driven into town in a truck filled with dynamite. For the final part of his mission, he beckoned the superintendent of schools, Emory Huyck, to his truck and then shot into the explosives in the back seat. Flying shrapnel killed Huyck and another man whom Kehoe despised. Kehoe died, too, sliced up and thrown into a woman’s garden.
In the end, Kehoe had largely failed, because a short circuit had prevented his handiwork from bringing down the whole school, which had been his intent. Yet thirty-eight children had died and eight adults, including Kehoe. Sixty-one others were seriously injure
d.
Kehoe had left behind a sign, posted on his property, to explain his madness: Carefully hand-lettered on a piece of wood were the words, “Criminals are made, not born.” His remains were gathered and he was buried in an unmarked grave.
BROTHERS IN HARMS
IN THE HISTORY OF CRIME, WE’VE SEEN BROTHERS AND COUSINS become killing teams, but familial teams are rare. The only family known thus far in the U.S. (perhaps the world) that produced two serial killers in unrelated incidents with entirely different victim types was the Ranes family in Kalamazoo.
It started on May 30, 1964, with the discovery of a body.
At around 5:00 P.M. on that Saturday afternoon, a patrol officer made a routine inspection of an abandoned Chevy. He saw bloodstains on the bumper and papers scattered in the front seat, so he had the car towed to a police post. Around the same time, Mrs. Gary Smock was in the station to file a missing person report. She heard about the car and said it sounded like her husband’s. He’d gone missing the night before.
When the car’s trunk was popped for inspection, Smock’s body was inside, shot in the head. He’d been a 31-year-old junior high teacher from Plymouth. An autopsy indicated that he’d been shot just below the ear with a .22 caliber weapon. A cord was wrapped around one wrist as if he’d been bound, and his shoes and watch were missing. He’d been dead no more than twelve hours.
The police canvased local lodgings to try to reconstruct Smock’s final hours. That Friday, he’d been on his way to see his in-laws in Allegan, leaving from an appointment in Battle Creek. Smock’s wife had heard from him around 6:00 PM, when he said he was on his way but would be too late for dinner. That night around 11 PM, his car had been spotted at a Kalamazoo service station. A palm print and fingerprint were lifted and were determined to belong to someone other than Smock. Another bullet was recovered from the floor of the car’s trunk, and while Smock’s billfold was empty, a check had been written on Friday evening to “Cash” for $11.
The Murder Game (Michigan, Notorious USA) Page 2
