Delayed Justice

Last Friday videographer Phil Blauw and I had an appointment with Kent County’s Chief Medical Examiner, forensic pathologist Dr. Stephen Cohle.  So, off to the morgue we went, this time in the cause of Shelley Speet Mills.  Phil observed that familiarity is not always a good thing; this was the fourth or fifth trip there with all our equipment.  I think Dr. Cohle serves as an ambassador for the science of forensic pathology: he has been helpful again and again and I’m grateful.  His conversation, now up on the site, is fairly direct and I’d caution viewers to use discretion if they are likely to be shocked.  No, there are no ghastly photos but his language is precise.  His work must be clinical although he brings human nature into the mix.  This attack would have been terrifying.

I have been accused of being a little cold and detached.  It’s true I was partly desensitized by living and working in a funeral home during my junior year at Albion College.  There was no morgue attached to the hospital and the pathologist would do his autopsies at the funeral home.  I was often involved in assisting.

I’m sorry if I seem to be aloof at times.  But I never lose sight of what we’re trying to do here: tell the story so somebody will tell somebody else the missing something.  Assuredly, somebody knows something about this case.

Patrick Center, the new new director at WGVU in Grand Rapids invited me to come by yesterday for an interview on the television station’s Newsmakers show.  I may have invited myself, in part…at least let him know in a phone call about DelayedJUSTICE.com and what we are trying to do here.  Our venture will be successful only if the right eyes land on it.  Well, OF COURSE yours are the right eyes, but we might need one or two more before we get to the somebody who knows something about the crimes we’re chronicling (and, please, tell your friends about us if you find anything of value here).  Hence, a short phone conversation with Patrick that led to a sit-down interview for Newsmakers.  

Patrick comes to the Public Broadcasting world from WOOD TV, Channel 8.  He was one of the reporters I sat next to in an equipment-crowded room while we captured the three-week trial of the murderers of Janet Chandler.  He was good company then and he’s good company now.  The interview will be broadcast perhaps during the first week of May.  But the interview was a very pleasant occasion; he’s someone with whom it’s easy to speak.  It seemed that all he had to do was wind me up and away I went.  I am enthusiastic about what we’re trying to do. 

Speaking with Patrick was a chance to articulate the thoughts that have been maturing.  I’m deeply grateful for that opportunity as I have been for others related to the station: WGVU has been crucially important at other times in my work.  It was there we first broadcast Who Killed Janet Chandler?  That was 25 years to the hour of the discovery of her body.  That station also carried The Klan in Michigan and Jack in the Box.  I am grateful.

I’m an old Public Broadcasting radio producer and host.  I helped put WCMU-FM in Mt. Pleasant on the air in 1973.  Heck, I ran cabling through the steam tunnels across that campus to the transmitter before it lit up.  So, I’m predisposed to the concept.  And I think Patrick is in a good place to make a difference.

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Sooooooooo, now we have a forum, thanks to the SWG (smart web guy).  It’s right over there —->.  How do you use it?  Who will use it?  I wonder what will be said.  I’ll stand by.  I might learn something else.

Willie Nelson really has nothin’ on me…”On the Road Again” has been pretty much the theme for the last week.  It all started with a trip to Kent State University to show Jump Back, Honey: The Poetry and Performance of Herbert Woodward Martin.  The folks at The KSU Press–the major sponsoring body–treated us like visiting royalty.  We were fed, watered and had our papers changed.  With Press Director Will Underwood at the wheel we managed to get in a trip to Cleveland where Herb was interviewed on the Dee Perry Show (that session was extremely well done; listeners told me she is always well prepared and thoughtful.  I would agree based on what I heard).  Then came the showing at Kent State.  The audience was fairly small, under a hundred, but the audience members were enthusiastic and NOTHING warms this filmmaker’s heart more than to hear that somebody liked the film.  That’s not really something you’ll often hear about a murder film.  They might appreciate it in any number of ways…but LIKE???  I’m thinking not.  This was LIKE and we basked in the attention.  Associate Producer Ron Primeau, Herb Martin, and I just reveled in all of it.  There were so many kindnesses.

I returned with time for Grand Rapids research and then I headed off for a weekend of concertizing.  All to the good, but more time away from this project.  So, when I returned yesterday I set out to prepare another interview in the Mina Dekker project.  It’s loading up as I type this.

Margaret VanderWelle Luteyn was Mina’s best friend.  She’s now 9o.  That’s how old Mina would be had she lived.  Margaret is simply lovely.  She gave of her time last spring in a spirit of willingness to help and curiosity of what we were up to.  One of the things we were up to was playing a delivery agent for a letter that had been 70 years in arriving.  After Mina’s murder, police found a letter she had written to Margaret.  They even told Margaret about the letter when they interviewed her about anything she might have known that would relate to the crime.  She didn’t know anything to add to their investigation…but she DID want to see that letter.  Nope.  That letter had been in her purse–close by–when she was murdered.  If it had eyes it might have seen the assailant.  The police weren’t going allow that until the crime was solved.  And the crime is still unsolved.  But policies change.  The police said it was okay for me to scan the letter and to deliver a copy to Margaret.  Oh, she wanted to see it and she can tell you just how badly.

There is one new piece of information that Margaret brings: H. R. Banning, 17, the Western Union runner who came to pick up the telegram Mina was sending reported that she wasn’t quite acting like her usual self…there was something going on.  She was discovered murdered about a half-hour later by shoe repairman Ray Peters.

The three-part interview with Margaret Luteyn should be up early tonight.  I hope it will give you something to think about.

Yesterday I managed to posts two interviews, one each to the Shelley Speet Mills case and one to the Mina Dekker file.

In the first, Shelley’s brother Tom tells us about his sister. It was Tom who, several years ago, came to me with the hope that we might look into the case. At the time the Grand Rapids Police Department were working on something relating to it. It was the wrong time for us to be looking into it. But things changed and we were able to begin shortly after the start of the new year.

In the second interview, Sergeant Christ Postma of the Grand Rapids Police Department Major Case Team talks about the nature of the on-going investigation into Mina’s death. The file landed on his desk, metaphorically speaking.

Understand that because you are witnessing for the most part unedited interviews that things will NOT move along at the snappy pace you might have become accustomed to from network programming. If you haven’t guessed, this isn’t network programming; it’s our attempt to tell the story as completely as we’re able. So there are a lot of lead-in questions, discussions, lacunae, sometimes conversational dead ends…but always the story. People are speaking with us because they agree the story is more important than the discomfort of the camera. I hope you can tolerate our approach, and I hope you find value in the stories of these lives.

That’s another thing, while I’m preaching: though the manner of their death brings these people before us, their LIVES matter most. Who they were and the lives they led is most important. We want to remember them and their contributions.

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It will be a little while before I’m able to make the next post, maybe as long as a week. I’m on my way to Kent State University to present the film Jump Back, Honey: The Poetry and Performance of Herbert Woodward Martin. Oh, there have been big doin’s there, too. You can read about it at the JBH site (and much more accurately), but CBS chronicled the discovery I made in late January of a lost tape of a speech of The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. You can see that story here.

Yesterday, Good Friday in the Christian calendar, we interviewed Shelley Speet Mills’ brother,Tom Speet. I’ll be editing the piece during this weekend hope to have it up on Monday. When the camera was rolling I introduced the date and blithely said it was April 9th. Not so. April 10th. That’s the second time I’ve done that with an interview in this particular case. If it happens once, it’s funny. Maybe twice is funny, too; I might be distracted. Or, there might be something there of which to pay attention. …A day off here or there…no big deal! In our everyday lives a day that’s misidentified could be a problem. If I tell you we’ll meet for coffee at 10 a.m. on the 15th and I meant the 16th, I’d be creating a problem. When you are dealing with a nearly 39-year-old homicide, though, it might not matter, but it might signify that so many days have gone that it’s easy to lose track. These kinds of cases do not always leave you entirely in the present. Often have to check the calendar to make sure. As Tom said, it was a different time, no cell phones, different ways of doing things. Those of us who were alive then might forget how different it was. But the day of her murder is frozen in his mind. September 15, 1970. We’re not vague about that.

In reference to the murder of Mina Dekker, a couple days ago (I hesitate now to specify) I posted the interview with Chief Medical Examiner for Kent County, Dr. Stephen Cohle. He has plenty to say about the death of this young woman some 71 years ago. He also raises some interesting possibilities concerning forensics that might lead to results even at this late date.

So, until next time…whatever date that will be….

SOLVED SOLVED SOLVED

On the evening of December 16, 1993, 8-year-old Lativia Johnson was home with her family decorating for Christmas when she was struck down by a shotgun blast that came through  a window of their house at  1150 Ionia Ave. SW, Grand Rapids, Kent County, MI.

MJVH

Melissa, who compiles our “We Remember” section, keeps up with what’s happening in the various cases.  She had been in touch with Grand RapidsPress reporter Barton Deiters about the Janeane Lusk case.

Her body was found March 27, 2008, in the Godwin Heights area of Wyoming, Kent County, MI , in a parking lot of an industrial area. Janeane died on what would have been her 41st birthday. 

At the time authorities didn’t disclose the cause of death, saying only there were “obvious signs of trauma.”

In September 2008 police charged Sid Terrell Jones with the murder of Janeane Lusk. At the time the warrant for his arrest was issued, Jones was in Kent County Jail facing charges of felonious assault for allegedly threatening a prostitute with a knife. In his preliminary hearing the cause of death was revealed as stabbing.

Here’s Dieter’s story of the event: Testimony offers grim details in Wyoming Parking lot.  It’s good reporting.

Jones was bound over for trial and the case faded from view.  Melissa and I wanted to know when his trial was set.  So, back to Barton in February.  At that time he said the trial was scheduled for April 13…that would have been next Monday.  I called to confirm.  Nope.  It’s been adjourned once more, pushed back.  The new date is June 22, 2009.

There are a million reasons to push a case back, and while it may be frustrating for the family and friends of the victim you never want as a grounds for appeal that the case was so rushed that the defense attorney, John Beason, didn’t have time to adequately prepare.  I don’t know that such is the reason in this case.  It also could be the court docket is jammed up.  Speculation is not helpful.

Here are the details:

Trial Information

Case Number: 08-11265-FC

17th Circuit Court

Courtroom 11D

180 Ottawa Avenue NW

Grand Rapids, MI

(616) 632 – 5220

June 22, 2009: 8:30 a.m.

Judge Donald A. Johnston

 

Mina Dekker in 1936

 

 

 

Sergeant John Robinson holds a very special place in both the Mina Dekker and Shelley Speet Mills murder investigations.  He was the last officer to speak with the only suspect in the Dekker case and he was the first officer on the scene of the Mills murder.  We hope he’ll have time to talk with us about the latter in the next couple of weeks.  But his interview in the Dekker case is now up for your consideration.  In that instance the case was passed on to him when he moved to head up the Major Case Squad.  That file was personally handed to him by his predecessor.  This case file had been handed down through the years with a word of advice, a comment.  What I take away from all this is dedicated law enforcement personnel take seriously their commission to protect and defend.  …And to solve whenever possible.  Sergeant Robinson is retired from the department but he keeps the old cases alive in his thoughts.

May we so remember.

During the weekend we took a quick run in to Ontario for a family gathering. I must be getting to the age or adopting the temperament where this is turning into a lot of fun. I found wonderful people living busy and constructive lives.

While I was with them the topic of what I was doing came up and so I retreated to the computer room with one or two in tow and punched in the address. What came up using Internet Explorer was something like the website…but not exactly. Things were wonky with the odd dangly bits. Well, what do we need to do so we can look put together for the Explorer crowd? I gotta ask the Smart Web Guy…he’s solved so many problems so far that one more shouldn’t throw him. In the interim, if you want to see what the site is SUPPOSED to look like, may I suggest Firefox as a browser? Not my business to tell you how to look at our site, but it’s closer to our intent through that lens.

In other news, I’ve been editing our interview with Sergeant Chris Postma of the Grand Rapids Police Department Major Case Team. I hope to have that up by Wednesday. Sgt. Postma was born some time around the 30th anniversary of the Mina Dekker Murder. It would be unrealistic to expect him to carry every bit of knowledge about this case in his head. he took the time to review it at our request. There’s a lot of presupposition on my part, I fear. And I hope we didn’t take him away at a critical point from some other investigation that he was working. Yes, it’s on old case, perhaps unsolvable at this far remove, but he acknowledges that it’s an active case. And, of course, it matters.

More, soon.

We’ve had the interviews finished for almost a year. And yet I’ve delayed putting them into a conventional film. It’s true that the press of paying business mitigated against it, but there was something else…a desire to come to grips with the issue of naming a suspect in this 71-year-old case. Calvin DeBlaey, late of Grand Haven, was the primary suspect in the murder of Mina Dekker. There are photos of his being grilled by Police Chief Frank O’Malley, he was given not one–but TWO polygraphs and was subject to a dose of scopolamine, what was then thought of as truth serum. The polygraphs indicated that he was not being forthright in his account of his whereabouts at the time of the murder. Was it because he did it? After all, he put himself at the scene around the time. Or, was it because he didn’t want to fess-up about playing cards for money at Uptown Recreation? He finally admitted to the latter after he talked with his minister. There is only one person who supports his alibi of being at the card table. Others say he wasn’t there. His story about going for a cup of coffee, too, found no support.

And there are other things about his later life that Mina’s brother, Adrian, talks about…unsavory details involving theft of collection funds from his church after he moved from Grand Rapids to Grand Haven. I realized this might seem going after his reputation without cause. Well, I found corroboration of the theft story from someone who was at his confession. It DOES go to character.

The injury to reputation stops with the death of the subject. He’s beyond any hurt or help I have to offer. But our families often live on after us, and this account is not likely to be pleasing. It’s an old story, much resurrected in the press. So, it’s no surprise to them. And his children and grandchildren are not responsible for what he may have done and they are not really a part of this story. But I’m not happy they have to suffer from this. I have given them a chance to speak if they’d like. By all accounts in The Grand Rapids Press, he was a kind and loving father to his children.

I met yesterday with someone who helped set me straight on the moral implications. He observed that I cannot change history. Calvin DeBlaey’s name is inexorably linked with the story of this murder. As long as I am trying only to tell the story, as much of it as I can and as truthfully as I know and am able, we’re on solid ground. He said he thought this story mattered. I agree.

So, even while we are investigating currently the story of Shelley Speet Mills, we’re going to be posting the interviews in the Mina Dekker murder. And the title…tentatively Murder at the Office…is just that…tentative. I don’t like it. Can you come up with a better one? I’m thinking so.

So, the first part is up, the first interview with her brother, Adrian. It’s in three segments so you need to know that even though you’ll see the copyright notice after the first, there’s more to come.

Thanks,

D