Delayed Justice

Last week I and First Lt. Cameron Henke of the Michigan State Police sat down with Patrick Center of WGVU to do his show Newsmakers.  Lt. Henke is the officer in charge of the entire team — city, county, state — that is working full time to investigate the murder of Shannon Marie Siders.  That young Newaygo woman was abducted July 18, 1989. That program is scheduled to be broadcast at 8:30 p.m., Friday night, March 30, on the Create Channel (136 in my Charter listings) at 10:30 a.m. Sunday morning, April 1, the day after what would have been her 41st birthday.  (HD WGVU-TV is 785 on my Charter channel.)

We talked about the background of the investigation and the film in the half hour show.  I had asked Patrick to invite Lt. Henke for a couple of reasons. The first was I didn’t want to be giving out what I might know of what the police are doing; that really was up to him what he wanted or was willing to reveal and to keep quite about what he thinks needs to be held close.  Secondarily, I thought it might really be good for people to see somebody up the chain of command, somebody in addition to the rest of the cold case team who is completely committed to solving this crime.  Does Lt. Cam Henke think his team will solve this?  Watch and learn.

Our film, Into the Dark, will be broadcast on WGVU-TV the next day (night, really), midnight April 2.

I am very grateful to WGVU for seeing its way clear to carry the film.  Let’s face it: a filmmaker without an outlet has an uphill battle all that way.  …Not that you are a hobbyist, necessarily, but if your films have no place to shine they will not do much good in the here and now.  (The ‘Later” is always another matter.)

The goal is to motivate the one person who know what the police need to know to make that call.  I suppose it may seem off that in broadcasting this story we really are narrowcasting…send it out to the many in hopes of reaching one person or a small group.  It’s a message within a message.

So, for our intended audience, here are two numbers: 517.241.3130 and 231.873.3584, extension 222.  The first will link you to a dedicated tip line just for this case.  The second will connect you to Det. Sgt. Scott Rios of the Michigan State Police.  He heads up the cold case team.

SCOTTVILLE — In the early afternoon of July 1, 1993, a man fishing from a canoe spotted a partially-clad, partly decomposed body floating in the Pere Marquette River just west of Custer Township’s Indian Bridge in Mason County, Mich.

Dental records would confirm that it was the body of Melissa “Missy” Marie Simmons, a teenager who had left her family’s Scottville home eight days earlier — never to return.

Melissa, 15, was last reported being seen alive that night, June 23, 1993, around 10 p.m. She was with some friends at a Scottville Wesco station, as reported by the Ludington Daily News.

Melissa’s stepmother, Rosemary Simmons, said the family was frantic to find “Missy” at the time.

“I took a week off work and put up flyers hoping someone would know something,” she said.

Forensic reports on Melissa’s body later showed that she likely died the night she disappeared, or shortly thereafter.

Details regarding her cause of death or what was contained in the autopsy, including a toxicology report, have never been disclosed by the Mason County sheriff’s office.

Then-acting Sheriff Larry Stewart stated on July 27, 1993, that the case was “being treated as a possible murder” but that they weren’t ruling out a “party gone bad or accident situation.”

There were rumors of a large party at Whelan Lake on the night Melissa disappeared, a little more than a mile from where her body was found. But the party — and whether or not Melissa had been there — also has never been confirmed.

“The police wouldn’t tell us anything except that she was still wearing socks, underpants and a bra,” said Rosemary Simmons from the porch of the Custer home she now lives in with Melissa’s father, Albert. “That’s all we’ve ever really been told.”

Numerous suspects have been investigated since 1993, according to current Mason County Sheriff Jeff Fiers, but no arrests have ever been made in the case. He said that leads are still being pursued, and making details public could jeopardize the case.

“There’s a grieving family out there without answers and, being sheriff, that bothers me a great deal,” said Fiers. “I was in the reserve unit back then. I was on the body recovery team.”

Fiers said that he’d like to see the case turned over to the Michigan State Police’s cold-case unit, but “unfortunately, we have to wait our turn.”

Melissa was born in Wichita, Kan., and moved to Scottville with her father, stepmother, brother (Chester), sister (Anita) and stepsister (Lisa) in 1988. Her birth mother, Vesta Simmons, was still living in Wichita at the time of Melissa’s death.

During the summer she died, Melissa had a job at the Blue Lake Resort in Fountain, MI, and was going into her sophomore year at Mason County Central High School.

“She always came to school, she liked school and school liked her,” said MCC High School principal Jack Murchie shortly after he learned of Melissa’s death. “It’s a shame someone that young had to die.”

Nineteen years later, Melissa’s family still wants to know what happened.

“Her father’s health is bad now. He’s 74 and has dementia,” says Rosemary Simmons. “I just wish he could know who killed his daughter before he dies.”

She added that she didn’t believe Melissa would have committed suicide.

“That just wasn’t Missy. She was a happy girl,” she said.

Det. Sgt. Tom Posma, supervisor of the Mason County Detective Bureau, says he’d welcome any new leads and information that would shed light on what happened to Melissa Simmons on that summer night in 1993.

“We’d appreciate any tips or evidence that could be brought forward at any time,” he said, adding that informants should call 231.843.3475 and ask for any detective.

— Nancy Spier

Here are contemporary newspaper accounts. Please click on the image to enlarge it.

Today marks the 74th anniversary of the beating death of Mina Dekker.  She was 19 years old, a young woman with plans and spunk, a dutiful daughter and a good friend.  And someone went to her workplace on the  third floor of the Judd Bulding, 64 Ionia, Grand Rapids, and beat her so hard with a hammer that a piece of her skull flew across the room.  She was still alive when she was found but died a short time later at the hospital.

It’s possible that she would still be alive today had her life not been taken.

We’re chronicled as much of this story as we are able.  The long-form interviews with her brother, police, even her best friend are all there, as are newspaper accounts.

Certainly somebody knew something, and it’s possible somebody still does.  But her younger brother Adrian doesn’t  know.  He doesn’t know who killed his sister and why, and he would very much like to.  It would take a miracle for that knowledge to come to him, but we believe in them.

Sidney P. Hildebrant, a 76-year-old man living alone in an isolated trailer in central Michigan’s Winterfield Township, was found beaten to death Sept. 5, 1997. According to forensic reports, he had sustained six “blunt force” blows to the head, including three that had broken his jaw in four places. Sidney’s body was discovered in the trailer the next day by Phillip Hildebrant, his oldest son.

Numerous leads and suspects were investigated during the following months by the Michigan State Police and Clare County Sheriff’s Dept. No physical evidence had been found at the scene, according to newspaper reports.

In the fall of 1999, a break came when an alleged witness, Travis Troost, who also was a convicted felon, approached officials with three suspects, all in their 20s at the time. Daren Albert Olson, Jason Michael Conrad and Ronald James Balcer were arrested and charged with felony murder and armed robbery.

Troost said he and the other three had gone to the trailer because Hildebrant was rumored to carry large amounts of cash. Troost said that when Hildebrant wouldn’t give them money, the other three beat him to death with “something” — he wasn’t sure what. An empty wallet had been found in the nearby woods.

Even though many aspects of Troost’s statement were consistent with earlier reports filed by forensic pathologist Dr. Stephen Cohle, his testimony was faulty and his credibility was shaky at best. Between the time of the murder in 1997 and the 80th District Court trial in 2000, Troost was sentenced to prison for home invasion and robbery. Troost’s own brother testified that Travis was a liar and “did what he wanted to get what he wanted.”

Clare County Prosecutor Norman Gage was relying on the testimony of a felon who was being transported from prison in Ionia to testify.

On May 12, 2000, a jury acquitted the three defendants after deliberating for a little more than one hour, according to Sue Field, managing editor of The Morning Sun in Mt. Pleasant.

Prosecutor Gage now says he believes Troost fabricated his story 13 years ago to get special privileges. Troost was trying to negotiate his way out of prison, according to newspaper reports from the time of the trial.

Gage said he also now believes that at least two of the three defendants charged in Hildebrant’s murder were not involved in the incident at all.

In 2001, according to Det. 1st Lt. Cameron Henke of the Michigan State Police 6th District headquarters, a cold-case team of five officers (including Henke) reinvestigated the homicide of Sidney Hildebrant for nearly a year and was unable to gather enough evidence to warrant charges against other suspects.

“Investigators have been left to wonder what role, if any, the three initial suspects who were acquitted had, and what Travis Troost knows about the murder of Sidney Hildebrant,” says Henke.

He added that any new information would be greatly appreciated.

“We still believe there is someone out there who knows what happened,” he said. “Detectives are also looking into whether the advances in forensic science would be applicable to solving this case today.”

In the meantime, the Hildebrant family has been spread to the wind with little or no closure.

“Sidney was such a nice guy,” remembers a niece, Gertrude Hildebrant. “He always let the kids borrow money.” She added that she had lost track of most of the family except for her own son, Donald Hildebrant of Morley.

“I heard that Sid was killed for a six-pack of beer,” says Donald. “That’s really sad.”

Sidney’s youngest son, Robert Hildebrant of Flint, says his father had worked as a metal fabricator at the Chevrolet plant in Flint from which he retired in 1978. He had moved to Winterfield Township in 1979. Robert said his parents were divorced. They had three children: Phillip, Robert, and Nancy.

Robert admitted that his family is estranged and that he has no contact with his siblings. He does, however, believe his older brother, Phillip, is living on the property where his father’s trailer once sat, 8644 W. Long Lake Road in Clare County.

“It was all wrong,” recalls Det. Mike Coon of the Clare County Sheriff’s Dept., who was a patrolman at the time of the murder. “It was all wrong from the very beginning.” He urges anyone with any information about the case to contact Det. Sgt. Jerry Carter at the Michigan State Police post in Mt. Pleasant.

— Nancy Spier

WGVU TV is willing to take on Into the Dark for broadcast.  The time scheduled for the show is midnight April 2.  That means it’s overnight from Sunday to Monday at the very start of Monday morning.  That also means it’s two days after Shannon Sider’s 41st birthday.

There is much to be done in the meantime.  First is the need for the as-delivered script so that it can be used for closed captioning.  That’s well in hand now.

Then there is searching out underwriting.  This is a challenge for me.

Underwriting or not, the film will show, and I am grateful to WGVU.