December 7, 2012 — Better and better: Metro Kent Cold Case Team solves yet another
The 2004 murder of Michael Anthony Richardson of Grand Rapids has now been solved, thanks to the efforts of the Kent Metro Cold Case Team. Joyce Renee Phillips pleaded guilty Dec. 6 to the manslaughter shooting of Richardson on Liberty S.W. the morning of Feb. 12, 2004. This marks the 12th cold case the team has cracked and you can read the MLive account by Kyle Moroney here.
The work of this cold vase team becomes more and more important in the light of budget cuts to local law enforcement agencies. The budget cuts don’t effect just our locale; they’re statewide. Â And they represent new challenges to ongoing criminal bahavior, but especially to older cases.
Jan Marie Rohrer
Jan Marie Rohrer was last seen alive the morning of Monday, Nov. 26, 1973, four days after Thanksgiving. She was wearing a blue parka, a beige turtleneck sweater, and blue jeans, she left her home at 1309 Fremont Ave., headed to MacGregor Intermediate School, three blocks away at 1012 Fremont Ave.
Jan didn’t come home from school that afternoon, and her mother, Rita Rohrer, reported her as missing. School staff said Jan had not come to school that day.
Police initially treated the case as a runaway teen.
After nearly a year hunters found the girl’s skeleton in a ditch on the north end of the Crow Island Game Area in Zilwaukee Township on Nov. 7, 1974. She had been shot, then bludgeoned, according to police.
Here is the most recent news story on an arrest made in her case, written by Cole Waterman and published in the Bay City Times Dec. 5, 2018: