Delayed Justice

Wow, that was underwhelming and badly done. The piece, “Circle of Friends”, is at best a badly distorted rendition.

I’m still thinking my way through telling a part of that story.

Ample Entertainment, a LA-based production company, has revived the old Bill Kurtis show, Cold Case Files. I have known for some time that they were going to tell the Shannon Siders murder story. And former Newaygo Police Chief Pat Hedlund and Shannon’s Father, Bob Siders, contacted me after Ample came to the area to do their interviews. And tomorrow night A&E will be show the finished product at 10 p.m. on A&E. Here’s the website.

I will be very interested to watch what they have done.

…Just a little slower than I anticipated, but not by much. WGVU has had the video and transcript files for a couple weeks now and it’s a matter of getting the work into and out of the schedule. My contact there says he does not anticipate problems. And he asked if there were a hurry. I assured him that there wasn’t; let it be in the order of things. He anticipated that it probably would be completed in this next week. These folks have been very pleasant to work with.

Then I need to fetch the captioned file, compress it for on-line posting, get it up on Vimeo, and make links for you all. Unlike politics and sausage, this is something you won’t mind seeing made, but it’s also not very exciting unless you understand what it represents.

We also are trying to get the film into the Michigan prison system. The idea is that somebody there most likely knows what happened in this case and the killer may indeed be inside. So far we’ve not had success with the Michigan Department of Corrections, but we will persevere. We’re hoping Representative Jim Lilly’s office might effect a meeting. We’ve asked. If you have other ideas, please let me know.

As well, yesterday I had the opportunity to interview Sandy Willis, Tony Willis’ big sister. Tony was killed August 6, 1994. On shot in the back and one to the back of the head, execution style. And I learned a whole lot more about the case. As their mother, Mary Hillman, had said, Sandy pretty much was “Big Sister” to the whole group of ten children, the one, really, who raised them. And it was Sandy who had to identify two of the bodies and tell their mother what had happened. And I am sure that somebody out there knows who killed Tony. I’m not thinking it’s necessarily (or even remotely likely) someone who reads these pages. If that ONE person would come forward, we’d be done with this right now. No more waiting, no more agony.

One person.

Again, my thanks to you all.

D