November 20, 2009 — A whole lot of media coverage in the Joel Battaglia case
Our friend Karolee Gillman of the Grand Rapids History and Special Collections Department at the Main (formerly Ryerson) Branch of the Grand Rapids Public Library has been at it again.  This time she’s been assembling and scanning stories relating to the murder of Joel Battaglia.  She took the time to digitize some 20 files that represent accounts over the years from The Grand Rapids Press.  The intellectual property resides with that newspaper and we use the stories here with permission (Thank you very much!).  The stories, though, relate a familiar theme: An unsolved homicide may seem to fade from view, but the grief and loss are very much with us still.  Just because you haven’t read about the case in the last couple of years doesn’t mean that it’s been magically solved or that it doesn’t matter any more.  It does.
Karolee understands this and does what she can to help the families of those who have been murdered. Â Her talent is research: KNOWING a whole lot of stuff, where to find that stuff and a ton more, and then how to share it. Â We are profoundly grateful.
The organization of that stuff on our website is still a little bit of the dog’s breakfast…kind of all over the place. Â I’ll try to put it in better order in the near future. Â Still, you’ll be ale to attend to the media coverage that’s surrounded this case. Â It was a high profile investigation for quite some time. Â And somebody still knows something that he or she is not bringing forward. Â It’s way past time.