Readers ask it more than any other question about this case. I went looking for the connection between North Fox Island and Interlochen. What I found was a difference in how Michigan treats names once someone finally writes them down.
Content note: this series concerns the sexual abuse of children at North Fox Island and at Interlochen. Survivors are not named, and details of abuse are kept to what the record requires.
No document reviewed for this series connects Francis Shelden, his North Fox Island network, or his trust to Interlochen Center for the Arts. Proximity is real: Interlochen is about 50.9 nautical miles from North Fox Island, roughly a 25 minute flight, and Shelden owned and flew his own plane. Interlochen’s own history of abuse is also documented. A Sanghavi Law Office report published July 28, 2026, after nearly 180 interviews, found 47 people accused, 17 of them deceased, and the names were sent to the Grand Traverse County prosecutor and sheriff. The sharper contrast is what happened next. Interlochen’s names went to a prosecutor in 2026. Shelden’s Amsterdam address sat in federal court records for a decade, and no one acted on it.
This series located no documentary link between Shelden’s network and Interlochen, and says so plainly.
Interlochen is about 50.9 nautical miles from North Fox Island. Charlevoix is 23.8 and Beaver Island 15.4. Shelden flew his own plane.
The 2026 Sanghavi Law Office report found 47 people accused at Interlochen, 17 of them deceased, after nearly 180 interviews.
Jeffrey Epstein attended Interlochen’s camp in 1967 and gave to the school from 1990 to 2003. His lodge on campus was demolished in June 2026.
Michigan’s House stalled a resolution to look at Interlochen. Shelden’s address was never acted on at all.
Is there a proven connection between North Fox Island and Interlochen?
No. No court record, police report, Senate testimony, or newspaper account reviewed for this series links Shelden, his network, or his trust to Interlochen.
How far is Interlochen from North Fox Island?
About 50.9 nautical miles, roughly a 25 minute flight in a light aircraft. Shelden owned and flew his own plane.
What did the 2026 Interlochen report find?
The Sanghavi Law Office report, published July 28, 2026, after nearly 180 interviews, found 47 people accused of misconduct across Interlochen’s history, 17 of them deceased. The names were provided to the Grand Traverse County prosecutor and sheriff.
Was Jeffrey Epstein connected to Shelden?
No record reviewed for this series connects them. Epstein’s documented ties to Interlochen began with camp attendance in 1967, and his donations ran from 1990 to 2003, after Shelden had left Michigan.
Every time I publish on North Fox Island, someone asks about Interlochen. The question is fair. Both places sit in the same corner of northern Michigan, both hid the abuse of children for decades, and both drew wealthy men. This installment sets out what the record shows and what it does not, because a connection that gets repeated without a document is how this case got its myths in the first place.
The Geography
North Fox Island sits in Lake Michigan west of Charlevoix. By air it is about 15.4 nautical miles from Beaver Island, 23.8 from Charlevoix, and 50.9 from Interlochen, on the far side of Grand Traverse Bay. Shelden owned and flew his own aircraft, a Piper Seneca, until it was sold in April 1977. For a pilot with a plane, Interlochen was a short hop. That establishes reach. It does not establish a trip.
What Interlochen’s Own Report Found
Interlochen Center for the Arts retained the Sanghavi Law Office, which began its review in the summer of 2024 and published its report on July 28, 2026. The investigators conducted nearly 180 interviews and identified 47 people accused of misconduct across the school’s history, 17 of them deceased. Among those named publicly were Byron Hanson, John “Jack” Hood, Charlie McWhorter, who sat on the board of trustees from 1970 to 1999, and Thomas Clower, who was convicted in 2005. Interlochen provided the names to the Grand Traverse County prosecutor and sheriff.
I have not reviewed the full report. Its complete text sits behind an age gate, and this installment relies on the published summary and on contemporaneous reporting.
Epstein
Jeffrey Epstein attended Interlochen’s summer camp in 1967 and was a donor from 1990 to 2003, and a lodge on campus carried his name. Two alumnae have given public accounts tying their contact with him to Interlochen. The school demolished the lodge in June 2026. None of that touches Shelden. Epstein’s money arrived at Interlochen more than a decade after Shelden left the country, and nothing in the trust litigation, the brokerage records traced in Part III, or the North Fox Island case file connects the two men.
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$10/month ?Checking the Connection
Six things people say about Interlochen and North Fox Island
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The record establishes proximity, means, and two parallel histories of abuse in the same region. It does not establish a connection. If one exists, it would most likely surface in Shelden’s flight logs, Interlochen’s 1970s visitor and donor records, or the North Fox Island case file the State Police still hold.
The Real Contrast
The more useful comparison is not between the two places. It is between what Michigan did with each set of names.
Interlochen’s names were written down by investigators the school hired, published, and delivered to a county prosecutor and sheriff in 2026. When state lawmakers tried to look further, the House did not. As I reported in July, House Resolution 284 stalled, Rep. Jay DeBoyer declined to move it, and Rep. Penelope Tsernoglou was removed from the Oversight Committee.
Shelden’s name was on a Michigan warrant from 1977. His Amsterdam instruments, his consular authentications, and his sworn deposition sat in federal court files from 1979 to 1985. As Part I documented, Michigan police had his status in writing by 1988 and his death confirmed in 1996. Nobody went to get him.
One set of names went to a prosecutor.
The other went to a docket.
Neither has produced a charge.
Michigan should authorize an independent review of both North Fox Island and Interlochen with the power to compel records. A school’s hired investigator and a stalled House resolution are not substitutes for one.
The Records I Am Requesting
Grand Traverse County Prosecutor and Sheriff: records of receipt and disposition of the names Interlochen provided in 2026.
Federal Aviation Administration: registration, ownership, and any surviving flight or maintenance records for Shelden’s Piper Seneca from 1970 to 1977.
Michigan State Police: any record in the North Fox Island or Oakland County Child Killer files referring to Interlochen.
Interlochen Center for the Arts: access to the full Sanghavi report for research purposes, and donor and guest records from 1970 to 1977.
Where This Series Ends
Fled, Not Gone set out to answer a simple question: where did Francis Shelden go? The answer was never hidden. He went to Amsterdam, signed his name before notaries and American consuls, sued over his money in American courts, chose a convicted former senator to hold it, and, on the strongest reading of the evidence, published that senator’s work under another name. He died there in 1996 without ever facing the Michigan warrant. The record was always there. What was missing was anyone with the authority to use it.
Acknowledgment. This series would not exist without Michigan writer Jacob Bielecki, who found Gerald Richards’ obituary and the trust litigation; Catherine Broad, whose decades of archiving made the 1977 and 1996 reporting accessible; Marney Rich Keenan, who shared Detective Sgt. Cory Williams’s notes; and Julia Cianci, whose 2009 thesis preserved accounts that would otherwise be lost. Every factual conclusion was independently reviewed against the records cited, and any errors are Clutch Justice’s own.
Records or firsthand knowledge connecting North Fox Island, Francis Shelden, or his aircraft to Interlochen or any other northern Michigan institution can be sent securely through the Clutch Intel tip portal or to hello@clutchjustice.com.
The full series, the Richards diagram, the timeline, and every source cited are collected in the OCCK and North Fox Island Research Library.
Rita Williams, The Interlochen Question: What Connects North Fox Island to Michigan’s Most Famous Arts Campus, Clutch Justice (Oct. 28, 2026), https://clutchjustice.com/2026/10/28/north-fox-island-interlochen-question/.
APA 7Williams, R. (2026, October 28). The Interlochen question: What connects North Fox Island to Michigan’s most famous arts campus. Clutch Justice. https://clutchjustice.com/2026/10/28/north-fox-island-interlochen-question/
MLA 9Williams, Rita. “The Interlochen Question: What Connects North Fox Island to Michigan’s Most Famous Arts Campus.” Clutch Justice, 28 Oct. 2026, clutchjustice.com/2026/10/28/north-fox-island-interlochen-question/.
ChicagoWilliams, Rita. “The Interlochen Question: What Connects North Fox Island to Michigan’s Most Famous Arts Campus.” Clutch Justice, October 28, 2026. https://clutchjustice.com/2026/10/28/north-fox-island-interlochen-question/.
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