The Michigan Murders Research Reference Library
Interactive tools, sourced reference documents, and case records for the Clutch Justice investigative series on the Michigan Murders, the Oakland County Child Killer, and the institutional record that closed both cases without closing them. Free. No signup.
These resources are compiled from court records, FOIA documents, archived news reporting, the documented research of Catherine Broad’s Oakland County Child Killer blog, the Federal Judicial Center, and named investigative sources. All evidentiary claims are sourced to the document or outlet that reported them. John Norman Collins has been convicted of one murder. Six other cases were never prosecuted. Gary Leiterman was convicted of the Jane Mixer murder; that conviction is forensically contested by three independent scientists. Career trajectory information for named officials is drawn from public judicial records and obituaries. Where the record is incomplete or hedged, it is stated as such. These documents are research references, not legal findings.
The 1970 conviction, the junk science, the six families who got nothing, and the lab contamination that reopened it all thirty-five years later.
An interactive timeline tracing the collapse of each forensic method used in the Collins conviction. Click any entry to expand the full record and sourcing. Filter by category: forensic methods, collapsed science, contamination, or institutional record. Covers Neutron Activation Analysis, microscopic hair comparison, the 2009 National Academy of Sciences report, the 2015 DOJ review, the Mixer DNA contamination, the Ruelas four-year-old evidence, and the MSP laboratory’s institutional record through 2025.
A documented map of the named officials who had direct prosecutorial or judicial contact with the Michigan Murders or the OCCK/Busch case and their subsequent career positions. Clickable nodes with sourced facts. Each connection is drawn from the public record: court files, the Federal Judicial Center, official obituaries, and named investigative journalism. Where documentation is incomplete, it is stated as such.
A card-based reference document for each of the seven Michigan Murders victims, using their real names. Edward Keyes anonymized all of them in “The Michigan Murders” (1976). This document does not. Each card shows the victim’s full name, date of death, what physical evidence existed at the time, prosecution status, and what later science — including DNA — established or failed to establish. Treats victims as individuals, not series data points.
A scrollable documented timeline of Michigan State Police forensic laboratory failures from the Collins-era evidence handling in 1970 to the present. Covers the NAA testimony and its aftermath, the Mixer DNA contamination, the accreditation lapse and extensions, the Detroit rape kit inheritance, the OCCK digitization refusal, and Catherine Broad’s documented demands for third-party reanalysis. The lab is not a background detail. It is the constant variable across fifty-five years of unresolved cases.
This series is investigative and ongoing. Articles publish as research is verified and sourced. Each installment stands alone. All four build a cumulative argument about what the institutional record shows and what it does not.
The companion series covering the Oakland County Child Killer case, the North Fox Island network, and the documented overlap between both investigations.
These tools and references are free. The investigative reporting behind them is not. If this series is useful to you, consider supporting Clutch Justice directly.
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