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New book features creepy tales of unsolved Michigan murders

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Tobin T. Buhk's book Cold Case Michigan includes true stories from across the state.

A new book features stories of unsolved murders from around the state. It’s called “Cold Case Michigan.”

WKAR’s Scott Pohl talks with author Tobin T. Buhk about his interest in these crimes.

Interview Highlights

On why Buhk thinks some cases go unsolved

I think that in yesterday's crimes, and maybe even to a certain degree today, investigators back then tended to sort of focus on one particular suspect. And then they went on the hunt of evidence that would prove their theory is right. Now, sometimes their hunches, I think, were dead on. I hate to use that pun, but I think sometimes they were right on, but sometimes they turn their backs on avenues of exploration because they focus their attention in only one direction. So, I suppose someone could call that incompetence. I think maybe that's human nature to a certain degree.

On how Buhk selected the cases for this book

What I wanted to do, how I wanted to select cases, is I wanted one from the various places in the state, so there was a geographic component to it. I selected cases that for me, I thought, had some sort of interesting twist to it. And then I wanted cases that hadn't been written about so many times that they've essentially become yesterday's news of yesterday's news.

Interview Transcript

Scott Pohl: Tobin, first of all, I wanted to ask you to explain your interest in cold cases in Michigan.

Tobin T. Buhk: My interest in cold cases goes all the way back to a trip I took in the eighties where I backpacked across Europe. My big brother, my older brother and me, we spent some on the flight going over. Back then you had to pretty much watch what they were going to show you. You're at the mercy of what they decided to show in the cabin. We flew British Airways, and we watched five hours of cricket highlights, and without sound, if I remember right. I don't understand the game of cricket, never have.

So when we made the return flight, I faced what was then a pretty difficult decision. I had to watch five more hours of cricket highlights, or find a book to read. I had wandered into a bookstore in Heathrow airport and I came across The Complete Jack the Ripper by Donald Rumbelow, and for me, it was love at first fright. I was totally hooked on the concept of old, cold, unsolved cases. And of course, the Jack the Ripper case is the most written-about criminal case in history, so that's kind of what started my interest in it.

Since I'm a lifetime Michigan resident, I thought it would be kind of interesting to see what type of unsolved Ripper-like crimes we have in our state, and I didn't find Jack the Ripper in Michigan, but I found a lot of Ripper-like crimes.

Pohl: It's my understanding this is your 13th book. Have they all been about cold cases?

Buhk: This is the first book that I've written about cold cases per se. I wrote two books about forensic pathology with the Kent County medical examiner, and to research those books I did a year as a volunteer in the morgue, The Kent County morgue. And some of the cases that we wrote about there were cold and unsolved cases at the time, but this is the first book that I've had that's been 100% devoted to cold cases.

Pohl: There are nine stories in this book. How did you select them? You must have had to reject some cold case stories.

Buhk: Yeah, it turns out that Michigan's had a lot of cold cases and unsolved murders, and I did have to turn away some cases. For example, I didn't take on Jimmy Hoffa. What I wanted to do, how I wanted to select cases, is I wanted one from the various places in the state, so there was a geographic component to it. I selected cases that for me, I thought, had some sort of interesting twist to it. And then I wanted cases that hadn't been written about so many times that they've essentially become yesterday's news of yesterday's news, so I didn't really take on the Hoffa case. I had written about this case once before in an earlier publication called True Crime Michigan. So alas, the reader will not find Jimmy Hoffa in the pages of this book, but they'll find some pretty interesting things.

Some families have been slaughtered, a cult murder in Detroit a radio broadcaster who was assassinated, the assassination of a senator, and what was considered by Detroit police as an unsolved murder, I mean, a perfect crime and a closed room crime.

Pohl: I'm not sure I want to hear about the murder of a radio personality, so I'm going to move on from that, and yet the geographic distribution you just mentioned includes the Lansing area. There are one or two stories that come from mid-Michigan here.

Buhk: The two stories that I feature from the mid-Michigan area, the Lansing area in particular, are the assassination of Senator Warren Hooper, and four unsolved homicides from the 1970s from Lansing, including the really odd, really mysterious case of a young coed by the name of Diane Osinsky, who simply disappeared in 1972. Her skeletonized remains turned up later on in a field outside of town.

Pohl: Tobin, why do you think cases go unsolved? Are criminals particularly clever, is law enforcement inept? Is it blind luck?

Buhk: There are quite a few factors that could go into why a case remains unsolved, and it could be any one of these in isolation, or it could be a combination of those factors. I think that in yesterday's crimes, and maybe even to a certain degree today, investigators back then tended to sort of focus on one particular suspect. And then they went on the hunt of evidence that would prove their theory is right. Now, sometimes their hunches, I think, were dead on. I hate to use that pun, but I think sometimes they were right on, but sometimes they turn their backs on avenues of exploration because they focus their attention in only one direction. So, I suppose someone could call that incompetence. I think maybe that's human nature to a certain degree. I think you would want an investigator to sort of keep an open mind about these things.

I think also, if you have crafty criminals who know how to hide things well, I think if bodies can be hidden well, like in waterways, there's a lot of water in Michigan, and open fields. A lot of the evidence that could be used to make a case would simply disappear.

You take the case of Diane Osinski, for example. Her remains were really, I think, pretty skeletonized when they found them, and so any form of anything on the skin, any kind of bruising, would be gone. And I think the animals had, you know, it was open to nature for a while and so clues could have been carried away that way. So, anything in terms of body fluid, hair, and these things may be found. But I think when a body remains unrecovered for that long, undiscovered for that long in the elements, it would destroy a lot of evidence that could kind of pair perpetrator to victim.

So you have that clever criminals can do this. And sometimes, that's just luck. You know, they deposit a body in a lake and the body normally might come to the surface, but gets trapped under, say, a fallen tree trunk or something. The body might never come up. So, there's a little bit of that involved as well. I think there's a lot of different factors. And of course, today we have forensic science that yesterday's police officers didn't have, so you could do things like DNA testing, whereas back then they simply couldn't.

Oh, one other thing I would mention along these lines. I think that the way they process crime scenes is so much more different today. Back then, it wouldn't have been uncommon to have groups of people traipse through a crime scene. There was one particular case I wrote about, and basically the one piece of evidence that they pulled was a bloody thumbprint off a door latch, but the thumbprint itself became an element of controversy because it was uncertain whether it was smudged because so many people handled it. And then eventually, it was alleged that a police officer himself had left the smudged bloody print because they just simply didn't handle the crime scene the way they would today. So, I have no doubt in my mind that had 21st century officers handled these crime scenes of yesteryear today, they would have been able to break some of these cases.

Pohl: With Halloween coming up, people are looking for creepy stories. This book might seem to fit the bill for a reader like that.

Buhk: Yes, and in fact, I would go a step further. I would say that if you analyze the things that people find the creepiest, they tend to find things creepy that are realistic. They tend to find things creepy that at least they have that suspension of disbelief that they could kind of sell themselves on thinking it's realistic and these things are really terrifying. And I think cold crime, cold cases, unsolved homicide, is really terrifying to people. I think people are afraid of random acts of violence or becoming a victim of random acts of violence, and even more so knowing somebody or becoming a victim of a crime that remains unsolved.

You know, I think I think we tend to think in terms of good and bad, and there are good forces and bad forces, and we always want to see good forces triumph over bad forces. But when you have unsolved murders, it's almost the reverse. You have a bad force that triumphs over a good force, and I think that is just as elementally terrifying to people. So, lots of times around Halloween, people tend to confront those things that they most fear. And I think that it's comfortable for us to do this in a way like Halloween. But really, when you get right down to it, these are real fears we're talking about.

Scott Pohl is a general assignment news reporter and produces news features and interviews. He is also an alternate local host on NPR's "Morning Edition."
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