The Snow Killings

Inside the Oakland County Child Killer Investigation

De: Marney Rich Keenan

Narrado por: Carrington MacDuffie

Over 13 months in 1976­-1977, four children were abducted in the Detroit suburbs, each of them held for days before their still-warm bodies were dumped in the snow near public roadsides. The Oakland County Child Murders spawned panic across southeast Michigan, triggering the most extensive manhunt in US history. Yet after less than two years, the task force created to find the killer was shut down without naming a suspect.

The case “went cold” for more than 30 years, until a chance discovery by one victim’s family pointed to the son of a wealthy General Motors executive: Christopher Brian Busch, a convicted pedophile, was freed weeks before the fourth child disappeared.

Veteran Detroit News reporter Marney Rich Keenan takes the listener inside the investigation of the still-unsolved murders - seen through the eyes of the lead detective in the case and the family who cracked it open - revealing evidence of a decades-long cover-up of malfeasance and obstruction that denied justice for the victims.

©2020 Marney Rich Keenan (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing

So many players to keep track of

Now I know this is a true crime story, but it’s insane how many people are talked about in this book. It was hard for me to keep track of who everybody was. It was a good story kind of long for me but I did finish it. If you like true crime stories you’ll like this one.

A detailed, thorough reporting of a story that changed my life

I, and so many people that I know, lived this story.
I grew up in Birmingham and went to school with the Kings and the Coffees.

I’ll never forget that morning, walking through Poppleton Park with my friend Carol, on our way to school. We were a little weirded out by the large police presence over by the tennis courts and even more apprehensive when we were waved over to speak to them. What could they want with us? They asked us if we knew Timmy King. “Yes,” we said, nodding our heads. “He’s been abducted,” they told us. We were shocked.

They warned us to be careful, to avoid walking alone and to keep and eye out for a blue Gremlin, the car driven by the suspect. They advised us to call them if we saw anything suspicious or heard anything about Timmy’s whereabouts. We went on our way, frightened and alert, down Mohegan Street and across Adams Road, arriving at school a short while later.

Back in those days we were all free rage kids, allowed to roam great distances, mostly unsupervised by the adults in our lives, despite what happened to Timmy and the other kids.

It’s forty three years later and I’ve listened to this book. I am utterly shocked by what was really going on at that time; of how near we all were to dangerous predators, literally in our own back yards; and of how much was known by the police and about which nothing was done.

Yes, the story is grim. When is child sex abuse, torture, and murder not grim?

This story is important to hear because knowledge is power. It shows us the reality of a system that, to this day, is rigged to permit wealthy and privileged predators to roam freely and without punishment, committing crimes that ruin and end innocent children’s lives in numbers too shocking to contemplate. This story also shines a bright light on the negligence and arrogance of the Michigan State Police and the Oakland County Prosecutor, who have refused, out of spite, to make every effort to share information with each other and work with other police agencies and the victim’s families to solve these heinous crimes - even now, when we have the technology to do so, they haven’t leapt at the chance to bring the killer(s) to justice.

Let this story move you to hold the police and the prosecutors accountable and demand they do their jobs.

good true crime mystery

I enjoyed this book. some a bit sad there really isn't a ending . but that's true life.

Maddening, chilling, heartbreaking.

This riveting story broke my heart. I could not stop listening, even though I was often either angered or in tears. As a child, I grew up in Detroit during this tumultuous and horrifying time. I was the same age group as these children. It was the first time we knew of ‘stranger danger’ and everyone I knew was scarred and changed by it. I am deeply ashamed of Oakland County’s behavior in this story. Having lived there, too, I can personally vouch for their poor behavior. There role in this doesn’t surprise me a bit.

Child murders, abduction, pedophilia, above the law

Between February 1976 and March 1977 for children in the Oakland County area of Michigan were abducted, molested and discarded. In this nearly 50 year-old case, no suspect has ever been identified, and no body has been convicted of this heinous crime. This book has excellent research using primary sources and interviews with the actual members of law-enforcement in the judiciary of the time. through what some may say is a cover-up for a wealthy well-known family to the silence of individuals who were involved in the pedophilia ring of the day, it does not appear that anyone will be held accountable in this mystery will continue ad nauseam. Closure is something that does not happen in a pair of handcuffs or an explanation, but when the individual has finally had enough and decides to move on with their life. It is difficult to deal with these types of murders and crimes, and so we can only hope that the individuals responsible for these murders and other crimes will eventually be held accountable in this world or the next.