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The murders began with Eastern Michigan student Mary Flezar on July 10, 1967. Her body was later found with multiple stab wounds, and more grotesquely, no hands or feet on August 7. Almost one year later, on July 6 , 1968 , student Joan Schell was found dead in Ann Arbor with 47 stab wounds. She had last been seen on July 1 with John Norman Collins , a student at Eastern Michigan University and a member of the Theta Chi fraternity. When questioned, Collins claimed that he was with his mother at the time and it was probably just a case of mistaken identity. Police took him at his word. In late March 1969, Jane Mixer was found in a cemetery. A law student at the University Of Michigan , she had been shot and strangled. That same month, on March 26, 16-year-old Maralynn Skelton was also found dead, beaten and bludgeoned extensively. About three weeks later 13-year-old Dawn Basom was found dead by strangulation after disappearing the previous evening. University of Michigan graduate student Alice Kalom was found in a field with her throat cut, stab wounds, and a gunshot to the head. The public outcry was becoming immense and famed psychic Peter Hurkos was even brought in to give his impressions of the murder spree, but proved to be of little help. Soon the police had yet another body on their hands, student Karen Sue Bieneman. She went missing on July 23, 1969, and was discovered a few days later, strangled and beaten to death. The killer had taken too big of a risk with Bieneman, however. While waiting on Bieneman on the day she disappeared, a shop manager had gotten an excellent look at her companion outside seated on his motorcycle. Collins was subsequently taken into police custody but denied any involvement in the killing. During the investigation police were soon told that Collins was considered "oversexed," and that he had a history of Sexual Harrassment . Collins then was positively identified by the store manager, and tests showed that hairs found attached to Bieneman's underwear matched with hairs found at the home of Collins' aunt. Investigators also found a bloodstain on the basement floor of the house, and matched it to Bieneman's blood type. Collins went to trial and, on August 19 , 1970 , was found guilty and sentenced to Life with no Parole . |
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