Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Murder Book.
I'm your host, kiara, and thisis part two of Jeffrey Gorton's
Deadly Secrets.
Let's begin in the HomicideBureau.
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For a year when he got a callat home at 4.50 pm on Sunday,
november 9th his day off it wasSergeant Harry Bukamp, back at
the downtown headquarters, therewas a body at Mudd Estate and
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he needed to get their ASAP.
Flint in the mid-1980s was, asit is today, a city of enormous
contrast Swirling estates,sliding forested golf courses,
just blocks from some of thetoughest urban terrain, dope
dealing gangs, murder and mayhemin America.
It was even worse in 1986.
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Flint not Detroit 75 minutessouth on I-75, was the epicenter
of the Rust Belt.
Foreign imports had cut intothe Big Three's share of the
domestic auto market.
Plants were being shuttered andthose still open were going
from three shifts to two to one.
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In 1986, unemployment was wayup in double digits triple the
national average.
At unemployment offices.
Lines ring the building and inwinter they had burned scraps of
wood and garbage in garbagecans to keep warm while waiting
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to get inside for their checks.
On a per capita basis, therewere more homicides in Flint
than there were in Detroit,which was nationally known as
the murder city.
At 4.50 came the call fromU-Camp, a gruff desk sergeant
who growled at effort to get tothe Mott estate.
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A white female was in anupstairs bedroom and had been
murdered.
Alfred, surprised, turned tohis wife and said I got to go to
Mott estate.
And she asked who is dead andhe said I think it's Mrs Mott.
Alfred would soon find out thatit was Margaret Ebby.
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Mrs Mott, the 76 year oldmatriarch of the estate, was
away on vacation.
Alfred got lots of calls athome.
In 1986 there were murders, notcounting the justifiable
homicides in a city of about150,000 residents.
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Elford, who retired from theFlint police force in the year
2000, said that they were out alot that year.
A lot that year and at thismoment in time he was captain in
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charge of detectives ofaffluent Grand Blanc and
suburban Flint.
He may have been out a lot, butnever to the modest date.
The modest date and the halfmile long cultural center, it's
anchor, just cast off downtown,were an oasis of civility and
immune to murder and mayhem, orso it seemed.
They were just a few miles andfew light years from the
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troubled north side.
A murder at Mott's was nearlyincomprehensible to Elford, a
Flint native who had graduatedfrom Flint Southwestern High in
1968.
And it was Alfred knew going tobe a big deal, a very big deal
TV, newspapers, relentlessattention and publicity.
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And he thought that he it wasgoing to be huge because it was
the Mott estate.
Mr Mott was Flint.
Everyone in Flint was touchedby the Mott Foundation sooner or
later.
Charles Stuart Mott was one of ahandful of pioneering
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industrialists who had helpedgive birth to General Motors and
would become the most importantvibrant industry on earth.
Born in 1875, in 1906, he movedthe family business Weston Mott
Company made wire, wheels andaxles from Utica, new York, to
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Flint.
In 1913, he sold his company toGM in exchange for stock, which
would eventually make him amultimillionaire.
He served three stints asFlint's mayor, the first
beginning in 1912.
In 1926, he established the CSMott Foundation.
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He established the CS MottFoundation which in 2002 had
more than $3 billion in assetsand made nearly $110 million in
grants.
Mott died in 1973 at the age of97.
His widow, ruth Rawlings Mott,still lived at Applewood in 1986
.
The estate's name has a doublemeaning there is a pretty apple
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orchard on the property and Mottwas from the New York Mott's
made famous by their apple jutes.
Edward got to the scene at 5.20pm.
It was a cloudy day, gettingdark, the temperature in the
mid-30s.
It was a cloudy day, gettingdark, the temperature in the
mid-30s.
The first thing he did was tocall the Michigan State Police
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and request a crime scene teamto be sent down from the crime
lab in Bridgeport, 30 miles tothe north.
He said that he didn't haveconfidence in his own people.
The Flint PD was alwaysfighting budget troubles.
The state police would be ableto send in more and better
trained crime sceneinvestigators.
Already.
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There were Flint officers AlanEdwards and Julie Ringling who
had secured the scene, and hisboss, lieutenant Joseph DeCatch.
Most murders.
The boss wouldn't have beat himto the scene on a Sunday, but
this was in most murders.
Decatch's boss.
Captain Fay Peake arrived at5.40 and Dave King, another
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homicide surgeon, at 5.45.
King, another homicide surgeon,at 5.45.
Elford served as the scenedetective, meaning he would
preserve the scene, get thingsorganized, assign duties, direct
the taking of photos anddrawings and later type up a
detailed narrative report forwhoever would lead the
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subsequent investigation.
For whoever would lead thesubsequent investigation.
Not wanting to contaminate thescene, the Flint cops waited
outside till the state policearrived.
Meanwhile they worked theperimeter, checking windows and
doors for signs of forced entryor for footprints leading up to
or away from the house.
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The house sat just behind aneight-foot cycling fence that
surrounded the estate.
It was just off the curvingdriveway that went from the
entrance about 50 feet away tothe 18-room mod estate a couple
of hundred yards to the east.
There was a gate at thedriveway entrance, but it was
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never closed and there was nosecurity guard to check on who
came and went.
Except for the front door, thedoors were secured with
deadbolts.
The windows were locked, noneof them broken.
There were no footprints.
There was an outdoor cementstairway on the south side of
the house which led down to analuminum door at basement level.
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It too was deadbolted.
At 6.25, the medical examiner,dr David Cunnan, arrived.
He was allowed to enter thehouse and make the pronouncement
of death.
At 7.55, the state police team,which had assembled in
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Bridgeport before driving downin a large work van, arrived.
The team of Jane Silva, mikeThomas, john Wilmer and Michael
Wallner would be assisted byFlint's evidence tech at the
scene, larry Safford.
Elford's six-page single-spacednarrative report is rich with
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detail.
Years later state policeinvestigators would be struck by
the difference in quality andquantity of the detail in
Elford's report and what wouldlater be added to the file.
But others working the case, itwould be an irony lost on no
one.
From his report one learns thatthe large estate is surrounded
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by a tall wire mesh fence toppedby barbed wire.
The gatehouse was just insidethe northwest corner of the
fencing, south of one of twoentrances to the estate in a few
yards on the other side of thefence and a barrier of
vegetation and trees.
From a theater parking lot A1982 door Chevy registered to
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Ebi set part in a driveway.
Two-door Chevy register toAbbey, set part in a driveway.
The cops went in through thefront door into an entrance
hallway.
On one side was an archway to adining room, on the other an
archway to the living room.
Alfred was struck by how neatthe place was.
Everything tidy and clean.
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Place was, everything tidy andclean, no sign of struggle.
On the dining room table hefound an unzipped gray purse and
a key ring with 14 keys.
Under the purse was a flyerfrom a First Presbyterian Church
of Flint for a noon luncheonfour days earlier there was a
flyer for the US Air Force Bandfor a show on November 21st.
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There were several photos ofAbby and her family and friends.
In the top left drawer of thedresser were Abby's driver
license and several credit cards.
There were two windows in theroom.
Neither had curtains.
In the kitchen, an empty bottleof wine Chateau Cantinac 1970,
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sat on top of a cupboard.
Next to the bottle was a cork,an empty plastic cup and a clear
glass wine decanter, about aquarter filled with red wine.
The windows above the sink hadno curtains.
A grand piano dominated theliving room which faced a brick
fireplace.
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The window on the north wallwas curtainless.
The northwest bedroom upstairswas in sharp contrast to the
mayhem across the hall.
It had the one curtain windowin the house, two twin beds, a
small round table with acollection of children's books
on top and a TV stand and TV.
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The room was undisturbed andtidy.
Investigators would later findout that Margaret had made it
into a room for her grandchild.
The bathroom seemed perfectlyordinary, except for two things
a small jackknife on the top ofa small plastic shelf next to
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the sink and a small dab of rednext to the cold water faucet.
There will be nothing smallabout the dab's eventual impact.
And then Effort's report gets tothe southwest bedroom, where
nothing was normal.
The nearly two pages devoted tothe bedroom speak both to the
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horror of the scene and toEffort's skilled attention to
detail.
On first reading, the dry,clinical tone of Effort's report
of Margaret Abby's bedroommasks the ghastliness of what he
saw.
But on second reading the styleseems to convey almost a
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cinematically chilling sweep asthe reader pans across the
bedroom seeing the things ofeveryday life Laundry receipts,
partially burned candles, graysocks, unopened pantyhose,
bubble gum and between them oron them, things of horror Large
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pools of blood on the carpet,drops of blood on a skirt
hanging on a doorknob, a goldchain half buried in a gaping
neck wound, a clown figure ontop of a dresser that held
earrings below it.
On the front of the dresser,more blood, the routine and the
unimaginable.
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Elford wrote the following thevictim's bedroom was located
west of the upper hall, in thesouthwest corner of the upstairs
of the house.
The bedroom door opened inwardand was hinged on the north.
Hanging on the outside of thebedroom doorknob was a
black-slash-gray wool skirt.
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This skirt had two small dropsof blood, one being on the
folded edge toward the west andthe other was on the back.
Hanging on the inside of thedoorknob was a white plastic bag
containing two pairs of women'sunderwear.
There was a bed locatedapproximately in the middle of
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the room.
From south to north, theheadboard was on the west wall
and room from south to north,the headboard was on the west
wall and the bed extended to theeast.
On the bed was the body of awhite female, later identified
as Margaret Ebby.
She was lying on her stomach,nude, with her head at the
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northwest corner of the bed andher feet extending southeast to
the middle of the bed.
The victim's head was turnedand facing south.
The right arm was hanging overthe north side of the bed and
the hand was touching the floor.
Under the hand was a dried poolof blood measuring 10 inches
north to south and 5 inches eastto west.
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The victim's left arm was bentat the elbow and the left hand
was at the lower back.
Both wrists show signs of beingbound.
Both were reddish color, withthe right wrist showing a very
definite impression, where theleft wrist was more red.
The left exposed side of thevictim's face was blood covered,
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along with the back of her headand hair.
The blood also covered the tophalf of her back from the neck
down.
There was a massive wound tothe victim's neck and around the
neck and partially in the woundwas a gold neck chain.
Next to the victim on the southside, under the left arm, was a
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leather watch band.
Also next to the victim to thesouth, was a yellow bath type
rope.
The rope, shoulder and neckarea was lying in a pool of
blood.
A large concentration ofpartially wet and dry blood was
on the mattress and under thevictim.
The concentration measuredthree feet north to south and
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two and a half feet east to west.
The victim appeared to havebeen moved from a position of
lying on her back in the middleof the bed to the position she
was found.
Folds on the blood-covered robematched bloody areas on the
victim's back.
The bed the victim was layingon consisted of a mattress and a
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box spring and a metal frame.
The frame was not attached tothe headboard.
The top blanket on the bed wasa brown, white, tan and green
striped with fringe edges.
The second blanket was a whiteelectric type.
This blanket was in the onposition and turned to number
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seven.
Controls for the electricblanket were slightly.
Under the north side of the bedthere was a blue sheet on the
mattress and two pillows on thehead of the bed, against the
headboard.
The pillowcases were blue incolor with yellow flowers.
Both pillowcases were bloodsplattered.
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On the southeast bottom cornerof the bed was a purple skirt
Draped over the edge.
On the top of the bed was abeige tan women's suit still on
a hanger.
The wall above the headboardand the headboard itself had
several small blood spatterings.
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On the bedroom's east wall,extending south from the bedroom
door, was a dresser.
Above the dresser, just to thesouth of the door, was located a
light attached to the wall inthe off position.
Attached to the top of thedresser were two mirrors.
On the top of the dresser was alaundry receipt for ProClean
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Laundry.
Photos of the victim, partiallyburned candles, ten pieces of
different colored candy, twopieces of bubble gum, a large
correspondence envelope from Uof M addressed to Raymond Roth,
flint Music.
There appeared to be a smallblood drop on the envelope.
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Also on the envelope was apiece of yellow cloth material
matching the yellow rope on thebed.
On the carpet in front of thedresser was a pair of gray
women's shoes.
Next to the shoes.
On the carpet was a whiteplastic or rubber covered wire
approximately seven inches long.
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The wire had three insulatedinner strands of red, green and
yellow.
The south wall of the bedroomhad a window covering
approximately one-half east towest.
There were no coverings on thiswindow.
West of the window was anotherdresser and on top of the
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dresser was a clown figure thatheld earrings.
On the front of the dresser,two feet three inches off the
floor, were several small blooddrops.
Just north of the bed in thenorthwest corner was a
glass-topped wood table beingused as a nightstand.
On top of the table was a clockradio, two crumpled yellow
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tissues, a jar of moisturizingcream, two books, number one
being Special People.
Written on the first page was anote from Lynn Roberts dated
10-28-86.
The number two book was Falcomand the Snowman.
The bottom shelf of the tablehad a white telephone, another
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jar of moisturizing cream, a boxof yellow tissue.
On the floor between the tableand the wall was a plastic
flyswatter.
The victim was later turned overby Michigan State Police crime
lab personnel, warner and Thomas.
The wound on the victim's neckwas approximately two inches
wide and covered approximatelyan area from ear to ear under
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the chin.
The right side of the victim'sface was blood-covered.
The victim was wearingpost-type earrings along with
the aforementioned gold necklaceand a ring on the index finger
of her right hand.
The mark on the right wristappeared to match the wire found
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on the floor.
There also appeared to be adried white substance in the
vaginal opening of the victim.
The victim's chest was alsoblood covered.
The yellow rope was moved andthe face of the watch was found
on this rope.
The yellow rope was missing,the cuff on the left sleeve.
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The medical examiner would laterreport that the gaping wound to
Evie's neck was so deep itnearly reached the spinal cord
that the murderer had used aserrated knife and would have
had to use it like a saw toinflict the damage he did, and
that she had also been stabbedin her chest and left breast
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Almost lost.
In the detail of Effort'sreport was something that would
prove crucial that Abby had anelectric blanket and that he was
turned up to seven Lab testswould later show that the time
between Abby's murder and thepoint when samples could be
taken from her vagina, combinedwith the heat of the blanket,
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degraded the semen to the pointwhere it could tell nothing
about the killer Not his bloodtype, not his subgroupings.
If the samples taken from Abbywere to yield any treasures,
they would have to be frozen andstored away, waiting for
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breakthroughs in DNA technology.
The report was the last oneEFORD would write on the case
until 2002.
It finished with one simple butscary declarative sentence.
It said it should be noted thatduring the search of the
victim's home, no wallet or cashcould be found.
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The killer might have been athief, but he was not a simple
thief.
If he had taken Abby's ID hemight be a collector too.
We'll be right back.
Gary Erford was in charge of thecrime scene Sunday night.
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He knew from the start thatSergeant Dave King would be in
charge of the case but to hissurprise, two days later he was
pulled off it altogether.
His boss, lieutenant DeCatch,wanted to take his place.
Highly unusual, but then so wasthe case.
Some of it was DeKatch wantingthe spotlight.
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Some of it was that effort hadnot worked homicide.
Very long he went to worktyping up his meticulous notes.
Today, king Sergeant Dave Kingis retired from the Flint Police
Department and is a civilianemployee of the Michigan State
Police with a division calledthe Michigan Commission on Law
Enforcement Standards, mcoles.
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It publishes a 470-pagetraining manual that serves as a
guide for Michigan police andsheriff's departments.
As communications coordinator,king helps update the manual and
give presentations about it andproper police procedures around
the state.
He loves police work.
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He loves the idea that he canhelp define and communicate
standards that can teach youngcops how to do things right.
King is extremely quiet-spokenand mild-mannered.
He is the antithesis of whatyou would expect from a homicide
detective who has spent 20years working some of the
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meanest streets in America.
He was never a tough guy, notone of those cops who commanded
respect with his fists or hisguns.
A college graduate before thatwas common on the Flint PD.
He graduated in policeadministration from Michigan
State University in 1969.
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He always prided himself on arecent cerebral approach to
solving crime.
His dad was a parole officer forthe state and King, a Flint
native, made the journal in 1947.
When he was born, on theseventh day of the seventh month
of 1947, in room 711 of thehospital, his dad even bought
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lunch that day for 77 cents.
When King graduated from FlintSouthwestern in 1965, the plans
were running three shifts a day,seven days a week.
There was no end to overtime,or the Buicks cranking off the
assembly line until semis, orthe Buicks cranking off the
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assembly line and until semis.
Through most of King's career,though, flint was a city in
despair.
King married his high schoolsweetheart, is a regular
churchgoer and sometimes Sundayschool teacher.
He is a former marathon runnerand many times has run the local
10-mile road race known as theKrim.
It is the one bright day eachyear in the city, the biggest
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economic day of the year, when15,000 runners and walkers come
to town.
Runners World magazine and ESPNcome too.
Until his knees got funky, kingwas thrilled to be part of his
city's big day.
He was a popular cop, and agood one.
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He made it to lieutenant beforehe retired, but no matter how
many cases he solved, no matterhow much of his ingenuity sent
large numbers of bad guys toJackson Prison, king would
always be associated with theone case he couldn't solve by
far the biggest case of hiscareer, and he will always be
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haunted by the what-ifs and thehindsight criticisms that shine
so clearly in the mistakes hemade, criticisms that shined so
clearly in the mistakes he made.
King graduated from MSU on aSaturday, moved his stuff back
to Flint on Sunday and Mondayand started work with the Flint
PD on Tuesday he spent four daysin training and was in a
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uniform and a scout car onSaturday.
King spent a year writingtraffic tickets and hated every
minute of it.
He spent three years on generalpatrol and then was moved into
something new called the SpecialOperations Bureau.
They were called in a euphemismmost cops would die for the
SOBs.
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Despite his self-ascribedsobriquet, he said quote I
wasn't the kind of big hulkingcop going in knocking doors off
hinges end quote.
He then moved up to the firsttactical operations unit in
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Flint's history.
He was, he says so,enthusiastic, gung-ho and naive
Tactical ops men working Flint'sNorth End, and no one stayed
naive there for long.
It was a place riddled withdrunks, druggies, stupidity and
meanness.
Heroin addicts were doing a lotof home invasions and they
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always had the same MO.
They busted in, grabbed as muchas they could, then then ditch
it in some field or behind thenearest vacant house.
Later they would come back forit.
King and his crew wouldn'tbother trying to track down the
perps.
They have just scouted out thenearest fields and abandoned
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houses, invariably find a stashof stuff within minutes, then
sit around waiting for thethieves to come back and pick it
up.
From 1977 to 1980, king workedhomicide.
His first case was one of thoseeasy ones where you know from
the start who did it and ittakes you a couple of hours to
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prove it.
He got the call and they hadthe suspect in custody before he
even left the house.
The second case was a doublehomicide execution.
Two dudes shot their head in acar.
It was an intractable case thatgot to him.
He started dreaming one of thedead guys was alive.
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He would come to King in hissleep talking to him.
It got so bad that King took aweek off and visited his in-laws
.
Out of town he says you need tobuild barriers, but you can't
build them too high or you're nogood.
The case never did get solved.
Procedure then was to rotateout of homicide after three
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years.
So he moved over to the B&Esquad as a supervisor, then into
narcotics for five years and in1985, back to homicide.
King got the call Sunday lateafternoon about the call at the
Mott's estate.
It should have gone to anothersergeant.
The Mods estate you should havegone to another sergeant.
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King had picked up the mostrecent unsolved murder two weeks
ago and another sergeant wasdue up in the rotation.
But in those pre-pager, precell phone days the other guy
had not answered his phone,effort answered his and King
answered his.
Effort was already at the scenewhen King got there.
So were his already at thescene when King got there, so
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were his bosses.
The catch and peek.
The scene was unusual in severalregards.
Number one, of course, was thatit was the most famous piece of
land in Flint.
But on a practical level it wasunusual because, unlike most
murder scenes, flint cops go tothe Ittdidn't-offer-our
neighborhood.
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The main house was at the otherend of the estate.
There were no neighbors tocanvass about what they might
have seen or heard.
Ironically, as new a world asthe modern state proper was to
the detectives, many of them inone way knew it way well.
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The gatehouse stood next to thefence.
On the other side of the fencewas a large parking lot, part of
the cultural center.
It was a favorite spot forFlint cops to duck into to grab
a coffee or a donut or even asnooze.
Like his fellow cops, king hadbeen there many times Also.
Like them, he would nevernotice the house tucked in the
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shrubbery and trees just on theother side of the fence.
He said that he grew up inFlint and any kid growing up in
Flint knew Mr Mott.
But oddly enough he wasn'tfamiliar with the Mott estate.
Though the estate was fenced in, there was no guard at the
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entrances and nothing to preventanyone from driving or walking
in.
The estate's caretaker wassupposed to double as a security
guard in theory, but in realityhe had little to do with
protecting the grounds or theestate's inhabitants.
After the state police crimescene crew arrived, king entered
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the house.
He was impressed by how homeyit was, not elaborate or
pretentious Like effort.
King was struck by the lack ofcurtains, blinds or shades.
It would have been easy forsome pee-pee tom to climb a tree
and look inside, had somepervert crossed the line from
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voyeurism to violence.
King left the crime scene whilethe state police were still
working it heavily and went backto the headquarters nearby to
interview Hyde and Smith, thetwo guys who had found the body.
They were suspects, of course,simply because they had found
the body, but were soon cleared.
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The phone on his desk ran and itwas Jonathan Ebby.
He was irate that the policehad not called him to tell him
about his mother's murder.
A friend had heard something onthe news and had called him.
King told him that while theysuspected the body was his
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mother, no officialidentification had been made yet
.
Moreover, he didn't have aphone number for him, didn't
know his name, had no way ofcontacting him so quickly.
He tried to calm him down andsaid they would be doing
everything they could and wouldbe in touch.
We'll be right back.
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Margaret Lynn Reimer.
Margaret Ebby's youngest childhas always gone by her name.
Though the spelling on thefirst name is different, the
pronunciation is the same.
Today she is an emergency roomnurse at the Beaumont Hospital
in the Detroit suburb of RoyalOak, and she and her mother had
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plans for Saturday afternoon,november 8, 1986.
Lynn was working then as awaitress at Restaurant Douglas,
a posh suburban eatery inSouthfield owned by one of the
first nationally popular TVchefs, douglas Douglas.
He was sort of like the Emerald, I guess, of his day.
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Lynn and her husband had beenhaving marital troubles off and
on, and shortly after her mommoved to Flint, lynn had moved
into the gay house with hermother for six months.
She had reconciled with herhusband, though, and they have
just moved into a rentedbungalow on the west side of
Detroit.
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Her mom was an avid grandmother.
As soon as Jessie was born in1983, margaret had redone Lynn's
old bedroom upstairs at the gayhouse into a kid's room and she
frequently took Jessie onweekends.
She frequently took Jesse onweekends.
When Margaret was taking Jesse,she and Lynn generally would
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meet halfway between the twocities at the I-75 exit at
Joslyn Road near the city ofPontiac.
Margaret was supposed to takeJesse this weekend, but plans
this time were a littledifferent.
She had picked Jesse up at homearound noon, take her to the
Detroit Institute of Artsdowntown, then out to eat and
then the two would go back toFlint for the rest of the
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weekend.
Lynn left early for the dayshift at the restaurant, leaving
Jessie with her husband.
When she returned from workearly in the evening, to her
surprise, jessie was still there.
And she asked surprise Lynn,jessie was still there.
And she asked, surprised Lynn,mom didn't come.
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And she answered no.
So what did she say?
She said she didn't call either.
And so Lynn said well, maybeshe forgot, and it wasn't like
her mom to miss out on a datewith her granddaughter.
And one of the things that Lynnsays years later is.
She says, quote you have tounderstand my mother.
She always had things going onthree burners.
She was the opposite of a couchpotato.
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It wasn't like her not to takeJesse, but knowing her schedule
I wasn't that much concernedabout it.
I figured I would hear from herthat maybe she had called and
Ted had been in the shower orsomething.
End quote.
She called her mom and left amessage.
She and her husband had dinnerand went to bed.
(36:20):
There was no word from hermother.
Sunday, sunday night, the phonerang.
Is this Margaret and Abby'sdaughter?
Yes, are you alone?
What's this about?
Are you alone?
And she said quit beatingaround the bush.
(36:40):
What's going on?
Someone has been found dead atthe Mott estate Today.
Ripper says of the rest of theconversation he just dragged it
out horribly.
He went on and on and finallyshe said are you telling me my
mom's dead?
(37:00):
And they said well, we don'tknow.
And she said I knew it was her,because who else would it be?
They found a woman in herbedroom and my mom is the only
one who lives in the Mott estate.
So it's her mom.
So it's her mom.
So she told the caller,sergeant Dave King, that she
(37:26):
would be in Flint as soon as shecould make arrangements.
Lynn had been living with herparents 11 years earlier when
her father died of a massiveheart attack at home.
Her reaction now was the sameas then Surreal, this can't be
happening.
This cannot be real.
(37:47):
This is a bad Miami Vice show.
It's not real.
She then called her oldersister, dale, who was a lawyer
in Indianapolis, and she saidDale, mom's dead.
You gotta get on a plane andget here.
Dale had already gotten the newsfrom her brother, jonathan,
upon arriving home from anIndianapolis Colts football game
(38:07):
and she said Lynn, when we gothrough mom's things, we're
going to find a bag of tulipbulbs Tulip bulbs.
He said, yes, tulip bulbs.
She was going to surprise youand plant them this fall.
And when they came up in thespring, you would say where did
(38:28):
they come from?
Nearly two decades later, whenLynn would recount the tulip
anecdote, tears would well up,her voice would break and her
boyfriend would need to hold herhand while she regrouped.
That's the kind of woman mymother was Someone who had 500
things to do and she would takethe time to plant my garden for
(38:52):
me.
So I have a surprise in thespring.
Dale caught an early flight toDetroit in the morning, was met
at the airport by Jonathan andthey drove directly to Flint to
identify the body.
Today Mike Thomas is a captainwith the Michigan State Police,
(39:13):
one of its highest rankingofficers and the director of the
Forensic Science Division,which includes seven regional
crime labs around the state andthree DNA labs, which includes
seven regional crime labs aroundthe state and three DNA labs.
Back in November of 1986,thomas was one of a four-person
crime scene crew working out ofthe Bridgeport post half an hour
(39:33):
north of Flint up I-75.
He was watching TV in his homein Bridgeport, just down the
road from the state police crimelab, when the phone rang.
Just down the road from thestate police crime lab.
When the phone rang, he gotcalled out a lot, which meant
vanderroosing at the lab withthe rest of the team to pick up
(39:54):
their specialized van.
So it didn't make sense to livetoo far away.
Thomas was one of the new breedof cops when he joined the state
police in 1978.
He graduated from MadonnaUniversity in Livonia in just
three years with a degree incriminal justice and had been
accepted to grad school atEastern Michigan University but
when word came he had beenaccepted to the 85th recruiting
(40:16):
class of the MSP grad school wasquickly forgotten.
He was assigned to theBridgeport Post as a trooper in
January of 1979, across thedriveway from the crime lab.
As a uniformed trooper heworked various crime scenes with
the lab.
Folks got intrigued by whatthey did and applied.
(40:39):
When a position opened up theydid and applied.
When a position opened up In1982, he moved across the
driveway to start a two-yeartraining program.
By the time of the Ebi murderThomas was a crime scene vet
working 35 to 40 major scenes ayear, many of them called in by
the Flint PD.
His crew knew the Flint cops byname and after working together
(41:03):
there they would often all headover to the White Horse, a cop
hangout in Flint, for burgersand beer.
The dispatcher said that therewould have been another murder
in Flint, this one of a woman ina cottage at the Modestate.
James Silva, john Wilmore andMichael Warnard met him at the
(41:25):
lab, gathered up the stuff anddrove down to Flint, arriving at
7.55 pm.
The Modestate meant nothing toThomas.
He was surprised when he gotthere that the cottage was a
mansion by his standards, notyour typical Flint crime scene.
Silva and Thomas werefingerprint specialists.
(41:47):
The other two would concentrateon serology and trace evidence.
They entered the house andworked slowly through it toward
the body.
They took photos of everythingfrom every angle.
They'd use contrasting powdersto look for prints and when they
found them they put tape on thepowder and lifted it.
The impression of the printwould remain on the tape.
(42:10):
There were a ton of printswhich didn't mean much.
Most houses have a ton ofprints which the trick is to
link one of them to a bad guy.
As suspects will evolve, theywould check the prints versus
the prints from the house andsee if any matched.
(42:31):
They used high-intensity lightsand a magnifying device known
as a linen tester to help findprints.
As the lights burned, the housegot hotter and hotter.
Wilmer and Wollner picked upbits of fiber, hair, other trace
evidence and put them inevidence bags.
(42:52):
Once they got to the bedroomthey had lots of serology to
deal with.
There was blood everywhere andobvious semen stains on the
victim.
Thomas was struck by the lackof curtains in her bedroom.
A peeping Tom, he wondered.
He was shocked that her headwas nearly severed.
He had seen lots of ugly scenes, lots of crimes of passion, but
(43:16):
usually it was an angrystabbing or slashing.
Something done quick.
This one had taken a whilePlaying the role of plumbers.
They pulled the trap from thebathroom sink.
They have searched through itsgunk later and while there was
usually a long shot, sometimesthe stitches normally found in
(43:39):
the trap would contain a traceof the killer's blood.
It might not be such a longshot this time.
There was a bloody partialprint on the porcelain near the
cold water handle.
Obviously the killer had washedup.
Thomas photographed the printand lifted it.
Now it was time to roll the bodyover, look for other trace
(44:02):
evidence that had been under itand check for lividity.
This is the pooling and thebruising of blood next to the
skin which can help fix the timeof death.
As they were getting ready toroll her, king entered the
bedroom back from interviewingHyde and Smith.
(44:24):
When they turned her over, astench hit them all.
Since Margaret had died on topof a heating blanket that was
turned up.
The heat had helped hasten thedecay.
There was a lot of lividity andshe was rigid.
(44:46):
King blurted out holy moly,she's been dead a while.
The body was then lifted onto agurney by attendants from
Lifeline Ambulance and at 12.02am left for the Hurley Medical
Center which served as thecounty morgue.
Its pathologists performedautopsies on a contract basis
(45:11):
for the county.
This one would be done byWillis Mueller, considered by
the cops to be brilliant at hiswork with the dead.
Thomas was sweaty andfingerprint dust kicked his face
and arms.
He went into the bathroomdownstairs and washed up.
The cops then secured the sceneat 12.40 am and left.
(45:33):
Monday morning Alford and a crewfrom the Flint PD searched the
estate for evidence.
They found nothing unusual.
King and Alford re-entered thegatehouse and gathered up some
of Abby's personal papers,including a list of 16 men's
names and one woman's name.
All day Monday the Abby murderdominated the Flint TV news.
(45:55):
Thomas was surprised to seehimself doing one Abby segment.
He was caught on camera washinghis hands and face and the
camera had zoomed in on him.
There had been a TV cameraoutside the fence and with all
the leaves blown off, all thetrees, they had had a clear shot
at him A pipi tom.
(46:17):
He wondered again If the TVcrew could see him so clearly.
Maybe some nutball had seenAbby just as well and the sight
of her in her bathroom had sethim off.
Soon Mott employees weretelling police that she liked to
walk through her curtainlesswindows naked as a jaybird, and
(46:40):
she used to like to sunbathenude out behind the gatehouse
too.
We'll be right back.
The autopsy was conducted Mondaymorning.
King was there, along with JohnWilmore, both Bob Avery and
Mike Thomas of the State PoliceCrime Lab, who would take
(47:01):
samples for toxicology andserology purposes, and Mueller's
assistant and a photographer.
First the body had to beformally identified, with
Jonathan and Dale Eby taking onthat horrific task.
The last time Jonathan had seenhis mother was when they had
driven to Stratford, ontario,six weeks earlier, to see a play
(47:24):
.
Officials only let them see herface and the top of her head.
They wanted to keep as much ofthe horror hidden from her
children as possible.
Dale wanted to stroke hermother's hair, but they wouldn't
let her.
Jonathan and Dale left and therest went about their grim tasks
(47:45):
.
Abby's neck had been sawed witha serrated knife going left to
right.
The murderer was right-handed.
Her carotid artery and jugularvein was severed.
The gaping wound was the resultof two separate slashings, one
across the top of the neck on anupward angle and the other
(48:06):
horizontal at mid-throat.
There was another stab wound inthe neck.
There were three stab wounds onher chest, going onto
subcutaneous tissue and stoppingat the sternum, but they showed
no signs of bleeding, whichmeant they have come after death
.
There was a diagonal stab woundon the inner portion of her
(48:27):
left breast, a diagonal cut thatperforated her left atrium just
above the mitral valve.
There was bruising inside herlabia, a blue-black
discoloration about 12millimeters in length.
Her labia a blue-blackdiscoloration about 12
millimeters in length.
There were visible semen stains, but the rectal area tested
(48:48):
negative for sperm.
Mueller went to work with hisbone, saw a sound.
No witness to an autopsy everforgets to examine her organs.
A Y incision was cut down thefront of her chest and her rib
cage was pulled back.
An incision was cut down thefront of her chest and her
ribcage was pulled back.
An incision was made in theback of her scalp, from one ear
(49:08):
to the other, and her scalp waspulled down over the front of
her face.
Her brain was pulled out andweighted, as were her organs.
Tissue samples were taken.
Food much of it undigested,uncooked Vegetables was taken
out of her stomach andphotographed.
It would turn out that theywould come from her last meal at
(49:32):
the dinner party Friday, whichwas an array of vegetable
munchies and dip.
Array of vegetable munchies anddip.
Mueller's conclusions manner ofdeath homicide.
Cause of death incised neckwounds.
(49:54):
Later King would show thephotos of Abby's stomach
contents while seeking outadvice from Dr Warner Spitz, the
nationally renowned medicalexaminer in Wayne County where
Detroit ruled as the nation'smurder capital.
And Spitz said quote that'sfresh food, she just ate that
and her digestive processes juststopped.
(50:15):
What stops the digestiveprocesses?
Extreme fear, end quote.
Processes extreme fear, endquote.
It raised the hackles on King'sneck, the image of a woman
coming home from a dinner partywith friends and immediately
finding herself in such horrorthat her stomach juices stopped
digesting food.
(50:36):
When King got back to his officefrom the autopsy, the media
circus had clearly started.
His desk was covered in pink,he says.
While you were out notes fromevery radio and TV station in
town and from many of thestate's daily newspapers.
One was from the editor of theFlint Journal, the first time
(50:57):
the editor had ever called him.
And King said that he hadworked 40 previous homicides in
Flint and he didn't even knowwho he was.
Early on.
Heen and DeKat made a tacticaldecision.
Michigan Sunshine Laws made ita legal obligation for police to
(51:22):
turn their reports, minus somedeletions, over to news
reporters.
But if King and the Catchdidn't file very many, there
wouldn't be much to turn over.
They stopped typing up officialreports.
They took to scribbling thingsdown on scrap paper and sticking
them in drawers Years later.
(51:43):
The lack of desirable reportsand the excess of badly written
scribbling, often in some sortof shorthand, would drive other
investigators nuts.
But that would be then.
After the autopsy, king met withLynn Reimer.
That evening he went back tothe scene for a slow, detailed
(52:06):
walk around the house.
He missed something interesting, though there was a good reason
.
It was inside the CD player andin 1986, not many people had
heard of CDs or CD players.
Certainly not King heard of CDsor CD players.
(52:27):
Certainly not King.
He didn't recognize it for whatit was and had no way of
knowing there might be somethingof interest in that little slot
on the front.
Her family would soon discoverit and give him a call.
What popped out was a CD of aSchubert piece titled Death, and
the Maiden Ebi had recently puttogether something she had
built as Schubert Tide.
(52:49):
It gave King a jolt.
A single woman is killed andinside her music player is
something called Death and themaiden.
A weird coincidence.
What were the chances or a cluefrom her killer, deliberately
(53:12):
and diabolically planted?
What were they dealing withhere?
Things got worse for Lynn Reimer, if that was possible.
When she met with King she hadnot been able to get to Flint in
time to join her siblings inidentifying the body, she says.
Almost the first thing Kingasked was what her mom was
(53:35):
involved in.
He said that it looked like agang head.
Why would she be involved ingangs?
What was she up to?
Was she into drugs?
He said the FBI was beingbrought in.
The whole thing went from badto worse.
Gangs, drugs, my mom.
It had all been strange enough,but when the Flint police
(53:57):
started adding in all those funfacts, it got even more surreal,
and she remembered being in afog not enough of one, though,
because she can remember thepain and terror of everything.
Lynn gave King something toponder in turn when she was
(54:17):
staying with her mom during herseparation several years earlier
.
She got home late one night,about 3 am, having worked the
late shift waitressing at PattyMcGee's, then a popular Flint
eatery.
Her mom routinely worked14-hour days.
Then she said, quote, she lovedher job.
I would call her at the officeat 10 pm and said, mom, you have
(54:42):
been at work for 14 hours, it'stime to come home.
And she would say, oh, I justlost track of the time.
End quote.
So in walked Lynn at 3 am andthe place was a mess.
Nothing too bad, but messy forMargaret, who was an immaculate
housekeeper.
(55:02):
Everything in its place.
Lynn thought maybe she hadworked one of her 14-hour days,
didn't have time to straightenup and decided for once to go to
bed with the house untidy.
At 7 am Margaret woke her,yelling at her to get up.
How dare she come in and makesuch a wreck at the house?
I think you can clean up yourmess, she said.
(55:25):
She said my mess, what are youtalking about?
She said.
They soon realized that it wasneither's mess.
An intruder had been there.
Ling's underwear drawer wasopen.
So was Margaret's, since thehouse had been tidied when her
mom came home at 11, that meantthe intruder had been there in
(55:48):
her mother's bedroom, goingthrough her underwear drawer
while her mom slept just a fewfeet away.
They called the police, whofound a window, a jar and
footprints leading up to it.
The back door was open, themeans of egress.
King Scribble notes as Lynntold the tale.
(56:08):
A week after her body wasdiscovered, a memorial service
for Abby was held at the FirstPresbyterian Church.
As the body had been cremated,there was no public viewing.
The huge church was packed.
In attendance were her children, her three brothers, john
George and Siegfried Fink, hermother, martha Fink, who was now
(56:30):
living in Texas with Siegfried,her sister Ruth Becker, the
missionary in Brazil, and hergranddaughter Jessie.
Also there was the entire staffof Restaurant Douglas, where
Lynn worked.
It was the first time therestaurant had ever shut its
doors on a day it wasrescheduled to be open.
The family asked that, insteadof flowers, contributions be
(56:53):
made to the Margaret F EbbyKeyboard Scholarship Fund at the
UN Music Development Office inAnn Arbor.
At the UN Music DevelopmentOffice in Ann Arbor, reverend
Donna McFerrin, her pastor,praised her as a musician, as a
member of his choir, as acommunity activist and as a
friend.
She was the best thing thatever happened to us, he said.
(57:16):
After the service, the familygathered at their Aunt Pauline's
house in Milford and tradedstories about the strong-willed
woman they had lost Over theyears, lynn had thought off and
on of having her name legallychanged, dropping the Margaret
no more.
They will still call her Lynn,but she will be Margaret forever
(57:37):
.
Thank you to listening to themurder book.
Have a great week.
Welcome to the Murder Book.
I'm your host, kiara, and thisis part two of Jeffrey Gorton's
Deadly Secrets.
Let's begin in the HomicideBureau.
(00:21):
For a year when he got a callat home at 4.50 pm on Sunday,
november 9th his day off it wasSergeant Harry Bukamp, back at
the downtown headquarters, therewas a body at Mudd Estate and
(00:42):
he needed to get their ASAP.
Flint in the mid-1980s was, asit is today, a city of enormous
contrast Swirling estates,sliding forested golf courses,
just blocks from some of thetoughest urban terrain, dope
dealing gangs, murder and mayhemin America.
It was even worse in 1986.
(01:04):
Flint not Detroit 75 minutessouth on I-75, was the epicenter
of the Rust Belt.
Foreign imports had cut intothe Big Three's share of the
domestic auto market.
Plants were being shuttered andthose still open were going
from three shifts to two to one.
(01:25):
In 1986, unemployment was wayup in double digits triple the
national average.
At unemployment offices.
Lines ring the building and inwinter they had burned scraps of
wood and garbage in garbagecans to keep warm while waiting
(01:46):
to get inside for their checks.
On a per capita basis, therewere more homicides in Flint
than there were in Detroit,which was nationally known as
the murder city.
At 4.50 came the call fromU-Camp, a gruff desk sergeant
who growled at effort to get tothe Mott estate.
(02:07):
A white female was in anupstairs bedroom and had been
murdered.
Alfred, surprised, turned tohis wife and said I got to go to
Mott estate.
And she asked who is dead andhe said I think it's Mrs Mott.
Alfred would soon find out thatit was Margaret Ebby.
(02:30):
Mrs Mott, the 76 year oldmatriarch of the estate, was
away on vacation.
Alfred got lots of calls athome.
In 1986 there were murders, notcounting the justifiable
homicides in a city of about150,000 residents.
(02:50):
Elford, who retired from theFlint police force in the year
2000, said that they were out alot that year.
A lot that year and at thismoment in time he was captain in
(03:10):
charge of detectives ofaffluent Grand Blanc and
suburban Flint.
He may have been out a lot, butnever to the modest date.
The modest date and the halfmile long cultural center, it's
anchor, just cast off downtown,were an oasis of civility and
immune to murder and mayhem, orso it seemed.
They were just a few miles andfew light years from the
(03:33):
troubled north side.
A murder at Mott's was nearlyincomprehensible to Elford, a
Flint native who had graduatedfrom Flint Southwestern High in
1968.
And it was Alfred knew going tobe a big deal, a very big deal
TV, newspapers, relentlessattention and publicity.
(03:56):
And he thought that he it wasgoing to be huge because it was
the Mott estate.
Mr Mott was Flint.
Everyone in Flint was touchedby the Mott Foundation sooner or
later.
Charles Stuart Mott was one of ahandful of pioneering
(04:20):
industrialists who had helpedgive birth to General Motors and
would become the most importantvibrant industry on earth.
Born in 1875, in 1906, he movedthe family business Weston Mott
Company made wire, wheels andaxles from Utica, new York, to
(04:41):
Flint.
In 1913, he sold his company toGM in exchange for stock, which
would eventually make him amultimillionaire.
He served three stints asFlint's mayor, the first
beginning in 1912.
In 1926, he established the CSMott Foundation.
(05:03):
He established the CS MottFoundation which in 2002 had
more than $3 billion in assetsand made nearly $110 million in
grants.
Mott died in 1973 at the age of97.
His widow, ruth Rawlings Mott,still lived at Applewood in 1986
.
The estate's name has a doublemeaning there is a pretty apple
(05:29):
orchard on the property and Mottwas from the New York Mott's
made famous by their apple jutes.
Edward got to the scene at 5.20pm.
It was a cloudy day, gettingdark, the temperature in the
mid-30s.
It was a cloudy day, gettingdark, the temperature in the
mid-30s.
The first thing he did was tocall the Michigan State Police
(05:52):
and request a crime scene teamto be sent down from the crime
lab in Bridgeport, 30 miles tothe north.
He said that he didn't haveconfidence in his own people.
The Flint PD was alwaysfighting budget troubles.
The state police would be ableto send in more and better
trained crime sceneinvestigators.
Already.
(06:16):
There were Flint officers AlanEdwards and Julie Ringling who
had secured the scene, and hisboss, lieutenant Joseph DeCatch.
Most murders.
The boss wouldn't have beat himto the scene on a Sunday, but
this was in most murders.
Decatch's boss.
Captain Fay Peake arrived at5.40 and Dave King, another
(06:41):
homicide surgeon, at 5.45.
King, another homicide surgeon,at 5.45.
Elford served as the scenedetective, meaning he would
preserve the scene, get thingsorganized, assign duties, direct
the taking of photos anddrawings and later type up a
detailed narrative report forwhoever would lead the
(07:02):
subsequent investigation.
For whoever would lead thesubsequent investigation.
Not wanting to contaminate thescene, the Flint cops waited
outside till the state policearrived.
Meanwhile they worked theperimeter, checking windows and
doors for signs of forced entryor for footprints leading up to
or away from the house.
(07:23):
The house sat just behind aneight-foot cycling fence that
surrounded the estate.
It was just off the curvingdriveway that went from the
entrance about 50 feet away tothe 18-room mod estate a couple
of hundred yards to the east.
There was a gate at thedriveway entrance, but it was
(07:46):
never closed and there was nosecurity guard to check on who
came and went.
Except for the front door, thedoors were secured with
deadbolts.
The windows were locked, noneof them broken.
There were no footprints.
There was an outdoor cementstairway on the south side of
the house which led down to analuminum door at basement level.
(08:10):
It too was deadbolted.
At 6.25, the medical examiner,dr David Cunnan, arrived.
He was allowed to enter thehouse and make the pronouncement
of death.
At 7.55, the state police team,which had assembled in
(08:32):
Bridgeport before driving downin a large work van, arrived.
The team of Jane Silva, mikeThomas, john Wilmer and Michael
Wallner would be assisted byFlint's evidence tech at the
scene, larry Safford.
Elford's six-page single-spacednarrative report is rich with
(08:52):
detail.
Years later state policeinvestigators would be struck by
the difference in quality andquantity of the detail in
Elford's report and what wouldlater be added to the file.
But others working the case, itwould be an irony lost on no
one.
From his report one learns thatthe large estate is surrounded
(09:17):
by a tall wire mesh fence toppedby barbed wire.
The gatehouse was just insidethe northwest corner of the
fencing, south of one of twoentrances to the estate in a few
yards on the other side of thefence and a barrier of
vegetation and trees.
From a theater parking lot A1982 door Chevy registered to
(09:42):
Ebi set part in a driveway.
Two-door Chevy register toAbbey, set part in a driveway.
The cops went in through thefront door into an entrance
hallway.
On one side was an archway to adining room, on the other an
archway to the living room.
Alfred was struck by how neatthe place was.
Everything tidy and clean.
(10:03):
Place was, everything tidy andclean, no sign of struggle.
On the dining room table hefound an unzipped gray purse and
a key ring with 14 keys.
Under the purse was a flyerfrom a First Presbyterian Church
of Flint for a noon luncheonfour days earlier there was a
flyer for the US Air Force Bandfor a show on November 21st.
(10:25):
There were several photos ofAbby and her family and friends.
In the top left drawer of thedresser were Abby's driver
license and several credit cards.
There were two windows in theroom.
Neither had curtains.
In the kitchen, an empty bottleof wine Chateau Cantinac 1970,
(10:48):
sat on top of a cupboard.
Next to the bottle was a cork,an empty plastic cup and a clear
glass wine decanter, about aquarter filled with red wine.
The windows above the sink hadno curtains.
A grand piano dominated theliving room which faced a brick
fireplace.
(11:08):
The window on the north wallwas curtainless.
The northwest bedroom upstairswas in sharp contrast to the
mayhem across the hall.
It had the one curtain windowin the house, two twin beds, a
small round table with acollection of children's books
on top and a TV stand and TV.
(11:30):
The room was undisturbed andtidy.
Investigators would later findout that Margaret had made it
into a room for her grandchild.
The bathroom seemed perfectlyordinary, except for two things
a small jackknife on the top ofa small plastic shelf next to
(11:51):
the sink and a small dab of rednext to the cold water faucet.
There will be nothing smallabout the dab's eventual impact.
And then Effort's report gets tothe southwest bedroom, where
nothing was normal.
The nearly two pages devoted tothe bedroom speak both to the
(12:12):
horror of the scene and toEffort's skilled attention to
detail.
On first reading, the dry,clinical tone of Effort's report
of Margaret Abby's bedroommasks the ghastliness of what he
saw.
But on second reading the styleseems to convey almost a
(12:33):
cinematically chilling sweep asthe reader pans across the
bedroom seeing the things ofeveryday life Laundry receipts,
partially burned candles, graysocks, unopened pantyhose,
bubble gum and between them oron them, things of horror Large
(12:56):
pools of blood on the carpet,drops of blood on a skirt
hanging on a doorknob, a goldchain half buried in a gaping
neck wound, a clown figure ontop of a dresser that held
earrings below it.
On the front of the dresser,more blood, the routine and the
unimaginable.
(13:18):
Elford wrote the following thevictim's bedroom was located
west of the upper hall, in thesouthwest corner of the upstairs
of the house.
The bedroom door opened inwardand was hinged on the north.
Hanging on the outside of thebedroom doorknob was a
black-slash-gray wool skirt.
(13:40):
This skirt had two small dropsof blood, one being on the
folded edge toward the west andthe other was on the back.
Hanging on the inside of thedoorknob was a white plastic bag
containing two pairs of women'sunderwear.
There was a bed locatedapproximately in the middle of
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the room.
From south to north, theheadboard was on the west wall
and room from south to north,the headboard was on the west
wall and the bed extended to theeast.
On the bed was the body of awhite female, later identified
as Margaret Ebby.
She was lying on her stomach,nude, with her head at the
(14:24):
northwest corner of the bed andher feet extending southeast to
the middle of the bed.
The victim's head was turnedand facing south.
The right arm was hanging overthe north side of the bed and
the hand was touching the floor.
Under the hand was a dried poolof blood measuring 10 inches
north to south and 5 inches eastto west.
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The victim's left arm was bentat the elbow and the left hand
was at the lower back.
Both wrists show signs of beingbound.
Both were reddish color, withthe right wrist showing a very
definite impression, where theleft wrist was more red.
The left exposed side of thevictim's face was blood covered,
(15:12):
along with the back of her headand hair.
The blood also covered the tophalf of her back from the neck
down.
There was a massive wound tothe victim's neck and around the
neck and partially in the woundwas a gold neck chain.
Next to the victim on the southside, under the left arm, was a
(15:35):
leather watch band.
Also next to the victim to thesouth, was a yellow bath type
rope.
The rope, shoulder and neckarea was lying in a pool of
blood.
A large concentration ofpartially wet and dry blood was
on the mattress and under thevictim.
The concentration measuredthree feet north to south and
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two and a half feet east to west.
The victim appeared to havebeen moved from a position of
lying on her back in the middleof the bed to the position she
was found.
Folds on the blood-covered robematched bloody areas on the
victim's back.
The bed the victim was layingon consisted of a mattress and a
(16:24):
box spring and a metal frame.
The frame was not attached tothe headboard.
The top blanket on the bed wasa brown, white, tan and green
striped with fringe edges.
The second blanket was a whiteelectric type.
This blanket was in the onposition and turned to number
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seven.
Controls for the electricblanket were slightly.
Under the north side of the bedthere was a blue sheet on the
mattress and two pillows on thehead of the bed, against the
headboard.
The pillowcases were blue incolor with yellow flowers.
Both pillowcases were bloodsplattered.
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On the southeast bottom cornerof the bed was a purple skirt
Draped over the edge.
On the top of the bed was abeige tan women's suit still on
a hanger.
The wall above the headboardand the headboard itself had
several small blood spatterings.
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On the bedroom's east wall,extending south from the bedroom
door, was a dresser.
Above the dresser, just to thesouth of the door, was located a
light attached to the wall inthe off position.
Attached to the top of thedresser were two mirrors.
On the top of the dresser was alaundry receipt for ProClean
(17:51):
Laundry.
Photos of the victim, partiallyburned candles, ten pieces of
different colored candy, twopieces of bubble gum, a large
correspondence envelope from Uof M addressed to Raymond Roth,
flint Music.
There appeared to be a smallblood drop on the envelope.
(18:15):
Also on the envelope was apiece of yellow cloth material
matching the yellow rope on thebed.
On the carpet in front of thedresser was a pair of gray
women's shoes.
Next to the shoes.
On the carpet was a whiteplastic or rubber covered wire
approximately seven inches long.
(18:36):
The wire had three insulatedinner strands of red, green and
yellow.
The south wall of the bedroomhad a window covering
approximately one-half east towest.
There were no coverings on thiswindow.
West of the window was anotherdresser and on top of the
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dresser was a clown figure thatheld earrings.
On the front of the dresser,two feet three inches off the
floor, were several small blooddrops.
Just north of the bed in thenorthwest corner was a
glass-topped wood table beingused as a nightstand.
On top of the table was a clockradio, two crumpled yellow
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tissues, a jar of moisturizingcream, two books, number one
being Special People.
Written on the first page was anote from Lynn Roberts dated
10-28-86.
The number two book was Falcomand the Snowman.
The bottom shelf of the tablehad a white telephone, another
(19:46):
jar of moisturizing cream, a boxof yellow tissue.
On the floor between the tableand the wall was a plastic
flyswatter.
The victim was later turned overby Michigan State Police crime
lab personnel, warner and Thomas.
The wound on the victim's neckwas approximately two inches
wide and covered approximatelyan area from ear to ear under
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the chin.
The right side of the victim'sface was blood-covered.
The victim was wearingpost-type earrings along with
the aforementioned gold necklaceand a ring on the index finger
of her right hand.
The mark on the right wristappeared to match the wire found
(20:35):
on the floor.
There also appeared to be adried white substance in the
vaginal opening of the victim.
The victim's chest was alsoblood covered.
The yellow rope was moved andthe face of the watch was found
on this rope.
The yellow rope was missing,the cuff on the left sleeve.
(21:00):
The medical examiner would laterreport that the gaping wound to
Evie's neck was so deep itnearly reached the spinal cord
that the murderer had used aserrated knife and would have
had to use it like a saw toinflict the damage he did, and
that she had also been stabbedin her chest and left breast
(21:26):
Almost lost.
In the detail of Effort'sreport was something that would
prove crucial that Abby had anelectric blanket and that he was
turned up to seven Lab testswould later show that the time
between Abby's murder and thepoint when samples could be
taken from her vagina, combinedwith the heat of the blanket,
(21:47):
degraded the semen to the pointwhere it could tell nothing
about the killer Not his bloodtype, not his subgroupings.
If the samples taken from Abbywere to yield any treasures,
they would have to be frozen andstored away, waiting for
(22:07):
breakthroughs in DNA technology.
The report was the last oneEFORD would write on the case
until 2002.
It finished with one simple butscary declarative sentence.
It said it should be noted thatduring the search of the
victim's home, no wallet or cashcould be found.
(22:29):
The killer might have been athief, but he was not a simple
thief.
If he had taken Abby's ID hemight be a collector too.
We'll be right back.
Gary Erford was in charge of thecrime scene Sunday night.
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He knew from the start thatSergeant Dave King would be in
charge of the case but to hissurprise, two days later he was
pulled off it altogether.
His boss, lieutenant DeCatch,wanted to take his place.
Highly unusual, but then so wasthe case.
Some of it was DeKatch wantingthe spotlight.
(23:19):
Some of it was that effort hadnot worked homicide.
Very long he went to worktyping up his meticulous notes.
Today, king Sergeant Dave Kingis retired from the Flint Police
Department and is a civilianemployee of the Michigan State
Police with a division calledthe Michigan Commission on Law
Enforcement Standards, mcoles.
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It publishes a 470-pagetraining manual that serves as a
guide for Michigan police andsheriff's departments.
As communications coordinator,king helps update the manual and
give presentations about it andproper police procedures around
the state.
He loves police work.
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He loves the idea that he canhelp define and communicate
standards that can teach youngcops how to do things right.
King is extremely quiet-spokenand mild-mannered.
He is the antithesis of whatyou would expect from a homicide
detective who has spent 20years working some of the
(24:21):
meanest streets in America.
He was never a tough guy, notone of those cops who commanded
respect with his fists or hisguns.
A college graduate before thatwas common on the Flint PD.
He graduated in policeadministration from Michigan
State University in 1969.
(24:42):
He always prided himself on arecent cerebral approach to
solving crime.
His dad was a parole officer forthe state and King, a Flint
native, made the journal in 1947.
When he was born, on theseventh day of the seventh month
of 1947, in room 711 of thehospital, his dad even bought
(25:07):
lunch that day for 77 cents.
When King graduated from FlintSouthwestern in 1965, the plans
were running three shifts a day,seven days a week.
There was no end to overtime,or the Buicks cranking off the
assembly line until semis, orthe Buicks cranking off the
(25:29):
assembly line and until semis.
Through most of King's career,though, flint was a city in
despair.
King married his high schoolsweetheart, is a regular
churchgoer and sometimes Sundayschool teacher.
He is a former marathon runnerand many times has run the local
10-mile road race known as theKrim.
It is the one bright day eachyear in the city, the biggest
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economic day of the year, when15,000 runners and walkers come
to town.
Runners World magazine and ESPNcome too.
Until his knees got funky, kingwas thrilled to be part of his
city's big day.
He was a popular cop, and agood one.
(26:13):
He made it to lieutenant beforehe retired, but no matter how
many cases he solved, no matterhow much of his ingenuity sent
large numbers of bad guys toJackson Prison, king would
always be associated with theone case he couldn't solve by
far the biggest case of hiscareer, and he will always be
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haunted by the what-ifs and thehindsight criticisms that shine
so clearly in the mistakes hemade, criticisms that shined so
clearly in the mistakes he made.
King graduated from MSU on aSaturday, moved his stuff back
to Flint on Sunday and Mondayand started work with the Flint
PD on Tuesday he spent four daysin training and was in a
(26:59):
uniform and a scout car onSaturday.
King spent a year writingtraffic tickets and hated every
minute of it.
He spent three years on generalpatrol and then was moved into
something new called the SpecialOperations Bureau.
They were called in a euphemismmost cops would die for the
SOBs.
(27:19):
Despite his self-ascribedsobriquet, he said quote I
wasn't the kind of big hulkingcop going in knocking doors off
hinges end quote.
He then moved up to the firsttactical operations unit in
(27:39):
Flint's history.
He was, he says so,enthusiastic, gung-ho and naive
Tactical ops men working Flint'sNorth End, and no one stayed
naive there for long.
It was a place riddled withdrunks, druggies, stupidity and
meanness.
Heroin addicts were doing a lotof home invasions and they
(28:00):
always had the same MO.
They busted in, grabbed as muchas they could, then then ditch
it in some field or behind thenearest vacant house.
Later they would come back forit.
King and his crew wouldn'tbother trying to track down the
perps.
They have just scouted out thenearest fields and abandoned
(28:20):
houses, invariably find a stashof stuff within minutes, then
sit around waiting for thethieves to come back and pick it
up.
From 1977 to 1980, king workedhomicide.
His first case was one of thoseeasy ones where you know from
the start who did it and ittakes you a couple of hours to
(28:42):
prove it.
He got the call and they hadthe suspect in custody before he
even left the house.
The second case was a doublehomicide execution.
Two dudes shot their head in acar.
It was an intractable case thatgot to him.
He started dreaming one of thedead guys was alive.
(29:02):
He would come to King in hissleep talking to him.
It got so bad that King took aweek off and visited his in-laws
.
Out of town he says you need tobuild barriers, but you can't
build them too high or you're nogood.
The case never did get solved.
Procedure then was to rotateout of homicide after three
(29:27):
years.
So he moved over to the B&Esquad as a supervisor, then into
narcotics for five years and in1985, back to homicide.
King got the call Sunday lateafternoon about the call at the
Mott's estate.
It should have gone to anothersergeant.
The Mods estate you should havegone to another sergeant.
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King had picked up the mostrecent unsolved murder two weeks
ago and another sergeant wasdue up in the rotation.
But in those pre-pager, precell phone days the other guy
had not answered his phone,effort answered his and King
answered his.
Effort was already at the scenewhen King got there.
So were his already at thescene when King got there, so
(30:08):
were his bosses.
The catch and peek.
The scene was unusual in severalregards.
Number one, of course, was thatit was the most famous piece of
land in Flint.
But on a practical level it wasunusual because, unlike most
murder scenes, flint cops go tothe Ittdidn't-offer-our
neighborhood.
(30:28):
The main house was at the otherend of the estate.
There were no neighbors tocanvass about what they might
have seen or heard.
Ironically, as new a world asthe modern state proper was to
the detectives, many of them inone way knew it way well.
(30:48):
The gatehouse stood next to thefence.
On the other side of the fencewas a large parking lot, part of
the cultural center.
It was a favorite spot forFlint cops to duck into to grab
a coffee or a donut or even asnooze.
Like his fellow cops, king hadbeen there many times Also.
Like them, he would nevernotice the house tucked in the
(31:13):
shrubbery and trees just on theother side of the fence.
He said that he grew up inFlint and any kid growing up in
Flint knew Mr Mott.
But oddly enough he wasn'tfamiliar with the Mott estate.
Though the estate was fenced in, there was no guard at the
(31:34):
entrances and nothing to preventanyone from driving or walking
in.
The estate's caretaker wassupposed to double as a security
guard in theory, but in realityhe had little to do with
protecting the grounds or theestate's inhabitants.
After the state police crimescene crew arrived, king entered
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the house.
He was impressed by how homeyit was, not elaborate or
pretentious Like effort.
King was struck by the lack ofcurtains, blinds or shades.
It would have been easy forsome pee-pee tom to climb a tree
and look inside, had somepervert crossed the line from
(32:16):
voyeurism to violence.
King left the crime scene whilethe state police were still
working it heavily and went backto the headquarters nearby to
interview Hyde and Smith, thetwo guys who had found the body.
They were suspects, of course,simply because they had found
the body, but were soon cleared.
(32:38):
The phone on his desk ran and itwas Jonathan Ebby.
He was irate that the policehad not called him to tell him
about his mother's murder.
A friend had heard something onthe news and had called him.
King told him that while theysuspected the body was his
(32:58):
mother, no officialidentification had been made yet
.
Moreover, he didn't have aphone number for him, didn't
know his name, had no way ofcontacting him so quickly.
He tried to calm him down andsaid they would be doing
everything they could and wouldbe in touch.
We'll be right back.
(33:22):
Margaret Lynn Reimer.
Margaret Ebby's youngest childhas always gone by her name.
Though the spelling on thefirst name is different, the
pronunciation is the same.
Today she is an emergency roomnurse at the Beaumont Hospital
in the Detroit suburb of RoyalOak, and she and her mother had
(33:47):
plans for Saturday afternoon,november 8, 1986.
Lynn was working then as awaitress at Restaurant Douglas,
a posh suburban eatery inSouthfield owned by one of the
first nationally popular TVchefs, douglas Douglas.
He was sort of like the Emerald, I guess, of his day.
(34:09):
Lynn and her husband had beenhaving marital troubles off and
on, and shortly after her mommoved to Flint, lynn had moved
into the gay house with hermother for six months.
She had reconciled with herhusband, though, and they have
just moved into a rentedbungalow on the west side of
Detroit.
(34:29):
Her mom was an avid grandmother.
As soon as Jessie was born in1983, margaret had redone Lynn's
old bedroom upstairs at the gayhouse into a kid's room and she
frequently took Jessie onweekends.
She frequently took Jesse onweekends.
When Margaret was taking Jesse,she and Lynn generally would
(34:51):
meet halfway between the twocities at the I-75 exit at
Joslyn Road near the city ofPontiac.
Margaret was supposed to takeJesse this weekend, but plans
this time were a littledifferent.
She had picked Jesse up at homearound noon, take her to the
Detroit Institute of Artsdowntown, then out to eat and
then the two would go back toFlint for the rest of the
(35:13):
weekend.
Lynn left early for the dayshift at the restaurant, leaving
Jessie with her husband.
When she returned from workearly in the evening, to her
surprise, jessie was still there.
And she asked surprise Lynn,jessie was still there.
And she asked, surprised Lynn,mom didn't come.
(35:36):
And she answered no.
So what did she say?
She said she didn't call either.
And so Lynn said well, maybeshe forgot, and it wasn't like
her mom to miss out on a datewith her granddaughter.
And one of the things that Lynnsays years later is.
She says, quote you have tounderstand my mother.
She always had things going onthree burners.
She was the opposite of a couchpotato.
(35:58):
It wasn't like her not to takeJesse, but knowing her schedule
I wasn't that much concernedabout it.
I figured I would hear from herthat maybe she had called and
Ted had been in the shower orsomething.
End quote.
She called her mom and left amessage.
She and her husband had dinnerand went to bed.
(36:20):
There was no word from hermother.
Sunday, sunday night, the phonerang.
Is this Margaret and Abby'sdaughter?
Yes, are you alone?
What's this about?
Are you alone?
And she said quit beatingaround the bush.
(36:40):
What's going on?
Someone has been found dead atthe Mott estate Today.
Ripper says of the rest of theconversation he just dragged it
out horribly.
He went on and on and finallyshe said are you telling me my
mom's dead?
(37:00):
And they said well, we don'tknow.
And she said I knew it was her,because who else would it be?
They found a woman in herbedroom and my mom is the only
one who lives in the Mott estate.
So it's her mom.
So it's her mom.
So she told the caller,sergeant Dave King, that she
(37:26):
would be in Flint as soon as shecould make arrangements.
Lynn had been living with herparents 11 years earlier when
her father died of a massiveheart attack at home.
Her reaction now was the sameas then Surreal, this can't be
happening.
This cannot be real.
(37:47):
This is a bad Miami Vice show.
It's not real.
She then called her oldersister, dale, who was a lawyer
in Indianapolis, and she saidDale, mom's dead.
You gotta get on a plane andget here.
Dale had already gotten the newsfrom her brother, jonathan,
upon arriving home from anIndianapolis Colts football game
(38:07):
and she said Lynn, when we gothrough mom's things, we're
going to find a bag of tulipbulbs Tulip bulbs.
He said, yes, tulip bulbs.
She was going to surprise youand plant them this fall.
And when they came up in thespring, you would say where did
(38:28):
they come from?
Nearly two decades later, whenLynn would recount the tulip
anecdote, tears would well up,her voice would break and her
boyfriend would need to hold herhand while she regrouped.
That's the kind of woman mymother was Someone who had 500
things to do and she would takethe time to plant my garden for
(38:52):
me.
So I have a surprise in thespring.
Dale caught an early flight toDetroit in the morning, was met
at the airport by Jonathan andthey drove directly to Flint to
identify the body.
Today Mike Thomas is a captainwith the Michigan State Police,
(39:13):
one of its highest rankingofficers and the director of the
Forensic Science Division,which includes seven regional
crime labs around the state andthree DNA labs, which includes
seven regional crime labs aroundthe state and three DNA labs.
Back in November of 1986,thomas was one of a four-person
crime scene crew working out ofthe Bridgeport post half an hour
(39:33):
north of Flint up I-75.
He was watching TV in his homein Bridgeport, just down the
road from the state police crimelab, when the phone rang.
Just down the road from thestate police crime lab.
When the phone rang, he gotcalled out a lot, which meant
vanderroosing at the lab withthe rest of the team to pick up
(39:54):
their specialized van.
So it didn't make sense to livetoo far away.
Thomas was one of the new breedof cops when he joined the state
police in 1978.
He graduated from MadonnaUniversity in Livonia in just
three years with a degree incriminal justice and had been
accepted to grad school atEastern Michigan University but
when word came he had beenaccepted to the 85th recruiting
(40:16):
class of the MSP grad school wasquickly forgotten.
He was assigned to theBridgeport Post as a trooper in
January of 1979, across thedriveway from the crime lab.
As a uniformed trooper heworked various crime scenes with
the lab.
Folks got intrigued by whatthey did and applied.
(40:39):
When a position opened up theydid and applied.
When a position opened up In1982, he moved across the
driveway to start a two-yeartraining program.
By the time of the Ebi murderThomas was a crime scene vet
working 35 to 40 major scenes ayear, many of them called in by
the Flint PD.
His crew knew the Flint cops byname and after working together
(41:03):
there they would often all headover to the White Horse, a cop
hangout in Flint, for burgersand beer.
The dispatcher said that therewould have been another murder
in Flint, this one of a woman ina cottage at the Modestate.
James Silva, john Wilmore andMichael Warnard met him at the
(41:25):
lab, gathered up the stuff anddrove down to Flint, arriving at
7.55 pm.
The Modestate meant nothing toThomas.
He was surprised when he gotthere that the cottage was a
mansion by his standards, notyour typical Flint crime scene.
Silva and Thomas werefingerprint specialists.
(41:47):
The other two would concentrateon serology and trace evidence.
They entered the house andworked slowly through it toward
the body.
They took photos of everythingfrom every angle.
They'd use contrasting powdersto look for prints and when they
found them they put tape on thepowder and lifted it.
The impression of the printwould remain on the tape.
(42:10):
There were a ton of printswhich didn't mean much.
Most houses have a ton ofprints which the trick is to
link one of them to a bad guy.
As suspects will evolve, theywould check the prints versus
the prints from the house andsee if any matched.
(42:31):
They used high-intensity lightsand a magnifying device known
as a linen tester to help findprints.
As the lights burned, the housegot hotter and hotter.
Wilmer and Wollner picked upbits of fiber, hair, other trace
evidence and put them inevidence bags.
(42:52):
Once they got to the bedroomthey had lots of serology to
deal with.
There was blood everywhere andobvious semen stains on the
victim.
Thomas was struck by the lackof curtains in her bedroom.
A peeping Tom, he wondered.
He was shocked that her headwas nearly severed.
He had seen lots of ugly scenes, lots of crimes of passion, but
(43:16):
usually it was an angrystabbing or slashing.
Something done quick.
This one had taken a whilePlaying the role of plumbers.
They pulled the trap from thebathroom sink.
They have searched through itsgunk later and while there was
usually a long shot, sometimesthe stitches normally found in
(43:39):
the trap would contain a traceof the killer's blood.
It might not be such a longshot this time.
There was a bloody partialprint on the porcelain near the
cold water handle.
Obviously the killer had washedup.
Thomas photographed the printand lifted it.
Now it was time to roll the bodyover, look for other trace
(44:02):
evidence that had been under itand check for lividity.
This is the pooling and thebruising of blood next to the
skin which can help fix the timeof death.
As they were getting ready toroll her, king entered the
bedroom back from interviewingHyde and Smith.
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When they turned her over, astench hit them all.
Since Margaret had died on topof a heating blanket that was
turned up.
The heat had helped hasten thedecay.
There was a lot of lividity andshe was rigid.
(44:46):
King blurted out holy moly,she's been dead a while.
The body was then lifted onto agurney by attendants from
Lifeline Ambulance and at 12.02am left for the Hurley Medical
Center which served as thecounty morgue.
Its pathologists performedautopsies on a contract basis
(45:11):
for the county.
This one would be done byWillis Mueller, considered by
the cops to be brilliant at hiswork with the dead.
Thomas was sweaty andfingerprint dust kicked his face
and arms.
He went into the bathroomdownstairs and washed up.
The cops then secured the sceneat 12.40 am and left.
(45:33):
Monday morning Alford and a crewfrom the Flint PD searched the
estate for evidence.
They found nothing unusual.
King and Alford re-entered thegatehouse and gathered up some
of Abby's personal papers,including a list of 16 men's
names and one woman's name.
All day Monday the Abby murderdominated the Flint TV news.
(45:55):
Thomas was surprised to seehimself doing one Abby segment.
He was caught on camera washinghis hands and face and the
camera had zoomed in on him.
There had been a TV cameraoutside the fence and with all
the leaves blown off, all thetrees, they had had a clear shot
at him A pipi tom.
(46:17):
He wondered again If the TVcrew could see him so clearly.
Maybe some nutball had seenAbby just as well and the sight
of her in her bathroom had sethim off.
Soon Mott employees weretelling police that she liked to
walk through her curtainlesswindows naked as a jaybird, and
(46:40):
she used to like to sunbathenude out behind the gatehouse
too.
We'll be right back.
The autopsy was conducted Mondaymorning.
King was there, along with JohnWilmore, both Bob Avery and
Mike Thomas of the State PoliceCrime Lab, who would take
(47:01):
samples for toxicology andserology purposes, and Mueller's
assistant and a photographer.
First the body had to beformally identified, with
Jonathan and Dale Eby taking onthat horrific task.
The last time Jonathan had seenhis mother was when they had
driven to Stratford, ontario,six weeks earlier, to see a play
(47:24):
.
Officials only let them see herface and the top of her head.
They wanted to keep as much ofthe horror hidden from her
children as possible.
Dale wanted to stroke hermother's hair, but they wouldn't
let her.
Jonathan and Dale left and therest went about their grim tasks
(47:45):
.
Abby's neck had been sawed witha serrated knife going left to
right.
The murderer was right-handed.
Her carotid artery and jugularvein was severed.
The gaping wound was the resultof two separate slashings, one
across the top of the neck on anupward angle and the other
(48:06):
horizontal at mid-throat.
There was another stab wound inthe neck.
There were three stab wounds onher chest, going onto
subcutaneous tissue and stoppingat the sternum, but they showed
no signs of bleeding, whichmeant they have come after death
.
There was a diagonal stab woundon the inner portion of her
(48:27):
left breast, a diagonal cut thatperforated her left atrium just
above the mitral valve.
There was bruising inside herlabia, a blue-black
discoloration about 12millimeters in length.
Her labia a blue-blackdiscoloration about 12
millimeters in length.
There were visible semen stains, but the rectal area tested
(48:48):
negative for sperm.
Mueller went to work with hisbone, saw a sound.
No witness to an autopsy everforgets to examine her organs.
A Y incision was cut down thefront of her chest and her rib
cage was pulled back.
An incision was cut down thefront of her chest and her
ribcage was pulled back.
An incision was made in theback of her scalp, from one ear
(49:08):
to the other, and her scalp waspulled down over the front of
her face.
Her brain was pulled out andweighted, as were her organs.
Tissue samples were taken.
Food much of it undigested,uncooked Vegetables was taken
out of her stomach andphotographed.
It would turn out that theywould come from her last meal at
(49:32):
the dinner party Friday, whichwas an array of vegetable
munchies and dip.
Array of vegetable munchies anddip.
Mueller's conclusions manner ofdeath homicide.
Cause of death incised neckwounds.
(49:54):
Later King would show thephotos of Abby's stomach
contents while seeking outadvice from Dr Warner Spitz, the
nationally renowned medicalexaminer in Wayne County where
Detroit ruled as the nation'smurder capital.
And Spitz said quote that'sfresh food, she just ate that
and her digestive processes juststopped.
(50:15):
What stops the digestiveprocesses?
Extreme fear, end quote.
Processes extreme fear, endquote.
It raised the hackles on King'sneck, the image of a woman
coming home from a dinner partywith friends and immediately
finding herself in such horrorthat her stomach juices stopped
digesting food.
(50:36):
When King got back to his officefrom the autopsy, the media
circus had clearly started.
His desk was covered in pink,he says.
While you were out notes fromevery radio and TV station in
town and from many of thestate's daily newspapers.
One was from the editor of theFlint Journal, the first time
(50:57):
the editor had ever called him.
And King said that he hadworked 40 previous homicides in
Flint and he didn't even knowwho he was.
Early on.
Heen and DeKat made a tacticaldecision.
Michigan Sunshine Laws made ita legal obligation for police to
(51:22):
turn their reports, minus somedeletions, over to news
reporters.
But if King and the Catchdidn't file very many, there
wouldn't be much to turn over.
They stopped typing up officialreports.
They took to scribbling thingsdown on scrap paper and sticking
them in drawers Years later.
(51:43):
The lack of desirable reportsand the excess of badly written
scribbling, often in some sortof shorthand, would drive other
investigators nuts.
But that would be then.
After the autopsy, king met withLynn Reimer.
That evening he went back tothe scene for a slow, detailed
(52:06):
walk around the house.
He missed something interesting, though there was a good reason
.
It was inside the CD player andin 1986, not many people had
heard of CDs or CD players.
Certainly not King heard of CDsor CD players.
(52:27):
Certainly not King.
He didn't recognize it for whatit was and had no way of
knowing there might be somethingof interest in that little slot
on the front.
Her family would soon discoverit and give him a call.
What popped out was a CD of aSchubert piece titled Death, and
the Maiden Ebi had recently puttogether something she had
built as Schubert Tide.
(52:49):
It gave King a jolt.
A single woman is killed andinside her music player is
something called Death and themaiden.
A weird coincidence.
What were the chances or a cluefrom her killer, deliberately
(53:12):
and diabolically planted?
What were they dealing withhere?
Things got worse for Lynn Reimer, if that was possible.
When she met with King she hadnot been able to get to Flint in
time to join her siblings inidentifying the body, she says.
Almost the first thing Kingasked was what her mom was
(53:35):
involved in.
He said that it looked like agang head.
Why would she be involved ingangs?
What was she up to?
Was she into drugs?
He said the FBI was beingbrought in.
The whole thing went from badto worse.
Gangs, drugs, my mom.
It had all been strange enough,but when the Flint police
(53:57):
started adding in all those funfacts, it got even more surreal,
and she remembered being in afog not enough of one, though,
because she can remember thepain and terror of everything.
Lynn gave King something toponder in turn when she was
(54:17):
staying with her mom during herseparation several years earlier
.
She got home late one night,about 3 am, having worked the
late shift waitressing at PattyMcGee's, then a popular Flint
eatery.
Her mom routinely worked14-hour days.
Then she said, quote, she lovedher job.
I would call her at the officeat 10 pm and said, mom, you have
(54:42):
been at work for 14 hours, it'stime to come home.
And she would say, oh, I justlost track of the time.
End quote.
So in walked Lynn at 3 am andthe place was a mess.
Nothing too bad, but messy forMargaret, who was an immaculate
housekeeper.
(55:02):
Everything in its place.
Lynn thought maybe she hadworked one of her 14-hour days,
didn't have time to straightenup and decided for once to go to
bed with the house untidy.
At 7 am Margaret woke her,yelling at her to get up.
How dare she come in and makesuch a wreck at the house?
I think you can clean up yourmess, she said.
(55:25):
She said my mess, what are youtalking about?
She said.
They soon realized that it wasneither's mess.
An intruder had been there.
Ling's underwear drawer wasopen.
So was Margaret's, since thehouse had been tidied when her
mom came home at 11, that meantthe intruder had been there in
(55:48):
her mother's bedroom, goingthrough her underwear drawer
while her mom slept just a fewfeet away.
They called the police, whofound a window, a jar and
footprints leading up to it.
The back door was open, themeans of egress.
King Scribble notes as Lynntold the tale.
(56:08):
A week after her body wasdiscovered, a memorial service
for Abby was held at the FirstPresbyterian Church.
As the body had been cremated,there was no public viewing.
The huge church was packed.
In attendance were her children, her three brothers, john
George and Siegfried Fink, hermother, martha Fink, who was now
(56:30):
living in Texas with Siegfried,her sister Ruth Becker, the
missionary in Brazil, and hergranddaughter Jessie.
Also there was the entire staffof Restaurant Douglas, where
Lynn worked.
It was the first time therestaurant had ever shut its
doors on a day it wasrescheduled to be open.
The family asked that, insteadof flowers, contributions be
(56:53):
made to the Margaret F EbbyKeyboard Scholarship Fund at the
UN Music Development Office inAnn Arbor.
At the UN Music DevelopmentOffice in Ann Arbor, reverend
Donna McFerrin, her pastor,praised her as a musician, as a
member of his choir, as acommunity activist and as a
friend.
She was the best thing thatever happened to us, he said.
(57:16):
After the service, the familygathered at their Aunt Pauline's
house in Milford and tradedstories about the strong-willed
woman they had lost Over theyears, lynn had thought off and
on of having her name legallychanged, dropping the Margaret
no more.
They will still call her Lynn,but she will be Margaret forever
(57:37):
.
Thank you to listening to themurder book.
Have a great week.
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