Monday, March 12, 2018

Narrated basement video of the former Gambles Store



I've posted a narrated video of the former Gambles store basement where the pet department was. This includes the area where Janette Roberson was found. 

The video can be viewed in the closed Down & Away Facebook Discussion Page.


If you're interested in getting a better understanding of the layout, request and invite and come on in. This is where we'll have longer discussions about elements of the crime, and I will also post reports, news articles, and images.



Friday, March 2, 2018

Season Two - The Murder of Janette Roberson



Season Two has begun and I will post episodes each week on Fridays.

There are multiple platforms from which you can listen (free!).

It's as simple as subscribing to iTunes on your podcast app--HERE

...OR 

Subscribing on Google Play Music ---HERE

...OR

on Stitcher (for android device users)--HERE  (I will note here that Stitcher seems to be the slowest to post new episodes, so far.)

You can listen directly from your PC HERE on the Down & Away homepage. There's a little audio player up top beneath the picture on each post. This is a normal wordpress page, so the latest episode will be up top, and if you need to find earlier episodes, check the RECENT POSTS list on the right hand side of the page.

I will occasionally post blog posts right here on the blog when there's additional information or updates. I won't post here every week with the newest episode, though. You'll need to subscribe, or check your platform of choice each Friday.

If you have a tip or question, don't hesitate to email me at deckerjeni@gmail.com. You can also private message me on the Down & Away Facebook page, as well as my personal Facebook page.

If you have any information about the murder of Janette Roberson that you'd like to pass along to police:


Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Where are the dispatch audio and typed logs on Janette's case?


This is a good illustration of the problems surrounding Janette Roberson's case. I wanted the dispatch log and audio of the call that came in from Gambles to Osceola County Sheriff's department on January 19, 1983. Should be a simple request, given that the person who dispatched those transmissions said that all calls were recorded and logged. So, I went to Michigan State Police and they said they didn't have it. 

Then, I went back to the originating body (Osceola County) and they say those records don't exist. The problem with that is they told me the same thing about the first responder's report from Osceola County when I won my appeal for the city documents, and subsequent to them saying that, the city lawyer contacted me saying they DID have it and turned it over to them.


Letter from city atty. stating they received documents from Osceola County
 AFTER I had made my request and told they didn't exist.



When I emailed back and asked when Osceola County began recording dispatch audio, I was directed to call Sheriff Crawford, which I did. He was quite gracious, and we had a nice conversation, but as far as he recalled, they didn’t record dispatch calls back then. He worked as a dispatcher, some years after 1983. 

The reason this issue is important is because these documents would not be excludable under FOIA law, they are public records – as the MSP denial notes. If they were turned over at some point to MSP, under FOIA law, they still would not be required to replicate and turn over documents from another law enforcement agency, thus it is the duty of the originator of those items to retain copies, particularly in an open homicide investigation.

According to Sheriff Crawford, they don’t have any documents related to Janette’s murder.  When the cold case team first started looking into this case again, he delivered everything he had to Reed City Police Chief Davis - which he described as “a few supplementals”. 

I will keep digging, but even if they did not record audio at that time – and I’m still not quite sure they didn’t – where’s the typed log? Nobody seems to have it.

Sheriff Crawford suggested that Michigan State Police should have some record of THEIR dispatches from that day, because they dispatched Reed City PD back then. Which would mean they’d also have the incoming dispatches from Osceola County. He brings up a valid point...

So…where are they?


Michigan State Police denial for dispatch audio and/or logs.


FOIA requests can be tricky - so I went back to make sure I'd asked in a way that if they had state police logs, they understood I wanted them, too. This is how I worded my request to Michigan State Police, exactly:

I would like to request the dispatch AUDIO recording as well as the log generated by the dispatcher of the call from the Gambles Store on January 19, 1983, as well as ALL dispatches out regarding the homicide of Janette Roberson, to include the dispatch audio from Michigan State Police to Reed City Post, as well as the Osceola County dispatches to the the EMS unit, as well as Reed City PD, Osceola County deputies, and the Michigan State Police Reed City post.


I don't believe this request is unreasonable, nor do I think these records shouldn't exist, because as Sheriff Crawford even said to me, they wouldn't destroy documents in an open homicide investigation. Unfortunately, he didn't work for Osceola County Sheriff's department at the time of the murder, so he doesn't know what happened to the records. And I do believe there were more records. Deputies were tasked to follow up tips that came in, per the Michigan State Police report, and Detective Southworth was actively assisting on this case, at that time. They should have generated, and subsequently turned over more than "a few supplementals" at some point. So when did that happen, and where are they, now?

I want to know who made the call from Gambles, what time that call was made, and who showed up when, according to verifiable reports, given there are a great deal of questions about the timing of police showing up to this scene.

The second, and biggest issue for me, is that the dispatcher that day, Ray Haight, told me that the Osceola County Sheriff at the time instructed him to put the call out to the EMS department as a “heart attack in progress” – and you’ll hear all about that in one of the early podcast episodes.

When Gary McGhee and his fellow EMS partner showed up at that scene, they believed they were responding to a heart attack. Then, he was subsequently led through a spot of blood on the floor on his way through the pet department by Officer Finkbeiner. Had he known he was responding to a homicide call, both he and Officer Finkbeiner may have handled that scene differently. I am trying to ascertain why that order was made. Ray says it was to keep people with scanners from hearing the homicide call, but the initial dispatch had already gone out, so people had already heard about the murder if they were listening to their scanners at home.

I believe those audio dispatches could shed light on many things, including the above, and why city officers arrived first, even though county deputies were the first out the door, and only blocks away, according to the dispatcher.

All these years, Officer Finkbeiner has gotten the brunt of the criticism for walking McGhee through that blood, and for shooing customers out of the store when he arrived, rather than holding them for interviews about what they may have seen. If Officer Finkbeiner also believed he was responding to a heart attack, that might explain his actions, and in that case, it would be up to Osceola County to clear up why they did what they did, and take ownership of what could have been a domino effect of mistakes that led to some issues regarding how that case was handled in the early minutes and hours.

I have uncovered one possible reason why Officer Finkbeiner showed up first, even though he wouldn’t have been the first person called, because the state police would have had to be called after the deputies were informed, and they, in turn, would have contacted city patrolmen.

According to this article from November 1982, there was an officer assigned to ‘walk the beat’ downtown Reed City. I checked with Ray and that duty was assigned to Officer Finkbeiner, so he may have been walking around downtown and somehow learned about some commotion at Gambles, before the Osceola county deputies arrived, as well as EMTs.



But HOW did he learn that? How did he know to show up at Gambles if Ray’s recollection is correct, and his deputies were running out the door as he called the Michigan State Police Post and had them dispatch a city response? When the EMTS arrived, Officer Finkbeiner was already there. Every report notes him being there first, so how did he come to enter that store before everyone, if his dispatch didn't go out until after the closest physical responding police department?

Just to be clear, I am not attributing anything nefarious to his early arrival - I just want to know the sequence of events, as I believe there are some discrepancies in the reports we currently have.

So. Many. Questions.

Season Two of Down &Away on the Murder of Janette Roberson drops Friday, and I'll go into some of these issues in future episodes.

Sheriff Crawford also suggested I speak to one of the deputies on duty that day, to see if he might be able to shed some light on the heart attack dispatch question, and arrivals on scene, so I’m going to try to see if he’ll speak to me. Fingers crossed!



Stay tuned!


Sunday, February 25, 2018

Down & Away SEASON TWO - The Murder of Janette Roberson





Listen to the Season Two TEASER here:

View from the Gambles back room where Janette would have been found, out into the pet department.
Starting in March, for the next two months I'll be posting an episode each Friday about the murder of Janette Roberson in the Gambles store in Reed City, Michigan.

The TEASER is already up on iTunes, and if you subscribe, you'll get the latest episode as each one posts. Podcasts are free, and as easy as subscribing on the podcast app. Here are the platforms where you can listen to Down & Away:








I'll discuss topics such as:

- people who were looked at as suspects or persons of interest according to the Michigan State Police report

- how tensions in law enforcement may have affected the case

- what was going on in Reed City around this time that might relate to the murder

- debunk some of the theories surrounding this case that have no merit

- why the case remains unsolved



You can follow along on Facebook on the Down & Away Facebook page and on Twitter

If you have any thoughts, suggestions, tips, or questions, feel free to email me at deckerjeni@gmail.com, or private message me on the Down & Away Facebook page, or my personal Facebook page, here.


Thursday, January 11, 2018

UPDATES!


I thought I'd take a second to update the blog as to what I'm working on now, so the interested folks can follow along.

First - I've begun producing my own podcast. I'll be focusing on local open homicide cases, with the aim of helping the communities understand why certain cases are where they are, and how some of these cases go cold. One thing I've learned in the last few years, while researching these cases, is that people often have wildly inaccurate information regarding not only the facts of the case, but why it has gone gold. 

Each case is different, so those reasons vary.

My first season on Down & Away will deal with the shooting death of Norma Waldron in Newaygo, Michigan. Fremont, to be specific. 

Her husband insisted this was suicide. The Michigan State Police thought otherwise. The first episode is up, and I will be posting episodes on this case for the next few months, bi-weekly. There will be six episodes, and it will contain audio of actual police interviews of Robert Elton Waldron, as well as witnesses and family members. The podcast is live on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play music, so it's available to Apple and Android users. 

Here's the iTunes link where you can subscribe:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/down-away/id1329623611?mt=2

Here's the web page, for folks who don't do the podcast thing, but would like to listen from your computer. There's an audio player embeded in each post. Currently, there's the Season One teaser and Episode One Posted:

http://downandawaypodcast.com/


Next...




I'm looking at cases for future seasons, and right now, I'm actively requesting information from the community on the murder of Arnold Holmes on October 19, 1992 near Ashton, Michigan. The article above is the only one I have been able to locate on the incident, so far, and in all of the discussions about this case  that I've heard, I was never made aware that there were TWO dead men found on the property that day.

The other man in question appears to have been Kenneth Varney Sr

I believe Varney was the renter and Holmes was the owner of the property.

This makes me wonder how much the community even understood about the case at the time it occurred. But, if the case remains open, there has to be a reason. Either the person they believe to be the perp is dead, or they know who they think did it, but were never able to gather enough evidence to prosecute (the main reason most of these cold cases get stalled) or they have no idea what happened. 

In the latter two, that means they need is the help of the community. 

If you have any information, please contact me at deckerjeni@gmail.com, or comment below. You can also contact me at my personal Facebook Page  or the Down & Away Facebook page. Both have private messaging options.


Thanks in advance for the support.
~Jeni